The Lady and the Panda (21 page)

That first night back, Harkness and Reib picked up their easy intimacy where they had left off in September. For the rest of her stay in Shanghai, Reib would visit constantly, often settling himself in, drinking whiskey sodas, and cuddling tiny Su-Lin. He never seemed to mind when the baby panda inevitably wet on his expensive trousers. “She has personality, this Baby,” he told Harkness.

Before he left that first night, Harkness could revel a bit in the fact that she had “broken all the rules” and admit that she was feeling like “a naughty child.” With a glowing fire, a good drink, dinner, and the most adorable baby panda nestled and sleeping nearby, it was a small, closed, happy world.

But, of course, not for long.

The outsiders started coming in that very night. And as
The New York Times
would later point out, “her real troubles… were just beginning.”

After feeding Su-Lin, Harkness fell into bed a little after eleven. Just after midnight, Baby woke her, whimpering with an urgency Harkness had not heard before. She comforted the agitated animal in her arms for an hour before giving up and frantically dialing Captain Mac's wife, Peggy, asking for a pediatrician. It simply didn't occur to her, she would report later, to call a veterinarian. At first, a puzzled Dr. Francis Nance, or “Frick” as he was known here, asked just what a baby “Pandor” was. Within a half hour, the young physician was at the Palace Hotel, seeing for himself.

Nance pressed a stethoscope to Baby's chest, listening to his heart, then took his temperature, having no way of knowing what normal should be for this rare species. Nonetheless, after a few gentle thumps of the belly, Nance diagnosed a simple case of colic, treating Su-Lin with a combination of peppermint drops in water and a warm-water enema. It seemed to do the trick. The panda grew stronger every day, with his weight rising shortly to four pounds, eight ounces. Nance went home that night to consult a number of references, dialing Harkness later with a new formula for the baby's feeding, which consisted of powdered milk, corn syrup, and cod liver oil.

The next day, Harkness sent a one-word telegram to her dear friend Hazel Perkins: “SUCCESS.” She would shortly afterward also begin a cable communication with the Bronx Zoo.

Reib held a lunch that day for her and Su-Lin. And in the afternoon Peggy McCleskey, along with a gaggle of other friends, dropped in. Peggy, who had a new baby herself, provided some practical mothering advice for Harkness. Reib, of all people, would inadvertently stumble upon some too. At a regular checkup within days of the panda's arrival, Reib's doctor noted a rash on his legs formed in reaction to Su-Lin's urine. The doctor wasn't terribly worried about Reib, but felt that any urine that would cause such inflammation on contact was too acidic, so he recommended that Baby be bottle-fed water as well as formula.

This is the way it went for the next two weeks. That Harkness managed all the while to stay out of the press and under the radar was nothing short of miraculous. She was the hush-hush toast of the town, traipsing from one party to the next, always lugging the rarest animal in the world with her, causing a stir wherever she went. Decked out in her best clothes, throwing windows open for Baby's comfort as she strode through each room, she made quite a sight. In the mountains, she had worried about keeping Su-Lin warm; in Shanghai, she assumed that this high-elevation animal needed as much cold fresh air as was possible. In the town that lived to hobnob, the panda was invited to lunches, dinners, and even to tea. His popularity skyrocketed. “I don't suppose that any animal
ever before had such a social career as Su Lin did in Shanghai,” Harkness wrote.

Su-Lin's circle would not be wide enough, however, to include Floyd Tangier Smith, who had heard about Harkness's success from mutual friends at the Race Club. He and Elizabeth decided the explorer must be avoiding them, though they weren't sure why.

AS USUAL, MEN HOVERED
around Harkness. Two chums she had made in Shanghai before her expedition, both young businessmen, were by her side constantly. They became Su-Lin's amahs, or nursemaids—Floyd James, or “Jimmy,” an old pal of Bill Harkness's, and Jack Young's friend Fritz Hardenbrooke. Hardenbrooke, a Kodak employee, even abandoned his own Shanghai home for a time, renting a room on Harkness's floor to be closer at hand. He helped with panda-rearing chores and entertained Harkness with stories of his travels in Tibet.

