"I know," Guo said dismissively. He paused, looking at his friend, a.s.sessing mood, warmth, receptivity. Just launch the question, he thought. "Hu, my good friend. Can I stay here for a few days?"

It was July twenty-third. Alice seemed to recall that this was the day of the Great Heat by the Chinese lunar calendar. She stood nervously at the intersection of two lanes behind the hotel. Nearby there loomed a Ming dynasty fortress tower. She supposed this had once been some critical defensive cog in the old city walls; now it sat useless in a gra.s.sy, neglected lot.

Do I have to do this here, she thought desperately, out in the middle of an intersection? Couldn't I do it in my room, behind closed doors? Though, of course, that would bring the fire alarms and the hysterical, shouting staff. Kong and Lin and Spencer would be crowding into her room with questions. Maybe outside was better after all. And this was how Master Tang had told her to do it. At the intersection of two streets.

She took out the paper replicas, the tiny figure of a man. She settled him in the dust at her feet. He had a heroic air. Teilhard. Lucile. Mother Meng. Help me. She arranged the bed, the chest, the linens, around the man.

"Jiao-hun, " she murmured, trying to sound formal to herself and also to the spirits of the dead. "I call back your soul." " she murmured, trying to sound formal to herself and also to the spirits of the dead. "I call back your soul."

She knelt quickly, struck a rickety match from the cardboard Double Happiness box, and lit the miniature bridal chest.

"Waiguoren!" a boy chirped, Foreigner! An army of other boys thundered up behind him, stumbled together, and froze. a boy chirped, Foreigner! An army of other boys thundered up behind him, stumbled together, and froze.

She sighed. How strange she must look to them-a five-foot-three chestnut-headed blue-jeaned creature, in a squat on the sidewalk lighting matches.

Ignore them. She trained her eyes doggedly at the ground.

The flame ate eagerly to the edge of the elaborate little box-for-hopes, and fell panting on the folded pile of paper linens. The little man was still a few inches off, at the end. The last thing. The most important thing she had to send.

Mother Meng, may you never want for anything in the place of spirits. Lucile, you too. of spirits. Lucile, you too.

The flame lit onto the paper bed, pulsated up its sideposts. The man would be next.

"Eh, foreign lady guest, are you ill? Are you lost?" It was the strident voice of an officious older woman, the kind who dominated every Chinese neighborhood.

"Woman Liang, how can you expect a foreigner to talk?"

Alice fanned the flame along the bed, her mind divided now, half of her trying to envision, and hold, this ballooning reverence for the dead, and half of her nervously following the Chinese babble around her.

"Woman Liang, he's right. They can't any of them talk." This was another voice, a man, careless. She made no sign of hearing.

For a minute they watched in silence; now finally the man figure caught. Tiny breaths of smoke circled upward and dissipated to nothing.

Mother Meng. Lucile. Please be my ancestors.

"Aiya, burning spirit-objects, my great-aunt used to do that!" one of the boys hooted. He was instantly hushed. The small crowd murmured disapproval, embarra.s.sed like most modern Chinese about older customs, loath to even admit that such customs had once existed. These days it seemed to Alice that the ma.s.ses had their eyes on only one direction, forward.

The pyre was down to ashes now. She rose in a single movement and ground them out under her shoe. Then a sideways kick brushed them away.

A coolness swept over her, the suck of air when a door closes.

Good-bye for now, Mother Meng. Good-bye, Lucile. She brushed her pants clean. She brushed her pants clean.

"Zou-ba, " one of the boys hissed, and the pack of them moved off. " one of the boys hissed, and the pack of them moved off.

"Eh, she's crazy," came the voice of the neighborhood woman, smaller now, retreating in the darkness down the alley.

"The west-ocean people-huh!" another one said.

Only one man was left. He watched her from under a low forehead and a thicket of hair. He stared at her fixedly. They stood alone on the street.

