Calls Across the Pacific (25 page)

The final step for him was to get on a train to Beijing and then transfer to another train to Hohhot.

The Tuesday evening that Nina and Liya were detained, Jing had prepared a dinner of cornmeal porridge, pancakes, and buns stuffed with lamb. She waited till about eight p.m., but Nina and Liya did not show up. The long-distance bus should have arrived at seven-twenty. She was about to leave for the hospital when one of her father's colleagues passed along a message from the switchboard. It was then that she realized that her friends could not return. Jing wondered where they were and what had happened. It worried her that they had not been able to provide any details with the message they sent. There was nothing she could do and she needed to get to the hospital to replace her father who was taking care her mother and then would go home.

When Jing entered the room, her mother immediately noticed the worry on her face. “Is everything all right?”

Jing told her about the phone message from Nina and Liya. Her mother smiled encouragingly. “Don't worry too much. Your friends probably called from some town's post office. It means they are somewhere safe. Don't you think so?”

Jing nodded, feeling somewhat better. “I'm going to get you some warm water.” She took a basin with her to the water boiler and returned with it filled. Her mother had casts on both of her legs, so Jing helped her to sit up in bed and then she gave her a sponge bath.

“Soon, I'll get rid of my cast and be able to do things myself,” her mother said as Jing washed her back. “These days, you've wasted a lot of time because of my accident.”

“Don't worry. I've had the chance to read a lot of books in here,” Jing said to allay her mother's concern. “And, besides, I'm very glad I'm able to take care of you.”

At night, most of the patients fell asleep; some patients' family members also dozed off. Jing sank into a chair by her mother's bed. Her eyes were closed, but her mind was wide awake.
Where are they? If they don't return tomorrow, I'll talk to Weimin and see what can be done.

25.
TEMUR'S STALLION

O
N THE WEDNESDAY
evening, when Nina and Liya had still not returned, Jing was extremely worried. She rode her bicycle to the hospital and as soon as she had helped wash her mother, she hurried over to Weimin's home.

Weimin let Jing in and gestured for her to take a seat. As he listened, he lit a cigarette, took a long drag, and then pressed it into the ashtray. “Don't worry. We'll find them,” he said, looking at Jing's concerned face. After talking over various scenarios that might explain Nina's and Liya's disappearance, they came to the conclusion that the only thing they could do was to visit Temur and ask him for help.

“I can go with you….” Jing said anxiously.

“No. You need to look after your mother. Besides, it's easier for me to go alone. I'll leave tomorrow morning and be back in the evening,” answered Weimin. Only one long-distance bus from Hohhot passed by the village of Wulanbatu, and it returned daily.

“Are you sure you can get tomorrow off?” asked Jing.

Weimin was certain his old friend would look the other way.

On Thursday morning, Weimin took the bus to Wulanbatu. After walking for about an hour, he reached a yurt that Mongolians call a “ger,” which was set near a grove of pine trees. On the farthest grassland, several more yurts and trees came into view. The door to this ger was open, but nobody seemed to be inside or nearby. He quickened his steps and called out, “Papa Temur!” He followed the Mongolian tradition, in which people call a man of the older generation, “Papa,” and a woman, “Mama.”

There was no answer.

He heard a woman humming from the back of the yurt, where there was a sheep pen. He walked over to it, and in a far corner of the pen, a small woman sat on a low stool, taking turns petting a ewe and her newborn baby. It was Mama Naran, the wife of Temur. After years of living with herdsmen, Weimin had learned a lot about tending animals. He knew Naran was trying to get the ewe to nurse its baby. Sometimes, a mother sheep rejected its child if it had any scent of a human on its skin. Herdsmen believed that caressing the ewe and its baby as well as humming helped the adult sheep relax. The ewe would feel soothed after listening to the gentle melody and from being petted. In particular, she would get used to the odour of a human on the newborn lamb. Then it could take care of its own baby.

Weimin called out to Mama Naran. Turning her head, the woman saw him and gave him a wide smile. “Hello! Is this Weimin?”

“Yes. Where is Papa Temur?”

“He's outside riding his favourite horse. He'll be back soon. Follow me inside.” Mama Naran stopped petting the lamb that lay by its mother. She stood up. A worn silk sash, cinched around the waist of her grey knee-length deel, a short caftan, shone orange in the sun. Now in her early fifties, Naran had been a gleeful grandmother for ten years.

Naran led Weimin into the ger and gestured for him to make himself comfortable on the carpet near a small table in the centre. Then, she walked to a cupboard to get a mug and metal pitcher. Filling the mug with homemade yogurt from the pitcher, she handed it to her visitor.

