Were there people watching him? The man at the embassy clearly thought so, and from Li’s behaviour he supposed he had to accept it was so. But Li hadn’t been to the mission for over a week now: nearer two, in fact. Perhaps the suspicion was lessening. Perhaps … Snow stifled the hope, annoyed at himself. He didn’t know why Li hadn’t been to the mission but he did know the district in which John Gower had been arrested, which meant there hadn’t been any lessening of suspicion. It was a miracle he hadn’t been seized already, so he had to get away and today was his chance. His only chance, according to the scruffy man at the embassy. Snow wished he knew how to spot people watching him. Would it be easy, confusing them and evading them, as the man had made it sound yesterday? It had sounded easy then. It didn’t now. The instructions he’d been told to follow, to the letter, seemed totally inadequate now: impossible. He still felt sick and his chest was tightening. Should have remembered the mask: several people around him were wearing them and it might have helped. Too late to go back. No turning back. Just had to go on. Perspiration was making the cover of the bible wet and slippery in his hand. He didn’t want to draw attention to it, switching it from one hand to the other. Have to take some relief for the asthma soon. Stupid to put it off, which he knew he couldn’t: always had to be quick to prevent it becoming too severe. Couldn’t risk a severe attack today.
Snow held out until he reached the bus-stop and its straggled queue. He used the inhaler there, grateful for the immediate relief and the awareness that he hadn’t left it too long. He put the bible in his other hand, too.
Snow changed buses twice, which was necessary to reach the Foreign Ministry. The beginning of the confusion, he thought, hopefully, as he approached the building. He would have liked to know if those watching him were more confused than he was. There was certainly a babble of confusion inside the building. It was packed with people moving against each other and from place to place upon the insistence of officials who saw their function as never to make a decision, always to defer or sidetrack it untraceably on to someone else. The priest tried to use the mêlée, going into two crowded offices with only the minimal contact with officials to account for his moving on to yet further divisions. Only at the fourth did he attempt proper, sensible contact, repeating the name of Li Dong Ming, becoming finally convinced from the blankness with which he was met that Li was definitely attached to the Public Security Bureau. He had to insist the clerk take his offered, apologetic package addressed to Li, only at the last moment remembering further to insist upon a receipt, which would establish on its counterfoil proof of the delivery of the photographs.
People were all too close, too cloying, all about him in the eddying corridors, and Snow felt the fresh distress, wanting to stop and rest and knowing there was no possibility of his doing so. He let himself be carried along by the human tide. Once he collided with an unmoving, rocklike knot of people and felt the bible begin to go from his grasp, snatching out to get a fresh grip only seconds before he lost it completely. His breathing worsened: trying to confuse he was becoming confused himself.
The side door was small, quite different from the elaborate main entrance through which he had entered. Snow let himself be washed aside, thrusting gratefully out into the street: despite the overcast oppression it was cooler than inside the building. He wanted to pause, to relieve his breathing, but knew he couldn’t. He drove himself on, glad that this time he didn’t have to wait for a bus: one was pulling in as he reached the stop and he was aboard and moving within minutes. Snow slumped, panting, into a seat. He was soaked in perspiration and people immediately around were looking at him because of the snorting intake of his breathing. Snow put the bible openly on his lap, to free both hands from its wetness and let everything dry. Gradually his breathing quietened. No one had boarded the bus after him: he was absolutely sure of that. So if he had been under surveillance, he’d evaded it. Suddenly – wonderfully – what he’d been told to do didn’t seem inadequate or impossible any more. It was all going to work: make it possible for him to escape. His breathing became more even.
The offices of the Gong An Ju were very different. This was the headquarters of the omnipotent control of the People’s Republic, the all-seeing eyes that saw, the all-hearing ears that heard. There were a lot of people in the outer corridors and vestibules, but none of the hither and thither turmoil of the other place. Snow was uncomfortable here, anxious to get away, but he obeyed the instructions, waiting for a vacant booth and talking generally of taking another country tour, to the north this time, leaving his mission address and his name. Feeling increasingly confident, he allowed himself to stray very slightly from the script, suggesting he return the following day to fill out a proper application form to establish his hopeful itinerary. Automatically responding to the possibility that he would not have to be the one to process the paper work the following day, the clerk instantly agreed.
Almost there, thought Snow, going out once more through a side door and once more being lucky with a bus, which was again in sight as he came to the stop. Two men did get on directly behind him this time but both got off, long before the rail terminus. It was still only twenty to four: more than enough time for everything else he had to do, even taking into account the customary delay at the ticket office.
There was a delay. In front of every window there was a meandering line of patient travellers, almost everyone burdened with enough belongings to start life anew in another part of the country. Snow started, actually emitting a cry of frightened surprise, at the sudden but insistent plucking at his elbow. The money-barterer was gap-toothed and moustached and wore a Western-style suit that didn’t fit. Snow went through the ritual of offer and rejection, concerned how quickly his breath was snatched: it was five minutes before the tout gave up. Something else I’ll never know again, thought Snow. Nor want to. He was getting away: leaving forever. And glad to be going. Whatever worth he’d had here was over.
What explanation was he going to give the Curia, in Rome? Not the complete story, he thought. Just enough. He could talk of having had Zhang Su Lin as a pupil. Which was true. And of his not knowing, for a long time, that the man was a political activist and therefore dangerous. Again true. Zhang’s arrest was public knowledge. Which therefore made it essential he get out, with the emergency permission of Father Robertson, to avoid his becoming innocently involved and risking the very future of any Jesuit mission in Beijing. More than enough, Snow decided: Rome would accept the account and be grateful for his political acumen. And his conscience would be clear: there was no deceit, in anything he was going to say.
He didn’t feel sick any more and his breathing had settled down after the fright of the money-changer. The bible felt solid and comforting in his hand, no longer wet. His confidence, just as solid and comforting, was returning, too. What would he read, when he was hidden away on the Shanghai-bound sleeper? There were several teachings about overcoming evil, in Philippians: one very apposite tract, about wrestling against the rulers of darkness, which he’d surely been doing for the past three years in Beijing. Snow at once curbed the arrogance. Perhaps the Book of Proverbs was more fitting: particularly the warning of pride going before destruction and haughty spirits before a fall. Except that he was not going to destruction. He was going to safety with a man whose planning was working out just as he had promised it would. By this time tomorrow they would be secure in the Philippines: maybe even have moved on. There was no real reason for his going to London: the man had already accepted the end of any relationship. He didn’t know, but it was probably easy to get a flight from Manila to Rome: if not direct, then by changing somewhere en route. He would have to talk about it, on the way to Shanghai. He’d definitely go straight to Rome, if it was possible.