She couldn't resist speaking to him.

"What is it," she said in friendly Chinese with a solid urban east coast accent, "-you don't approve of the doings of ghosts and G.o.ds? Is it not a clear and deep way for releasing sorrow? And haven't you heard it said?" She leaned a few inches closer to him and softened her voice. "Ai mo da yu xin "Ai mo da yu xin si." si." Nothing gives so much cause for sorrow as the death of one's heart. Nothing gives so much cause for sorrow as the death of one's heart.

He flushed. "Deeply excuse me. I never would have thought you could..."

"Talk."

"Yes." He gazed openly. "Talk."

She felt her mouth part into a smile. She felt powerful, she felt like Mu-lan. Hadn't Dr. Lin compared her to Mu-lan? Lin Shiyang. Thinking about him brought a wave of happiness. A tiny breeze eddied the ashes at her feet. "May your road be level and peaceful," she said to the man, turned, and walked away.

Dr. Lin Shiyang left his room, where he had claimed to be suffering from fever, and where he had stayed until the others left in the jeep, and walked out of the Number One and around the corner to the bicycle rental. The old man looked up at him pleasantly. "The gentleman will ride today?"

Lin nodded.

"I kept this one for you specially," the old man lied, presenting a wreck of a wine-red three-speed. "Three people tried to rent it this morning. But I felt you might come."

"Old uncle"-Lin smiled knowingly-"you shouldn't have gone to so much trouble."

"It was nothing-for you." The man swiftly pocketed the five-yuan rental fee. Five yuan! A scholar from the eastern cities-rich, obviously, money flying from his fingers.

"I thank you," Lin said formally, and took the bike. Poor old uncle, he should have been dozing in some teahouse and here he was scratching a living in small change. "May I depend on your discretion?" he asked the old man carefully, and handed him another one-yuan note.

The man took the note, shrugged, and looked away. "I never remember anyone."

Lin walked the bike away from the stall and carefully swung one leg over the seat. He steered onto Sun Yat-sen, turned left, and pedaled toward the drum tower. That was where the West Road began. Over the past week, from time to time, he had asked directions to the outlying villages of people chosen at random along the street. Never too much of any one person. He didn't want anyone remembering him. This was an art many Chinese of his generation had perfected: absorbing as much as possible, while escaping the notice of others entirely.

And the Americans, how much did they notice? It was an interesting question to him, one he had pondered at some length. The main thing about the two Americans was the way they constantly emanated. Talking, exclaiming, explaining. Especially explaining. They seemed obsessed with making themselves understood. On the other hand they seemed to take in rather little.

Of course, until now he had never actually had dealings with an American. They were what he'd expected, although Spencer and Mo Ai-li were different from each other, maddeningly individual. This in itself he found confusing. In his own world each one had his thoughts and dreams, his private life- but in a group endeavor, especially one which involved outsiders, this would be concealed in favor of a united front. Factions and disagreements hidden. Truths evaded.

He would never do what the woman interpreter had done that night they had met in the courtyard, for instance-ask him straight out if he wished his life had been different. Remarkable! And yet this forthrightness was what excited him. She kept saying outrageous things-first about the Chaos, then about his wife being sentenced to the laogai, laogai, and then asking him rudely whether he had put aside his wife and taken someone else. Surely she had some idea how shattering it was when a man was forced to denounce his mate on government orders. Yet that night she had baldly demanded to know if he had done this, as if she was asking no more than what he had eaten at his last meal. Each time she had come at him this way, he had been momentarily numbed by disbelief, then pinp.r.i.c.ked by excitement. Mental. And yes, s.e.xual. Even though he was forty-six years old and the women he met who stirred him this way now were few. He shook his head slowly. The drum tower. Left turn. and then asking him rudely whether he had put aside his wife and taken someone else. Surely she had some idea how shattering it was when a man was forced to denounce his mate on government orders. Yet that night she had baldly demanded to know if he had done this, as if she was asking no more than what he had eaten at his last meal. Each time she had come at him this way, he had been momentarily numbed by disbelief, then pinp.r.i.c.ked by excitement. Mental. And yes, s.e.xual. Even though he was forty-six years old and the women he met who stirred him this way now were few. He shook his head slowly. The drum tower. Left turn.

