The Lady and the Panda (50 page)

Authors: Vicki Croke

BOOK: The Lady and the Panda

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195
After a brief stop
“Aramis Due To-Day,”
South China Morning Post,
24 Aug. 1937, 195
Yet she turned
Harkness to Perkins, 15 Sept. 1937.

195
She had several letters
Harkness to Pierce and Perkins, 25 Aug. 1937.

195
Right away in Saigon
Ibid., 1 Sept. 1937.

196
She was drawn
Robert J. Casey, “Four Faces of Siva: The Mystery of Angkor,”
National Geographic,
Sept. 1928.

197
The great place
W. Robert Moore, “Along the Old Mandarin Road of Indo- China,”
National Geographic,
Aug. 1931.

197
Spreading out
Barry Zwick, “Destination: Cambodia,”
Los Angeles Times,
23 Mar. 2003.

197
The stone was known
Moore, “Old Mandarin Road.”

197
“funny little train”
Harkness to Perkins, 2 Sept. 1937.

197
“an oasis”
Maynard Owen Williams, “By Motor Trail Across French Indo- China,”
National Geographic,
Oct. 1935.

197
But the passing scenes
Harkness to Perkins, 2 Sept. 1937.

198
Her feelings of general foreboding
Ibid., 6 Sept. 1937; On 4 Sept. 1937, Harkness wrote in detail of a train wreck in Vietnam in a dispatch she hoped would be published back home:

The brave little engine that screamed and whistled so courageously all of last night thru the jungle has been defeated—by the jungle. Her lights are twisted and buried in mud; her smoke stack is wreathed in twisted lianas, her little nose peers out from the fallen bamboo and bananas. She leans at a crazy but almost debonair angle, her wheels buried deep in mud; her whole expression is almost a malicious “I told you so.” Even the little engine knows that the jungle is hard to defeat.

Ahead is just the narrow line of steel tracks thru endless green; to the left steep wet green shooting abruptly upward, the red dripping earth torn up by the landslide is a raw wound in the hillside. From my compartment window the other side offers masses of ragged banana trees whose roots are washed by the Fleuve Rouge—it is brick red—that churns by in full flood, the muddy reddish color broken by masses of driftwood and debris. And then jungle, jungle. Low hills with masses of steamy clouds settling at their feet as if too heavy or too tired to rise again. Or perhaps beaten down by the straight heavy rain that covers the train, the jungle and the river with a gray curtain.

There was only a series of jerking movements at five o'clock this morning. That had been going on all night so I merely turned over and went to sleep. We were to have changed trains at Lao Kay at six o'clock this morning, so it wasn't until I was up and dressed that I knew we were wrecked. I found someone who spoke English (I am
the only American on this train, the rest are Colonial French, Annamite, Chinese or Tonkinese) and we walked up ahead to look at our engine in the ignominious defeat. Monsieur le Directeur of this line who is also making the journey stood in his bedroom slippers, wrapped in a raincoat, sadly shaking his head. “Ah Madame,” he said as I approached, “we may be here indefinitely; the only diversion here would be tigre hunting.” He waved his arms in a vague Gallic gesture. “There are plenty here in this jungle.”

So I am here on a silly little train deep in the jungle, for how long I do not know. The situation is somewhat complicated by the fact that there is no dining car. I have had for my breakfast a glass of beer, but food there is not. Novelists and people out here are fond of saying “Anything can happen in the East” and one does find oneself in fantastic situations at times.

198
“a night which I shall”
Harkness, 4 Sept. dispatch.

198
A certain blackness
Ibid.

198
a fancy Michelin train
Harkness to Perkins, 6 Sept. 1937.

199
She arrived at the hotel
Ibid.

199
She was alone
Ibid., 6 and 10 Sept. 1937.

199
Smoking and drinking
Harkness to Perkins, 6 Sept. 1937.

201
nimble little Stinsons
Harkness to Perkins, 10 Sept. 1937; 7 Oct. description lists five passengers on her Stinson to Chengdu.

201
Things were jumbled
Telegram, Edward H. Bean to Ruth Harkness, 9 Sept. 1937.

201
In fact, matters weren't very good
Tuchman,
Stilwell
, p. 172.

201
While Jones gladly pledged
Harkness to Perkins, 10 Sept. 1937.

201
In fact, while she thought
Ruth Harkness to Hazel Perkins, 1 Dec. 1937.

201
her departure date from Shanghai
Mrs. Robert McCombs to Brookfield Zoo—“Dear Sirs”—8 Sept. 1937.

