"It has recently snowed," Jinguo said. "That is not unusual. It often snows heavily in March here. And in the passes it snows all year. Foreign friends like snow!"
As if in welcome a flock of eight gray cranes gathered themselves together and made off, just ahead of the train, rising and still folding as they flew, like large mechanical bumbershoots blown sideways by the stiff wind.
Golmud was hardly a town. It was a dozen widely scattered low buildings, some radio antennas, a water tower. One of the few cars in town was Mr. Fu's ridiculous Galant. There were some buses, but they were the most punished-looking vehicles I had seen in China — and no wonder, for they toiled up and down the Tibetan Plateau.
"Snow," Mr. Fu said — his first word.
I had not expected this snow, and it was clear from his gloomy tone that neither had he. The snow lay thinly in the town, but behind the town it was deep and dramatic — blazing in the shadows of the mountain range.
We were still at Golmud Station. Mr. Fu had driven from Xining, and had met me. But he was very subdued in the car.
When I asked him how he was he did not reply directly. He said, "We cannot go to Lhasa tomorrow. Maybe the day after, or the day after that, or—"
I asked him why.
'The snow. It is everywhere — very deep," he said. He did not even glance at me. He was driving fast through the rutted Golmud streets — too fast, but I had seen him drive in Xining and I knew this to be normal. At the best of times he was a rather frantic driver. 'The snow is blocking the road."
"You are sure?"
"Yes."
"Did you see it?"
He laughed: Ha-ha! You idiot! "Look at it!"
He pointed out the window. But I was not looking at the snow. I noticed that he was wearing a pair of elegant driving gloves. He never took the wheel without donning them. They seemed as old-fashioned as spats or gaiters.
"Did anyone tell you that the road was blocked with snow?"
He did not reply, so that meant no. We continued this sparring. The snow was bad news — it glittered, looking as though it was there forever. But surely someone had a road report?
"Is there is a bus station in Golmud?"
He nodded. He hated my questions. He wanted to be in charge, and how could he be if I was asking all the questions? And he had so few answers.
"People say the road is bad. Look at the snow!"
"We will ask at the bus station. The bus drivers will know."
"First we go to the hotel," he said, trying to take command.
The hotel was another prisonlike place with cold corridors and squawks and odd hours. I had three cactuses in my room, and a calendar and two armchairs. But there were no curtains on the windows, and there was no hot water. "Later," they said. The lobby was wet and dirty from the mud that had been tracked in. An ornamental pond behind the hotel was filled with green ice, and the snow was a foot deep on the path to the restaurant. I asked about food. "Later," they said. Some of the rooms had six or eight bunk beds. Everyone inside wore a heavy coat and fur hat, against the cold. Why hadn't my cactus plants died? The hotel cost $9 for a double room, and $2 for food.
"Now we go to the bus station," I said.
Mr. Fu said nothing.
"We will ask someone about the snow."
I had been told that buses regularly plied between Golmud and Lhasa, especially now that that there were no flights — the air service to Tibet had been suspended. Surely one of these bus drivers would put us in the picture.
We drove to the bus station. On the way, I could see that Golmud was the ultimate Chinese frontier town, basically a military camp, with a few shops, a market and wide streets. There were very few buildings, but since they were not tall, they seemed less of a disfigurement. It was a place of pioneers — of volunteers who had come out in the 1950s, as they had in Xining. They had been encouraged by Mao to develop the poor and empty parts of China; and of course, Tibet had to be invaded and subdued, and that was impossible without reliable supply lines — settlements, roads, telegraph wires, barracks. First the surveyors and engineers came, then the railway people and the soldiers, and then the teachers and traders.
"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.