Perhaps she will be my wound story, he thought. He'd had a peculiar aversion to Wound Literature, though this popular fiction movement of the late seventies and eighties had captivated many of his friends and colleagues. They had eagerly devoured every unbearably sad novel and short story collection that came along, each man reliving his own Cultural Revolution tragedy in the reading. Lin hadn't been able to do so. To open these books, read them, and close them again would be to put Meiyan behind him. And he preferred to hold on to her.

Even though he knew-a part of him knew-that this was wrong. It prevented him from loving again. His closest friends, even his mother, who had adored Meiyan and longed for the grandchild he and Meiyan never gave her, had advised him, finally, to stop. "You are bottled up in the past like a turtle in a jar, my son. The years are pa.s.sing: the sun and moon fly back and forth. Don't continue on this way."

"But there's always a chance, isn't there? Some people return from the laogai. laogai. Like Little Yan's uncle. Remember? The family had given him up for lost? And then they found him again, his teeth gone, his health ruined, but alive, he was alive ....." Like Little Yan's uncle. Remember? The family had given him up for lost? And then they found him again, his teeth gone, his health ruined, but alive, he was alive ....."

But that had been years ago. He knew of no one who had been gone as long as Meiyan had been gone, gone without letters or messages, and come back.

And now a surprise, Mo Ai-li, Little Mo-not so little, clearly a woman past thirty who should have been married long since. There was no doubt he felt drawn to her. And she seemed to feel the same way. At least she prodded him with her questions, stared at him when she thought he didn't see, even sat next to him in the vehicle and at meals. None of this had escaped Kong's notice. Kong had even joked to him one day that he must let him know whether Western women were really different, as was said. "Bie shuo-le," "Bie shuo-le," Lin had replied curtly, Don't talk like that, but his answer only made Kong laugh and he regretted, later, having responded at all. Lin had replied curtly, Don't talk like that, but his answer only made Kong laugh and he regretted, later, having responded at all.

Yet she was different. She didn't retreat, didn't defer, didn't laugh behind her hand like a Chinese woman-in spite of her reasonable grasp of the language and her constant, often ridiculous attempts to follow Chinese manners. Despite all that she spoke to him with a bold intelligence. She might, he thought, be a woman with whom he could talk of the many things he considered in private: linguistics twisting back three thousand years to the scapulimancy of the Shang dynasty; the magical jumble of stories and legends that remained from the dawn of Chinese history; the faint picture-which he often reviewed in his mind-of h.o.m.o erectus erectus roaming this land half a million years ago. Then north China had been fertile, wet, a green jungle, not the arid ocean of alluvial silt it was today. There roaming this land half a million years ago. Then north China had been fertile, wet, a green jungle, not the arid ocean of alluvial silt it was today. There Sinanthropus Sinanthropus had not made his own shelter, but had taken refuge where he could, in caves and under outcroppings and in groves by the side of the river.... had not made his own shelter, but had taken refuge where he could, in caves and under outcroppings and in groves by the side of the river....

It had been Meiyan's field, too, h.o.m.o erectus. erectus. He pedaled harder, thinking of the afternoon they got married in Gao Yeh's room in Zhengzhou. They had got the go-ahead from the He pedaled harder, thinking of the afternoon they got married in Gao Yeh's room in Zhengzhou. They had got the go-ahead from the danwei, danwei, months after requesting permission from the university Party boss to "talk about love." It had been winter. The other students crowded in, padded blue jackets and stuffed-up trouser legs jostling for s.p.a.ce. Gao Yeh shouting, drunk, how lovely their life together was going to be, and singing the children's song: months after requesting permission from the university Party boss to "talk about love." It had been winter. The other students crowded in, padded blue jackets and stuffed-up trouser legs jostling for s.p.a.ce. Gao Yeh shouting, drunk, how lovely their life together was going to be, and singing the children's song: As the sun rose over the mountain A student came riding along.

