There was another level too, one she understood only after watching Sam stage the banquet. In addition to connecting people to one another, food was the mediator between the Chinese and their culture. By its references to art and the achievements of civilization, it bound the diner to his or her own soul. Okay, she admitted, it was clubby, and maybe possible only in a closed society of long history, but she had never been in a place where the web was so rich.

The next night, Monday, after walking outside all day, she decided to start the last part. The press conference was scheduled for Tuesday evening. She would watch it on the news, praying, repeating mantras all the while. For now she could write about the banquet itself, about his triumph, even after the loss of spongy tofu with a sauce of thirty crabs. What a sauce. Genius.

She came as close as she could to the end of the piece before she had to stop. She could not finish until the winners were announced. And even though she had been careful to sound appropriately dispassionate on the page, she knew she badly wanted one of them to be Sam.

She thought about this as she closed the file and switched off the computer. She liked him. She surprised herself. She didn’t make real friends, as a rule, when she traveled. Not that she was unfriendly; the opposite. She had been doing her column for years. She thought of herself as an expert on the transient relationship. She had learned to create a friendship in a short time, have it lend mutual enjoyment and human glow to the work, and then let it go. Sometimes there were a few calls and e-mail messages after, but most of these column connections, even those that seemed full of possibility, would in time fall away from her. She never felt the way she felt now, that she actually wanted to put off leaving a place because she enjoyed being around someone so much.

Was it him, or was it his family? It was both of them, and his whole world. Maybe she would break her mold on this story and they would actually become friends. No more than friends, she was sure, for she had never felt him look at her in the other way, but friends. She would like to know him, she realized. She would like to stay here, and stay connected, a little longer.

There was time, at least as far as Table was concerned. She didn’t even have to turn in her copy for another eight days. That was far more time than she needed to get the lab results, act on them, learn the outcome of the contest, and write the last sentences of her story.

She could just be here, a place she was realizing she liked. Be here, enjoy it, and finish with the past. That was another thing that was in pure, sharp focus here — all of her memories. She moved to the couch in front of the windows and watched the lit-up buildings. Never had the memories been so clear. She could see everything: the dark side of Matt, the light. The odd times and places she had really felt at home. The truth of certain moments.

The last morning of his life floated before her. He was dressing and getting ready to fly to San Francisco. First she had made him coffee.

She remembered it was French roast she had brought back from Louisiana, which released a wonderful burnt-caramel smell. He had declared that on the basis of that coffee alone it was difficult to leave her for so much as a single night, a day. He flattered her. Coffee was the only thing she ever made. She remembered how this made her laugh as she brought the coffee back to the bedroom with the first lightenings of the sun beyond the window. She remembered their feeling of calm together. She remembered the good feeling once again of not wanting him to leave, and the simultaneous sensation of having plenty of time, having years. She was thirty-nine then.

She lay in bed and watched him get up and get dressed. She was still feeling as if they should change their schedules, do something about the traveling. Move closer to the kind of life he wanted. This might be the moment.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said from the bed. “I’ve been starting to wish we didn’t have to be apart.”

He looked at her in surprise. “And not travel?”

“Just a thought.”

He zipped up and buckled his belt. “Let’s talk about it when I get back.”

“Okay.” She was a little surprised by his reaction. For her to even say this was a big step. She had half expected him to leap on it. But he was preoccupied with his trip to San Francisco. He was late.

He came over to the bed and kissed her, but it was short, chaste, the kiss of a man whose mind has moved through the door to where he has to be. No candy corn. “See you tonight,” he said, and walked out the door. She never saw him again.

She could still envision the door, smooth, light, empty, which he closed behind him softly. This was the door between her old life and the year that came after. The world of now. She could still hear his footsteps tapping down the hall, soft, precise for a man of his size. She could hear the sputter of his motor, the whine of it reversing out the driveway, the fade as he drove away. A few days later she went to the airport to retrieve that car, numb, trembling, eyes puffed nearly shut from crying. She signed forms, filling in a blank line with the word Deceased, drove the car home, got out, and never climbed inside it again. She sold it. Then she stored her possessions. She sold the house. All those things made her feel bad, was how she explained it to people when they asked. So she got rid of them. She couldn’t let herself have a life when he did not. Especially when he was so undeserving of his fate, so damned good.

