“Hey — you there!” It was a local policeman who had seen them on the outskirts of Beidaihe, the official’s voice full of officiousness before the tourist season had even begun.
“Are you talking to me?” Alexsandra said upon turning.
“Yes, you. You are a foreigner.”
“You’re very observant.”
“Ha, ha!” said the terrified student who had blubbered to her that he had been forced to cooperate with the PSB, his attempt at ingratiating himself with the policeman taking on the tone of “The police love the people and the people should love the police.”
The policeman shot a look at the student that would have silenced an entire cell of students.
“Where are your travel papers?” he demanded of Alexsandra.
“In my bag.”
“You have no bag.”
“I said you were very observant.”
“Ha, ha!” the student said, his tone more groveling than before.
Alexsandra kept looking straight at the policeman. “My bag is back at my hotel.”
“Ah, a hotel — what hotel?”
“Jinshian Hotel of course.” It was the best.
“Your identification then?”
“And yours?” she demanded. The policeman’s face went beet red in vivid contrast to the early morning fog that was rolling in from the sea onto Beidaihe’s Middle Beach. “I demand to see your identification,” she repeated. “Don’t you know who I am?” And she added stiffly, “I am here with important officials.”
“What is your name?”
“Ha, ha!” the student said, knowing the policeman was either going to draw his revolver or whistle for help.
She thought of all the petty harassment and gross humiliations the Chinese and Siberian officials had visited upon her — degradations unimaginable to anyone in the West. “I demand to see your identification,” she repeated, taking out a small notepad from her pocket.
“Ha!” the student said. They were both going to be arrested.
“No!” the policeman said angrily. “You must show me your papers first.” The policeman’s cloudy breath added to the fog.
“Oh all right,” she said, and took her hand out of the coat. “Will this do?” She thrust hard, and the switchblade pierced his heart. He stared, wide eyed, at her, making a half-choking, gargling sound and began to pull the knife out. She then thrust her left hand about his neck as if to kiss him and pushed the knife in further. “Keep it, you little bastard!”
“Oh—” the student said. “This is very bad.”
“Have you still got the tickets?” Alexsandra said.
“Our tickets?”
“Get a grip on yourself. Yes, the tickets to Shanhaiguan.”
“Yes, why?”
“Why? We’re going there, you fool. Come on, get his gun and cartridges and we’ll go to the station.” She knew now that, previous plans notwithstanding, she would have to use Beidaihe station after all to get the train toShanhaiguan.
“Oh!” the student said, shivering with cold and fright.
“I’ve had enough,” she said in rapid Mandarin. “I’ve had all I’ll take. I’m not running anymore.” Which of course is precisely what she was doing.
“Oh — this is tremendous,” the student said, but he had mispronounced the word in his fright. He meant “This is very bad.”
Suddenly she stopped and looked at the student. “The Chinese Communist pigs are at war with the United States. Now whose side are you on?”
“Yours, but my family and—”
“Never mind your family,” she said sharply, almost hysterically in her own fright. “Never mind my family — the few they left. Whose side are you on?”
“I am against the Communists of course.”
“Then act like a man, damn you, or give me the gun. Give it to me anyway — it bulges in your Mao suit, padding or not. It’ll fit better in my overcoat pocket.”
“Yes, of course. Ha, ha. Do you know how to use a gun?”
“Are you serious, Wei Chen?”
“No. Ha, ha.” They were both going to die.
She could feel her stomach trembling and tightening, and for a moment she thought she’d black out. Why had she lost her temper like that — why hadn’t she offered to go back to the hotel — figure something out on the way? She didn’t know. She had been so cool, so calm, so many times to survive in her life — perhaps she couldn’t do it anymore? Perhaps something in her had finally snapped and she was going mad.
By sheer luck when they reached the railway station— Alexsandra, silent and hollow eyed from her prison ordeal, the student close to nervous breakdown — their train, the 7:30 from Beidaihe to Shanhaiguan, came rolling in, and the student was engaged in an argument with the ticket clerk, who said tickets to Shanhaiguan were not valid if you stopped off at Beidaihe. The student looked at Alexsandra. “Ha, ha!” Big trouble, he meant — until Alexsandra simply said, “Give her more money.”
“You don’t know much,” she told the student as they boarded the hard class.
“Ha, ha, I guess you’re right.”
The student kept watching the great clouds of steam curling and swirling up from around the engine, half expecting a squad of police to emerge through them at any time. He looked at her apprehensively, too, wondering, and a steely, hollow-eyed face gave him the answer. By God, she would shoot them. Unable to break the tension after another cloud of steam revealed no one, the student excused himself quickly and headed for the toilet. “You can’t use that!” a train attendant told him brusquely. “Not while you are in the station. Where do you think you are — at home?”
“Ha, ha! Sorry.” His face was grimacing in pain. Suddenly the train shunted, steam poured out and up into the air, and the carriage began to jerk forward, becoming progressively smoother. He made to go in.
“Not till we are out of the station!” the attendant yelled at him.
“Ha, ha,” he said, his legs crossed, taking a deep breath and turning spastically toward the window.
Soon the train was out of the station, picking up speed, and he ran in. The noise of the train clicking across the sleepers, amplified by the toilet tube, became a sustained roar.
On his way back to his seat he knew the police would be there. Perhaps he could sit away from her, but the train was full. He passed several families who had already opened glass jars of tea and were eating cold slices of fatty meat. As he made his way further down the aisle he was struck by people’s mouths moving and he unable to hear them for the roar of a large goods train passing them toward Beidaihe. Perhaps he was going deaf.
“Feel better now?” Alexsandra asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry for being so rude with you. I’m afraid I need more sleep.”
“Ha, ha,” he said, and this time it meant, I wish you would and give us both some rest. She had closed her eyes but was kept awake by more troop trains roaring by. “Tickets?” came a conductor’s voice.
“You show them,” Alexsandra said.
“Yes,” the student said, but he found his hand was trembling. She took the tickets from him. “I’ll do it.” He was alarmed — if the conductor questioned the ticket purchase she would probably shoot him.