The Lady and the Panda (53 page)

260
Harkness had arrived
Arrived in Hong Kong on 1 June 1938, and expected to fly to Chengdu on 3 June, according to “For Baby Panda; Mrs. Harkness Comes to Colony from US; On Third Visit,”
South China Morning Post,
2 June 1938.

260
He had promised
Harkness to Pierce, 16 June 1938.

260
Together they cared
Harkness to Pierce, 10 June 1938.

260
“high and mighty”
Harkness to Pierce, 8 July 1938.

261
“the sort of companionship”
Harkness to Pierce, 8 July 1938.

261
He still bristled
Quentin Young, interview by Michael Kiefer, in “I Need Time to Recuperate,”
San Diego Weekly Reader
19, no. 47 (29 Nov. 1990).

261
After days shared
Harkness to Pierce, 10 June 1938.

261
She thought she would
Harkness to Perkins, 22 June 1938; and “For Baby Panda; Mrs. Harkness Comes.”

263
But Harkness did not
Hopkirk,
Trespassers
, p. 222.

263
“Did she rub”
Harkness to Pierce, 10 June 1938.

263
When Harkness
Ibid.

263
“Everything I owned”
Ruth Harkness, travel club speech, 1939.

263
It sliced up
Harkness to Perkins, 10 June 1938.

263
“This baby will”
Harkness to Perkins, 4 July 1938.

263
She was a pistol
Harkness to Pierce, 10 June 1938.

263
What she got into
Harkness, travel club speech, 1939.

263
“The vixen”
Harkness to Pierce, 16 June 1938.

264
On rainy days
Ibid.

264
“little hellion”
Harkness to Perkins, 22 June 1938.

264
Then Harkness
Harkness to Pierce, 16 June 1938.

264
“I wish you could”
Harkness to Pierce, 16 June 1938.

264
The houses
Harkness to Pierce, 10 June 1938.

264
None of the talk
Harkness, travel club speech, 1939.

265
Without much luck
“The Latest Panda News,”
China Journal,
“Scientific Notes and Reviews,” July 1938, p. 60.

265
As soon as Harkness
Harkness to Perkins, 22 June 1938.

265
Suffering from tuberculosis
Harkness to Pierce, 10 June 1938.

265
a common therapy
Colin Blakemore,
The Oxford Companion to the Body
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 697.

265
“I can't feel”
Harkness to Perkins, 22 June 1938.

265
A legion of hunters
Harkness to Pierce, 8 July 1938.

265
“He is simply”
Harkness to Perkins, 22 June 1938.

265
She heard that on this trip
Harkness to Pierce, 16 June 1938, says five; Harkness to Perkins, 22 June 1938, is updated to six.

265
“He keeps them”
Harkness to Pierce, 10 June 1938.

265
He had such
“The Latest Panda News,”
China Journal,
“Scientific Notes and Reviews,” July 1938, p. 60.

266
Graham never killed
Morris and Morris,
Men and Pandas,
pp. 54, 92–93.

266
Young had told
Harkness to Perkins, 22 June 1938.

266
A rare and not too
“Live Giant Pandas Leave Hongkong for London,”
China Journal,
“Scientific Notes and Reviews,” Dec. 1938, p. 334.

266
By April
“China Bans Panda Hunting to Save Dwindling Species,” 25 Apr. 1939.

266
The mercurial Madame
Harkness to Pierce, 16 June 1938.

266
“I hadn't been here”
Ibid.

267
Rather than roll
Ibid.

267
The United States was
Tuchman,
Stilwell,
pp. 173, 175, 206.

267
In Chengdu
Harkness to Perkins, 22 June 1938. Perkins family has a photo of Harkness with the dog.

267
Su-Sen, on the other hand
Harkness to Perkins, 22 June 1938.

268
As for the practical
Ibid.

268
Air travel had
Tuchman,
Stilwell.

268
Seats had to be booked
Harkness to Pierce, 8 July 1938. Stilwell's experience agrees—in the fall, when he tried to get a reservation, he was told the next vacancy was in February, Tuchman,
Stilwell,
p. 197.

268
Worse, the Chinese
Harkness to Perkins, 22 June 1938.

268
Harkness wondered
Harkness to Perkins, 4 July 1938.

269
“There seemed to be something”
Harkness to Pierce, 8 July 1938.