He sat on a dapple-gray pony And sang a sc.r.a.p of song.

To the home of his bride he was going And he hoped that she wouldn't be out.

He saw as he pushed the door open The girl he was thinking about.

Her cheeks were as pink as a rosebud.

Her teeth were as white as a pearl.

Her lips were as red as a cherry.

Most truly a beautiful girl!

How strange he could remember that, he thought now, pedaling past the patchwork of open fields, the wind off the Helan Shan whistling by. He remembered, too, the laughter that had exploded at the nursery rhyme's end, everyone nodding, yes, yes, wasn't it so, and the bowls of hard candy going around and around the room-Happiness Candy, the politically correct subst.i.tute for the then-forbidden wedding banquet. Nineteen seventy-one. Meiyan had worn a blue cotton suit like everyone else, except that it was her sharply ironed best. He remembered how her milk-white oval face had radiated joy.

Then after they were married, there was the single memory that had become a well-marked door in his mind: lying in bed with her afterward in the small room on Renmin Road in Zhengzhou, the sheets crumpled on the floor, talking about Lantian man, the h.o.m.o erectus h.o.m.o erectus find in south China to which she had devoted her study. Playing with the find in south China to which she had devoted her study. Playing with the h.o.m.o erectus h.o.m.o erectus tooth she wore on a cord around her neck, never took off, not even when her entire naked length was smothered beneath him. She had stolen it from the vault where the Lantian County fossils were kept. Strange. Had she been caught stealing and wearing such an important cultural relic she'd have earned herself a PLA bullet in the head. Yet this had never been discovered and she had been sent to prison for a political misstep in a scholarly essay, a trifle, chicken feathers and garlic skins. tooth she wore on a cord around her neck, never took off, not even when her entire naked length was smothered beneath him. She had stolen it from the vault where the Lantian County fossils were kept. Strange. Had she been caught stealing and wearing such an important cultural relic she'd have earned herself a PLA bullet in the head. Yet this had never been discovered and she had been sent to prison for a political misstep in a scholarly essay, a trifle, chicken feathers and garlic skins.

How she had loved that piece of bone. Davidson Black, the Canadian doctor who headed the group Teilhard had worked for in Peking, had worn a h.o.m.o erectus h.o.m.o erectus tooth around his neck, and Meiyan would do the same. Nothing Lin could say could convince her to bury it somewhere until the Chaos ended and she could safely reclaim it again. No, she would wear it. And just before he entered her, when he had her gasping and pulling his hips frantically down to her, he liked to pick the tooth up off her sweat-glistening chest with his lips and take it in his mouth and play with it, a gesture she found unbearably intimate, and a way of making her wait another few moments.... tooth around his neck, and Meiyan would do the same. Nothing Lin could say could convince her to bury it somewhere until the Chaos ended and she could safely reclaim it again. No, she would wear it. And just before he entered her, when he had her gasping and pulling his hips frantically down to her, he liked to pick the tooth up off her sweat-glistening chest with his lips and take it in his mouth and play with it, a gesture she found unbearably intimate, and a way of making her wait another few moments....

Ah, a millennium ago-he'd been so young then. West Road, Tibet Road. He soared down the hill, away from the heart of the city, through the flat oasis suburbs.

It was in 1973 that her article had been submitted. Why hadn't she just lied in the article? Why did she have to be so heroic? A resounding silence had followed. Fear crept in and ate at all their thoughts and words until it smothered everything. Finally they heard she was going to be arrested. So many others they knew had already been taken. They had offended someone else, or had a "bad" job before liberation, or had owned land, or their parents had owned land before them. All someone had to say was that you were fan geming, fan geming, Counterrevolutionary, just those two words, then the death grip at your throat. Counterrevolutionary, just those two words, then the death grip at your throat.

