Looking for Marco Polo Read online

  This book is for Devin. It owes its life to

  Kate Klimo, Alfred Hart, and Martha Armstrong.

  I owe mine to the original for Dr. Hornaday.

  How many miles to Babylon?

  Ten, if your legs be long.

  —child’s game song

  CONTENTS

  1. Packing Light

  2. Marco Polo’s Hilton

  3. Marco Polo’s Pillow

  4. The Wheezing Sickness

  5. The School of the Street

  6. Boss Speaks Up

  7. Marco’s Homecoming

  8. Marco Goes Crazy

  9. Stealing the Bones

  10. Blindman’s Bluff

  11. A Secret Mission

  12. How Marco’s Story Got Told

  13. To the Court of Kublai Khan

  14. Marco Meets Kublai

  15. On the Gobi

  16. A Great Miracle

  17. His Impertinence Beards the Emperor

  18. The Wonders of China

  19. The Plot

  20. Escape!

  21. Finding Marco

  Author’s Note

  Selected Bibliography

  Acknowledgments

  1

  PACKING LIGHT

  “Here’s the scale,” said Mark, setting it down on the kitchen table. He looked worried.

  “Thanks, Mark,” his father said, ruffling the boy’s hair.

  “That’s all you’re taking … for six months?” Mark asked as his father juggled a plastic bag from hand to hand, weighing pocketknives, tweezers, and magnifying glasses. He tossed the bag on the pile to pack.

  His father smiled and nodded. “The guide who’ll be taking me in said I should pack light, twenty pounds max. It’ll be on my back the whole time, he said. I’ve gotta be able to jump quick when my camel stumbles.”

  Mark’s father was leaving the next day to go to the Gobi Desert. The name sounded scary to Mark.

  “Everything I need I’ll carry on my back,” his father continued. “The guide said if I could manage more, I should plan on carrying extra water. Never enough of that on the desert.”

  He was a tall man with thick dark hair that was going gray. His long face was weathered, his eyes striking blue. He carried himself like a soldier. He taught anthropology and studied how the desert herders lived—personal, everyday things like what they made and used, how they washed, their jokes and songs, what they ate. Mark was entranced by his father’s stories, especially the ones about kids growing up on the desert.

  Mark had eyes like his father. At eleven, he was small for his age and subject to wheezing. He figured he was nowhere near as brave as his dad.

  “Can’t you take a Jeep?” Mark wanted to know. When he and his mother had gone with him to study the Native American herders in Arizona, they’d traveled by Jeep.

  “Nope. No roads, no gas stations—there’s nothing out there,” his father explained. “Besides, my project is to meet and live with the desert people like Marco Polo did. I’ll be traveling with the herders, sleeping in their yurts—the round tents they fold up and move as they follow the flock. All around there’ll be empty space, nothing but sand and sometimes thornbush.”

  Mark stared at his father. The man acted like he was glad it was going to be hard, like it was a test he was eager to take. It bothered Mark that he wasn’t tough like that.

  “What if you need something?” the boy asked.

  “I’ll trade for it if they have it,” his father said, “stuff like the fat they mix with the boiled juice of special roots and put on their faces like sunblock.”

  “Won’t they take money?” Mark asked.

  “Desert people don’t trust money unless it’s gold. No place to spend it. They trade their weavings and dried meat and hides for things like metal pots and tools.”

  “What will you trade with?” Mark asked. “The knives and stuff in that bag?”

  “No. Those are presents. I’ll trade with salt. Desert people always need salt.”

  “You mean you’re going to pay for your food and everything with salt?” the boy asked.

  “I probably won’t have to pay for food,” his father replied. “I’ll be their guest. Mongol herders on the Gobi don’t have much, but they share what they have—even with a stranger.”

  He reached in his pocket and brought out two gold coins, each the size of a thumbnail. “English sovereigns,” he said. “I’ll carry them in the heels of my boots for an emergency. Everybody loves gold.”

