He waved the concept away with a patronizing smile. "They're all the same. All sound the same."

She stared. "They're not, I a.s.sure you."

He glanced at the ceiling, pulled his mouth to one side in a so-what expression. "Listen, sweetheart. I came over here because I was so shocked when I got your letter. You're a grown-up woman. You also happen to be beautiful, intelligent, and worldly-but there's a lot you don't know about life. Obviously. So we need to talk about this marriage."

"There's nothing to talk about," she said, swallowing back the pounding in her throat. "Jian is a wonderful man. He's the kind of person any father would want his daughter to marry! He's getting his Ph.D. in history-Chinese history. He comes from a brilliant family. And our children would have dual citizenship, when they grew up they could choose-"

"Children!" Horace's voice shook. "Children!"

"Of course, children. I'm twenty-seven, Horace."

"That's still young! Not that I don't want grandchildren. Of course I do! Nothing would make me happier. But not like this!"

"You mean not Chinese. Right?" She spit her words out, the anger starting. "Is that what you mean?"

"People should stick to their own kind!" he shot back.

"Their own kind?" own kind?"

"Yes. Race, creed, and color." He slapped his palm on the table. "Their own kind."

Conversations around them halted. People were staring.

Alice narrowed her eyes. "That is the worst kind of shallow, thoughtless prejudice-"

"No! It's common sense. To marry a fellow like this-it's like getting a tattoo. It's exciting. At first it looks great. But you have to live with the d.a.m.n thing for the rest of your life!"

She lifted her lip in a show of disbelief. "You are comparing Jian to a tattoo?"

"Alice! You know what I'm saying." He leaned forward. "You want me to be blunt? Very well. Don't marry this man. If you do you'll ruin your life."

The nerve! As if she had to ruin her own life. He'd already done it for her.

"I mean it, Alice."

"Listen. It's my life, not yours. Anyway, who says this would be such a mistake? You? Your racist cronies? What about me? Doesn't it matter at all what I want?"

"And what exactly do you want?"

She marshaled herself. "I want to settle down. I want to marry Jian. He's a good man. We could be happy together. I could have someone, finally. I could have a family."

"You do have a family! Me."

"Horace-"

"And you're my little girl, and I love you-why else would I fly all around the world to stop you making a mistake like this? Unless I loved you? Why else, Alice? Come on."

Mad as she was, something about what he said and the way he said it tugged at her. Of course she wanted his approval, of course; she wanted it terribly. She hated the idea of having to choose between a husband and a father. So if not approval, at least neutrality....

He sensed her wavering and pushed on. "We're a family, Alice. I look out for you. I'm the only person you've ever known who's cared for you, consistently. That's why you could never marry a man without my blessing. Right? Because I'm part of you and you're part of me."

"I'm not part of you. I have my own life."

He made a dismissive gesture. "You can't even finance your own life! Speaking of which, can this man support you? I doubt it. How much money does he make?"

Now her eyes burned. "It doesn't matter how much money he makes."

"Well. It's not as if I I can keep sending you money forever." can keep sending you money forever."

"Why do you have to make it about money!"

"I don't," he said instantly. "I just want my little girl to be happy. Be happy and find the right man. And you will, Alice. If you'll just come back to the States and look."

"This is where I live. is where I live. This This is where I want to find a man." is where I want to find a man."

"I thought you already had. Find a man! Find a man! Maybe you don't even love this man-what's his name?- Jian?"

"I do love him! I told you that."

"No, you didn't."

"Well, I do."

"I'm not convinced." He looked at her hard.

"How dare you!" She felt herself flaring, anger and discomfort all mixed up because in that unerring way of his he'd gone right to her weak point. Did she truly love Jian? She did, of course she did. He was the best, most appropriate Chinese man she'd ever met. But at her core she still didn't feel they were completely connected. How could Horace know? It wasn't something she even acknowledged to herself, consciously. "Don't tell me what I feel."

"Then you tell me. What do you feel?"

"I feel that I love him and I want to marry him!" Inside, she knew it was not a clear certainty. It was messy, ambivalent, a hot-wire confusion of needs, desires, and ideals for the future. Do I love Jian? she thought desperately. Have I ever loved anyone?

"Alice." He was asking for her attention.

She looked up. Tears stood in his eyes. When was the last time Horace had cried? Ages. Years.

"I just want you to be happy," he was saying, quietly now, with feeling.

"Then don't interfere! Let me marry him."

"Are you in love with him?"

"Yes, I told you-"

"No. Are you?"

"Horace-"

"Are you?"

She groaned and covered her eyes.

"I think that's an answer."

"Stop it!" She was crying now. "It's wrong for you to do this. You can't force me!"

"Force you?" He looked at her hard, fully in control. "Of course I wouldn't force you. I would never force you."

"But you-"

"Oh, no, sweetheart. I had to say what I've said, but you are a grown woman. You'll have to choose for yourself. Here. When I got your letter I took all these out of the safe deposit." He removed a folder from his briefcase and reached into it.

Her eyes grew wide.

As she watched he slapped down her birth certificate, photos of herself as a child, alone, with Horace, as a baby with her mother.

"Take these, if you marry him. Leave this Mannegan family, this family of you and me. You want to be Chinese? Go ahead. Be Chinese. But you won't be my daughter any longer."

She still remembered how, without anger now, without sharpness, but with infinite sadness and his eyes still br.i.m.m.i.n.g, he had clicked the briefcase shut, risen, and walked from the restaurant. As if it were not some personal, vengeful choice of his own but inescapable natural forces which drove him to do what he did.