Good? she thought now. Maybe not really.

The clock showed almost midnight. It was time to see if Shuying was Matt’s child.

She flipped on the machine, went online, and put in her password. Then for security she entered it again. Then the last four digits of her credit card, and her mother’s maiden name.

She watched the screen, waiting. We’re even now. I’ll never again feel guilt for not giving you a child. Strangely, she felt serene.

Then it came up. Right in front of her.

Matthew Mason and Gao Shuying.

Match: negative.

She read it again. Again. She didn’t believe it. So she exited the site, went offline, reconnected, and started over. Same sequence. She clicked for the second time on “Get Results.” There it was.

Matthew Mason and Gao Shuying. Match: negative.

Maggie stared at the words. She felt like a car with its motor cut, rolling to a silent stop.

She read farther down. Written lab results were being expressed to her with a duplicate set on their way to Calder Hayes in Beijing. Arrival in thirty-six hours. That was still two business days before the ruling. Not much time. But enough.

Gao Lan had said to call anytime — what had she said? Dark or light — but it was past midnight, so Maggie would wait. There was always the possibility that her employer was in town.

Carey was a different matter. Maggie knew he was up. It was possible he was with a woman, she supposed, but she doubted that would stop him from answering his phone.

Her intuition was correct. He picked right up.

“You told me to call anytime,” she reminded him.

“Of course.”

“Well, here it is. Shuying is not Matt’s.”

No sound. Just his breathing. “That’s a relief,” he said at last.

Maggie heard the complex tangle behind his words. He was glad. But now he was thinking that he’d told her, put her through all this, for nothing. No, she thought, for everything. She grew taller in her chair. “You’ll get your set of documents Wednesday morning. But you don’t have to wait until then, right? You can call the ministry?”

“Oh, yes. First thing tomorrow. And someone else at the top of my list is Andrew Souther. That’s the guy, that’s his name. I pried it out of Gao Lan.”

“How’d you do that?”

“There’s this restaurant out toward the Beijing Zoo, a Uighur place — you should try it.”

“Ah,” said Maggie.

“I’ll set up a meeting with him here in the office. I’m going to pack it with a few other lawyers, just to drive my point home.”

“Which is?” said Maggie.

“To make the law very clear to him.”

“Thank you. That’s what I was hoping for.”

“At first I was surprised you wanted to help her,” he said.

Maggie spoke slowly. She had given this a lot of thought. “We are connected, she and I, by something that happened in our lives. After I met her I felt that, and then the rivalry part didn’t matter anymore. Also, I’m human — and I met the child.”

“There, you were right. Someone may have to intervene. Zinnia explained a little more to me after you left about Gao Lan — let’s face it, she has only six or seven years left doing that kind of work. And none of this is the kid’s fault.”

“Now, should I pay you for this?” said Maggie. “Because I will.”

“No! No problem. Everything has to be done soon, though, because I’m going home next week. My mother’s sick.”

“I’m sorry,” said Maggie. “I didn’t know that.”

“She’s dying.”

“That must be difficult.”

“It’s not sudden. She’s been sick for a while. Got to go, though, you know? It’s important.”

“I know.”

“Family.”

“Right. Guanxi.”

A smile came into his voice. “Listen to you! You like China.”

“Funny you say that. I’ve been sitting here all night, waiting for these results to be posted, staring out the window at Beijing. It’s very mind-altering. I’ve decided China makes me high.”

He laughed. “I know what you mean. This is the only place I’ve lived where I don’t really need any substances. Just being here is enough. It’s like a drug. And if it turns out to be your drug, you never want to leave.”

“I’ve thought about that,” she said, “staying. Believe it or not. Which is crazy.”