Su-Lin's two “amahs,” or nursemaids: the Shanghai businessmen Fritz Hardenbrooke and Floyd James.
COURTESY MARY LOBISCO

Given Harkness's inner circle, it wasn't surprising when she observed that Su-Lin was especially partial to men. But some of the males coming by were unwelcome. One by one, starting on her first full day back in Shanghai, reporters from the many English-language newspapers in town, as well as correspondents for papers back home, began to nose around. In each case, Harkness would explain her predicament, asking for an embargo on stories until the day she was leaving. In return, she promised she would grant lengthy interviews and photo sessions on the day before her departure.

One correspondent, perhaps Hallett Abend of
The New York Times,
even arranged a meeting for Harkness with “an influential person ranking high in the affairs of China's government” so that she could find her way out of China despite the fact that she had no official permits. The powerful adviser who told her to continue with her current strategy of remaining under the radar was never named. But years later, Captain Mac's wife, Peggy, would remember that Ambassador Trusler himself had secretively stepped in to help.

The earliest liner Harkness could book was the
Empress of Russia,
set to sail on Saturday morning, November 28, at seven, meaning she would spend Thanksgiving in Shanghai. As the holiday approached, newspapers were filled with ads for turkeys, American potatoes, pork pies and cheeses, celery and “rutabagas from home.”

For the successful explorer, all was humming along smoothly. But, of course, the worst wrecks occur when everything is in high gear. First, she came down with the flu, which she blamed on all those open windows but which was more likely due to her exhaustion and relentless partying. She was not only sick but desperately in need of sleep, having continuously stayed up round the clock socializing and then tending to Baby, who needed to be fed or comforted at all hours. Harkness was so sapped physically that she uncharacteristically burst into tears on a few occasions. Once, in a dark moment, when she was utterly alone, she revealed, “I had wished many times that the Commander had come on to Shanghai.”

She also endured pangs of great guilt. She indulged the panda at every whimper. She gave up her time, her clothes, and her freedom for him, all the while worrying that the little innocent animal wanted something she had robbed him of, and that he was “lonesome” for his mother. Long afterward, she would still be consumed by the thought of the mother panda returning to find her baby gone. She became determined to somehow make up for that loss.

There was something smaller to feel sorry over too. A piece of film had stuck in the shutter of Harkness's Leica, and none of the seven hundred pictures from the mountains could be developed. There would be no photographs of Su-Lin's capture.

In the meantime, Harkness wanted to come clean with officials about Su-Lin, though without having to forfeit Baby. She was wrestling with that issue, when, on Thanksgiving Day, November 26, she went to the home of a staunch ally who would become one of the most influential figures in her life. Arthur de Carle Sowerby was the dean of foreign naturalists in Shanghai. A prolific writer and field zoologist, with an interest in art, literature, and politics, Sowerby owned, edited, and wrote a good deal of a well-respected monthly magazine called
The China Journal.
On this day, as his American wife oversaw a big holiday dinner, he must have been filled with joy to sit holding the most sought-after animal in the world.

The gray-haired naturalist came to know Harkness and the remarkable little animal she had brought to his doorstep. He thought it “eminently fitting” that Harkness had named the panda after Su-Lin Young. Not only was she considered the first and only Chinese woman explorer, but Sowerby knew her personally from her reporting work for his journal. He was thrilled to examine up close the mysterious little panda, who had begun opening his eyes. And, as accomplished as Sowerby was himself, he was very impressed with Harkness, referring to her as “the courageous lady explorer.”

In the December issue of
The China Journal,
he would write a long article about her success. “The story of this attractive young American woman's ‘great adventure’ is a thrilling one. In fact, it is an epic in the
history of travel and exploration, reflecting the greatest credit upon everybody concerned, including, of course, the heroine herself; her faithful and devoted assistant Quentin Young, youthful Chinese explorer and brother of Jack T. Young.” The concern that was considered insurmountable, Sowerby wrote, was “the problem of feeding it and keeping it alive after it had been captured.” For now, Su-Lin was thriving on Dr. Nance's baby-panda formula.