Now, standing in the doorway of the Meng apartment, she suddenly remembered what she was holding. She thrust the grease-spotted, paper-wrapped ham into the Chinese man's arms. "Jian," her voice came cracking out, "if I could say how sorry I-"

"Zenmole?" What is it? sang a pleasant female voice from the cooking area at the rear of the apartment. A woman in her twenties with a plump, tight-porcelain face sauntered out, baby riding her hip. Alice stared, feeling something die inside her. She knew about Jian's wife, of course she knew, but she hadn't seen Jian face to face since his marriage and she'd never seen the bride. Now here she was. With their baby. What is it? sang a pleasant female voice from the cooking area at the rear of the apartment. A woman in her twenties with a plump, tight-porcelain face sauntered out, baby riding her hip. Alice stared, feeling something die inside her. She knew about Jian's wife, of course she knew, but she hadn't seen Jian face to face since his marriage and she'd never seen the bride. Now here she was. With their baby. "Shui-a?" "Shui-a?" the young woman asked, glancing to Mother Meng, Who is this? the young woman asked, glancing to Mother Meng, Who is this?

"A family friend," the old lady murmured.

"Jian?" the wife asked.

"Shi, " he clipped. It's so. " he clipped. It's so.

Alice saw the young woman look openly at her, innocent of their whole situation. There must be a million things about him you don't know, Alice thought in a brief, violent burst of satisfaction.

"Ta jiu yao likai-le," Jian added crossly, She's about to leave. Jian added crossly, She's about to leave.

Alice threw a desperate glance to Meng Shaowen. Mother Meng? she begged with her eyes. Must I go?

Mrs. Meng nodded once, a bowing of gra.s.s in front of wind. Jian was married to someone else now. Alice did not belong.

Jian stepped close to Alice. "Alice." He spoke in English, English she'd taught him during their year together. "You should not have come here. There's no more to say about what happened. I understand now. You could not commit to me."

"Neither could you, to me."

"Shenmo?" What? What?

"It wasn't all me. It was you too. Wasn't it? You didn't love me quan xin, quan yi. quan xin, quan yi. If you had you would have said: Forget your father. Marry me anyway. And I would have. But you didn't." If you had you would have said: Forget your father. Marry me anyway. And I would have. But you didn't."

He tightened his mouth, unwilling to respond.

I knew it, she thought, and the hurt blazed over her. Hurt and all its ripples of revelation. "Jian. You couldn't bring your true self to me any more than I could bring mine to you."

"Naturally. You're American. You're white."

"Oh, come on, Jian-"

"Guoqu-de shi jiu rang ta guoqu-ba, " he retorted, reverting to Chinese. Let the past go. " he retorted, reverting to Chinese. Let the past go.

She felt her cheeks reddening.

"Jian?" the wife queried.

"Anyway," he went on, ignoring his wife. "I have responsibilities to my ancestors. Now"-he motioned with his eyes to his Chinese baby, in his wife's arms-"wo zuodao-le." He evaluated her one final time, as if to commit her to memory. He evaluated her one final time, as if to commit her to memory.

In some basal pit of herself Alice wanted to reach for him. She sensed he felt it too. If it were not for the tangle of the present day all around them, if what was inside them could have been free, they might have crumpled into each other's arms. As it was he shook his head and spoke to her softly, sternly, in English: "Now don't ever come here again."

Gently, he shut the door.

She lay in bed the next morning. The rush-hour mob of bicycles and cars and trucks on Changan subsided from a roar to a rumble. Spencer came to her door once, knocked. She couldn't deal with him then; just couldn't rise to it. She called out for him to come back later.

Seeing Jian again. Thinking about what she'd had with him, about almost being able to connect with her true heart. Lucile had found another self with Pierre, a self higher than man-woman love. Had she fulfilled her true heart? The worst The worst failing of our minds is that we fail to see the really big problems failing of our minds is that we fail to see the really big problems simply because the forms in which they arise are right under our simply because the forms in which they arise are right under our eyes. eyes.

And Adam Spencer was right. She was stalled. Years now she'd been working as a low-level translator when she should have been so much more-a scholar, a sinologist, an intelligent woman taking the four treasures-the brush, the ink, the inkstone, the paper-and turning them into a lifetime of insight and erudition.

She heard a movement outside the door. It was Spencer again. "Alice! I have to buy the train tickets. Are you coming with me or not?"

"Wait a minute!" She limped into the bathroom, threw cold water on her face. Examined herself, the water running from her cheekbones. Not young any longer. The years were starting to pull her face downward, she could already see where the lines and the sags were starting to form.

Thirty-six, she thought, touching her cheek. But I'm smart, really smart, and I have heart. I could love again. If I could only get the chance.

"Alice?" Spencer's voice was m.u.f.fled by the door.

She toweled off. With the canyons of scratchy cotton cloth pressed against her face she suddenly pictured the man she had met in the vice director's office the day before. Dr. Lin. The man who had seemed to take in everything, and who had held her name card for such a long time, so attentively. She locked eyes with herself in the mirror. The forms in which they arise are The forms in which they arise are right under our eyes. right under our eyes.

"Alice."

She walked out of the bathroom. "All right! Dr. Spencer? Can you hear me? I'll come with you."

5.

The train stood gasping in Beijing Zhan. They pushed aboard with the Chinese and all their boxes, suitcases, bundles, and bags full of fruit, melon seeds, and steaming, fragrant baozi. baozi.

She glanced around the second-cla.s.s hard sleeper. It would be a rough two days and nights, sleeping on flat, narrow berths stacked three up to the ceiling. Though it was better than sitting up all night on a wooden bench, in "hard seat."

"Berth forty-three," he said, handing her a stub.