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My only love, for the past 10 years, has been the English language and the literature of the 19th century. I studied it at university, and I fell in love with the works of Anthony Trollope. I have read all his novels, all in English. My favorite is The Way We Live Now. And yes, I love Phineas Finn—the man and the books. But here in Kuytun, no one knows Trollope. It is a joke to imagine that anyone might. No one knows English. I believe I am the only person in the entire town who speaks English. And because of this I have a terrible feeling of sadness—that if I never speak English anymore, if I never talk to anyone about English literature, then I will lose it all one day. I worry about this very much.
And then some months ago the international train service started. When I heard the news I thought to myself: perhaps someone who speaks English will ride on this train. And so I have begun a routine. The new train comes through two times a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The station is about 19 kilometers from where I live. So each Tuesday and Thursday morning I cycle to the station and wait for the train—and (I have no pride!) I tap on the windows asking the people inside if perhaps they speak English. Sometimes there is a foreign worker who speaks a few words. Sometimes there is a Chinese man who knows a little. But usually I have little luck. For all of these past six months I have heard maybe 50 words in total—and I tell you frankly I have been thinking of abandoning this quest.
But then today I cycled down, and saw this tall man speaking to the train driver—and I asked if he spoke English.
And you turned around, and not only did you speak English but you were English, and then I asked about Trollope, and you knew him, and we spoke of him, and it was just unbelievable, just wonderful, just unimaginably wonderful. Today I think has been one of the best days of my life—and all I ask now is that you and I will write each other, and that you can help keep me from losing my grasp of English here, and tell me things about Trollope and other writers whom the two of us enjoy so much."
I wrote back, of course, and she replied. I sent her some books, and then we kept in touch regularly. A year later I flew to Xi'an, and she came there by train, and I met her and Henry—who speaks English too—and for whom his mother had asked me to bring a book of Kipling's verses. We wrote each other for several years after that. I gave her an English name, Laura; and as Laura Xing she eventually managed to defend successfully a Ph.D. thesis at the University of Xi'an—not on Trollope as it happens, but on Victorian cookery. So now she is Dr. Xing. Dr. Laura Xing.
And then, in the autumn of 1997, a few months after Hong Kong had reverted to Chinese rule and I was packing up to leave the territory and make a new life in America, she stopped writing. There was neither warning nor explanation. Letters sent to her address were returned without remark. When I telephoned, a recording-in both English and Chinese—said simply and brusquely: "The number you are calling does not exist."
I have no idea what happened to her. I sometimes wonder if she was officially reprimanded—as a party official's wife—for her dealings with a foreigner. I wonder, too, whether she and her husband—for whom she had precious few kind words—separated, or remained together. I have no way of knowing now if she stayed in Kuytun, and if she continued to cycle to the railway station twice a week to see if there were any other passengers on the Almaty express who spoke English and who might know a little of 19th century books.
To this day, all that I know for certain came from a single message she left on my answering machine. She was very excited, she said. She had never been abroad before, but now she had permission and a passport, and she was telephoning from the airport in Beijing—on her way to a conference in Paris. The Kuytun Hydroponics Plant made a special kind of tomato sauce, her message said, and she was going to exhibit a sample at an international food fair.
And then my tape ran out. She never called me back. She never called from France, nor were any of my further letters or telephone calls returned. That was three years ago. Whatever happened to Xing Yongzhen, Anthony Trollope's greatest admirer in the Taklimakan Desert, remains an enduring mystery.
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