The Lady and the Panda (20 page)

Nightfall again brought a drop in temperature. Inside the nowfamiliar ghost temple, before a great roaring fire, Young and Harkness bundled close together beneath a single wool blanket. After her days in the mountains, she said, the ghost temple now seemed “truly palatial.” There was a mound of mail, retrieved from the local postmaster, which they read in the flickering light.

Their time together was coming to an end.

That evening, as usual, Harkness brought Su-Lin into her sleeping bag. She kept Baby close to her whenever possible, despite his sharp claws, which often cut her. A vigilant mother, constantly sterilizing in boiling water the things the panda would touch, she also had given up most of her remaining clothes to provide soft bedding. Harkness's efforts were working, for Su-Lin was thriving.

In the morning, everything was a little out of sorts, as often happens when separations are looming. Here in Wenchuan they had their first taste of the tremendous curiosity the rare animal would arouse around the world. Harkness had the protective urge that comes to most new mothers, yet she understood the interest. While she never minded crowds gathering to watch her eat, or brush her teeth, or type, or even bathe, she would not allow throngs of people to disturb the sleeping panda—though keeping them at bay was hard work.

Added to that, Young was cajoled into leaving her to attend a feast held by Smith's hired hunter, Wang. In Young's absence, Harkness grew anxious, even beginning to believe that Wang was plotting to detain them.

When Young returned, their departure was made all the more chaotic by two bungling porters who slowed them down over the course of the day and had to be fired by the evening. For the journey to Guanxian, it was Harkness, Young, four hunters, four porters, and one shaggy brown Tibetan pony. Over two cool, crisp days, they hiked hard and slept in
smaller villages, avoiding the attention that would come in larger ones. To that end, they stopped just short of busy Guanxian, sending one of the men ahead with a message to be telephoned to Cavaliere asking that he send his car for them the next day at noon.

As rough as the travel was, and as uncomfortable and dirty as the inns could be, Harkness was melancholy as she watched the last moments of her happy expedition slip away. She would come back to China, she knew, but these had been the happiest days of her life and it was hard to let go. Her success in proving wrong all those patronizing people in Shanghai and New York would seem so much smaller a contentment than that of a hard march, of picking herself up when she thought she couldn't walk another mile and walking two more miles, of watching the sun burn away the fog from a snowy peak, of sharing a good laugh over a cup of hot wine. Life here had been the appreciation of a single perfect egg, of experiencing so completely the fullness of a moment that it left no room for longing.

It would be impossible to say goodbye to Quentin Young, on this, her last evening alone with him. Even if they had wanted it once they were back in Shanghai or New York, a relationship would be nearly impossible. That she had found “complete happiness” here with him, that this new world had so captivated her—how could she put these feelings into words? Nothing she said could convey things properly. Instead, Harkness pressed a gold ring into Young's hand. It was her own wedding band, the circle representing eternity; the gold, precious love. She said that it was for him to give to Diana Chen. And with it, she wished them great happiness. The gift was its own paradox, at once selfless and self-centered. It was a generous sacrifice, but it would always place her between the two.

At first light on November 16, they were up, dressed in clean clothes, and headed for Guanxian.

SHORTLY BEFORE NOON
, in the center of Guanxian's marketplace, a missionary from Chicago named Miss Jephson was helping a visiting British aristocrat, Lady Dorothea Hosie, haggle over the price of a pair of blue-and-white
straw sandals. Lady Hosie was the daughter of a well-known China expert at Oxford and the widow of Sir Alexander Hosie, part of the diplomatic service in China, and her arrival in China had been much reported on.

Bumping smack into each other, the adventurer and the blue blood would have just the kind of high-profile meeting Harkness had been hoping to avoid, but as with everything else on this trip, it would turn out to be a stroke of luck. The chance encounter was recorded in a photograph which, when reproduced in the
North China Daily News,
later would provide evidence for an embattled Harkness.

The very British Lady Hosie, wearing a woman's fedora, button-down shirt, tie, and cardigan, was bowled over by what a romantic figure Harkness cut, and recounted the momentous meeting in her book,
Brave New China:

Harkness introduced herself to Lady Hosie, jokingly apologizing for having missed her recent lecture on Chinese art. Lady Hosie reported that the American consul had directed her to “keep a weather eye open” for the bold explorer, so she was glad to see Harkness safe.

Lady Hosie then noted Young standing behind Harkness in his khaki shorts and open shirt. He too carried a charged aura about him, seeming big and full of cheer. In her book she called him “Wong,” and said incorrectly that he was from Hawaii. In the Western press, he would continue to be a character overlooked or carelessly and inaccurately portrayed, despite Harkness's efforts.

Young and Harkness asked Lady Hosie if she would like to be the first Englishwoman to see a baby panda. Delighted, Lady Hosie gathered up the missionary and another friend for the visit.

The women were brought to an inn, where Su-Lin was barricaded with the hunters. “We bent over the white-furred baby lying asleep at the bottom of a bushel-basket lined with Mrs. Harkness's sheepskin coat,” Lady Hosie wrote. “But he had just had a drink of warm milk from a bottle and was disinclined to open his sleepy eyes with their circle of black fur.”

As soon as the women left, the dashing Cavaliere blew into town with great fanfare. His caravan of two big motorcars, honking furiously, parted the startled crowd. Looking over at him, Harkness was amused to see that he had brought not one but two Chinese generals along for the ride.

When he came to a stop, Cavaliere took Harkness's hand in his own and kissed it. “Madame,” he addressed her formally, “I know very little about exploration, but enough to know that only a woman would have taken care of that baby Panda as you have done.”

She had to admit to herself that he might just be right. Perhaps she had succeeded not despite being a woman, but because of it. Once again, everything had gracefully and poetically been turned on its ear.

