"It's just grass." Pingping smiled. "Why don't you go out and see it?"

" Can you come with me?" " Are you still scared?" "Don't know."

Mother and son went out so he could touch the grass with his hands. She wore a lavender wraparound skirt, and Taotao had on white shorts and maroon leather sandals. The boy loved the feel of the grass under his feet and kept running about as if chasing a phantom ball. His legs were sturdy but slightly bandy, like his father's. After he had frolicked for a while, Pingping took him to the woods beyond the northern end of the Masefields' property to see if they could find a few mushrooms. Under her arm was a thick book; she had to depend on the pictures to tell the edible mushrooms from the poisonous ones here. Together mother and son left the yard, where parts of the grass were glimmering softly and the lawn was shaded in places by the long shadows of the house and the trees.

Nan saw his wife and son fade away into the woods. He was glad that for the rest of the summer they could use this house for themselves, but at the same time his mind was restless, teeming with worrisome thoughts. So many things had happened recently that he was still in a daze. Six weeks earlier, when the field armies were poised to attack the demonstrators in Beijing, some Chinese graduate students at Brandeis University, where Nan had been working toward a Ph.D. in political science, had discussed all the possible means of preventing the violence from being unleashed. They talked for hours on end, but were mainly blowing off steam. Then, without thinking twice, Nan tossed out the idea that they might seize some of the top officials' children studying in the Boston area, especially those at MIT, and demand that their fathers revoke martial law and withdraw the troops from the capital. He was prompted by anger, just having seen on TV soldiers beating civilians with belts, clubs, and steel helmets, many faces smashed, bathed in blood and tears.