202
Hazel Perkins had wired
Telegram, Hazel Perkins to Edward Bean, 9 Sept. 1937, Brookfield Zoo archives.

202
Harkness received Perkie's
Telegram, Edward Bean to Hazel Perkins, 9 Sept. 1937.

202
She found that he
“Study Mystery of Su-Lin's Death,”
Chicago Daily Tribune,
2 Apr. 1938.

202
“I really got it”
Harkness to Perkins, 10 Sept. 1937.

202
“For the first time in months”
Ibid.

202
She said her roundabout route
Ibid.

202
Later to the Beans in Chicago
Harkness to Edward Bean and family, 24 Sept. 1937, Brookfield Zoo archives.

203
Chengdu was yet another
Harkness to Perkins, 15 Sept. 1937.

203
It contained a massive bed
Harkness to Perkins, 5 Oct. 1937.

203
She had been trying
Tuchman,
Stilwell,
p. 63.

204
If it were possible
Harkness to Perkins, 24 Sept. 1937.

204
“Kay God dams”
Ibid.

204
“sun helmet”
Ruth Harkness, “Our correspondent in China,” unpublished dispatch, 7 Oct. 1937.

205
“I find myself sunk”
Harkness to Perkins, 5 Oct. 1937.

205
She had her very best
Harkness to Edward Bean and family, 24 Sept. 1937.

205
Cavaliere uncorked a bottle
Harkness to Perkins, 18 Oct. 1937.

205
In part too
Full name taken from back of photo in Ruth Harkness family archive. It reads: “Wang Whai Hsin my one servant.”

205
Still, by muddling through
“Second Baby Giant Panda Caught Alive Arrives Here,”
China Press,
14 Jan. 1938, p. 1.

205
Harkness so indulged
Harkness to Perkins, 5 Oct. 1937.

207
But as weeks passed
Harkness to Perkins, 24 Sept. 1937.

CHAPTER 11: HIGH-ALTITUDE HELL

209
The Face of the autumn moon freezes Poems of the Late T'ang,
trans. and with an introduction by A. C. Graham (Middlesex, Eng.: Penguin Books, 1965; reprint 1970), p. 68.

209
A miserable, drenching rain
Harkness to Perkins, 10 Oct. 1937.

209
She and Wang
“New Trip Planned by Mrs. Harkness,”
New York Times,
27 Feb. 1938, says there were ten porters and “squads of carrying porters.”

210
Pulling the page
Harkness to Perkins, 10 Oct. 1937.

210
Many friends called
Ibid., 18 Oct. 1937.

210
One night, a familiar hunter
Harkness to Perkins, 10 Oct. 1937.

210
As a staging area
“Panda Hunter Tells Story of Patient Quest,”
Chicago Sunday Tribune,
20 Feb. 1938.

210
Here Harkness and Wang
Harkness to Perkins, 15 Nov. 1937.

210
“no bigger than a boy”
Harkness, “In a Tibetan Lamasery,” p. 10.

210
Seeing him now
Harkness to Perkins, 15 Nov. 1937.

211
In the shadow
Harkness to Perkins, 5 Nov. 1937.

211
Set against a stubbled
Harkness to Perkins, 15 Nov. 1937.

211
They scrambled up
Harkness, “In a Tibetan Lamasery,” p. 58.

211
There were battered
Harkness,
Lady and the Panda
, p. 159.

211
“ancient, spicy odor”
Harkness, “In a Tibetan Lamasery,” p. 10.

212
The adventurer
Ibid.

212
A small terrace
“New Trip Planned.”

212
Containing a small
Harkness, “In a Tibetan Lamasery,” p. 10.

212
Harkness rummaged
Harkness to Perkins, 24 Oct. 1937.

212
She would decorate
Harkness to Perkins, 15 Nov. 1937.

213
As night fell
Harkness,
Lady and the Panda,
p. 159.

213
Some days Tibetan
Harkness to Perkins, 27 Oct. 1937.

213
Often they came to sell food
Harkness “In a Tibetan Lamasery,” p. 57.

213
Sometimes people would hike
Harkness to Perkins, 5 Nov. 1937.

213
Through it all, a surprising number
Harkness to Pierce, 10 Dec. 1937; and Harkness, “In a Tibetan Lamasery,” p. 10.

213
“They come, lift up
Harkness to Pierce, 10 Dec. 1937.