  Mark watched his father roll his things into tight sausages and stuff them into the backpack: khaki shirts and pants, underwear, the silk T-shirt and long johns that would serve for pajamas, wool socks, a broad-brimmed canvas hat with a flap to cover the back of his neck.

  “How come you squish everything up like that?” the boy asked.

  “Roll your stuff tight, get the air out, saves space,” his father said as he added a Swiss Army knife, a compass, ballpoint pens, matches, pouches of salt, aspirin, a sewing kit, and pads of lightweight paper to his pack.

  “Done!”

  He stood back.

  “That’s it?” the boy asked.

  “Yup. Let’s see what it weighs.”

  Mark lifted the pack and put it on the scale. “Nineteen and a half pounds,” he read.

  “Good,” said his father. “We’ll top it off with the trinkets and my maps.”

  “No books?” Mark asked. “No flashlight, no radio?”

  “Nope,” said his father, stuffing in the packet of maps. “Batteries don’t last long, and they’re heavy. As for books, I won’t have time to read.

  “I’ve got one for you, though,” he said, handing Mark a worn paperback. “The Travels of Marco Polo. I’ll be going where he went, traveling the way he traveled. Until a hundred years ago, Marco’s account was the best we had of the Gobi. I marked for you what he said about where I’ll be.”

  The cover showed a young man struggling to hold the lead of a snarling camel in front of a squat, fierce-looking Mongol warrior in battle gear.

  “Marco and Kublai Khan,” his father explained. “Kublai is the emperor Marco went to meet and ended up having to help for almost twenty years.”

  He fastened the pack straps. “I’ll write when I can,” he said. “I hope you and Mom will write me a lot. Every week or so the agency in Venice that’s arranged my trip will send someone out from their base near the desert. I’d love to hear from you.”

  Mark frowned. “How will they know where you are?”

  “They know the grazing routes and where we’ll stop for water. They know about how fast the animals move, so they’ll always have some idea of where I am. They’ll find me, don’t worry. I’ll be out there studying the nomads and looking for hints and traces of Marco Polo. Sleuthing beats sightseeing.”

  Mark nodded slowly and stared at the book in his hands. The rope Marco was holding ran through a hole in the camel’s nose. The wild-eyed animal had thrown back his head and bared his teeth. Marco looked scared. Kublai looked angry. What if his father met up with someone like that who made him stay for years? He didn’t like the idea of his father going off with almost nothing to a place where there wasn’t even a gas station.

  * * *

  His father left the next day. He called when he got to Venice. Ten days later Mark and his mother got a packet of letters from him.

  They wrote every other day and waited impatiently for him to answer, joking about eating grilled goat and washing with sand. After a month without any letters, they stopped joking. His mother didn’t say so, but Mark could tell she was worried. And Mark was having bad dreams about being lost in a sandy wasteland.

  Dear Dad,

  I know you w
on’t get this, but Mom’s making us go to Venice to find you. She says in Marco Polo’s time it was the greatest city in Europe. Maybe, but it means we’re going to miss all the Christmas stuff here. My pack weighs nineteen pounds even with the boots Mom says I have to take because Venice is wet and mucky. It sounds really lousy. I hope we find you.

  Love, Mark

  2

  MARCO POLO’S HILTON

  “Look, Mark!” Mark’s mother stopped.

  He looked where she pointed, across the canal at the large reddish figure of a camel mounted over a doorway. Camels reminded him of the book his father had given him. He’d left it at home.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Maybe that’s like the one Marco rode,” she said. “Or Dad.”

  Mark could tell she was trying to get him interested, but Venice was not his idea of a great place to spend Christmas.

  Suddenly the sun came out and struck the side of the building where the camel was. The animal seemed to move. Mark kept staring at it over his shoulder as he walked. The alley narrowed. He teetered, then caught himself.

  “I bet a lot of people fall in,” he said, pointing to the canal. “No guardrails or anything!”

  His mother pinched her nose. “And when they fish them out, phew!”

