A line of schoolchildren, with fresh faces and clean white blouses, gawped in amazement as the blonde-haired, blue-eyed yangguizi skipped across the road and into the hotel. A babble of excited chatter arose in the street. Yongli looked into the cab at the sleeping Li, hesitating for a moment before climbing carefully back in.

When, a few minutes later, Margaret emerged from the hotel, slinging her purse over her shoulder, a crowd of around forty or fifty townspeople had gathered in the street, word spreading quickly about her arrival. The twice-daily train from Mongolia was all that usually broke the monotony of their lives. This was unusual, something not to be missed. Others were hurrying along the street to join them and catch a glimpse. Margaret stopped on the steps, taken aback, uncertain how to react. She smiled nervously, but the faces that gazed back at her were blank. “Ni hau,” she said, and to her amazement received a spontaneous round of applause.

Li woke with a start, sitting up, blinking furiously, assimilating where they were. “What the hell’s happening?” he asked.

Yongli said, “She needed the ‘bathroom.’” Li frowned. Yongli explained, “The toilet.”

Li looked at the crowds in the street. “For God’s sake,” he said. “This is the last thing we need.” Margaret hurried across the street and Yongli jumped down to let her in. “What the hell did you think you were doing?” Li snapped at her.

His words hit her like a slap in the face. “I had to go to the toilet,” she said, defensive, hurt by his tone.

“And how long do you think it’ll be before Public Security hear there was some blonde-haired, blue-eyed foreigner at the hotel? Now they’re going to know where we are. We can’t afford to wait till tonight. We’re going to have to cross the border as soon as we can.”

Margaret sat in silence, pink-faced, stung by the rebuke, and realising the justification for it. But Yongli leapt to her defence. “Lay off her, Li,” he said. “She’d have created a much bigger stir squatting at the roadside.” He chucked the map at him. “I’ve been looking at this. The main road crosses the border a couple of kilometres north of here. There’ll be some kind of border post there. But if we take that smaller road west . . .” He leaned across to stab at it with his finger. “. . . we can probably get close enough to the border to see how the land lies without committing to a crossing.”

Li examined the route Yongli had pointed out. It made sense. He nodded. “Okay.”