A conscientious cop, Detective Yu did not have so much as a room of his own, although he was already in his early forties. The one single room in which he had lived with Peiqin and their son Qinqin since their return to the city in the early eighties, had originally been a dining room, in the wing of the house that had been assigned to Old Hunter in the early fifties.

Peiqin had not really complained, but after this apartment fiasco, her silence spoke volumes. She had once questioned his dedication to police work, although not directly. In this time of “economic reform,” it was possible for people to make their own career choices, even if some paths involved risk. As a cop, Yu had his “iron rice bowl” which, for many years, had meant life-long job security in Chairman Mao’s communist Utopia. The iron-unbreakable-rice bowl was a synonym for a permanent job, with guaranteed income, medical benefits, and food ration coupons. But now having an iron rice bowl was no longer so desirable. Geng Xing, one of Peiqin’s former colleagues, had quit to run a private restaurant, and, according to Peiqin, made five or six times more than at the state-run restaurant. Peiqin had talked about Geng’s choice as if expecting some response from Yu, he remembered.

This was a crisis, Detective Yu concluded somberly, grinding out his cigarette butt on the concrete sink in the courtyard, before he went back to their room.

Peiqin was washing her feet in a green plastic basin. She remained seated, hunched over on the bamboo stool, without looking up. There were puddles of water on the floor. Inevitable. The basin was too small. She could hardly flex her toes in it.

In their “educated youth” days in Yunnan, now almost like another life, Peiqin, sitting beside him, had dabbled her feet in a brook, a clear, peaceful brook that ran behind their bamboo hut.