"Eating bitterness won't kill me," she had said, sitting beside him on the bed, affecting bravery. "And I should have expected it. How often have you heard it said? When a rat scurries across the street, kill it! Kill it!" She'd smiled slightly at this overused maxim of the Chaos. All he could think of were the nights when she was writing the article, the hot July nights without air, the heat-m.u.f.fled shouts and traffic sounds rising from Renmin Road. He had told her: Invent something about cla.s.s struggle among the ancient hominids. Make something up. He himself had done it. Everyone did it.

But she refused. Ah, Meiyan. So faithful to something higher. She had been a better person than he. He had lied easily in his scholarly papers. It had seemed easy and obvious to him-of course, lie, why get arrested? He had made up whatever drivel about cla.s.s and capitalism seemed necessary to stay out of trouble. Had told himself it didn't dilute his basic work. Not Meiyan. She would not do it. So the people struggled against her.

After she was taken Lin learned, through the human net that spreads news like a fire through tinder gra.s.s and can never be quite contained, that she was sent out to Inner Mongolia. Camp Fourteen, it was whispered: a cl.u.s.ter of loess huts in a flat yellow plain-across the Helan Shan Mountains from the city of Yinchuan.

He'd had one brief smuggled message from her. Then nothing.

The years dragged by. Things started to get better. Chairman Mao died, the nation pinned all its hate on the Gang of Four, and the era of Wound Literature began. He held himself apart from it, buried himself in his obsession with the ancient human ancestor, clung to Meiyan in his mind. How could he live with himself otherwise? He'd only survived because he'd been willing to lie. Then came the open door with the 1980s, a rush of money and relaxed thinking and new culture from the outside. He started teaching at the university; he published work on h.o.m.o erectus. h.o.m.o erectus. All his colleagues pretended he had never been married. Some of them did not know. Some knew, of course-Kong knew, he had once made a reference to it, not unkindly. But Lin never talked about it. All his colleagues pretended he had never been married. Some of them did not know. Some knew, of course-Kong knew, he had once made a reference to it, not unkindly. But Lin never talked about it.

During these years Lin had not been completely without women. Now, decades later, riding his bicycle out from Yinchuan, he recalled them. There had been Ping, the reedy woman mathematics professor with the terse little mouth, who had lost her husband; she had discreetly been his special friend for some years until, finally, she said she could endure his impermeability no longer. Ping and then Lan-zhen, the shy, bespectacled graduate student who had sat mesmerized through his every cla.s.s until finally he'd approached her. She'd come to him gratefully, completely open, mad about him, so much younger than he, yet through a year of physical intimacy he never let himself love her, never opened his door, never forgot he was married to Meiyan. He saw how deeply Lan-zhen was hurt by this. She wanted desperately to hold first place in his heart. They finally parted, after defeat and resentment had destroyed her love. Her pain brought him even more shame. But he did not know how to stop loving his wife, even though she was gone. And Lan-zhen simply was not like Meiyan. Neither was Ping. Though Little Mo was, wasn't she? She had the courage and the mental alacrity-do not think like that, he admonished himself. She is an outside person. A joint-venture colleague. American!

He left the main road behind now as he had been directed and pedaled off on a dirt track to the north. He crested a hill, broke through the pa.s.s, and there was little Laishan Village spread out in the yellow dust below him. He knew, in his first s.n.a.t.c.h of breath and his first glimpse of the jumbled settlement, that Meiyan was not there. Her energy, her intelligence-these things were simply missing from the landscape. This realization was like a powerful voice in his ear, and it nearly made him falter off the path. He was not used to instincts. Lin Shiyang was an educated man, from a modern city; he would never willingly concern himself with forebodings and premonitions. Yet this instinct was so powerful, he almost felt he could trust it. Meiyan was not present.

