"Of course she loved him. These people." She turned back to the photograph. "This house. This This could be the Mongol family." could be the Mongol family."

"Yet even the Leader and his men do not know where it is."

"I bet they didn't really try to find out."

"Mo Ai-li." He allowed himself to run his hand once over her hair. He saw her eyes soften. "Wo kan ni zai zuo meng, "Wo kan ni zai zuo meng, " I see you are still dreaming. "Listen. Since the separation of heaven and earth, men have sought glory. And this, to find Peking Man again, would be the greatest glory to me. It is our ancestor. It is a thing beyond price. But I think it is not on my road." " I see you are still dreaming. "Listen. Since the separation of heaven and earth, men have sought glory. And this, to find Peking Man again, would be the greatest glory to me. It is our ancestor. It is a thing beyond price. But I think it is not on my road."

"Can't a road be changed?"

No, he thought sadly, it cannot; only a fool would even imagine that it could. But this he dared not say. She might take it to mean they could not try love together either-and that he could not bear to rule out. So he shrugged and said nothing.

She only smiled. "Let's tell the others."

They turned to walk back. He didn't ask-somehow he didn't really want to know-what she had been doing inside a death-ritual store in the first place, a feudal place for ignorant tu tu people, out here in Eren Obo. people, out here in Eren Obo.

They huddled over the photo in the guesthouse lobby.

"I know Alashan Banner, every step of its earth," Kuyuk insisted again. "How is it I cannot recognize this place?"

"Maybe it's outside the Banner," Kong said.

"Yet one of the Leader's men took them here."

"What do you think, Adam?" Alice asked.

"I think it's gone," he said flatly. "We found Teilhard's box, right in the cave, near the rock art, right where it was supposed to be. But Peking Man had been taken."

"But now we have a new lead," she insisted.

"You call that a lead? It's a picture."

"But ..." She looked at the photo. "Okay, yesterday we were at a dead end. I admit that. But things change."

"Do they?" Spencer looked at her. His eyes said, Look at you, look at your life, has anything ever changed? "You think so."

"Yes," she said defensively, "I do." She turned to Dr. Lin. "Ni shuo zenmoyang?" "Ni shuo zenmoyang?"

"I think we should continue on. Of course! This is something very important. We must keep looking."

She smiled at him. "Wo tongyi, "Wo tongyi, " I agree. "Dr. Kong?" " I agree. "Dr. Kong?"

Kong thought. "It's like this," he said slowly. "Is there a chance to find the relics now? Yes. Perhaps. But it is a thing so distant now, so unlikely ...." He paused. ''Ke yu ''Ke yu er er bu ke bu ke qiu," qiu," Only blind luck will bring us upon it, not searching. "Therefore. Since we have found an undreamed-of quant.i.ty of hunter-gatherer artifacts, of the highest quality under heaven - enough to support research for many years-I for one would prefer to continue surveying these sites and collecting artifacts." He looked at Adam. "Are you with me, Dr. Spencer?" Only blind luck will bring us upon it, not searching. "Therefore. Since we have found an undreamed-of quant.i.ty of hunter-gatherer artifacts, of the highest quality under heaven - enough to support research for many years-I for one would prefer to continue surveying these sites and collecting artifacts." He looked at Adam. "Are you with me, Dr. Spencer?"

Adam listened to Alice's translation and nodded decisively to Kong. "Yes. Let's do it-survey, plan, come up with a good research design. It's true. The Late Paleolithic opportunities out here are beyond anything I ever imagined." He opened his book and made a note. Alice could see him blocking Peking Man from his mind, putting another beacon in its place.

"Of course"-Kong looked at Alice and Lin-"if you two wish to continue to look for Peking Man, I invite you. Please."

Alice and Lin exchanged glances. Be alone together, all day? Quickly they looked away.

