The Leavers: Chapter 16 Summary & Analysis

In Beijing, Daniel follows Yong’s directions and sneaks into a conference in a hotel. Polly is one of the speakers onstage, and when the panel invites questions, he walks to the mic and asks her about her teaching methods. She can’t see him from where she sits, but he can tell she recognizes his voice. Afterwards, she finds him and tells him he “scared the shit out of” her, but she’s happy to see him, whisking him away and telling him she’s going to skip the rest of the conference to spend time with him. After dinner that night, they go back to her hotel and continue talking. Finally, Daniel asks why she didn’t try harder to find him after she left, and she says, “I didn’t know if you wanted to speak to me, after everything I did.”

Polly is about to take a sleeping pill, but Daniel asks her to tell him what happened when she disappeared. She goes about the room closing the blinds, since she can’t have light when she sleeps. “In Ardsleyville, it was light all the time,” she says. When Daniel asks what Ardsleyville is, she says, “The name of the camp, the detention camp.” He’s hungry to hear more, but she doesn’t want to talk about it. “I want to know the truth,” he says. “How did you get there? What happened to you when you went to work that day? Please, I deserve to know.” Finally, she begins. “There were no phones [in Ardsleyville], no way to contact anyone,” she says. “When I got out, they sent me to Fuzhou. I wasn’t myself anymore.” For a moment it seems she won’t go on, but she eventually continues.