269
“We made no sacrifice”
Ibid.

269
If there really were ghosts
Ibid.

270
Her chances of success
Ibid.

270
Just days earlier
“Around the World in News, Science,”
Washington Post,
26 June 1938.

270
Harkness's intent
Harkness to Pierce, 8 July 1938; and Harkness to Perkins, 4 July 1938.

271
“She too gets herself”
Harkness to Perkins, 22 June 1938.

271
The animal
Harkness to Perkins, 4 July 1938.

271
Harkness was not worried
Ibid.

271
A bright, buzzing
Harkness to Pierce, 8 July 1938.

271
“Publicity”
Harkness to Perkins, 19 Dec. 1938.

271
With bundles of incense
Harkness to Pierce, 8 July 1938.

272
“Wang came wandering”
Ibid.

272
He had spent
Harkness, travel club speech, 1939.

272
With the liquor
Harkness to Pierce, 8 July 1938.

272
In no time
Harkness to Pierce, 8 July 1938.

273
Summer was
Schaller,
Last Panda
, pp. 77, 82.

273
Harkness and Wang
Harkness to Pierce, 8 July 1938; and Harkness to Perkins, 4 July 1938.

273
at an altitude
Harkness to Perkins and Pierce, n.d. but about 10 July 1938. In travel club speech, 1939, she says 10,000 feet. Harkness to sister Helen from Jan. 1939, says 10,000 feet.

273
She had gone
Ruth Harkness,
Pangoan Diary
(New York: Creative Age Press, 1942), p. 6.

273
“at the back of beyond”
Ruth Harkness letter, not addressed to anyone but kept in the Hazel Perkins family archives.

273
Their entire stay
Harkness to home, Perkins family archives.

273
“My one quilt”
Harkness to Perkins and Pierce, n.d. but about 10 July 1938.

274
She had lost
Ibid.

274
Some mornings they
Ruth Harkness, “In a Tibetan Lamasery,”
Gourmet,
Mar. 1944, p. 10.

274
She plunged
Harkness to Pierce, 8 July 1938; and Harkness to Perkins, 4 July 1938.

274
“She wandered off”
Harkness, travel club speech, 1939.

274
It was a rare moment
Ibid.

274
“There we lived”
Harkness,
Pangoan Diary,
p. 6.

274
Each evening
Harkness to Pierce, 8 July 1938; and Harkness to Perkins, 4 July 1938.

275
She had to rush
Harkness to home, Perkins family archives.

275
Stumbling back
Harkness, travel club speech, 1939.

275
The two campers
Harkness to home, Perkins family archives.

275
“swearing a blue”
Harkness, travel club speech, 1939.

275
She hadn't been
Ibid.

276
Angry enough
Harkness to home, Perkins family archives.

276
Instead, he turned
Harkness, travel club speech, 1939.

276
“Wang still had”
Ibid.

276
With that settled
Ibid.

276
In the instant
Ibid.

276
“ran as fast”
Harkness,
Pangoan Diary,
p. 6.

277
Streams were so
Harkness, travel club speech, 1939.

280
We were headed
Harkness,
Lady and the Panda
, p. 21.

281
Where she gratefully
Ibid., p. 137.

281
Yet her choices
Spence,
Search for Modern China
, p. 425.

281
ports, railroads, and big cities
Tuchman,
Stilwell
, p. 195.

282
Harkness watched
Ristaino,
Port of Last Resort
, p. 103.

282
She entered the hospital
Harkness to Perkins, 9 Sept. 1938.

282
Then with nothing to do
Harkness to Perkins, 27 Aug. 1938.

282
Toying with
Harkness to Perkins, end of July 1938.

282
had an intense
Harkness to Perkins, 27 Aug. 1938.

282
Fredi Guthmann
I discovered his identity when author Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson read the manuscript in New Zealand and led me to Natacha Guthmann, Fredi's widow, who confirmed the affair between the then-single Guthmann and Harkness.

282
Darjeeling
“The High Road in Sikkim,”
New York Times,
30 Nov. 2003.

282
“It is beautiful”
Harkness to Perkins, 22 Nov. 1938.

282
“For the first time”
Ibid.

282
In her hotel room
Harkness to Perkins, 22 Nov. and 14 Dec. 1938.

282
Restless
Ruth Harkness, travel club speech, 1939.

282
the 14,200-foot
Sir Evan Nepean, obituary,
New York Times,
6 Apr. 2002.