The next day was scheduled to be Harkness's last in Shanghai. She would send her luggage ahead during the daylight hours, then board the
Empress of Russia
at about midnight—settling in overnight for the 7
A.M.
departure time on the 28th. There was much to be done, for this was the scheduled press payback day, when Harkness had to honor her pledge to all the patient reporters, and she had to manage it all without Dan Reib, who was suffering from the flu that she had been battling for days. With Reib out of commission, Hardenbrooke stepped in to assist.

As promised, all the reporters were invited to her hotel room for interviews and pictures. Harkness made a dramatic impression. When the door was thrown open, she stood, fit and slender, in good color from her expedition, wearing a striking purple, embroidered “mandarin gown,” with Tibetan fur boots. As usual, there was the shiny black hair pulled straight back, the deep voice, and the irresistible charm. On this day, no little flu could keep her down. She held court with the flow of eager press, answering questions with aplomb. All the reporters were under her spell.

Of the expedition, the
North China Daily News
reporter asked, “Did it cost much?”

“Everything I had,” the adventurer responded. “But I decided to have a final fling and back my last cent on the million to one chance that the expedition would be a success and that we'd either shoot or capture a panda.”

She described the adventure as the reporters furiously scribbled down every last detail. The throng wanted to know about the baby panda, who was sleeping in his wicker basket in the corner. Soon enough, as one reporter said, “a queer noise” came from it. Harkness ordered hot
water from room service to heat the formula, then brought the squawking baby out. “When the bottle finally arrived, Su-Lin devoured the contents as rapidly as it could suck it out the nipple top,” reported the
China Press.
Harkness flopped the black-and-white bundle of fur onto her shoulder, going through the motions of burping a baby. All the while flashbulbs went off. She may have reveled in the cheery company of the reporters, but Harkness never mugged for the cameras. She didn't seem the least bit concerned about having an attractive picture taken of herself. Of all the thousands of shots that would be snapped over the next months, very few show much of Harkness's face—that view seemed always reserved for Baby.

She told them that she owed her success to Quentin Young, and that he had planned the whole trip, with her financing. Sowerby noted her generosity in
The China Journal:
“Her praise for the way he carried out his part of the programme was unstinted.”

Later that evening, with the reporters gone and the luggage sent ahead to the ship, Harkness sat down before the fire to a quiet meal with Hardenbrooke.

At close to midnight, they headed out, taking rickshaws down the Bund, then boarding a tender that would motor passengers to the anchored
Empress of Russia.
Baby rested in his wicker basket through it all. Rocking gently in the little boat, Harkness felt relieved that she was finally on her way back to the United States.

But before the launch could depart, Chinese Maritime Customs officials suddenly appeared, asking her if she was Mrs. Harkness, and if she had a panda. When she replied in the affirmative, one of the officials said, “We are sorry to detain you, but you must come with us to the Customs shed. You must bring your panda, too.”

She had pulled together an expedition in just a few months. She had made it out of Shanghai, past Chongqing, through Chengdu, up a great mountain chain, and back. She had kept the baby alive here in this teeming city. Now, within sight of the great ship she was booked on, everything threatened to go bust.

Powerless, Harkness and Hardenbrooke lugged the wicker basket between
them, following the officials to a two-story customs examination shed across the street from the Customs House. Temperatures in the unheated building dipped into the thirties, and icy gusts cut across the surface of the river. Harkness was stopped, she was told, because she did not have a permit to carry a live animal out of the country. Saturday's edition of
The New York Times
would explain, “The customs commissioner of Shanghai had issued special instructions to inspectors to be on the lookout for the tiny animal. They detained it on the grounds that certain necessary formalities had not been complied with.”
The Times
called this “a technical charge.”