After the meeting broke up she walked by herself to the edge of the town. At its boundary Eren Obo's hard-won civilization vanished all at once in the rock-strewn dirt. Then there was rolling yellow earth, ascending ever so gradually to the brown ap.r.o.n of mountain in the distance. Winded, scratching at the rivulets of sweat inching down through her hair, she slumped down by the side of the road.

She didn't have to wait long. A truck came roaring out from the village. She jumped up and signaled.

It ground to a stop.

"Elder brother." The Mongol in the truck held on to the wheel with one callused hand, and with the other clutched the groaning gearstick. "I beg help. You are going to Yinchuan?"

He nodded, and spat casually onto the ground.

"I need a message delivered to someone there." She held up the envelope. "I will gladly pay you ten dollars American to do this thing which is so important to me." She pa.s.sed him the envelope with a U.S. bill, noting that his eyes widened in a favorable way. "The address is written on the outside."

He looked at it and froze.

Oh, she thought, he can't read characters. She rushed to explain. "The man's name is Guo Wenxiang. It is one seventy-eight Gansu Street, the Chinese quarter. Can this be remembered?"

He secreted what she'd given him in his clothing, creased his dark face into a grin. "Ni fang "Ni fang xin xin hao, hao, " Put your heart at rest. No further pleasantries, then, as there would have been with a Chinese; he simply nodded, gunned the engine, and drove off. " Put your heart at rest. No further pleasantries, then, as there would have been with a Chinese; he simply nodded, gunned the engine, and drove off.

She watched the dust spit up behind him, watched until he was a distant drone and then a moving dot miles away, in and out of sight among the switchbacks on the first flank of mountain. Then finally, the dot entered the sunbaked pa.s.s and vanished. She thought about what she had written in the note to Guo Wenxiang. How to find them in Eren Obo should he need to. Was there any news of the Mongol family-and, oh, yes, most privately important to her: had Guo learned anything of the fate of Zhang Meiyan?

14.

Peking Man.

Alice envisioned the creature's skull for the hundredth time: the flat brainpan, the thrusting underbite, the staring eye-holes of death.

What had Kong said of Peking Man? Ke yu Ke yu er er bu ke qiu, bu ke qiu, It cannot be found through effort now, only by chance. And remote chance at that. It cannot be found through effort now, only by chance. And remote chance at that.

She pulled the ling-pai ling-pai from the drawer and chose a new spot for it, the rickety bedside table. She had bought a few bright paper cards in the death-ritual store, and she propped those before the plaque. What else? No food, no incense-she looked around. Tea. She opened up the little box by the thermos, crumbled some of the leaves off the tea brick, and piled them in front of the tablet. It wasn't much, but it would do. She bowed her head. from the drawer and chose a new spot for it, the rickety bedside table. She had bought a few bright paper cards in the death-ritual store, and she propped those before the plaque. What else? No food, no incense-she looked around. Tea. She opened up the little box by the thermos, crumbled some of the leaves off the tea brick, and piled them in front of the tablet. It wasn't much, but it would do. She bowed her head.

Meng Shaowen, Lucile Swan. Help me.

She sat there numbly, aware that she didn't really know what she asked. Help her find Peking Man-was that what she wanted? Or help her with Lin Shiyang?

Teilhard said all things happened in relationship to each other. Life and matter, like one single organism. You had only to look at it, to be in it.

If only.

She sat silently, emptying her mind, waiting. Mother Meng, you loved your husband. Lucile, you loved Pierre. Guide me.

But she felt nothing from the ling-pai, ling-pai, nothing. It was just a wood plaque inscribed with some characters and marked with a dried-up blotch of her blood. Her knees hurt from sitting so long. The sounds outside distracted her, the scattered voices in Mongolian, the far-off clanking of machinery. She couldn't rid herself of an image, a thing she had seen earlier in the courtyard: a girl, singing to herself, using a glowing-hot poker to singe the shaved, pearl-colored skin of a just-slaughtered lamb. nothing. It was just a wood plaque inscribed with some characters and marked with a dried-up blotch of her blood. Her knees hurt from sitting so long. The sounds outside distracted her, the scattered voices in Mongolian, the far-off clanking of machinery. She couldn't rid herself of an image, a thing she had seen earlier in the courtyard: a girl, singing to herself, using a glowing-hot poker to singe the shaved, pearl-colored skin of a just-slaughtered lamb.

