Just another Lanzhou Sunday. After church, Rae and I spent some time with our new curate, Peter, helping him with his English. Practicing saying mass in English. As we left the complex, Rae ducked into her favorite teahouse and I headed down the block toward the bank. After our monthly cash payday, I habitually make my offering at church and then deposit the rest. But this day, before I reached the bank, a "church lady" grabbed my arm and invited me to lunch with her. I gladly accepted and passed the bank without a back ward glance.

We walked briskly, and soon turned off Gannan Lu onto an obscure lane. (I mentally noted the location of a small shop that makes swimsuits to order.) Before long, we’d made several turns from lane to lane and I was thoroughly lost. We took our seats in a clean, quiet noodle shop and slurped from steaming bowls of niu rou mian (beef noodles). Conversation was both impossible and unnecessary.

After lunch we resumed our walk. My companion indicated that we were too full, and should walk for good health. (Remember, she speaks no English and my Chinese is rudimentary . . ..)
I understood her suggestion well enough to agree. We paused while she gave a little money to a merchant – in exchange for no merchandise. Maybe an installment payment? She borrowed his pen and a scrap of newspaper and wrote me a note in Chinese characters. Oddly, Chinese people often expect me to comprehend in written form what I can’t understand when they speak. I shook my head and apologized. In retrospect, I think a turning point in our journey had just escaped my notice.

We continued our march; I thought perhaps she was taking me to her home. A cup of tea would have been nice. I marched. We emerged on streets familiar to me, walking quickly and resolutely, arm in arm. (Chinese women usually hold hands or walk arm in arm; Platonic touching is also common among younger men.) My companion donned her white flannel face mask against the smog, removing it frequently to clear her throat noisily and spit daintily on the sidewalk.

I began to sweat. My day had begun in the frosty dawn. I wore long underwear, jeans, two shirts, a fleece jacket, woolen socks and hiking boots. This is my usual autumn church attire, when sitting in our cavernous unheated sanctuary with its marble floor is like perching on a glacier. Now, however, it was a mild and sunny early afternoon. My book bag – containing Bible, Hymnal, service music binder, and mercifully, water bottle – gained weight with every step we took.

We approached the entrance to Wu Quan (Five Springs) Park at the foot of Five Springs Mountain. The park was teeming with weekend visitors, souvenir vendors, roast potato stands. I began to gasp as we charged up the three long flights of steps to the park entrance. Then we veered east and entered a maze of narrow alleys snaking up the slope of Wu Quan San. One blind passage led steadily up to the next. The farther we strayed from public streets, the more conscious I was of the huge wad of cash in my jeans’ pocket.

My companion gestured happily up toward the summit, and I realized that she planned for us to climb to the top. I protested, my face streaming. "I need to go home now," I insisted in my lame Chinese. Pointing to the mountain, "Bu jintian!" Not today!

My companion urged me onward, upward. I tried to turn back, but she reassured me that we would turn around soon, go home by a different route. Every time I conceded, my reward was a slightly steeper climb. Just as I was ready to collapse, we reached a small plateau in front of a red wooden door in a stucco wall. She removed her mask and began to shout and peer through a chink in the door. An old man unlocked it and we slipped into a crowded passage. I bumped into a cart and knocked some empty sacks on the ground. I apologized and stooped to pick them up; two noisy lap-dogs discovered me and began yapping and jumping. Looking up, I realized that we had entered a small courtyard where a number of large, desperate-looking shaggy dogs crouched on short chains. As we moved forward, I exchanged my habitual abhorrence of chained animals for a fervent wish that these particular chains were short enough.

We emerged from the opposite side of the courtyard onto a ledge overlooking one of our ubiquitous Lanzhou construction sites. Our dog-loving hostess and my church friend agreed to pose for a snapshot. And, yes, it was downhill from there. We had managed to enter Wu Quan Park without buying tickets – perhaps that was my companion’s goal all along? She insisted on showing me the highlights of the park, including the impressive statue of Confucius. She showed enormous reverence before the statue, approaching with a bow.

At last, I boarded the bus homeward. It was a forty-minute ride, but I got a seat right away; that was fine with me.