Lost In Translation Part 33

Thousands of volts were running between Kong, Lin, Alice, and Spencer.

Spencer reached for the edge of a rough table that stood nearby; he looked as if he was having trouble standing. "Alice, ask him. Did Teilhard say anything about Peking Man? About the bones he brought with him?"

Alice's Chinese rendering dropped into a void of sucking silence. No one dared to draw the next breath.

Silence.

They waited.

Finally Ogatai spoke. "It is no good man who accepts guests, especially those with some connection to the family, without proper welcome. Since you have come, take your ease." He turned aside and addressed the two women in the doorway. Instantly they disappeared behind the whitewashed wall of beaten earth and returned with dried fruit and small, bright-colored plastic liquor cups.

They poured out the familiar red spirits, sweet, powerful. Everyone drank.

Ogatai said they should all come sit on the kang, kang, the most pleasant spot in any northern home, winter or summer-but there was not enough room on the the most pleasant spot in any northern home, winter or summer-but there was not enough room on the kang kang for everyone. Kong and Lin crowded onto a wooden bench opposite. for everyone. Kong and Lin crowded onto a wooden bench opposite.

"Yes, the Frenchman did bring a box of bones," Ogatai said slowly. He dropped himself on the seat of honor, center back wall of the platform, facing the door, and settled comfortably on his heels. "It was to be left in this region until the war situation stabilized. By that time the j.a.pan War was in its last gasp-but the civil war, that was just starting. He knew the bones would not be safe in Peking. And he didn't think he could get them out of the country. Here the fossils would be secure. He said scientists would come for them. Scientists he would send." He examined them carefully.

All eyes locked. Even Kong was twitching on his seat.

"We are scientists," Lin said carefully.

"We continue this work the Frenchman started," Spencer added.

Ogatai considered. One of the women fetched more wine, poured it, and sat down with them.

Finally Ogatai said: "You must remember, we made a promise to the Frenchman. To us, this is most serious. The Frenchman had a long history with our family."

"Did you take Peking Man from the cave?" Alice blurted.

Lin and Kong raised their eyebrows at her; way too fast, too direct, not Chinese.

But Ogatai did not flinch. "Yes. According to our promise. Which was to remove the remains after thirty years if the scientists did not come."

"Do you have it?" Kong wheezed.

Next to him Lin looked as if he was going to bite all the way through his lip.

"But you have not even told me who you are!" Ogatai cried. "What is your relation to the Frenchman?"

"His fellow scientists," Spencer said. He closed his eyes, reining back his churning feelings. "He did not instruct us himself to come here. He died a few years after this picture was taken. It was still too soon to be able to return here. Aside from the woman who came here with him, he told only one person, as far as we know."

"Then how-?" Ogatai asked.

"That other person was my grandfather," Spencer said.

Ogatai stared.

"And so we studied the French scientist's life, all his writings-everything-and by guessing"-he glanced at Kong, Lin, and Alice-"and by luck, we followed his trail-which led to you. No, he did not send us himself. But, Ogatai. Truly. We are the scientists." scientists."

Ogatai studied them, and a glimmer of acceptance played around his eyes.

Oh, yes, trust us, Alice begged in her heart.

The old Mongol shook his head. "So he told your grandfather. But I had always thought he would send his own son. Or his grandson."

"Oh, no!" Lin jumped in. "It is impossible. Teilhard could not have any sons. He was a Catholic priest. Did you not know?"

Ogatai froze. "It's so?"

"Yes!" Kong said.

"But he brought a woman with him! Never did he say he was a priest."

"In fact," Alice said, "he became quite famous after his death-as a Catholic theologian." A very alternative Catholic theologian, of course, but no need to detail that.

"You say he wrote books about the ape-man?" Ogatai asked.

"Well-in a way. He wrote about evolution and G.o.d."

"That's the Catholic church for you!" Ogatai slammed down his hand. "They teach their priests they are descended from monkeys-"

"No, no!" she cried, "that's not what the Catholics think-"

"-While our shamans are taught they are descended from the rocks and the sky! Well! Who's right?" He laughed the uproarious laugh of one who wants to divert the conversation away from some mounting tension, wiped at his watering eyes, and raised his gla.s.s. Everyone drank again.

"Anyway." He cleared his throat. "It is not here, you know. Peking Man. We do not keep it anymore."

"What?" They all sank as if shot.

"Where is it?" Lin managed.

"I can give you the address."

"You mean you're keeping it someplace else?" Alice burst.

Lin quieted her with a look. "Ogatai," he said more formally. "It is not even necessary for us to take the bones-if we could photograph them-catalog them-"

"Extract a small tissue sample from one of the teeth," Kong gasped.

Alice whispered these promises to Spencer in English. She saw him swallow, nervously, knowing this was a lie, knowing they would never see Peking Man, lay eyes on it, touch it, take it out in the sunlight and gasp at the wonder of the flat skulls, the receding jaws, the heavy femurs-and then hand it back to Ogatai and walk away. But no need to say so now. "Right," Spencer agreed nervously.

"Dui, " she translated.