Back to her negotiating at the marketplace, Lady Hosie glanced up in time to see “Mrs. Harkness flash by in the postmaster's car. She waved her hand,” the Englishwoman would recall, “and we knew the precious little animal from the wilds was in its basket at her feet.”

Good luck again was riding with Harkness. Waiting back at Cavaliere's compound was the rangy, sandy-haired American pilot she had met before. He was spending the night and set to return to Shanghai the very next morning. James Ray McCleskey, or “Captain Mac,” of the CNAC said he was eager to have Harkness and Su-Lin join him for the twelvehour flight. There was a prohibition against passengers' bringing animals aboard, but Captain Mac assured Harkness it could be worked out. “Tell you what, I'll carry her as pidgin cargo in the control room,” he said, using the local jargon for contraband.

Whatever trepidation Harkness had about leaving her mountain refuge was tossed aside that evening as Cavaliere uncorked his finest
sparkling burgundy and the gathered crowd offered one toast after another. Ruth Harkness felt it was all predestined—as a character out of a Lin Yutang novel believed, “Men contrive, but the gods decide.”

The next morning, November 17, Harkness and Su-Lin were aboard a gleaming Douglas fourteen-passenger airplane, riding, she said, swift wings over an ancient land. The panda traveled in the cockpit with the all-American Captain Mac, while Harkness sat in the passenger section, the lone woman and only westerner among all the Chinese men, some in Western suits and others in traditional Chinese robes.

Because the planes of the CNAC often hugged the ground, snaking their way between the cliffs that box in huge sections of the Yangtze, Harkness was able to see the junks along the river—she could even make out the straining forms of the coolies who at various points pulled the boats from shore. Mile upon mile she watched this great land she had come to love slip by beneath her. The lady explorer was reversing her route by air, gliding over land and water, each inch of which had been hard won on her way out. As much as she hadn't wanted to leave, she now found herself willing the plane to go faster, back to the world she had so joyfully left behind.

Harkness's restlessness only grew when foul conditions turned them back near Hankou. November marked the start of bad flying weather in China, and after being buffeted by turbulence, they had to put down to wait out the front. She could only sit and ruminate as time ticked by.

Hours before, everything had been so rushed. Her goodbyes that morning in Chengdu were fleeting, with barely enough time to gulp a cup of coffee in Cavaliere's great dining room and ready the little panda for the journey to Shanghai. Thoughtfully, Quentin Young had prepared all the formula she would need for the long flight. In a flash then, she had found herself at the muddy Chengdu airfield, at the first light of day, waving farewell to Young and wondering when and under what circumstances she would see him again.

T
HE SOUND OF DRONING ENGINES
cut through the nighttime fog and pelting rain that had enveloped Shanghai, and in the skies over the rustic, muddy Lunghwa Airdrome, the lights of the Douglas plane emerged from cloud. Outside the CNAC passenger terminal, three people stood waiting for Ruth Harkness's arrival: Dan Reib, as expected, but also reporter Woo Kyatang, of the
China Press,
and his photographer.

When the plane touched down, Reib rushed up to his American friend, warning her of the media's presence. “Is the baby here?” he asked. According to Kyatang's account, Harkness looked at Reib, nodded, then pointed toward a wicker basket. Captain Mac, who had draped a raincoat over Su-Lin, was carrying him out toward Reib's car. Intercepting Harkness as she raced for the waiting room, the vigilant Kyatang asked her if, indeed, she had a giant panda in her possession. Harkness responded, “No. You must have made a mistake. Panda? What is a panda?”

She had taken such great pains to keep a low profile that she was now perplexed by the presence of the reporter. How could he have been tipped off? What Harkness didn't know was that as she flew eastward
from Chengdu to Shanghai, an Associated Press report was being transmitted halfway around the world, tapped out on teletype machines in every newspaper office across the United States:

The flashed message was,
Time
magazine would note, “tantalizing to every zoologist in the world.” As Harkness later realized, her friends in America heard the news of her success before those in Shanghai.

It was odd that the entire press corps of this city hadn't figured things out in time to come here, but still, the two representatives who had shown up were steadfast in their pursuit. Harkness was unsure what her status with the government would be now that she had a giant panda, and the last thing she wanted was publicity. Thinking quickly, she cut a deal with Kyatang. “After considerable persuasion,” he wrote much later, “Mrs. Harkness finally consented to give some information regarding her trip and how she captured the only living panda in captivity.” She would do this only on the night before she sailed back to the United States, and “on the condition that nothing was said in the papers about her arrival until that time.” She wanted to make sure that she was safely plying the waters of the East China Sea when the story appeared.

Once the reporter agreed, Harkness collapsed into Reib's waiting car. Since the airport, surrounded by cabbage farms, stood at the far outskirts of the city, they had a long trip ahead. But there was much to discuss as Reib, Harkness, and Baby traveled the sodden, rutted paths, which eventually turned into the slick, nighttime streets of Shanghai proper. The return to the Palace Hotel felt like a homecoming. Warmed by the glow of a fire in the grate, Harkness shared supper and drinks with Reib.

Safe and cozy as she felt, Harkness knew she was in a jam—the fact that she had not applied for or received official scientific permissions for her outing would undermine her now that she intended to leave the country with this treasure. The two dear friends decided that the first priority must be secrecy. But, of course, this was Shanghai, the town in which it seemed every nationality in the world had convened for the purpose of gossip. It would have to be an open secret, with just the right people knowing. Against the odds, they pulled it off.

Shanghai was ruled by foreigners, particularly those in big business. As one of the heads of Standard Oil Company of New York, Reib had the connections in Shanghai to quietly secure Harkness the proper paperwork.