Like I said, he was a strange guy.
Richard and I had already been out first thing and bought a selection of Gobi essentials in the sprawling market beyond the hotel car park. There wasn’t much choice, but we managed to buy a lead and collar, a couple of bowls, and some food. And as we walked, we hatched a plan for what we’d do if the hotel manager turned us down. And it looked like we’d have to resort to Plan B.
Back at Mr Ma’s, Gobi was just as excited to see me that morning as she had been the night before. I was relieved about that and to see also that Mr Ma obviously had looked after her well. In all the chaos of the night before, I’d not forgotten that Richard suspected there was some foul play at work. But the more I talked to Mr Ma and saw that he was a regular guy who dressed as if he were going to head to the gym but not actually do any work, the more I trusted him. And when I found out he was a jade dealer, that did it for me. He obviously didn’t need the money. There was no “shakedown” going on here.
I told Mr Ma that I wanted to give him his reward at a special dinner we were going to hold for the search team the following night. He agreed to come along but insisted he didn’t want the reward money. Just as Richard, Lu Xin, Gobi, and I were about to leave, another man—wearing what looked to me like a fake smile—entered the house. I’d not met him before, but he did look familiar.
“I am Nurali’s husband,” he said, as he shook my hand with what felt like an iron grip. I knew he meant business.
I remembered where I’d seen him. He was one of the drivers at the race. Gobi was down on the ground, and he knelt to pick her up.
“Yes,” he said, turning her around in front of him as if she were an antique vase that he was considering buying. “This is Gobi all right.”
He handed her back to me. “We tried our best to keep her safe for you, but she escaped. She’s going to need a good fence when you get her home.”
Our plan for getting Gobi back into the hotel was simple. We were going to put her in a bag and carry her in. The trouble was, like all hotels and public buildings in Urumqi, there was more to security than a guy with a bulletproof vest and an AK-47. There was an X-ray machine and a walk-through metal detector to negotiate.
It was up to me to play the fool and create a diversion. I had an unzipped bag full of posters and snacks that I dropped on the floor near the scanner. I made a big fuss and apologized profusely as I crawled around the floor picking them up. Meanwhile, Richard—with Gobi sitting silently in a bag made of denim that looked a little like a coat—walked right through the metal detector, hoping he’d remembered to remove anything that would set off the alarm.
Back in my room, it was finally time to check out Gobi. The scar on the top of her head told the story of a nasty wound, and I wondered whether it had been inflicted by another dog or a human. It was thick, but the scab was well formed, and I didn’t think I needed to worry about it too much.
Her hip, though, was a problem. She clearly had been in pain when the doctor had picked her up awkwardly the night before, and even when I put the lightest pressure on it, she twitched away. But it was when I put her down to walk that the problem was the most obvious. She could barely sustain any pressure on it at all.
Again I was left wondering what had happened to her.
I’d spoken to Kiki that morning about what needed to happen next. We knew Nurali hadn’t made a start with any of the medical requirements that Gobi needed in order to fly, so the first priority was getting her to a vet. After that, it would be a question of waiting for the paperwork to be completed and the travel to Beijing to be authorized.
“How long will that take?” I asked.
“Maybe one week, maybe one month.”
I felt a little of yesterday’s depression return. “Are you sure we have to fly? Why don’t we drive?”
“It’s a thirty-hour drive, and no hotel will let you take her inside with you. Would you really want to leave her in the car?”
I wouldn’t. We agreed that driving would be the back-up plan.
“Besides,” she added, “I have a contact at an airline who says she might be able to get Gobi on the flight without any trace of Gobi being on it.”
For the rest of the day, I did the only thing I could and looked after Gobi. I fed her when she was hungry, let her wrestle with my socks when she was bored, and snuck her down in the lift to the basement car park when she needed to do her business. She was the dream dog; she didn’t bark in the room, and she didn’t mind going back in the bag when I took her out of the room.
In a strange way the experience reminded me of the one time in my teenage years when I felt close to my mum. I was ill and needed taking care of, and for a while all that was toxic between us evaporated.
The illness flared up when I was thirteen, lying on the carpet at home, waiting for the biggest TV event of my lifetime to happen. The cute girl and cool boy in a popular Aussie soap opera called Neighbors were about to get married. It was all everyone could talk about—bigger even than Cliff Young’s winning the Sydney to Melbourne run. I was in love with Charlene, the cute girl, and took my front-row space on the carpet as the opening music started. “Neighbors, everybody needs good neighbors …”
Just as Scott and Charlene were about to say “I do,” I blacked out. That’s all I remember.
When I woke up, I was in a hospital. I felt terrible, like everything inside me had been rearranged the wrong way. The doctors were using words I didn’t understand, and I couldn’t hold on to a single thought properly. A terrible feeling of nausea raged within me. For hours I felt as though I was about to explode, until I finally fell asleep and woke up twelve hours later.
I had had an epileptic fit, and Mum had to explain epilepsy to me.
I had seizures a few more times, and each one was followed by a period of a day or two when I’d feel terrible. I had to stay out of school, visit specialists, and deal with the prospect that this unexpected visitor to my life could return at any time, bringing chaos with it.
And then, less than a year after that first attack, I began to realize that months had passed since my last attack. The doctor appointments became less and less frequent, and life returned to normal.