She looked around. The ambassador’s residence was behind them. Guards stood at the gate, the only exit as far as she could tell. “I don’t think we can,” she said, “but I have another idea.”
Outside the gate, she waited until several taxis passed by, then hailed one at random. She gave the driver instructions to her hutong home in Chinese. After she ascertained that he was from the remote region of Anhui and had never had a foreigner in his car before, she switched to English. “The ambassador’s in Chengdu. I’ll bet that Zai’s gone there, too. They’re probably at the farm.”
“But we have no idea where it is.”
“They had help from people at Panda Brand,” Hulan reasoned. “We have to go there and find someone who can help us.”
“It’s a slim lead, but it’s the only one we’ve got,” David agreed. “We’ll get down there and we’ll follow whatever information we find. Then we’ll follow the next slim lead and the one after that until the truth comes out.”
She took his hand and said, “You’re right. We have to finish this before…”
“Before they finish us?” David tried to keep his comment light. When Hulan nodded solemnly, David felt his stomach contract in fear. He took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. “Okay,” he said. “We know that everywhere we go we can be tracked. What did you tell me that day in Bei Hai Park? There’s a camera at every traffic light? But listen, Hulan. People do escape from Beijing. Many of the students at Tiananmen got out. I saw them interviewed on TV. How’d they do it?”
“They had friends to hide them. They had connections in Hong Kong.” Hulan understood what David was getting at, but they had a problem the students didn’t have. The dissidents who disappeared into China to reemerge in Hong Kong or the West were Chinese. David was a fan gway, a foreign devil. All of this David was thinking through as well.
“I need a phone,” he announced.
Hulan had the driver drop them at a café. Hulan dialed, asked in Chinese for the room of Beth Madsen, and handed the phone to David. He didn’t give his name. Instead he said, “Remember me? We sat next to each other on the plane from L.A.?” There was a pause as Beth spoke, then David said, “No, I have a better idea. Can you meet me in two hours? No, not at the bar. You know the canal outside the hotel? Leave the hotel and turn right along the footpath. In about a quarter of a mile you’ll see a little store that sells kitchen goods. Meet me there.” He laughed with false heartiness. “I know it sounds mysterious. Just come, okay?”
21
LATER
Escape
They caught another taxi and drove back to Hulan’s home, where she hurriedly packed a few belongings and whatever cash she had in an overnight bag. Then she walked down the alley—keeping a look of indifference on her face as she passed the sedan that was still parked outside her home—to the house of Zhang Junying, the old grandmother and Neighborhood Committee director. Hulan knew that she didn’t have much time, but she could not hurry her neighbor. They had tea. Hulan ate a few peanuts. They exchanged small talk. Finally, Hulan said, “Yesterday I am riding my bike home from work. A country bumpkin pushed his cart of turnips right in front of me and I crashed into him. The chain on my bicycle broke and I fell to the ground and tore my only coat. I was wondering, auntie, if you would let me borrow your grandson’s bicycle so that I might go to the store to buy a new chain.”
Neighborhood Committee Head Zhang agreed wholeheartedly but warned that the bike might be difficult for Hulan to ride, since it was so large and built for a man. “I promise to be careful,” Hulan swore. After a few more sips of tea, Hulan said, “I do have another favor to ask of you, but I am embarrassed to take advantage of your kindness again.”
“We are from two old clans in the neighborhood. Our families have known each other for many generations. I think of you as I might a daughter.”
“As I told you, my coat was torn and it is very cold. Your grandson has been out of the army for many years now. Perhaps I could borrow his coat just until I can buy a new one.”
The old woman slapped her hands on her widespread knees. “You wear my grandson’s coat? My grandson is very tall. That coat will come down so long you will have to tie it up with rope. You will look like a pilgrim to the sacred mountain of E’Mei.”
“Only for a day, auntie.”
The old woman went into a back room and returned with the greatcoat folded into a neat square and tied together with a nylon stocking. Hulan thanked Zhang Junying profusely, put the coat in the wire basket on the handlebars of the bike, then retraced her steps, pushing the bike up the hill, past the sedan, and into her courtyard, where David was waiting for her.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
She looked around the garden, so barren in winter, and nodded.
“Are you afraid?”
She nodded again. He enclosed her in his arms, immersed himself in her essence, then whispered in her ear, “So am I, Hulan, so am I.”
Then he pulled away. For their plan to work, they needed to move quickly and with absolute assurance. David put his coat in a plastic bag and threw it in his bicycle basket. Hulan regretted that she would have to leave her revolver behind, but with the way they’d be traveling, she wouldn’t be able to take it.
While Hulan dressed in her own musty greatcoat, closed up her house, and put her bag in the basket of her bicycle, David untied Madame Zhang’s grandson’s coat, shook it out, and put it on. It was a tight fit, but between it, the old blue cap that Hulan had found packed away in a closet, and the woolen scarf that she wrapped around his neck and partway up his face, he was at least partially disguised.
As soon as they lifted their bicycles over the old stone threshold, the sedan’s engine started. David and Hulan mounted the bikes and slowly began pedaling down the street. The car made a U-turn and followed them, making no pretense at discretion. “Stay close, David,” Hulan said over her shoulder as she began to pump faster, then swerved down one of the side alleys. The sedan kept right with them. Suddenly she turned down a narrow alleyway the car could not fit through. David chanced a look over his shoulder to see two men in plainclothes jump out of the car and begin cursing. David and Hulan pressed on, trying never to slow for pedestrians who strolled through the narrow labyrinth of alleys.
David felt that they had disappeared into another century. There were no cars or even motor scooters here, only the soft whoosh of bicycles and the gentle ring of their bells, the sound of children at play, the melodious call of merchants hawking their wares. Across the city they rode, keeping within the narrow confines of the hutong alleys. When they came to a dead end, Hulan asked directions. When someone noticed that David was a foreigner, Hulan explained, “Oh, the stupid big nose got lost. I am helping him get back to his hotel. It is our responsibility to show friendship to Americans whenever we can, even if they are backward and stupid.” When they got to major intersections—which came with frightening regularity—David pulled his scarf up, focused on the asphalt before his front wheel, and tried to keep to the middle of the stream of bicycles crossing the road.
They had two stops to make before meeting Beth Madsen. The first was at Hulan’s parents
’ apartment. While she went up, David waited on a side street, tinkering with the spokes of his bike, desperately hoping that no one would approach him.