To the Ends of the Earth

Mr. Tian was twenty-seven, a graduate of Harbin University. There was humor in the way he moved. He was self-assured. He didn’t fuss. He was patient. He was frank. I liked him for these qualities. The fact that he was incompetent did not matter very much. Langxiang was a day’s journey by train—north, into the snow. He seemed an easy companion and I did not think he would get in my way.

He had no bag. He may have had a toothbrush in his pocket, where he kept his woolly cap and his misshapen gloves. He was completely portable, without any impedimenta. He was an extreme example of Chinese austerity. He slept in his long johns and wore his coat to meals. He rarely washed. Being Chinese he did not have to shave. He seemed to have no possessions at all. He was like a desert Bedouin. This fascinated me, too.

The train pulled in, steaming and gasping, just as the sun came up. It had come from Dalian, six hundred miles away, and it stopped everywhere. So it was sensationally littered with garbage—peanut shells, apple cores, chewed chicken bones, orange peel, and greasy paper. It was very dirty and it was so cold inside that the spit had frozen on the floor into misshapen yellow-green medallions of ice. The covering between each coach was a snow tunnel, the frost on the windows was an inch thick, the doors had no locks and so they banged and thumped as a freezing draft rushed through the carriages. It was the Heilongjiang experience: I crept in out of the cold and inside I felt even colder. I found a small space and sat hunched over like everyone else, with my hat and gloves on. I was reading Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time and I scribbled on the flyleaf:

In the provinces every train is like a troop train. This is like one returning from the front, with the sick and wounded.

Even with three pairs of socks and thermal-lined boots my feet were cold; nor did I feel particularly cozy in my heavy sweater, Mongolian sheepskin vest, and leather coat. I felt like an idiot in my hat and fleece-lined mittens, but it annoyed me that I was still cold, or at least not warm. How I longed for the summer trains of the south and the sweltering trip on the Iron Rooster when I had lounged in my blue pajamas.

Mr. Tian said, “You come from which city in the States?”

“Near Boston.”

“Lexington is near Boston,” Mr. Tian said.

“How did you know that?”

“I studied American history in middle school. All Chinese study it.”

“So you know about our war of liberation, Mr. Tian?”

“Yes. There was also a Paul who was very important.”

“Paul Revere.”

“Exactly,” Mr. Tian said. “He told the peasants that the British were coming.”

“Not just the peasants. He told everyone—the peasants, the landlords, the capitalist-roaders, the stinking ninth category of intellectuals, the minorities, and the slaves.”

“I think you’re joking, especially about the slaves.”

“No. Some of the slaves fought on the British side. They were promised their freedom if the British won. After the British surrendered these blacks were sent to Canada.”

“I didn’t read about that,” Mr. Tian said, as the door blew open.

“I’m cold,” I said.

“I’m too hot,” Mr. Tian said.

The cold put me to sleep. I was wakened later by Mr. Tian, who asked me whether I wanted to have breakfast. I thought some food might warm me up so I said yes.

There was frost on the dining-car windows and ice on the dining-car floor, and a bottle of water on my table had frozen and burst. My fingers were too cold to hold any chopsticks. I hunched over with my hands up my sleeves.

“What food do they have?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want noodles?” I asked.

“Anything but noodles,” Mr. Tian said.

The waiter brought us cold noodles, cold pickled onions, diced Spam, which looked like a shredded beach toy, and cold but very tasty black fungus—a specialty of the province. Mr. Tian ate his noodles. It was the Chinese way. Even if it was not to your taste, when there was nothing else on the menu you ate it.

After several hours of crossing flat snowfields this train entered a mountainous region. The settlements were small—three or four short rows of bungalows, some of brick and some of mud and logs. They were the simplest slant-roofed dwellings and looked like the sort of houses that children draw in the first grade, with a narrow door and a single window and a blunt chimney with a screw of smoke coming out of it.