"What do you think of Golmud, Mr. Fu?"
"Too small," he said, and laughed, meaning the place was insignificant.
At the bus station we were told that the snow wasn't bad on the road. A Tibetan bus had arrived just that morning—it was late, of course, but it was explained that all the buses were late, even when there was no snow.
Mr. Fu was not placated. He pointed south and said, "Snow!"
He was clearly apprehensive, although I was convinced that we should set off.
I said, "We will go tomorrow, but we will leave early. We will drive until noon. If the snow is bad we will turn back and try again another day. If it looks okay we will go on."
There was no way that he could disagree with this, and it had the additional merit of being a face-saving plan.
We had a celebratory dinner that night—wood-ear fungus, noodles, yak slices and the steamed buns called mantou that Mr. Fu said he could not live without (he had a supply for the trip to Tibet). There was a young woman at the table, sharing our meal. She said nothing until Mr. Fu introduced her.
"This is Miss Sun."
"Is she coming with us?"
"Yes. She speaks English."
Mr. Fu, who spoke no English at all, was convinced that Miss Sun was fluent in English. But at no point over the next four or five days was I able to elicit any English at all from Miss Sun. Occasionally she would say a Chinese word and ask me its English equivalent.
"How do you say luxing in English?"
"Travel."
Then her lips trembled and she made a choking sound, "Trow."
And, just as quickly, she forgot even that inaccurate little squawk.
Over the dinner, I said, "What time are we leaving tomorrow?"
"After breakfast," Mr. Fu said.
The maddening Chinese insistence on mealtimes.
"We should get an early start, because the snow will slow us down."
"We can leave at nine."
"The sun comes up at six-thirty or seven. Let's leave then."
"Breakfast," Mr. Fu said, and smiled.
We both knew that breakfast was at eight. Mr. Fu was demanding his full hour, too. I wanted to quote a Selected Thought of Mao about being flexible, meeting all obstacles and overcoming them by strength of will. But I couldn't think of one. Anyway, a Mao Thought would have cut no ice with young, skinny, frantic Mr. Fu, who played Beethoven and wore driving gloves and had a freeloading girlfriend. He was one of the new Chinese. He even had a pair of sunglasses.
"We can buy some food and eat it on the way," I said, as a last desperate plea for an early start.
"I must eat mantou when it is hot," Mr. Fu said.
That annoyed me, and I was more annoyed the next morning when at half past nine I was still waiting for Mr. Fu, who was himself waiting for a receipt for his room payment. At last, near ten, we left, and I sat in the backseat, wishing I were on a train, and feeling sour at the prospect of spending the whole trip staring at the back of Miss Sun's head.
Lhasa was a thousand miles away.
Looking towards Tibet I had a glimpse of a black and vaporous steam locomotive plowing through a dazzling snowfield under the blue summits and buttresses of the Tanggula Shan. It was one of the loveliest things I saw in China—the chugging train in the snowy desert, the crystal mountains behind it, and the clear sky above. Everything visible was jewellike, smoke and sparkle in a diamond as big as Tibet.
About twenty miles farther, at the first high pass in the mountain range, was the end of the line in China—though only soldiers were allowed to go that far by rail—and after that there was only the narrow road, on which Mr. Fu was now skidding in his Galant.
Mr. Fu, I could see, was terrified of the snow. He did not know its effect firsthand. He had only heard scare stories. That was why he had wanted to stay in Golmud for another week, until the snow melted. He believed that there was no way through it. But the snow was not bad. The road was fairly clear—anyway, two distinct ruts had been mashed into it by passing trucks. But they had created a ridge in the center of the road and this hard hump of snow and ice kept bumping and tossing the little car with its low clearance.
In the first passes, so narrow they were nearly always in shadow, there was ice. Mr. Fu took his time. He was a poor driver—that had been obvious in the first five minutes of driving with him—but the snow and ice slowed him and made him careful. The icy stretches looked dangerous, but by creeping along (and trying to ignore the precipitous drop into the ravine by the roadside), we managed. For miles there was slippery snow, but this too Mr. Fu negotiated. Two hours passed in this way. It was a lovely sunny day, and where the sun had struck it, some of the snow had melted. But we were climbing into the wind, and even this sun could not mask the fact that it was growing colder as we gained altitude.
In his terror, Mr. Fu did not speak a word for those hours, but his breathing—and his snorts and gasps—were like a monologue.
We passed the first range of mountains, and behind them—though it was cold—there was less snow than on the Golmud side. Mr. Fu began to increase his speed. Whenever he saw a dry patch of road he floored it and sped onward, slowing only when more snow or ice appeared. Twice he hit sudden frost heaves, and I was thrown out of my seat and bumped my head.
"Sorry!" Mr. Fu said, still speeding.
Most of the curves were so tight that Mr. Fu had no choice but to go slowly. And then I sipped tea from my thermos and passed cassettes to Miss Sun, who fed them into the machine. After a hundred miles we had finished with Brahms. I debated whether to hand her the Beethoven symphonies, as I listened to Mendelssohn. I drank green tea and looked at the sunny road and snowy peaks and listened to the music, and I congratulated myself on contriving this excellent way of going to Lhasa.
There was another frost heave.
"Sorry!"
He did not slow down. The road straightened, and he went even faster—about eighty, which seemed ridiculous for such a small car on such a narrow road. The only other traffic was trucks—big, rusted ones, loaded, with flapping tarpaulins and Tibetan drivers. Mr. Fu always leaned on his horn and passed them carelessly, not seeming to notice whether there was a curve ahead.
He was an awful driver. He could not have been driving long. He had probably gone to a state driving school and earned a certificate, and had been assigned to a Xining work unit. The driving gloves were merely an affectation. He ground the gears when he set off, he gave the thing too much gas, he steered jerkily, he went too fast; and he had what is undoubtedly the worst habit a driver can have—but one that is common in China: going downhill he always switched off the engine and put the gears into neutral, believing that he was saving gas.
I am not a retiring sort of person, and yet I said nothing. A person who is driving a car is in charge, and if you are a passenger you generally keep your mouth shut. I had an urge to say something, and yet I thought: It's going to be a long trip—no sense spoiling it at the outset with an argument. And I wanted to see just how bad a driver Mr. Fu was.
I soon found out.
He was rounding bends at such speed that I found myself clutching the door handle in order to prevent myself being thrown across the seat. I could not drink my tea without spilling it. He was going ninety—I could not tell whether the dial said kilometers or miles per hour, but did it matter? And yet if I said slow down, he would lose face, his pride would be hurt, and wasn't it true that he had gotten us through the snow? It was now about noon, with a dry road ahead. At this rate we would get to our first destination, the town of Amdo, before nightfall.