Shadow of the Silk Road by Colin Thubron Read Free Book Online Page B

and he was gone, leaving Huang and me in the unlit alley.
    For an hour or two I put the goddess’s head out of my mind. Only afterwards, over several days, I wondered in misery if perhaps it were not genuine. Then I would stray into daydream. I imagined myself years hence, wandering the Chinese galleries of the Metropolitan or the British Museum, and coming across a cabinet of new acquisitions. There, chastened, I would gaze into its face in recognition: ‘Head of Avalokitesvara (Guanyin). Tang dynasty, 8th century AD . Provenance unknown.’
     
    In the glare of the restaurant, under his black helmet of hair, Huang’s eyes were burning with their own frustration. For a long time the sweet-and-sour pork lay untouched between his hands, while his words stammered out like firecrackers. He had just given in his notice.
    The catalyst had been a casual e-mail from the Brazilian lawyer; then Huang’s impatience had grown unbearable. ‘My friend write me from Brazil: “Mr Huang, you can work in business for a Brazilian company.” This sentence very important to my heart. Now what does this mean, do you think? “You can work in business for…”’ He repeated it like a spell, as if the words contained something they would not yield up. What was their true essence? “‘You can work…” ’
    I felt fear for him again. What would he do? He knew no word of Portuguese. And what would the lawyer feel when Mr Huang turned up on his doorstep?
    ‘My father was very angry,’ he said. ‘Because my job is good, powerful. Many people want such a job. But he knows that since I grew up I have had this big dream. I tell him: I will be all right, I have some English and a clever heart. Then my father understand.’
    ‘You must try to find a Chinese trading company,’ I said, ‘somewhere you can use your Mandarin.’
    ‘Trading? How is that spelt?’ He took out his notepad. ‘T…r…a…’
    ‘But what about your wife and daughter?’
    His eyes sank to his meal. ‘Oh, this is my big problem.’ He poked at the sweet-and-sour. ‘First time I tell my wife she’s very angry. One week, don’t touch me! Don’t even speak with me! I understand her thought. But later I explain everything to her mother, who knows that my heart and my dream are very big, and that I will develop good business. So at last my wife says okay, okay, I understand you.’ But he looked rueful. ‘You know our women are very strong, too strong. Seventy per cent, I’d say, are stronger than their men…’
    ‘Will your wife come with you?’
    ‘The first year I am alone. Then when I’ve made a good life, my wife come over to find job. My daughter will go to my mother, maybe to my wife’s mother. Sometimes here, sometimes there–no problem! They all love her, they all want her.’
    ‘Is this good for her, do you think?’ My mind was crammed with Western notions of childhood. ‘So many people?’
    He grimaced suddenly. ‘I think not so good. But I have to do this. Later she will follow me.’
    As he talked about work permits and aeroplane tickets, his spirits revived. He gulped down his doubts with the pork, then grew a little maudlin, because this was our last evening. He wondered if we would meet again. My journey was dangerous to him, more dangerous than his. Here in Xian things were all right, he said, but in those north-west lands…He shuddered visibly. His was the old Chinese fear of inner Asia lapping at the Great Wall, the emptiness beyond the Celestial Kingdom. And I had not even mentioned Afghanistan…
    ‘I like talking with you,’ he said. ‘I will miss you. We Chinese just make chicken-talk, just surface things, joking. You are different.’
    We got up to go. Would he return to China? I wondered. In old age, at least, the first generation of emigrants often came back, to build prestigious houses and die where they were born. But Huang said no. He would not come back to any village. Others would tend his parents’ graves. ‘After