282
“We passed caravan”
Harkness, travel club speech, 1939.

283
On her return
Harkness to Perkins, 29 Dec. 1938.

283
With renewed vigor
Harkness to Perkins, 29 Dec. 1938, 14 Jan. 1939; and 5 Feb. 1939.

283
Harkness would reach
According to Harkness's letter to Perkins, 14 Jan. 1939, she would sail out of Liverpool on 16 Feb. 1939; “Five Giant Pandas at London Zoo,”
Daily Mail,
23 Dec. 1938; “5 Pandas Loose in Linter,”
London Daily Telegraph,
23 Dec. 1938; “Woman Risked Death from Bandits to Bring Rare Animal from China to Zoo,”
London Evening Standard,
23 Dec. 1938, all from the Smith Papers, Library of Congress.

283
She survived
Floyd Tangier Smith, “Bringing Them Back Alive: How We Captured Giant Pandas,”
Home and Empire,
Feb. 1939; and “Rare Animals: Leaving by Antenor for England: Pandas for Zoos,”
South China Morning Post,
14 Nov. 1938.

284
Minus one panda
“Woman Risked Death.”

284
In mid-July
“F. T. Smith,”
Chicago Tribune,
14 July 1939; “Floyd T. Smith, Zoologist and Explorer Dies: Sent Several Giant Pandas to U.S. During Scientific Expeditions in Far East,”
New York Herald Tribune,
14 July 1939, dateline Mastick, L.I., 13 July.

284
The quick year
Harkness,
Pangoan Diary,
pp. 3, 28.

284
The world at large
David M. Kennedy,
Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); and Tuchman,
Stilwell.

284
The benched explorer
Harkness to family, Jan. 1939.

284
In the early fall
“Program Seeks Funds for Chinese Civilians,”
New York Times,
22 Oct. 1939.

284
Using “The Alton Railroad”
Harkness to Perkins, 4 Nov. 1939.

284
Back home
Harkness,
Pangoan Diary,
p. 3.

285
In that frame
Ibid., p. 2.

285
On February 23
“Woman Explorer to Study the Incas,”
New York Times,
24 Feb. 1940.

285
In Lima
From the online autobiography of Carl Ingman Aslakson, “Earth Measurer,” 1980,
http://www.lib.noaa.gov/edocs/AslaksonBio.html
.

285
Harkness, the ultimate urbanite
Harkness,
Pangoan Diary,
pp. 12, 19.

285
They would travel
Name of town corroborated in letter from Lyn Smith Manduley, a friend of Harkness's in Lima, to Manduley's mother, 22 June 1942, Lyn Smith Manduley Letters, Latin American Library, Tulane University.

285
With his help
Ruth Harkness, “Saludos,”
Gourmet,
Feb. 1944. One reference to one rental is 76 cents a month; another, in the book
Pangoan Diary,
is 67 cents a month.

285
She learned to cook
Harkness,
Pangoan Diary,
pp. 134, 194, 205, 211, 254, 277; the making of
masato,
pp. 58–59.

285
Days were taken
Ibid. pp. 155–66.

286
Frequent bouts
Ruth Harkness, “Mexican Mornings,”
Gourmet,
July 1947.

286
she wrote home to Perkie
Harkness to Perkins, either 13 Sept. or 13 Dec. 1940.

286
“Sometimes an intense”
Harkness,
Pangoan Diary,
pp. 92, 93.

286
“This feeling exists”
All from Yogi Ramacharaka,
Fourteen Lessons in Yogi Philosophy
(Yogi Publication Society, orig. 1903, repr. 1931), recommended by Harkness to Perkins in a letter from Peru in the early 1940s.

286
By the time Harkness
“Woman Scientist Seeks Peru Panda,” Associated Press dateline Miami, FL, 12 Jan. 1942.

286
Admitted to the hospital
Lyn Smith Manduley to Manduley's mother, 24 Mar. 1942.

287
On the Fourth of July
“Hendrik van Loon Dies in Home at 62,”
New York Times,
12 Mar. 1944.

287
As soon as Harkness
Ruth Harkness to Helen Sioussat, 8 Jan. 1947, Library of American Broadcasting archives, College Park, MD.