"Is it true as I've heard, you can speak?"

"Elder brother, I don't know what you have heard. Whatever it is, I'm unworthy." Outdated politeness.

He gave the breath of a wrinkled smile, lifted his scraggly white brows. "The talk's like this. A west-ocean girl, red hair, an apparition-who can speak."

She laughed. "Narde hua." "Narde hua." It meant "Nonsense," literally, but she said it with a smile. It meant "Nonsense," literally, but she said it with a smile.

"I have not seen a foreigner in so many years. Trouble you to tell. Is the outside the same?"

"No, the world's changed. It's a telling that would have no end."

"Really."

"Yes."

He gave a quiet old puff of a laugh. Then he studied her, storing, she felt, every pore, every fleck of off-color in her eyes. "And you, American girl child? What caused you to learn our tongue? I don't suppose you can read?"

"Yes. Inadequately, but modern and cla.s.sical Chinese both."

He tilted his head. "Remarkable."

"It's nothing, old uncle. But I ask you a question. I-I beg you a question. This place-" She dug out the photograph, and handed it to him. Don't get your hopes up, she warned herself. He examined it. "Do you know it?" she asked.

"I may travel a thousand li li from my native place, but I would never forget it," he quoted dreamily, his gaze lost in the photograph. from my native place, but I would never forget it," he quoted dreamily, his gaze lost in the photograph.

What? She felt like a fish flapping in a dry gulch. "Does that mean-you say-I guess you're saying you don't know it."

"Know it?" He looked at her sharply. "Of course I do. It's my sister's farm."

A bolt of wonder jolted through her. Had he spoken those words? Had he? Or was she lost in an idiot's daydream? "Did you say you know this place?"

"Well, it's not my sister's, precisely," he clarified. "I am Chinese. This family's Mongol. But my sister married one of the sons, long ago." He fell silent, staring at it. "This is an old picture. Where did you get this?"

"Ah. From these people"-she pointed to Teilhard and Lucile with a trembling finger-"you see, they're outside people. They are..."

"Your relatives?" he prompted. He was glancing from the picture to her, Alice noted, no doubt comparing her to Teilhard and Lucile. To the Chinese, all white people looked alike.

"Well..." Lie. "Yes. My relatives. I must contact the Mongol family that lives here." She pointed to the building behind Teilhard and Lucile. "They are old friends. And I bear a-a message."

"How can it be? Such a coincidence."

"Can you give me directions to this place?"

"The pleasure's on my side." He turned over the photograph and wrote quick, looping characters across the back, sketched a simple map. "Imagine! I do not usually come out in the night air. In my lungs there is cold. This evening I decided to go out. What if I had not?" He finished writing down the directions and handed her back the picture. "Eh, my regards to them. Now forgive me, I return home. Level road. Peaceful journey."

"Bici, " she said to his dignified, old-man nod, and then to his back as he turned and walked away from her, again, " she said to his dignified, old-man nod, and then to his back as he turned and walked away from her, again, "bici." "bici." When he had moved out of her sight around the corner she realized she was clenching the photograph in a trembling, white-knuckled fist. When he had moved out of her sight around the corner she realized she was clenching the photograph in a trembling, white-knuckled fist.

She knocked softly. Lin's room was silent.

She knocked again. Of course, she had to wake him up, she had to-her hand darted out and tried the k.n.o.b.

The door opened.

Inside all was dark.

A moment she stood still, then slowly under a faint cold wash from the slice of moon, all the room's shapes swam into view. The vinyl chair, the wood desk, the bed. In the bed the long huddled form, still.

She walked softly and knelt beside him. ''Lin Boshi, ''Lin Boshi, " she whispered, allowing her left hand to touch his cheek. Dr. Lin. " she whispered, allowing her left hand to touch his cheek. Dr. Lin. Where all the rules dissolve into a million knifepoints. Where all the rules dissolve into a million knifepoints.

He breathed in with a faint groan. He did not rise up or cry out. He merely said her name, "Xiao Mo," plainly, as if her coming to him in the dark was a foreseeable fact of nature.

His hands came out from the warmth of the bed and took her face between them, exploring it as if to make sure, yes, it was really her, Little Mo. Then the hands fell away. "Shenmo?" "Shenmo?" he breathed, in the tiniest whisper, What is it? he breathed, in the tiniest whisper, What is it?

