“And you have a wonderful view from the window, “ she said, “almost like a picture.”

Wang stood leaning against the newly painted window frame, her ankles crossed, holding the glass in her hand.

“You are turning it into a painting,” he said.

In the afternoon light streaming through the plastic blinds, her complexion was matte porcelain. Her eyes were clear, almond-shaped, just long enough to be suggestive of a distinct character. Her black hair cascaded halfway down her back. She wore a white T-shirt and a pleated skirt, with a wide belt of alligator leather that cinched her “emancipated wasp” waist and accentuated her breasts.

Emancipated wasp. An image invented by Li Yu, the last emperor of the Southern Tang dynasty, also a brilliant poet, who depicted his favorite imperial concubine’s ravishing beauty in several celebrated poems. The poet-emperor was afraid that he might break her in two by holding her too tightly. It was said that the custom of foot-binding also started in Li Yu’s reign. There was no accounting for taste, Chen reflected.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“‘Waist so slender, weightless she dances on my palm!” he said, changing the reference as he recalled the tragic end of the imperial concubine, who drowned herself in a well when the Southern Tang dynasty fell. “Du Mu’s famous line fails to do justice to you.”

“More of your bogus compliments copied from the Tang dynasty, my poetic chief inspector?”

This sounded more like the spirited woman he had first met in the Wenhui building, Chen was happy to note. It had taken quite a long while for her to get over the defection of her husband. A student in Japan, the man had decided not to return home when his visa expired. Wang had taken it hard, naturally.

“Poetically alone,” he said.