“Not necessarily,” he said. “People come here, they do strange things. Wait and see.”

He spent that day with his father, taking him around to see how the city had changed. They did not visit famous places such as palaces and temples, but the places his father remembered from being a boy: the site of his elementary school, once tucked in a leafy hutong, now obliterated by a massive concrete-faced apartment building. They took a taxi down Chongwenmennei Boulevard, now wide, soulless, streaming traffic past intersections that led off to gritty, almost sad-looking streets and alleys. This had been Hata Men, and it was the only thing that brought tears to his father’s eyes. “It was so crowded,” he said, “so gay! The crowds, the vendors — we always walked through here when we shopped for food.” He stared out at the wide modern artery in front of him as if he were not seeing it at all but an entirely different world. “My mother and I.”

“I know,” said Sam. “Surpassing Crystal.” And he and his father touched hands.

That night they joined Jiang and Tan to dine at Fang Shan in Beihai Park, another imperial-style restaurant that had been established the year The Last Chinese Chef was published, and with which the three older men had lifelong ties. Located in buildings that had once been part of the imperial pleasure grounds, the place had been started by chefs from the closed-down palace kitchens at the same time Liang Yeh’s father opened Liang Jia Cai. Fang Shan was one of the few restaurants left open by the government in the 1950s. For long stretches it had been only for guests of state, and it was closed entirely during the decade of the Cultural Revolution. Now, though, like the rest of China, it was back to a booming business. They welcomed Liang Yeh like a returning prince, and pressed on the four of them a long and extravagant meal of the chef ’s devising. Sam secretly found the food tired, but the tea snacks, the tiny pastries meant to clear the palate between courses — these were exceptional. They even had xiao wo tou and shao bing jia rou mo. “Yours last night were better,” Sam whispered to his father.

The next day Sam’s father, Jiang, and Tan left on an excursion to a temple outside the city, leaving Sam alone in the courtyard rooms, clean now, and ordered. The dining room was still hung with the calligraphy from the banquet, and each time Sam passed through on his way to the kitchen he remembered the meal, the way it had soared even after the loss of the thirty-crab sauce, the up-rush of triumph he had felt when the diners applauded him at the end. Tonight he would hear. The press conference was at eight, and the two winners, the ones who would be given the coveted northern spots on the Chinese team, would be announced. He knew he had a chance. He had surpassed himself. Every time he thought of it he felt a churn of excitement. By the time late afternoon came and the sun was low, he could stay inside no longer. On top of everything else, the place felt empty to him without his father, which was strange because Liang Yeh had been there only a short time. Sam went out, locked the gate, and started to walk around the lake.

It was the perfect time of day. Twilight would fall soon; right now the long light was glorious. The streets gained a second life after dark, especially in the warm summer months and the golden weeks of autumn. Out walking then, Sam felt that the city, its subtleties enhanced by shadow, was all his. That was a good way to feel tonight. He wanted to win.

He walked the rim of the lake, its lively line of restaurants, shops, and teahouses, its foot-pedaled boats now tied up at their little docks. His chances were strong. It all depended on how good Yao Weiguo’s banquet was — it was between him and Yao. That was if one of the two spots went to Pan Jun, which it would. Sam felt the frustrated contraction inside him. It’s life, he thought, live with it. It was the dark side of guanxi, another truth of being here. Still, I can win. It’s either me or Yao Weiguo. As he walked, only the balls of his feet touched the ground, as if he were lifting right into the air. With every breath he felt himself praying to fate.

By the time it grew close to eight he had made his way to the club end of the lake and taken up a resting post by an old marble column left from before, when the lake was a quiet place. Sam had never seen it like this, but his uncles had told him. Most of what he saw around him now had been built in the last decade.

Five minutes, he thought. There were bars behind him with TV screens; he had been in them before. He knew this was a place he could see the news. His feet had known where to bring him.

He walked into a bar full of people. He heard a wall of voices and the crack of billiards from a spotlit table in the corner. There was a TV flashing images from the wall with its sound turned down; good. He could sidle over and turn it up when the time came.

