Together, they had strolled the lake, finding amid the crush of Chinese visitors a seat aboard the ludicrous and beautiful boat the Empress Ci Xi had ordered built a century before.

Wang seemed immune to time, Stratton thought. He had looked fit and every bit the elegant, prosperous tourist in tattersall shirt, gabardine trousers, polished loafers and Japanese camera. As always, Wang looked a trifle owlish behind his thick glasses with gold frames.

"I keep hoping that if I put off everything long enough, the publisher will forget about the book contract," Stratton had joked to explain his presence.

"But how about you, David? Aren't you the man who once told me never to look back, who persuaded me at a tough time in my life to lay the past aside for good and get on with life?"

"I would be distressed if I thought you were really as dogmatic as you sound, Thomas," Wang had chided. "But of course you are teasing, and, yes, I was the one who always said that the United States was my country, China just the place I happened to be born. But then I changed my mind. It is an old man's right, you know, to change his mind."

"Why?"

"Two things, really. For one, I am retired, you know-"

"No, I didn't. If I had known, I would have come to wish you well."

"Well, it was just a quiet leavetaking, no ceremony. Of course, I expect to stay in Pittsville and keep my hand in now and then." David Wang had smiled. Only death would ever take him from the college and the town where he had been an institution for nearly forty years.

"The second reason is that I have a brother. I had not thought much about him all these years and then suddenly there was a letter inviting me to China. In the end, I came. A good idea, I guess."

Stratton had caught an uncertainty in the old man's voice.

"Is something wrong? Anything I can help you with?"

"I'm just a bit bewildered is all. Call it culture shock. You know, when I got off the plane, I was nearly too nervous to speak Chinese."