She knocked on Lin's door but he had vanished, gone somewhere, and so she took the photograph and left by herself. She paced up the wide, half-empty main street. A few twisty, scrubby trees had been planted, but mostly it was the low, unrelieved ocher boxes of buildings, the repeating power poles, the packed earth and desert sky. She walked past hardware stalls, produce and meat markets, with the open s.p.a.ce and noise level of small airplane hangars. She pa.s.sed a crude beauty shop: two seats, two tin basins. In wind-rattled windows she saw herself. She was short, autumn colored, shockingly different from the dark, erect, self-possessed people of the town. In America she'd always been called cute. Here she just looked different. She hated cute. Different was better.

She climbed down the shallow bank to the creek and sat by the trickling water for a while. Where was Lin? She had no right to ask him where he went, she knew that, but she still yearned to know. As if he were hers already. Foolish girl.

She stared at the stream. It was no more than a thin little gully, but spread out all around it in a blessed alluvial strip was a carpet of deep green. Even just the tiny sound of the water, and the rippling of the breeze in the gra.s.s, relieved something parched in her. She never had enough to drink in Eren Obo. Water was strictly apportioned, and she got only one boiled thermosful a day. Strange how she'd adjusted down to it. h.o.a.rded aside enough for washing, and measured out the rest. It was just enough. But it always left her wanting more.

Should he give up? Lin asked himself. He sat on a pile of smooth white limestone rocks in a grove of poplars, looking at a clear pebbled stream. He'd caught a ride to this village called Long Bin. Behind him was the one dirt-road intersection and a single stucco building, directions to other villages painted on it in big red characters. The building fronted a big sunbaked open s.p.a.ce that served as the village square. He'd been talking to a man who now stood at the top of the bank, wearing a straw fedora, sungla.s.ses, and a loose white shirt. "It's regrettable we knew nothing of your wife," the man said.

"Never mind. I've troubled you too much, elder brother."

"Don't talk polite. Old Yuan is leaving soon for Eren Obo. He'll give you a lift back."

"Thank you."

"Nothing. A trifle."

Lin looked up through the columns of poplars. It was so hot. The sky was so pale, almost white-baked of color. Exhausted, like this settlement, with its one whitewashed building and its paths, radiating out to its irregular spattering of mud huts.

Like his idea of ever finding out what had happened to his airen. airen. No one seemed to know. No one anywhere he went. No one seemed to know. No one anywhere he went.

They met back at the guesthouse. He didn't say where he had been. She didn't ask.

They went out and walked in the waning sun up to Eren Obo's plaza-a brick circle, concentrically ringed with pink hollyhocks. In the center stood a statue of a camel, head and foreleg n.o.bly raised.

Some Mongol men were playing on the bricks, hitching up their loose cotton pants and haggling over their chesslike game. Their playing board was a square of paper marked in a strange, complex geometric pattern. A player moved a piece. All the men cheered.

"Excuse me." She squatted next to one of the Mongol men and spoke in slow, clear Chinese.

"Outside woman!" he squawked, his accent heavy. He looked up at her and Lin.

"Do any of you know this place?" She extended the photograph. The men craned over it and erupted in their own language. Alice and Lin listened, exchanging looks. The Mongols didn't know. The hesitant, speculative rhythm of their speech was obvious.

"Sorry, foreign lady," one concluded in Chinese.

"It's nothing. Thank you," Lin said. By the time they had turned back into the rings of hollyhocks the men were playing again, exhorting one another, laughing.