He ordered cognac, not currently a hip drink. It was what his uncles ordered when he was out with them. That was why he liked it, and why he ordered it now, to feel connected to them — that, and the golden, half-punishing flavor, which he loved.

He drank it slowly, in tiny tastes, holding down his excitement. A glance at the screen, no, not yet, a commercial. Then the news would start. They would either go live to the press conference or do a story on it right after. He took another sip. He knew no one in this bar. He was also the only foreigner. He could have chosen to be with friends tonight, to have gathered a congenial group around him. He knew enough people in Beijing to have done it. But he didn’t. He put it off, waiting. Then his uncles and his father went away for the night, and he realized he wanted to hear the news alone. So he was here. Because often, in China, being in a crowd was being alone.

It was time. He saw the story’s introduction. First there was a slick preamble about the Cultural Games, with a montage of traditional performers and martial artists and chefs, and then there was a similar profile of the contemporary arts festival that was scheduled to take place at the same time. Finally they cut to the press conference. There was the committee. He recognized them.

Sam rose from his stool. He was about to move over and raise the volume when something semi-miraculous happened — a young man seated closer got up and did it first. As the sound went up, the announcer was reading names, and photos of the ten contestants were spilling across the bottom of the screen. There was Sam. He sat back on his stool, taut and quiet, waiting, his mind saying, Yes. Yes.

The panel’s senior member, a quiet, block-faced man, gave a carefully written, flowery little speech that culminated in his raising his voice to an abrupt and unaccustomed shout as he called out the name of the first winner.

Pan Jun. His face, enlarged, detached from the other nine, floated to the top.

Well, Sam thought, still strong inside, he knew this. Ever since the day he and Uncle Jiang went to visit the Master of the Nets, when he saw Pan Jun and found out he was the son of the minister; ever since then it had been clear. He wet his lips. They were like paper.

Another flowery buildup, and then a second shout — Yao Weiguo. Yao’s face detached and rose to the top, taking its place beside Pan Jun’s.

Sam felt he was in a bubble of agonized silence. But I cooked a great meal. He stared at the screen. How could I lose? You loved it. All six of you. But then they cut away from the panel and went on with the news. Obviously, Yao’s meal had been better. That was it. Simple.

He turned away on his stool. The sound was lowered again. He took his glass and drained off what was left, grateful he was alone, grateful no one knew him. He paid the bartender. Now he just wanted to leave. He should go home.

Outside, the air cleared him somewhat. He stood staring over the dark water, hands in his pockets. He remembered the story he’d been told, how in past centuries young scholars who had failed the imperial examinations drowned themselves in this lake. Some people claimed to see their ghosts. Was it just his defeat and his dark imaginings, or could he feel them tonight? He stood quiet, watching, turned away from the voices and the sounds of laughter drifting from the string of lights and restaurants behind him, focusing on the water, which he imagined to be filled with souls. Was it real or only a feeling? He didn’t know, but he liked the fact that he felt these things here. Back home he had never had this sense of the past. Maybe it was natural. This was where half of him originated.

He felt a pang for his father and his uncles. He was in the river of life with them. It was time to talk. They were probably waiting for him to make the call. He took out his phone, dialing Uncle Jiang’s number. “First Uncle,” he said, when he heard Jiang’s voice.

“I know, my son, I heard,” said Jiang softly. “My heart is too bitter to bear words.”

“I thought I had a chance, truly.”

“You did!” said Jiang. “Come now. Here. Your Baba.” Sam waited while the phone was passed to Liang Yeh.

“I’m sorry,” his father said.

“Wo yiyang,” said Sam, Me too.

“I told your mother. She cried.”

This made Sam feel blanketed in sadness. “I wish you didn’t have to tell her,” he said, and even as the words slipped out he knew they were not really what he meant; he meant he wished he had not failed, that his father had had good news to give her.

“I tell her everything,” Liang Yeh said, surprised.

