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“No one has ever told me. I don’t think my father knows, and if Uncle Zai does, he’s not telling. And my mother? My mother was a beautiful dancer. Did I ever tell you that? She had such grace, such agility. And her voice! When she sang, the masses would cry. They said she sounded like an angel. But when I saw her again, she was in a wheelchair and her voice was all but gone. I had to stay, David. You see that, don’t you?”
“My letters?”
“I still have them.”
“And all the times I applied for visas?”
“I went to Uncle Zai for help. He pulled strings and your applications were rejected.”
“You should have let me come. You should have told me the truth. Even if you couldn’t tell me all of it, you could have said something instead of just disappearing like that.”
“But how? What part of the story could I have told you? Think about it. Where could I have started? What part could I have left out? You would have asked me a hundred questions.”
“I wouldn’t have.”
“You know how you are, David. The truth means everything to you. And your sense of justice…”
“Oh, God,” David groaned in final realization. “My rigid sense of right and wrong kept you from telling me.”
“No, not sanctimonious.” She took his hand and held it to her breast. “Admirable. Fearless. Unwavering. Don’t you know that these are the things I have loved most about you?”
“But they drove you away.”
“Yes,” she admitted. She slumped against the wall. This time when he reached out to her, she didn’t pull away. Slowly he drew her into his arms.
“So in answer to your questions,” she said, “I am not in cahoots with Guang Mingyun or the Rising Phoenix. That money comes from our family’s past and from my father’s connections. I haven’t lied to you since I saw you again. I have translated everything. I have tried to explain what we have seen. Of those accusations at least I am innocent.”
She felt limp in his arms, almost as though she weren’t in her body at al
l.
“I love you, Hulan. Nothing you could do or say would ever change that.”
“But what I did…”
“You saved your parents the best way you knew how. As for the other things—your teacher, the person on the farm…Jesus, you were just a little kid.”
“That doesn’t absolve me.”
“No, but ever since then you’ve tried to set things right. You’ve devoted your life to public service. Do you see Nixon, Madame Yee, or any of the millions and millions of people who participated in the Cultural Revolution doing the same?”
He felt her body try to shift away from him, but he kept her within his embrace.
“The real question is,” he continued, “can you forgive me?”
She looked up at him. Her eyes glistened with tears, which brimmed, then ran down her face. He held her as she cried.
20
FEBRUARY 12
The Official Residence
They spent the night at Hulan’s house—secure in the knowledge that MPS agents were watching over them in the sedan parked outside her gate. In the morning, she was still shaky and David was wrung out, but they had never been as close. All the walls between them were finally gone. Gradually they began to concentrate their attention once again on their present predicament. Hulan made tea and they sat together at the little round table in her kitchen. They started with the premise that they had exhausted their leads.
“Someone wanted us dead,” David said. “Who knew we were going to the jail?”
“Guang Mingyun.”
