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“She left five days ago,” the girl whimpers. “She has not come back.”
“Did she get an exit permit?” Dun inquires. “Is she visiting her sister?”
The girl shakes her head. “Madame Hu didn’t tell me anything. But the next day, the gas and electricity were turned off.”
The surly man who opened the door jabs a finger in my shoulder. “You have no rights here. Get out!”
Dun takes a step, but I put a hand on his arm.
“Let’s go. There’s nothing here for us.”
We go back into the frigid night. We walk almost to the end of the block before I let Dun take me in his arms. I bury my face in his padded jacket, fighting tears.
“Auntie Hu wouldn’t have left without telling me,” I say.
“She would have if she didn’t plan on coming back or if she didn’t have an exit permit. She wouldn’t have wanted you to get in trouble.”
“But she left flowers—”
“A decoy, don’t you think, to protect you and her servants? You can tell the police you didn’t suspect anything.”
This can’t be. “Do you really think she’s tried to escape? She’s an old woman.”
“She’s just sixty, maybe a little older, maybe a little younger.”
“But if she’s caught, she’ll go to prison for a long time. She’ll never survive that.”
“She has a brave heart, just as you have a brave heart, Pearl. We must pray that she is safe and that she gets out.”
A brave heart? It feels like a swollen and aching thing in my chest.
“Let’s get some tea,” Dun says. “You’ll feel better.”
He takes me to a government-run teahouse. We sit as close as we can to the charcoal brazier, but even here cold air whistles through cracks and swirls around our feet. We sip our tea in silence. I stare into my cup, but I’m aware of Dun watching me. I’m surprised by the depth of my sadness. My mother and father are both dead. My sister is far away. My daughter and granddaughter are physically near but could just as easily be a million miles away, since they can’t come to Shanghai and I can’t go to the commune. Auntie Hu was one of only a few links to my past, and now she’s gone.
“Pearl.” I look up and see concern in Dun’s eyes. His expression makes me want to cry. “We don’t know what will happen in life. This is why it’s important for us to move forward, to live, to buy flowers, to—”
“What are you saying?”
“Look at Auntie Hu. She lost everyone, but she acted. Wherever she is, she’s trying to find a better life.” He pauses to let me think about that. Then, after a few moments, he slips off his stool to one knee. The teahouse’s proprietor hurries to our table in concern, but Dun waves him away. “We are not so young, you and I, and things will not always be easy, but would you do me the honor of marrying me?”
The tears that have been threatening finally come, but the drops that fall contain not sadness and loss but great joy.
“Absolutely,” I say.
Dun pays for our tea, and then we’re once again on the street. We’re too happy to go straight back to the house, where we’ll have no privacy. Our best way to be alone is right here, strolling among hundreds of people along Huaihai Road. But we don’t go far before a limousine pulls to a stop just ahead of us. The door opens, and Z.G. gets out.
“I saw you walking,” he says. “I had to say hello.”
Dun puts a hand on the small of my back—a gesture of reassurance or possession? Z.G. gives us an amused smile.
“I’m on my way to a dinner,” he goes on. “They’ll be showing a movie too. Would you like to come? You’re just the kind of people they want, probably more so than me.”
“We’ve already eaten,” I say, even though it was a small meal.
“And we’re on our way home,” Dun adds.
“I won’t hear of it.” Z.G. steps between us, loops his arms through ours—just as he used to do with May and me years ago when we walked together down the street—and leads us to the limousine. “Come, come. Get in the car.”