“I know, Baba. It’s okay.” It was not his father’s fault. He had lost, that was all. It had been between him and Yao, and Yao had won. Sam felt his head throbbing. Yao was a great cook. That was all there was to it.

“Ba,” he said, “listen, I want you and First and Second Uncle to put this from your mind. Enjoy the temple. You know how famous the food is, and you know you cannot enjoy it when you are tasting bitterness.”

“Yes, but,” said his father, “how can we put it from our minds when we know you will not?”

“I will, though,” Sam promised him. And then Jiang and Tan each got on the phone, and he assured them of the same thing, and told them to eat well. When he hung up he was glad they were away. It would be a relief to be by himself now.

Should he go home, then? The moon was narrow, waning, and later it would rise. One of the charms of his courtyard was that no one could see into it from anywhere outside. Would that be enough for him tonight? To lie outside on a wicker chaise, in drawstring pajamas, and listen to the leaves? That was what he had missed, not growing up in China. If he had been a child here he would have heard poetry recited on a night like this. No. If he had been a child here he would have suffered.

His head hurt.

I should go home, he thought. Yet he recognized inside him a concomitant need for the laughter and reassurance of a friend. Who? Because this was a naked moment.

He opened his phone and scanned the screen. Restaurant friends, drinking friends, friends who knew women. He had connected with a lot of people. A stranger in a faraway place had to know a lot of people. That was the cushion beneath him. But how well did he know them? There were few he felt like being with right now.

He came back to Maggie’s name, paused on it, cycled on. He had gotten to know her so quickly, it was hard to believe she had been here less than two weeks. Soon she would leave. Best to pull back now. He went farther down the list.

But she had been there. She had been at the banquet.

And anyway he had promised to tell her.

He went back to her name. She’s the one you want to talk to. He pressed the button and listened to it dial.

“Hello?”

“Maggie?”

“Sam?”

“It’s me,” he said. His gray tone was probably enough, but in case it wasn’t, he said the words. “I didn’t get it.”

“You didn’t? ” she said.

“I didn’t.”

He heard her long, shocked breath. “How can that be?”

He almost laughed. That’s why you called her. “Well, one spot went to Pan Jun, the son of the culture minister. Remember, I told you?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “The back door.”

“Very important concept; one of the keys to life here. So that left one spot, and we all more or less thought that one would come down to me and Yao Weiguo. Well, he got it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. He’s an incredibly good cook. Sometimes he’s inspired.”

“I’m still sorry.”

He almost smiled. It was the sound of her voice. “Where are you?”

“In a restaurant. I just ordered.”

“What restaurant?”

She read him the name off the menu.

“I know the place.” He felt a click of decision inside him. “Wait for me. I’ll come over.”

“Really? You will?”

“Yes. Can you wait?”

“I’ll be here,” she said.

As she waited she decided she would think of things to say that would comfort him. She could begin now being his friend. The interview chapter was closed. The story had ended. She might not have technically finished the last paragraph, but she had written it in her mind. From the moment they hung up the phone, as she sat at this table waiting for him, she had composed the last sentence over and over.

When he came in she saw him first, and watched him loop his body through the tables, anxious, scanning for her. She lifted a hand and his eyes came to her, relaxing a notch. Then he stepped close to the table and saw her food still undisturbed. “Why didn’t you eat?”

“I was waiting,” she said.

He eased into a chair. She saw him favoring his body. He was holding himself oddly. “Never waste food.”

“It’s not wasted. I thought you might like some.”

He spoke slowly. “I don’t think I can eat right now.”

“You must feel so angry,” she said.

He made a weak shrug. “It’s my fate,” he said.

“I found out some fate too,” she said, “since I saw you. I got the lab results.”

He looked up.

“Shuying is not Matt’s child.”

Implications tumbled across his face. “That’s good for you,” he said.

“Yes. Strange, but good.”

“Strange how?”

“It’s the end of Matt. Truly the end.”

“That happened a while ago,” he said.