"Eh," grunted Ogatai.

A premonition sharp as ice pa.s.sed through Alice as she watched the old man's face growing tighter and tighter.

"So sorry," Ogatai said faintly. "You say you want the bones?"

"Yes!" blurted Kong. "Of course!"

Awash in horror, Alice gripped Spencer's hand.

"The ape-man bones?" Ogatai said.

"Yes!" Lin shouted. "Yes!"

A pulled-out silence, made longer by the screaming shreds of hope.

"But I tell you we sold it," Ogatai said finally.

"You what!" Spencer shouted. "What!"

"You gave it to someone for money?" Kong said in his slowest, most excruciatingly pinpoint tone.

"Yes," the woman suddenly spoke up, as if talking to children who did not see the obvious. "And why not? We have eighty-four mu of land now."

"Congratulations," Spencer breathed miserably. "Oh, my G.o.d."

"What does the American say?" Lin called over to Alice, watching Spencer.

She closed her eyes and shook her head.

Lin leaned forward and fixed directly on Ogatai. "When "When did you sell it?" did you sell it?"

"Nineteen seventy-six. One year after we took it from the cave.

"According to our promise," the woman emphasized.

"Oh, G.o.d," Spencer said again.

"It's no problem," Ogatai said kindly. "We kept the address of the place. We always thought you might still come." He said something to the woman in Mongolian, and she left the room.

She came back with a dog-eared envelope, which she pa.s.sed to Ogatai. With great seriousness he leaned forward and gave it to the American scientist.

Kong, Lin, and Alice watched in horror.

Spencer took the envelope and closed his hands around it without looking at it. It was the NSF rejection letter all over again, the custody papers, the empty box. "I'm screwed," he mumbled. "Completely screwed."

She did not translate.

16.

Spencer opened his door a crack. He saw her and looked away. She knew he hadn't been crying, American men never cried. But his face was pinched with misery.

"What was in the envelope?" she asked him, peering over his shoulder and seeing the bed barely disturbed. Had he stayed up all night?

"I didn't open it."

"How could you not open it?"

He closed his eyes briefly against her obstinacy. "Alice, it's over. They sold Peking Man."

"But they gave us the address! It's not like it vanished."

"What's wrong with you? They sold it nineteen years ago! And in case you haven't noticed, Alice, you of all people, China's been a bit-shall we say, chaotic?-in the intervening time."

She shrugged. What did he know about Chaos?

Spencer let out a hard, defeated breath. "That's it for me with Peking Man, Alice. This was my shot. I don't even have any money left."

"But you have the envelope."

"Wrong," he said acidly. "You "You have the envelope." He crossed the room and dug into his jeans pocket from the night before, returned, and handed it to her. "I don't even want to know what's in it." have the envelope." He crossed the room and dug into his jeans pocket from the night before, returned, and handed it to her. "I don't even want to know what's in it."

She tore it open, scanned it, looked back up at him. "Sure?"

"No. Yes! For Christ's sake, tell me."

She showed it to him. On the right, there were two lines of Mongolian, the strange looping vertical script, like Arabic turned on its side. Then two vertical rows of Chinese.

"Come on, Alice. Translate."

"The Chinese is an address in Yinchuan. Six hundred and forty-two Drum Tower Road, ground floor. You know I don't read Mongolian. It probably says the same thing." She held it out to him.

"You keep it." He blinked wearily and shut the door in her face.

Lin Shiyang poured tea in his room. "It's only cheap Fujian bottom leaves, stored in bricks too long by the smell of it, but it's tea. Drink, girl child." He held the cup out to her with both hands.

She smiled, and took the cup the way she was supposed to, with two hands, in the old way. She had read her novels, read her history. "Please," she said, and indicated his own tea with her eyes.

He smiled at her manners. "In Zhengzhou we have wonderful tea. Jasmine tea, red lichee, chrysanthemum flower, all the best ones. And did you know there are ruins of an ancient city from the Shang era there? Very interesting excavations. You should come."

"Should I?" she said, turning it around, eyeing him over the rim of her cup.

"Wei shenmo bu?" he said, Why not. Then he sighed, drank from his cup, and set it heavily on the table. "Ai-li, I don't know how I should talk to you about these things. In my world, it's like this. When a man and woman do together what you and I have done-I mean the way you and I have done it -our hearts all the way open, do you understand me or not? -we know each other, gradually. We spend a long time. And eventually we talk about love." he said, Why not. Then he sighed, drank from his cup, and set it heavily on the table. "Ai-li, I don't know how I should talk to you about these things. In my world, it's like this. When a man and woman do together what you and I have done-I mean the way you and I have done it -our hearts all the way open, do you understand me or not? -we know each other, gradually. We spend a long time. And eventually we talk about love."

Her heart leapt. A permanent relationship, that's what he meant.

"But my life is complicated. I was married. And-you know this, Ai-li-I have never been able to find out what happened to my wife. If I could only find out-if I could be sure ..."

The pain swelled up behind Alice's eyes. They had felt so much in the last few nights. Yet still he clung to this.