“Thank you,” said Weimin. As he drank the yogurt, the cool liquid soothed his hot and dry throat. “Have two women come to visit you in the last two days?”

“No,” Naran replied, looking at Weimin with curiosity. A smile arose on her face and smoothed away the wrinkles. “Have you found a wife then?” Weimin shook his head. “Oh, you'll find one, soon,” Naran nattered. “And, when you do, bring her to see us.”

Weimin glanced around the ger and noted three beds set along a wall of animal felt; a large rectangular table separated the beds into two sections. Near the door, a metal stove stood, upon which a kettle sat with steam shooting out of its spout. The aroma of freshly brewed tea soon filled the roomy yurt. Proud of his home, Papa Temur was fond of a particular saying: “Once you close the door to your ger, you're the king in your own domain.”

Naran lifted the kettle and poured the aromatic tea into a mug and then handed it to Weimin. “I have one more granddaughter now. She's in bed sleeping. Her folks take her brother with them when they are out tending to their flock of sheep.”

Listening to Naran, Weimin remembered the gifts he had brought with him. He opened his pack and pulled out a few packages. “I have some biscuits and tea bricks for you. This packet of candy is for your grandson. I remember he enjoyed hard milky candy.”

“You shouldn't have wasted your money on us,” Naran said, clearly pleased. Wiping her hands with her apron, she reached out to receive the packages. “I don't have fancy things to treat you with.”

“I like the everyday things you cook.” Weimin remembered years before, during many stormy nights, in this very yurt, he had eaten freshly cooked cheese pancakes and drunk hot milk tea with this family.

“Ha! Who likes Mama Naran's cooking?” a loud voice called from just outside the door.

“It's me, Papa Temur!” Excited, Weimin jumped up from his seated position on the carpet, strode over to Temur, and shook hands with him. “I've come to ask for your help.”

Temur's strong body blocked half of the door. As soon as he moved aside, sunshine poured into the tent. “Take it easy, my boy,” Temur said, hanging his louz, a wide-brimmed hat, and his whip on a hook next to the doorway. “Tell me what I can do.”

“Two visitors from Guangzhou came down to this area the day before yesterday. The two women also planned to visit you, but they didn't get here or return to Hohhot. I'm here to look for them.”

“Hmm,” Temur said, a surprised look on his face. “We haven't had any abductions or crime in the area for years. Can you tell me more?” He sat on a stool and sipped from a mug of milk tea his wife passed to him. He listened carefully to Weimin's story about Nina and Liya's trip.

When Weimin had finished, Temur told his wife, who was sitting by the bed feeding her grandchild,, that he was going to go with Weimin and search for the two women.

Temur walked to the door, picked up his whip and inserted it into his forest-green sash. His hands flapped on his brown deel. With his straw louz on his head and gutal boots on his feet, he was, once again, a horseman.

“Can you still ride a horse?” Temur asked, eyeing Weimin up and down.

“I think so.” Weimin followed him out of the ger. A few horses were tethered to the pine trees next to the ger. Temur entered the stable and came out with a saddle that he threw over a piebald pony. “You ride this obedient one. I'll take mine.”

A sorrel stallion with a reddish mane stretched its head and shook its ears when it saw his owner coming. When Temur mounted it, the horse whinnied as though expressing its pleasure at having a rider on its back. Weimin patted the piebald pony and hopped on it. By the time they were ready to leave, Naran rushed out of the yurt and passed each of them a sack filled with cheese pancakes and a water bag. The toddler standing by the door waved her hand. “Bye, Grandpa.”

Temur led the way to the post office in the village of Nantaishi. When they got there, Temur asked the staff if any visitors had come to use the phone the previous Tuesday. No one had seen the two women. From there, they went to the mayor's office to ask the same question, and where they received the same answer. Another half hour ride northwest brought them to Maolintai. Again, they visited the town's post office and then the mayor's office, but they did not find any information about Nina and Liya.

After they reached Dalai, they decided to take a break and led the horses to the edge of the roadside. The horses nibbled the grass around a poplar tree, while Temur and Weimin sat in the tree's dappled shade. Before they ate lunch, Temur held a strand of wooden beads in his hands and prayed. Their plan was to visit all the surrounding villages after lunch. Weimin hoped they would pick up some clues before they got to their final destination, Xingwangzhuang.

After lunch, they passed the Tomb of Zhaojun and reached the town of Xingwangzhuang, where they once again stopped in at the post office and at the mayor's office, but they had yet to uncover any clues as to the women's whereabouts.