“I know.” She looked at him. His dark eyes were closed, and he was pressing his fingers to the side of his head. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fighting a headache. Please,” he said, “eat.”

She took small bites from the plates and nibbled at them, but he, with every passing moment, looked worse. His eyes took on the unmistakable crinkle of nausea. Then of course she could not eat either. The appeal of the food drained away. She put down her chopsticks. “Sam,” she said. He winced at her voice. “What is it?”

“A migraine, I think. I haven’t had one in so long, since I was a kid. I didn’t think I’d ever have one again.” It seemed to hurt him to speak.

“Look what happened tonight,” she pointed out.

He made the smallest movement of assent with his head.

“What helps?” she said, her voice soft.

“Lie down,” he said, with effort. “In a dark room, quiet — if I can fall asleep, even for a little while, it’ll be over.”

“Let’s go,” she said, and signaled the waiter for a check. She paid and then stood up and walked behind him and slid her hands underneath his armpits. He shivered when she touched him. “Stand up,” she said gently. “I’ll help you get home.”

This promise seemed to go through to the part of him which could still respond, and he rose with her, walking steadily out even as he kept one hand over his eyes. “It’s not dangerous, is it?” she asked, and he managed to shake his head. Relieved, she raised her hand for a taxi.

One pulled over and she got him into the back seat, then gave the driver her approximate pronunciation of the intersection next to Sam’s house. She said it wrong, no doubt, but it always got her there. Now when Sam heard it he made a twitch of a smile through his pain. He uttered a few words of the guttural Beijing burr and the driver nodded. Then he sat, still as a stone, eyes closed, every sound they heard as they drove through the streets seeming to magnify his pain. Maggie could almost see his head throbbing. First losing; now this. She would help him get home, to quiet and darkness. That was all she could do.

At his gate he fumbled in his pocket and brought forth the key. She unlocked the gate and then relatched it behind them. She slipped the key back in his pocket. She felt the knob of his hipbone. With her other hand she held his elbow, guiding him. He could barely walk. I know. Just a little farther.

To get to his room she counted off the three steps up to the verandah. Inside the half-glass door she steered him across the floor and to his bed. He lay down slowly, gingerly, not wanting her to touch him, cringing even when she unlaced his shoes. She turned off all the lights, which made him exhale in relief.

She wanted a wet towel. The closest bathroom that she knew of was across the court in the restaurant’s main dining room. Just inside the door, she found a switch that made the white, lotus-shaped lampshades in the room spring to light. She walked across the dark, liquid-looking tiles to the small restroom, soaked a towel in cold water, wrung it, and walked back.

When she reentered his room he was lying still. She stepped quietly. All his attention was turned inward. She came quietly to the bed and, not wanting to startle him, touched him softly with her fingers first, above the brow. His head made a tick in response. She laid the cloth on him, first one end, so he could feel the cold wetness, then all the way across. He looked grateful. He reached up and pressed it to his temples. Then one of his hands came out and found one of hers, and quickly, naturally, their fingers laced together. He gave her a squeeze of thanks. Then he withdrew and folded his hands on top of his chest, motionless, the way he had been holding them.

She eased back. Quiet. Silence. She wanted him to fall asleep. Three steps from the bed was a frayed leather armchair. She lowered herself into it without a sound, an inch at a time, and sat quietly.

The room was dark, the only illumination the two silver squares of streetlight from the hutong behind, bent in half at the seam of wall and ceiling. Occasionally she heard sounds from outside, people passing, a few cars, but mostly the room was silent.

She could leave, she thought. He was settled. He would surely fall asleep now, and when he woke up he would be better.

She would leave, but not yet. Right now she wanted to watch him. Time went away. She saw his breathing turn deep and regular. When a noise intruded from outside he no longer winced. She thought he might be asleep. Good. Sleep. She liked the forever feeling of the room, the old wooden furniture, the sight of him so undefended. It had been a year since she was alone with a man in a room while he slept, and a decade since it had happened with anyone but Matt. No, that was not true. She and Sam had slept for a few hours in the little upstairs room at his Uncle Xie’s house. That had been different. Now she was on watch. She was the guardian, the one caring. She kept her eyes on him until slowly she felt them starting to close. She was drifting into sleep. It was comfortable in the chair. That was the last thing she remembered thinking.