She bent and whispered she had found someone who knew the photograph.

"Zhen-de ma?" Definitely? Definitely?

She nodded.

''Deng yixia, " Wait. " Wait.

She stood back. He rose and dressed swiftly in the dark, right in front of her, while she held her breath and watched his gracefully moving shadow.

"Zou, " he said, snapping his belt. Let's go.

They hurried outside, she relating quickly how she had met the old man outside the temple. They huddled under the lit front door of the guesthouse and studied the writing and the sketch on the back of the photo. There was the name of the valley, Purabanduk, and the few words explaining the road to take and where the canyons intersected. "Do you know where this is?"

"I think so," he said. "See here. This is the road we came in on. It's an ancient road, I heard the driver talking about it, it's surely the same one. And there's the pa.s.s, and here he seems to mark an opening in the foothills. There was a gap there, in the Great Wall, I remember. Perhaps we should see a dirt track leading off into this valley, Purabanduk."

She stared at the map. "Should we go there, right now?"

"Without the others?"

"Just to see if we can find it. Suppose there is a house? Just like in this picture? We don't have to approach it. We could all return together, tomorrow."

He smiled down at the photograph.

"But we need a car," she said.

"A car?" He shook his head. "No. What we need is a driver."

She looked at him strangely. "What are you talking about? I can drive."

"You can?" He stared.

"Of course, everybody in America can drive. It's not like here. We all learn. Driving's great, it's-" She stopped herself. The joy of the blacktop, the long desert view, the blood sun-sets, the filling-station map on the seat next to you-he wouldn't understand. "Look, this might be the Mongol family. Could we take the jeep?"

His smile was wider now. "Why not? It is for our research, isn't it so?"

"Yes, but the keys..."

"Ah, I know where the driver leaves them. I have seen. He puts them on the right front tire."

She stared at him. "Isn't he afraid someone will take it?"

"Take it? Take the car? Unlikely. First, not many people can drive. Second, the penalty for stealing a car's severe. You could go to the laogai. laogai. You could be shot. Why between heaven and earth would you do it? How could it be worth the price?" You could be shot. Why between heaven and earth would you do it? How could it be worth the price?"

"I see," she agreed, though what she really saw was that it was crazy: his own wife had gotten herself into the camps for what, a scholarly article? Was that that worth the price? It was a kind of commitment, though, Alice knew; one of the time-honored Chinese ways of being a hero. A quality she, Alice, did not have. worth the price? It was a kind of commitment, though, Alice knew; one of the time-honored Chinese ways of being a hero. A quality she, Alice, did not have.

"So you will drive to this valley?" He touched the photo.

"Of course."

"Zou-ba, " Then let's go. " Then let's go.

The jeep waited in the hard-dirt yard behind the guesthouse. They went to it, climbed in quietly, and started it up. She checked the gas and water levels, then puttered quickly to the edge of the settlement. In the manner of all outpost towns, civilization-buildings, people, lights-fell away from them with unnerving suddenness when they hit the main road. In an instant it was all empty, the silty sea of desert and black mountains.

They bounced painfully on the first long stretch, a deep-rutted, unforgiving dirt track. But then they hit smooth pavement, and the road settled to silk and looped through the night. They were in the other realm now, in a car with a dark highway in front of them and the Tengger Desert all around.

"Don't you love it?" She crooked her left arm out in the night wind.

"Driving?" He drew his brows together, confused.

"Sure. I used to drive all the way to Laredo, all the way across Texas. Imagine. It's so hot you could die. And then Customs, the little linoleum room and the man with the shark-pressed khaki uniform, but fat, beer roll, the uniform's too tight, he checks your driver's license, he asks you the questions, you answer correctly because you know what to say and they send you out of the room and through a gate and you have left your country, you are over the border, now it's Nuevo Laredo. Mexico. Everything looks different. The houses are all these wild colors. The light is strange. It smells primeval. You're on Mars."

"You are talking about driving?" Lin attempted to clarify.

"About wanderl.u.s.t," she answered, using the inadequate Chinese phrase, re-ai luxing, re-ai luxing, and pointing out the windshield. "This is it, the open road." and pointing out the windshield. "This is it, the open road."