As they walked she wondered when Lin was going to tell her about his family. She was waiting for him to reveal more about himself. Talking about families signaled serious intent in Chinese erotic relations. It brought honor to the equation.

And what was honor for her? Taking Lin home to meet Horace? Never. Although she loved her father in her own way -even needed him-she knew enough now to keep a man like Lin far away from him. She was older now, stronger. She'd never cave in to Horace again, not like she had with Jian. She would live according to the center of herself, and Horace would not be permitted to have an opinion.

Startling, how simple it sounded.

In this daze of realization she walked beside Lin for most of the afternoon, feeling calm. They talked only a little. As Teilhard had written to Lucile, let us not discuss too much about let us not discuss too much about words.... words....

But they found nothing. By now everyone in the town knew what they were looking for before they approached. "Let me see the picture!" the townspeople would bark. They would study it and, almost to a man and woman, be crossed by an instant of genuine pain and forfeiture-this small chance to be a hero, lost-before they shook their heads, and said no, truly a pity!-but they did not know this place.

Back at the guesthouse, they separated to rest before dinner. She addressed him lightly as Dr. Lin, Lin Boshi, and then wondered about the word. "Boshi," "Boshi," she said. "Doesn't that mean 'Ph.D. doctor' as opposed to 'medical doctor'?" she said. "Doesn't that mean 'Ph.D. doctor' as opposed to 'medical doctor'?"

"It does. To earn the Ph.D. is one of the highest goals in our society. We say: Wanban jie xia pin weiyou dushugao," Wanban jie xia pin weiyou dushugao," Except for attaining a higher education, all pursuits are lowly. Except for attaining a higher education, all pursuits are lowly.

"It's always been that way, hasn't it?" she asked. "Since the Imperial Examination system."

"But the role of the court academician was different from the role of the Ph.D. today," he clarified. "The court academician was more than a scholar-he was an exemplary figure. He held the highest responsibility to adhere to the codes and rules. "

"Yes, I know. The codes and rules." This had always fascinated her, China's ma.s.sive, nuanced structure of obligations and principles. Though where all the codes and rules ended in China, the precise point at which they dissolved into secret s.e.x and a ruthless gulag and rampant bribery and a million other knifepoints, including the Chaos-that was the thing that had always really really intrigued her. All that lay behind China's ordered, polite, honorific veil. intrigued her. All that lay behind China's ordered, polite, honorific veil.

Lin Boshi.

"See you at dinner then," she said.

In her room, she decided to put away the ling-pai. ling-pai. It was starting to seem like a bad idea to have it out. She studied the characters as she moved the folded clothes aside, placed the tablet at the bottom of a drawer. It was starting to seem like a bad idea to have it out. She studied the characters as she moved the folded clothes aside, placed the tablet at the bottom of a drawer. Meng Shaowen, Meng Shaowen, pa.s.sed over July 14 ... Yet where was Meng Shaowen? In these last few weeks, despite all her rituals, the old woman had only slipped farther and farther away from her. Meng was gone from this world. Face it, she thought. You'll never have a mother. Not Meng. Not Lucile Swan. pa.s.sed over July 14 ... Yet where was Meng Shaowen? In these last few weeks, despite all her rituals, the old woman had only slipped farther and farther away from her. Meng was gone from this world. Face it, she thought. You'll never have a mother. Not Meng. Not Lucile Swan.

You have only one ancestor. Your father, Horace.

Underneath the ling-pai ling-pai she saw a glimmer of color, and recognized the silk stomach-protector. Her heart raced. What if Lin were to see this? She crumpled the bit of silk into the smallest possible ball, and pushed it to the farthest, jumbled corner of the drawer. No, Lin wouldn't see it. She would never let that happen. she saw a glimmer of color, and recognized the silk stomach-protector. Her heart raced. What if Lin were to see this? She crumpled the bit of silk into the smallest possible ball, and pushed it to the farthest, jumbled corner of the drawer. No, Lin wouldn't see it. She would never let that happen.