When she awoke she moved with a jolt. He was awake. He was sitting up on the edge of the bed. He looked dazed, and shiny with relief-sweat, but once again like himself.

She stirred. “Are you okay?”

“I am. It’s over. I fell asleep.”

“Good.”

“Thank you.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You brought me here.”

She shrugged. “You feel all right?”

“Fine.” He appeared to be at an odd midpoint between exhausted and exhilarated. He massaged a ring around his scalp.

“Here. Let me.” She went to stand behind him, but the angle was wrong, even though he turned his body to help her. Then her fingers caught in his tied-back hair.

“Sit down,” he said, and touched the bed behind him. She climbed up, settled a few inches from the back of him, and touched the coated elastic band that bound his hair. He brought up a practiced finger to hook through it and pull it off. His hair fell straight and heavy. She had never seen it loose. He looked different. She slipped her fingers underneath it to massage up, from the base of his scalp, following the arc his fingers had marked earlier.

She saw him relaxing. The jumpy little trigger points around his head seemed to disperse. His spine straightened. It took her a while to work her way to the top of his head, to the midpoint above his forehead, where she finished.

He caught her hand as it fell away, carried it around to his face, and pressed it to his cheek. Then he moved until his lips were in the center of her palm. She knew he was going to kiss her there and he did, but instead of the single lip-press she expected, he did it slowly, for a long time, and with all the care and attention he might have lavished were he kissing her on the mouth. There was no mistaking what he was saying. A torrent of pain and hope poured through her brain, threatening to short-circuit everything, but her hand moved against his face by itself, responding.

What to do now? Cross this line unthinking? Neither was young. They were fossils. He was older than she, which was saying something. She knew little about his past, but for the first time in her life it didn’t seem to matter. Of course he had pain and remorse in his suitcase. So did she. Hers was different, though; it was total. Being widowed wiped a person clean. There was nothing unfinished; everything was finished. She was empty. She carried nothing. She never expected to love again. Don’t think of love, she reproved herself. Don’t even allow the word to form. This could be only a moment. No pretending. She held herself still, moving only her hand against his mouth.

In the end her body decided for her. He brought his mouth to the cleft between her fingers with so much love that she found herself inching up, just a little, until she was against him from behind. She slid her left hand around his waist, he caught it with his, and again their fingers interlaced. In this way they held each other and exchanged promises and trepidations, all without speaking, all without hurry, for each wanted to be sure. This was the long moment that was like a question. She let the question play, loving the strong, wiry feeling of his body from behind. Her hand played with his stomach and he tilted himself up to her. She put her lips on the back of his neck. That was it. She had answered. His hands loosened, his body turned, and in a long second she saw the prismatic potential of their lives unfolding. Don’t think about that. Then he was facing her, undoing her clothing, cupping a gentle hand behind her head to bring her mouth to his, and she felt the future and the past fall away from her.

“Look at us,” she said, touching his chest. “Like a couple of teenagers.” Then she said what she was scared to say. “Sam, that was so good.”

“I know.” He caught her under the rib cage and stretched, first back, then forward, taking her with him. She felt a gentle pull up and down her spine.

He let her go. There was a shine to his face. “You want to get up and sit in the courtyard? The moon’s up. The city’s sleeping. I like this time,” he added, but with a different tone, as if now he would start to tell her about himself; as if there were many things she would need to know.

“I like it too,” said Maggie.

He rose and drew some folded things from a pile, pajamas — his, but they fit her. Not like the capacious things she used to borrow from Matt. Matt. She swallowed at the new strangeness of the thought of her husband. The dial had moved. She had made love to someone. Sam had put on pajamas and was tying the string at his waist, free in front of her, his hair still loose. She reached out and gathered it and let it drop. The touch made him raise his face, happy. She felt it too. This was the night Matt would start to become a memory.

