Dimly, the figures of two workmen appeared and passed by the window carrying some metal sections between them. They struggled silently, and disappeared into the darkness.
Barbara turned away. “What season is it?”
“Where?”
“In the United States. What time of year?”
“I don’t know. Fall? Summer? No, it’s summer here. What does it matter? Is it important?”
“I suppose not. Did you know there are people in the United States who voluntarily live in San Francisco?”
“Why not?”
“The fog.” She gestured toward the window.
Verne nodded. “It bothers you? I’m surprised. You wouldn’t be happier if it went away.”
“I wouldn’t?”
“I doubt it. You know what it looks like around here, behind the fog? The city dump. Or someone’s old back yard. This is the back yard of the world. There’s junk stacked up here going back— I don’t know. The Company’s been around a long time.” He reached up and clicked on the overhead light. The office filled with a pale yellow glow.
“It’s leaving now.”
“It’s leaving here. But it’s arriving someplace else.”
“Really?”
“You’re a funny person. It’s hard to tell what’s going on in your mind. Maybe you’re not thinking at all. At least, not like I conceive it. Women are like that.”
“Oh, yes.” Barbara walked away from the window. “I’ll tell you what’s on my mind. It’s not our staying that bothers me.”
“What, then?”
“It’s their going. All of them pulling out.”
“What else can they do?”
“They could put up some kind of a fight.”
“Four hundred fifty million people are a lot to have to fight. Anyhow, let’s face it. This whole region is Chinese. It doesn’t belong to us. We have no legal claim to it. They’ve voided all contracts of this kind, all over China. As soon as the Revolution was over our goose was cooked. Everybody knew they’d throw out all the foreign business firms. Except maybe the Russians. Our days have been numbered since the fall of Shanghai. A lot of other companies are doing just what we’re doing.”
“I suppose.”
“We’re lucky. We’re far enough south to get across the mountains into India. That means we’ll at least get out. Some of them in the north haven’t been so lucky.” Verne waved at the calendar on the wall. “1949 is going to go down on the books as a bad year for business. At least, in this part of the world.”
“The people in Washington could do something.”
“Maybe. I doubt it. It’s the times. Trends in the great ebb and flow of history. Asia is no place for Western business firms to be hanging around. Anybody with half an eye could see this coming years ago. This stuff was brewing in 1900.”
“What happened then?”
“The Boxer Rebellion. The same as this. The start. We won that. But it’s been only a question of time. Let the yuks take over. The Company will have to chalk it up to profit and loss, whether it wants to or not.”
“Anyhow, we’ll be going back home.”
“It’ll be good to be out of here. You can feel it in the air. The tension. It’ll be good to get out of it. We’re too damn tired to keep this sort of thing going for long. It’s too much of a drain. We’re personae non gratae. Guests at the wrong party. Somebody else’s party. We’re not wanted. Can’t you feel them all looking at us? We’re in the wrong place.”
“Is that how you feel?”
“That’s how we all feel, out here. We’re worn out. Our professional smile is beginning to wear a little thin. It’s time we started edging toward the door.”
“I don’t like to get pushed.”
“It’s our own fault. We’re being pushed because we stayed too long. We should have left fifty years ago.”
Barbara nodded absently. She was not listening to what Verne was saying. She was wandering around the office. “You know, it looks terrible without the curtains.”
“The curtains?”
“They’re gone. They took them down. Didn’t you notice?” The office was shabby and bleak. The plaster walls were stained and scarred.
“I never noticed.” Verne grinned. “Don’t you remember? I never notice things like that.”
Barbara turned her back to him and gazed out the window again. Outside, as the fog settled down from above, the great columns dissolved and grew even more vague and indistinct in the gloom.
“Don’t you want to talk?” Verne said.
She did not answer.
“The last two cars are leaving about now. Want to go down and say goodbye to the lucky ones?”
Barbara shook her head. “No. I’m going over to the woman’s dorm and start getting my room back in shape. They just now told me I was staying.”
“They picked our names at random,” Verne said. “Just luck. Or divine intervention. We stay—they go. Isn’t it nice, you and I together? And one other person. I wonder who. Probably some lumphead.”
Barbara went outside, down the porch steps.
Barbara walked slowly up the path to the dormitory building and stopped. A small group of workmen were putting a chain on the front door, with a large padlock.
“Hold on!” she said. “You can put your lock someplace else. This is an exception.”
“We were only supposed to leave the office building and part of one of the men’s dorms open,” a workman said.
“Well, I’m not staying in the men’s dorm. I’m staying here.”
“We were told—”
“I don’t care what you were told. This is my place. I’m staying here”
The workmen considered, grouping together.
“Okay,” the foreman said. They took the lock and chain back off again. “How’s that?”
“What about the windows? Are you going to take the boards off?”
The workmen gathered their tools up. “Maybe one of your men can do it. We have a schedule. We have to get out of here this evening.”
“I thought you were going to work through tomorrow.”
The men laughed. “Are you kidding? There are yuks all around. We don’t want to be here when they move in.”
“You don’t like them?”
“They smell like sheep.”
“That’s what they say about us. Oh, the hell with it. Go on, take off.”
The workmen disappeared down the path.
“Yuks couldn’t be any worse.” Barbara went up the steps, inside the great, stark building. Once, it had been clean and white. Now it was grey; water had dripped down from the roof and formed long brown stains on the walls. The window frames were rusty, under the newly nailed boards.
“But it’s what I have in place of a home. The god damn dirty old place.”
She looked around, feeling for the light switch in the darkness. Her fingers touched it and she flicked it down. The hall lights came on. Barbara shook her head. The walls were covered with splotches of old scotch tape, from endless posters and notices. One notice alone remained.
“Says you” had been pencilled underneath.
Barbara went on, up to the second floor. The doors leading off the hall were locked. She came to her own door, getting her key from her purse. She unlocked the door and went inside the room, crossing to the lamp. The lamp came on. The room was empty and dismal.