  They were walking against the wind. His mom was dragging her suitcase. It lurched over the worn stone pavers like a boat on a tossing sea. The water beside them was dull gray with strands of green floating in it. Sometimes when a motorboat went by, its wake water lapped up. At places where the water stood ankle-deep, boards had been laid like temporary docks.

  Everything looked as if it were rising right out of the water. Water lapped palace fronts of white marble and the plainer painted walls, gnawing away the stucco to the brick underneath. The tides had left lines of fuzzy green moss that shaded down to darker lines and clots of small black-shelled mussels.

  As his mother stopped to check her map, people flowed past with small wheeled carts filled with groceries, laundry, wine, and flowers. There were no cars.

  They went slowly along the stone lanes and dark alleys, some so narrow they had to walk single file. Their route humped, wove, and twisted, always near the milky green water. Laundry fluttered from lines and balconies overhead.

  Finally they turned into a small square. Mark’s mother stopped and pointed to a battered brown door. “There. That must be it,” she said.

  Mark stared. “You sure? It looks like somebody’s falling-down house.”

  “Nope. Sign says ‘hotel.’”

  A large lamp that looked like it had been knocked cockeyed hung over the front, ALBERGO written on the glass in faded gold.

  She went up and pressed a button. Nothing happened. She waited and pressed again. Then she held the button down and began to pound. Finally the lock buzzed.

  The heavy door opened into a large, dark, stone-floored room. The stones were scooped and rounded. The only thing in the room was a long sagging table against one wall. At the far end, under a small round window with bars, there were white marble stairs. It smelled old and damp, as if there’d been animals in it a long time ago. Rusted hooks and rings stuck out from the walls.

  “It looks like a dungeon,” Mark muttered. He shivered as the stale dankness settled on him.

  His mother pointed to the stairs. They twisted up with a spindly rail on one side. A dim light showed from the landing above.

  “No elevator?” Mark asked.

  “Let’s leave our stuff here,” his mother said. “I’ll get someone to bring it up.”

  They started up the stairs together. Mark stumbled on the fourth flight. His mother steadied him. They’d been up all night flying from Baltimore.

  “You’ll be okay,” she told him. “Jet lag. It’ll pass.”

  The door at the top had glass in the center with ALBERGO SAN RAFFAELLO in gold like on the lamp outside. The handle was the head of a broad-faced bearded man.

  The door opened into a small, brightly lit room with mirrors and sculptures and a small reception desk. Everything was small, even the chairs. The furniture had traces of gold trim. It smelled of polish.

  After she arranged things with the clerk, Mark’s mother pointed him to his room. It was next to hers. His door key was attached to a heavy knot. “So you won’t forget to leave it at the desk when you go out,” she explained.

  They went into their rooms, leaving the doors open so they could talk.

  “Hey, Mom!” Mark called over. “What is this place? There’s a Madonna on the wall!”

  “Shhh … Keep it down!” his mother said as she came into his room. “Italians put up religious ornaments for a blessing. It’s the custom.”

  Mark looked around. “Where’s the bathroom?”

  “Down the hall. The door marked ‘WC.’ We have to share it.”

  Mark drooped. “Share it? Who with?”

  “Everyone on this floor,” she said cheerfully, pointing to the other doors. “You peek out to see if the WC door is open. If it is, make a run for it before somebody beats you to it. It’s kind of fun.”

  “Oh man,” Mark muttered, feeling his way down the dark hall.

  “It smells!” he exclaimed when he came out. “And there’s no shower or anything!”

  His mother went over and stuck her head in. “That’s Venice! Seawater and sewage,” she said with a shrug. “I’ve been in worse. For a shower you go up to the front, the door just before the reception desk.”

  “Not very private,” Mark grumbled, flopping down on his mother’s bed. “Not like a Hilton.”

  “Maybe it was Marco Polo’s Hilton,” she suggested. “Speaking of which …” She went and dug around in her suitcase, pulling out a book. She tossed it onto the bed next to him. “I guess you forgot this.”