Sam set out two rattan recliners in the court and lit a sheltered candle between them. They lay side by side and watched the leaves above their heads. The waning moon made a lazy letter C atop the rim of the wall.

“It’s so quiet,” she said. “I thought your father would be staying here.”

“He is, in that room.” Sam pointed to the north-facing room across from his own. “But he went with Jiang and Tan on an overnight pilgrimage to a temple.”

“Are they religious?”

“Only about food. This place has the best vegetarian cuisine in north China. They pray with the monks, sleep at the temple, and eat like kings. They come back tomorrow.”

“So they were already gone when you got the news.”

“Yes.”

She looked at him across the candle. They had been so close to each other a few hours ago, inside each other. She had seen so much about him. She felt a surge. She was aware of how much she wanted him to be happy. “Don’t worry, Sam. This thing means nothing. Your career’s going to take off. Nothing can stop it.”

“You sound like my uncles.”

That’s because I love you as they do, was the thought that blurted up from her subconscious — but which she could not say out loud. “They know. So do I.” Then she kept talking, so the words could more easily pass by. “And in time the world will know, too. My article will help. You will be really happy with its portrait of what you do. And I wrote it before this happened” — she touched his leg — “so don’t worry.” She paused. “I didn’t expect this, Sam.”

“Neither did I.”

A smile crept over her. “Any more than I expected the food to be so great. Maybe that’s what makes the article about you glow the way it does. Do you know what they say? That writers do their very best stories on a foreign place the first time they see it — and then again the last time, when they are saying goodbye, just before leaving. That last one they call the swan song. So maybe my piece on you is just my first piece on this place and this food, and everything seems so marvelous — is so marvelous — that it comes out on the page.”

“I love that you got it about the food,” he said, “that you understood it, that maybe — I hope I’m not projecting — you might even be on your way to loving it.”

“I could get there,” she said, seriously. “Given time, and exposure.”

“That would best be done here,” he pointed out.

She didn’t say anything. She thought she understood what he was really saying, and she couldn’t promise to stay here any more than he could say he’d come back home. She stood up, redirected the moment by stretching a bit, then excused herself and started to walk away on the path toward the main dining room.

“Bathroom?” he said. “Restaurant’s closed. Use mine.” He pointed to a door in the corner between the room where he lived and the second dining room. She had not seen it before.

She would ask nothing, she decided, as she walked across the court. Expect nothing. A world separated them. There was no way anything between them could take hold and keep going. She knew that already now, at the beginning, and once she adjusted to the idea it gave her a certain peace. Just as being widowed had given her peace, though of a different and far more bitter kind. Being widowed had made her feel that nothing else she could ever lose, ever again, could really hurt her. But that was wrong, because this would hurt her, losing Sam. Already she knew it would hurt.

The bathroom was small and homey, with a stall shower. She felt comfortable in here. She brought his towel to her face and closed her eyes and sank into it. It was full of him, his smell. She loved it; she could stand here breathing it forever.

It was amazing how a feeling could be so powerful and still impossible. As if she could stay. She put the towel back on the rack. The city was so quiet. Was it four in the morning? Five? She walked back out under the rustling leaves. She was aware of the freedom of her body, the ease of no underwear. She had a strange, dreamlike sense that she had always lived here and had merely forgotten it, that every day of her life she had seen Sam reclining in just this way, his chest bare, his drawstring pajamas. She felt a cramp inside her.

He moved to one side of his chaise. “Come here with me. There’s room.” And she lay down next to him, nestled under his arm. As soon as he was holding her again and they were breathing together, she felt herself relax. Her thoughts and questions ebbed. “I do wish I could stay here,” she said truthfully.

“I was going to propose that,” he answered. She laughed. She did not stop to wonder if he spoke lightly or seriously. Somehow she knew at that moment, in the circle of his arm, that the few words they had just spoken were the simple and sufficient truth.