They walked after dinner and questioned people until the daylight began to fail. ''Lei-le ma?" ''Lei-le ma?" he asked. he asked.

She nodded. He was right, she was tired. But not from the walking. From failing. Someone had to know something, and yet no one did.

She glanced at Lin. "Do you remember when we were in the cave? Did you notice anything strange about the missile?"

His eyes met hers sidelong. "You mean, that it was not a missile?"

"Yes! Did you see-did you-"

He made a sound to cut her off, to stop her from defining everything so much. "We sometimes say in Chinese: you simply wait until the fog lifts, then-ni renshi renshi lu lu shan zhen shan zhen mianmu, You see the true face of Lu Shan Mountain. Do you understand me or not, Mo Ai-li? We have lived in our Chinese world always. To us this true face of things is not so mysterious." mianmu, You see the true face of Lu Shan Mountain. Do you understand me or not, Mo Ai-li? We have lived in our Chinese world always. To us this true face of things is not so mysterious."

"I see," she insisted. She knew with this inference he was touching on all that the ma.s.ses had feared, and learned, and come to painfully accept, about their government and their military. All she had never had to live through herself, but had read about, a.n.a.lyzed, mulled over countless times. "I understand."

"Though truly, how can you?" he countered sadly.

Pain rose, hot and p.r.i.c.kly, behind her eyes. So close to him, to China, yet always shut out. "Please don't do that," she said softly.

"Oh, yes." He closed his eyes, remembering. "Duibuqi. "Duibuqi. Forgive me. I didn't intend to hurt you. It's just-you're a strange story from beyond the seas, Interpreter Mo. Sometimes I don't know where I am, who I am, talking to you." Forgive me. I didn't intend to hurt you. It's just-you're a strange story from beyond the seas, Interpreter Mo. Sometimes I don't know where I am, who I am, talking to you."

"Bici, " she answered, which meant she felt the same. " she answered, which meant she felt the same.

"There is so much I did not know-did not do-before I met you. Ah," he said, "Daole." "Daole." We're here. We're here.

And they said good-night.

It was hotter than usual in Alice's room. The still air pressed in through the wide-flung windows and brought all the life of the night from outside: a squealing night raptor flapping down on some prey, the distant roaring engines of motorcycles from across the town, finally a jeepload of young soldiers careening up and parking in the courtyard beneath her window. As they drank beer, their voices detonated off in laughter and Chinese songs from the distant provinces. Finally the soldiers gunned their vehicle to life again and blared away, leaving their bubbles of talking and giggling and the roar of their engines to evaporate in the air. Alice looked at her watch. Ten forty-five. Useless. She'd never go to sleep.

She dressed and walked quietly down the hall. All the doors were closed, the lights were out. Everyone was sleeping. She brushed quickly out into the street. Immediately she felt a lift. Like all desert places, Eren Obo had a second life in its late summer evenings. There was a pleasant breeze. People were walking around.

She hurried up the main street and turned off into the low monochromatic labyrinth that radiated away from it. The creek was nearby, she could hear it. She scuffed along a row of dusty oleasters, listening to the water gurgling down below. This was the older part of town. Instead of the methodical yellow two-story buildings, with their rows of square-paned windows and flat roofs, here strode the lumpy, hand-built loess houses, like the ones she had seen out in the country, thatched roofs over their rafters, the houses that had stood as misshapen parts of the desert landscape for hundreds of years. There was a temple complex too. Its ornate paG.o.da design was all out of place in the town. Yet it was lovingly kept. Water was spared on it. Its courtyards were profuse and miraculous with potted trees and flowers.

She stood to one side of the moon gate under an electric light, looking in. The gate wasn't closed, but she knew that the hour was too late to go in.

"Younger sister," said a male voice behind her, crumbly with age. She turned and stared into an old man's deep-etched, hooded eyes.