That was the furthest place they had gone to. Even though it pained him to do so, Weimin had to consider the worst possible scenario. He turned to Temur and said, “Maybe they made their phone call from Peach Blossom Camp.

“That is a possibility,” said Temur. “That might be our last chance to find them.”

Crossing fields of corn and potatoes, they reached the grasslands that surrounded the gulag. Temur asked Weimin to get down from the horse and to wait for him in the field. Then he patted his horse's head and resumed his ride to a mud-made wall in the distance. He hummed his favourite folk song, “My Lasso,” to calm himself down.

The stallion pranced on the grass, lifting its hooves in time with Temur's melody as though it understood its master's song.” When the horse got close to the wall, Temur dismounted
, then with the bridle in his hand, he guided his horse over to the gate. It was closed, but there was a small rectangular opening in the door. When he knocked on the door he could see someone through the opening. “Hello, Comrade. I'm Temur from Wulanbatu, the village where you get your food supplies from.”

“What do you want?” asked the guard.

“Two women came here the day before yesterday, didn't they?” asked Temur.

The guard hesitated, then said. “Why did you say that?”

“They were supposed to visit me that day but they never showed up,” answered Temur. Feeling surer of what had happened, he asked, “Can I speak to the warden?”

The guard did not say anything but opened the door. “Leave your horse outside, please.”

“Thanks a lot.” Temur tethered his stallion to a jubilee tree and waited off to one side until the guard pushed open the door and escorted him inside. A moment later, the warden appeared. The guard introduced her. “This is Warden Luo.”

Nodding at Temur, Luo asked, “Hello. How can I help you?”

“Dear Warden Luo, I hope you're satisfied with the food supplies from our village. I'm one of those suppliers. You're welcome to visit me if you have any time to come to my village.” Temur shook hands with the warden and then asked about the two women. He said they had planned to visit him and had a package of plasters for his rheumatism.

Warden Luo found it hard to deny the fact. She gestured at the door she had just walked out of. “They're here. Please come in.”

Stepping into the room, Temur saw two Han women in their twenties, one sitting at the table, and the other on the bench. “Nina and Liya,” Temur said, sure it was them. “You're supposed to be at my home. Why are you staying here?”

Nina raised her head from the table. “Papa Temur?” She was amazed.

To Temur, Luo said, “Nina must stay until a referral letter from her workplace reaches us. Her friend Liya is here to keep her company.”

“Is that right?” Temur felt relieved, finding conditions better than he had expected. “Can they leave now and come to visit my family as they had planned to?” asked Temur, smiling genially at Luo.

“No,” Luo answered.

Nina replied, “I'd love to, but we can't come right now. But I do have a packet for you.” She turned to Luo and asked, “May I get it?”

“Sure. Suit yourself,” said Luo.

Liya looked up at Temur and asked, “Papa Temur, how did you know we were here?”

“My horse can smell guests. He brought me here,” said Temur with a chuckle, and his hand stroked his grey beard.

“Thanks for coming to see us. We're fine. We're helping Warden Luo with a few things.” Liya guessed Temur must have heard from Weimin about their disappearance. “Please tell Weimin not to worry about us,” she added. “We'll leave here as soon as the letter from Nina's factory in Guangzhou arrives.”

“Weimin is with me. I'll let him know.”

Nina returned and handed the packet of plasters to Temur. “This is what Weimin had asked us to bring to you.”

Temur smiled. “Thank you. Remember, that the grass in every meadow is different, but a friend never changes.” He turned to Luo who was sitting at the desk. “When do you think they can come to visit me?”

“When I receive the letter,” Luo tried to stifle her impatience. “We still have a lot of work to do.”

“Warden Luo, do you have any message to pass along to my food co-op? I can bring it to them.” Temur thought he could ask friends in the co-op to help if the two women did not get out of there soon.

“Just tell them we need more butter next time,” answered Luo, who stood to see Temur to the door.

Outside the gate, Temur mounted his stallion and rode quickly through the grassland. When he reached its edge, the horse neighed to the piebald pony. Temur told Weimin what he had seen and the conversation that he had had with Nina and Liya. “Don't worry. I'll ask my friends in the co-op to help if need be. Now, hop on your horse. We're going to drink kumis.”

On the way back home, Temur sang the folk song, “Sweet Kumis is like Honey.” His steed pranced, its head high, and its red mane glowing like a flame under the sunset.
He's always cheerful. Nothing defeats him,
Weimin thought. His pony was trotting after Temur's stallion; the horses were eager to get home. Weimin held the rope tight and leaned on the horse's neck to avoid falling off.