He stared at her.

"Wo shi yige luxing luxing aihao-zhe, aihao-zhe, " she tried again: I'm a wanderer. But still he did not click in. Texas-the road-he'd never know. How could he? Yet the strange thing was she had the same feeling right now that she'd had all those years ago, driving out west, to Tonopah. A free feeling. Leaving her old life behind. Becoming herself. Teilhard had done it: Make me more " she tried again: I'm a wanderer. But still he did not click in. Texas-the road-he'd never know. How could he? Yet the strange thing was she had the same feeling right now that she'd had all those years ago, driving out west, to Tonopah. A free feeling. Leaving her old life behind. Becoming herself. Teilhard had done it: Make me more myself, as I dream to make you reaching myself, as I dream to make you reaching the best of yourself. the best of yourself.

She watched Lin switch on a small light inside the glove box and peer at the back of the photo again.

"You should start watching for a dirt turnoff on the left," he told her.

When they came to it she drove past, but he spotted it and she turned the jeep around. When she caught sight of the track she saw that it was little more than a faint tamped disturbance in the great prairie of loess, but a track it was, definitely, and it wound away from them toward the black foothills. She cut her speed and lurched onto it. The surface was rough. She braked more.

"A few miles, I would guess." His voice was tight, his hands gripped his knees.

Some small marmot-looking animal darted across their path, eyes refracting brilliantly in their headlights, then shot off into the darkness.

"See that?"

He nodded.

She concentrated on the bad road. To either side of them, piles of rock stood sentrylike on the desert floor.

"Soon we'll be climbing the ridge," he whispered.

b.u.mps, painful pitching jolts, each threatening to tear off the m.u.f.fler or bend a tie rod. They bounced and rolled, gaining elevation. Finally in front of them the track curved gracefully to the right and swept through a break in the humped-up hills, and there, in that astonished second before the car dipped nose-down into the deep falling grade, they glimpsed the spreading valley, the sheep pens, the jumble of dwellings and outbuildings. It looked just like the picture, it was was the picture. And up behind it, the strangely notched black ridgeline of the Helan Shan. the picture. And up behind it, the strangely notched black ridgeline of the Helan Shan.

There were lights on in the house.

She and Lin exchanged glances, triumphant. Lights down below. That meant people. The Mongol family.

15.

They turned off the car and stared at the valley below for a long, speechless while, then finally she started it up again, turned it around, and bounced away, back down through the pa.s.s. A dog had started barking. If they sat there any longer someone would notice.

"Lin," she said, her voice low with excitement, downshifting into the grade. She glanced over and saw that he was staring at her too. "Think it's the Mongol family? Can we hope?"

"I don't hope," he answered, eyes on her. "I never hope. I just live in grat.i.tude for what comes."

It felt strange to be the open object of his gaze. She felt as if everything about her was lit up. She sat as erect and still as she could in the driver's seat, wishing she were tall and beautiful. He kept watching her while she eased the jeep down the hill and into the long flat stretch, steered through the scattered piles of rock.

"Xiao Mo," he said.

She glanced over. "Eh?"

"Ting che." Stop the car. Stop the car.

"Shenmo?" What? She'd heard him, of course she'd heard him, but it was too shocking, too unforeseen suddenly, and she had to pretend she hadn't heard. She had to make him say it again. What? She'd heard him, of course she'd heard him, but it was too shocking, too unforeseen suddenly, and she had to pretend she hadn't heard. She had to make him say it again.

"Stop the car."

She oversteered on the narrow track, corrected. Okay. Stop. She pressed a long, steady foot on the brake and then rolled off a little ways into the dirt and cut the engine. The craaack of the emergency brake seemed to split the night and the desert in two. In the silence she felt the endless dry air around them, a universe of it, no one for miles. Emptier than Nevada, emptier than Death Valley. Tartary.

Lin climbed out. He took the old blanket from behind the backseat and spread it on the flat ground next to a pile of boulders.

She watched, hypnotized.

He walked back and opened the door on her side.

"Lin-"

He stopped her. "My name is Shiyang."

She caught her breath. This was the first time he had offered his given name. "I am called Alice."

"Alice."