  It was the book his father had given him, the one with Marco Polo, the grimacing camel, and the scary Kublai Khan on the cover. He’d read the first few pages and tossed it under his bed.

  “I didn’t forget it,” he muttered. “I left it behind. I don’t care about Marco Polo. I care about Dad. That’s why we came. I didn’t come to find out about Marco Polo. Venice smells bad.” He made a face. “Even my room smells bad, and the floor’s all up and down.”

  “Maybe you can put that in your next letter to Dad,” his mother said, taking things out of her suitcase and hanging them up in the wardrobe.

  “I don’t have any paper. But, anyway, why bother? He’s not even getting ’em!”

  Mark scowled and fanned the pages of the Marco Polo book. It felt hot.

  “You don’t know that,” said his mother.

  “No closets here either,” Mark complained, “just these big old boxes with doors on the front. Mine looks like it could fall over. I’m leaving my stuff in my backpack.”

  “Suit yourself,” his mother replied as she bustled about. When she was finished, she sat down next to Mark and opened her cell phone. He knew who she was calling: the agency that had been responsible for sending his father into the unknown; the agency that didn’t seem to care whether his father ever came back again or not.

  “Marian Hearn here,” she said into the phone. “Yes, we just arrived. Good. You have my cell phone number. Call me when you hear anything. Anything!”

  She shut the phone and nodded firmly. “They’re sending out a search party tomorrow. I knew our coming to Venice would light a fire under those people.”

  “Does that mean we can go home now?” Mark asked. He was only half joking.

  “Oh, come on!” his mother snapped. “We’re staying put right here until they find him. I’m showing up in their offices every morning until they do. Now, I’m hungry. There’s a café on the corner. Let’s go.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Mark said, yawning. “I just want to stay here and sleep.”

  “Nope.” His mother stood up and grabbed his arm. “We need to get out in the sunlight to reset our body clocks.”

  Mark groaned, but he knew it was usel
ess to argue.

  They dropped off their keys and started down the stairs. Mark counted. There were sixty-eight.

  It was midmorning but it felt like midnight. They’d been up for thirty hours. The fast-moving clouds overhead made Mark feel dizzy. When the sun broke through, it glittered on the water. Pigeons swirling up seemed to mimic the sunlight flickering off the waves. Strings of violet and white Christmas lights hung over the narrow streets, a few with white stars in the middle. Over the shop doors there were bunches of evergreens sprayed silvery blue and tied up with what the shop sold—blue shoes and handbags above a leather shop, blue-painted books above a bookshop. The bakery had sprigs of pine with blue-painted loaves of bread.

  They went into the café on the corner. It was warm and steamy and fragrant. Red-skinned oranges were piled high in a wire basket on the counter. A man was slicing and juicing them in a machine that sounded like a lawn mower. The juice spurted out like lumpy blood. The man seemed to have ten hands—slicing oranges, chopping onions and garlic, shredding mozzarella, cutting up vegetables, ham, and sausages.

  The food smelled good. There was music playing, something quick with violins. Suddenly Mark was hungry.

  One corner of the café was filled with a round-fronted brick oven with a half-oval opening at chest height. Mark could see coals and flames. He wondered if they cooked pizza in it.

  In the opposite corner there was a niche with the statue of a golden-faced woman. She was an arm’s length tall. Flowers were banked up around her, so Mark couldn’t make her out, but it looked as if her body had been splashed with red and black paint. She didn’t look like any Madonna he’d ever seen before.

  “Buon giorno,” called the nodding waitress as she pointed them to a table on one side of the oven.

  “Buon giorno,” Mark’s mother said.

  “Hi,” said Mark.

  He sat down with his back to the oven. The heat felt good.

  The woman circled back with a cup of coffee for Mark’s mother and a larger cup for him filled with hot milk and a little coffee.

  As the waitress put down their cups, she pointed to a large, two-handled, gold-domed pot on the counter—“Zucchero,” she said. The thing looked like a sports trophy.