As any careful man would do, though, having come so far, he locked up his bike and removed the precious photograph from his pocket. Meiyan, 1972. Young eyes shining with intelligence, black hair pulled back. The children's song bounced around in his brain.

Her cheeks were as pink as a rosebud.

Her teeth were as white as a pearl....

He shook his head. Too many years had flown. What did she look like now? Nothing like this, certainly. If she was alive.

But the picture was all he had.

He approached the first of the dozens he would speak to that day, an older man with a wiry body and gently bowed legs, hurrying now down the dirt-packed lane with a bundle of dirty sheep's wool.

"Elder uncle, forgive me-"

"Eh?" The man bolted back in alarm.

"No, don't fear, uncle, just a question, forgive me. Have you seen this woman?" Lin thrust forward the small square picture with its ghostlike, girlish smile.

The old man narrowed his eyes and fired a single glance at the photo. "No!" He walked away.

10.

The second-to-last night in Yinchuan they ate dinner at the Number One. Alice noticed that when the plate was turned in Lin's direction he selected a charred, wrinkled chili pepper with his chopsticks and bit into it, eyes closed. With his other hand he dragged his teacup to his mouth, forehead squeezed in pain and grat.i.tude.

"I don't think you're supposed to eat it," she ventured.

He swallowed. "I like it." He gasped. "I want it. It's just that I can't bear it." He turned his gaze to her, letting all the weight of it fall on her. Eh, he thought, seeing her strain toward him and aware of the same stirring within himself, something's between us. Shi bu shi? Shi bu shi? But they were in public. He dared do no more than look at her a certain way. But they were in public. He dared do no more than look at her a certain way.

Of course, he could touch her now. He only had to move his leg a few inches under the table. Then he would know, and she would know, and it would be done. But what if he was wrong? Such a misstep would be disastrous. She was an outsider.

He picked up another hot pepper with his chopsticks, and placed it on her plate. "You know," he said to her softly, "it's like life." Then he paused, and turned away to his left, where Dr. Kong was speaking to him.

Lin stepped out into the street, Meiyan's photo in his pocket. He had left the hotel quietly when the group broke up after dinner. He was sure none of the others noticed. He paused for a moment, feeling the vast rea.s.surance of a city around him, the swell of people, the tide of ongoing life. Pedestrians pa.s.sed him, unconcerned. Animals, carts, children.

He opened his city map and thought through the places he'd covered. The new town-the industrial section on the other side of the train station. The old Chinese quarter. The old downtown. Tonight he would walk the Muslim quarter. He wondered what it would be like. The Muslims, the huimin, huimin, they were not like other Chinese. This was what he had always heard. An idea that had hardened in his mind. What was the word Interpreter Mo had used? they were not like other Chinese. This was what he had always heard. An idea that had hardened in his mind. What was the word Interpreter Mo had used? Prejudice. Prejudice.

As he walked he thought about Mo Ai-li. The PLA had picked her up, then released her. That meant certainly they were watching him too. Should he change his plan? Stop looking for his wife?

No. All of the last twenty-two years had led him to this point. He had to find Meiyan. Besides, what could they do to him? He'd already lost everything.

Everything of then. This is now. Again he thought of Mo Ai-li. No. To Meiyan he'd made vows, he'd made promises. This was the least he could do for her now. He'd follow it to the end.

He touched his long fingers lightly to the photograph in his pocket and kept walking.

Master Tang arrived at Alice's room at the appointed hour. The seven-day interval was finished and she had completed the rituals as he'd instructed her. Now from a small velvet cloth he unwrapped the wooden ling-pai, ling-pai, the spirit tablet. the spirit tablet.

She read the characters carved into it: Meng Shaowen Pa.s.sed over July 14 Beloved by her descendant, the host of this house.