213
The people were achingly poor
Harkness, “In a Tibetan Lamasery,” p. 57.

214
An opium addict
Harkness to Perkins, 15 Nov. 1937.

214
Harkness spent time
Per Kvaerne, professor of the history of religions and Tibetology, University of Oslo, author of
The Bon Religion of Tibet,
e-mail correspondence with author, May 2004.

214
Lying among
Harkness,
Lady and the Panda,
p. 159.

214
There might be a serene
Schell,
Virtual Tibet
, p. 20.

214
Harkness loved these
Three of these cards archived by Linda Ash. One card bears a note in Harkness's handwriting, above and below the prayer: “November 1937/The Ruined Castle/Tsaopo”—and below, “Tibetan Border/China.”

215
Sometimes she would
Harkness, “In a Tibetan Lamasery.”

215
squash, Chinese turnips, cabbage soup
Harkness to Perkins, 15 Nov. 1937.

215
pheasant, and a few times a week, chicken
Harkness, “In a Tibetan Lamasery.”

215
And he cooked
Ibid.

215
If something was lost
Harkness to Perkins, 27 Oct. 1937.

215
Wang, who was married
Harkness to Perkins, 5 Nov. 1937.

215
his two-piece wives
Harkness to Perkins, 15 Nov. 1937.

215
There were no bed
Ibid.

215
At its center
Harkness to Perkins, 21 Oct. 1937.

216
As he would go off
Harkness to Perkins, 27 Oct. 1937.

216
The kindness and loyalty
Ibid.

216
It was the first step
Harkness to Perkins, 24 Oct. 1937 (many typos that I have not put in).

216
Her typewriter
Harkness to Perkins, 5 Nov. 1937.

217
Even though mail
Harkness to Perkins, 2 Nov. 1937.

217
Her first words to Hazel Perkins
Harkness to Perkins, 24 Oct. 1937.

217
She said the renovated
Ruth Harkness to “Danbury Title Company” (Hazel Perkins), 27 Oct. 1937.

217
She also pored over
Harkness to Perkins, 24 Oct. 1937.

217
Standing out on the balcony
Harkness to Perkins, 27 Oct. 1937.

217
Wang remained optimistic
Harkness to Perkins, 27 Oct. 1937 and 15 Nov. 1937.

218
Combing the ridges
Harkness to Perkins, 1 Dec. 1937.

218
Occasionally, though
Harkness to Perkins, 5 Nov. 1937.

218
Years later, Harkness would
Harkness, “In a Tibetan Lamasery,” pp. 10, 58.

218
After the drop-off
Ibid., p. 10.

219
Harkness was overjoyed
Harkness,
Lady and the Panda,
p. 167.

219
“With no companionship”
Harkness to Perkins, 2 Nov. 1937.

219
There was a clipping
Harkness to Perkins, 27 Oct. 1937.

219
She clambered through
Harkness to Perkins, 15 Nov. 1937.

219
Collapsing into bed
Harkness to Perkins, 27 Oct. 1937.

219
In the morning, as light
Ibid.

220
Days of laziness
Harkness to Perkins, 2 Nov. 1937.

220
set in a beautiful forest
Harkness to Perkins, 22 Aug. 1936. She was then calling it “Panther Stones.” The manuscript-in-progress was presently locked up with clothes and ammunition in the bank in Shanghai.

220
The drizzly nights
Harkness to Perkins, 2 Nov. 1937.

220
By this time
Harkness to Perkins, 5 Nov. 1937.

221
Wang arranged with the hunters
Harkness to Perkins, 15 Nov. 1937.

222
“he came rushing”
Harkness to Perkins, 5 Nov. 1937.

222
As for a trip into the forest
Ibid.

222
With all the preparations
Harkness to Perkins, 15 Nov. 1937.

222
By mid-November
Harkness to Perkins, 15 Nov. 1937.

222
Her humor blackened
Harkness to Perkins, 5 Nov. 1937.

222
She feared
Harkness to Perkins, 27 Oct. 1937.

223
“This year I'm”
Harkness to Pierce, 10 Dec. 1937.

223
a bowl of pale tea
Harkness, “In a Tibetan Lamasery,” p. 57.

223
tiger balm
Ibid., p. 10.