He bared his teeth as he stared out into the dark.
“And the significance of that particular bird is not lost on me,” he continued after a moment. “The owl flies in absolute silence and hunts in the pitch-black. During the Shang dynasty, people used to think of it as the god of night or dreams. They also believed it carried messages between this world and the next. For that reason, the owl appears repeatedly in Shang ritual art. From the sixth century onwards, however, there was a shift in how the owl was viewed. It was no longer seen as benign or helpful. Instead, it became a bad omen. A harbinger of doom. In certain dialects, there is a striking resemblance between the sound an owl makes and the word for ‘to dig,’ as in ‘to dig a grave.’ When you hear an owl hooting, you should prepare for a death. Your own, or someone else’s. Someone close to you. It’s no accident that owls appear on the Han dynasty’s burial ceramics.”
Zhang was shaking his head, but Mad Dog hadn’t finished.
“It was for my benefit. Don’t you see? She was telling me she knows I’m onto her.” Mad Dog’s teeth were gritted now. “It was a warning—a threat…”
“I’m sorry,” Zhang said, “but you’re blowing this whole thing out of proportion.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s late. I’m going home.”
“Before you go.” Reaching into his jacket pocket, Mad Dog produced a small square mirror, a gnarled twig, and a red envelope. “Take these,” he said, “and keep them on your person at all times—especially when you’re with her.”
“What for?”
“They might help to protect you.”
Zhang held the twig up to the light.
“It’s from a peach tree,” Mad Dog said. “Peach trees are often used in exorcism rituals.”
Zhang studied the other objects. The mirror had a cheap tin surround that was speckled with rust. He opened the red envelope and peered inside. All it contained was a circular piece of orange peel.
“Humor me,” Mad Dog said.
“Well,” Zhang said, “it’ll hardly be the first time I’ve done that.”
Mad Dog stood facing him, a stooped but dogged figure, the river at his back. “You know something? Sooner or later, you’re going to have to start taking me seriously.”
“Am I?” Zhang shook his head again and turned away.
* * *
—
At lunchtime the next day, Zhang took a lift to the ground floor of his office building and walked out through the revolving doors. Naemi was already waiting in the pickup area, in a taxi. She was dressed simply, in a short black dress and trainers. A pair of ’70s-style sunglasses hid her eyes.
“You’re not wearing your contact lenses,” he said.
She adjusted her sunglasses. “Yes, I am,” she said. “This is just fashion.”
He smiled. “I missed you so much.”
“I missed you too. How long has it been? Four days?”
“It feels longer.”
They set off along Century Avenue. Under the trees that lined the road were groups of street cleaners in their baggy pale blue uniforms. The sky was grayish yellow.
“How was Hong Kong?” he asked.
She talked about a friend of hers, an artist called Kung Lan, who was in the final stages of preparing his new show. It was scheduled to open at her gallery in the first week of October.
“What kind of show?” Zhang asked.
The concept was simple, she told him. Kung had noticed that when young women looked at their phones the expression on their faces tended to be either contemplative or beatific. In his view, they bore a striking resemblance to medieval paintings of the Virgin Mary holding the Christ child. The stark white glow emitted by most phones only added to the atmosphere of reverence. Kung was in the process of creating a series of high-contrast color photographs, which were to be blown up to larger-than-life size. Some of the images were posed. Others had been taken surreptitiously—in the street, or on public transport. Kung had Daoist tendencies, she said. In his late fifties now, he belonged to a generation of artists whose disenchantment with politics was matched by its reservations about a society that was fast becoming materialistic. While his images would take their place in the tradition of Chinese portraiture, which was more than two thousand years old, they would also be seen as an attack on the new consumerism. He was calling the show Modern Madonnas.
“It’s going to be wonderful,” she said. “You should come.”
“Maybe I will.” Zhang glanced out of the window. They were still heading south. “Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise.”
Ten minutes later, they pulled into the forecourt of the Kangqiao Holiday Inn. Zhang paid the driver, then stepped out on to the tarmac. On the other side of the road was a Muslim restaurant and an office that sold real estate. The sun felt hotter than it had in Lujiazui. There seemed to be less air.
Standing in the lobby, he watched as Naemi walked over to reception. He was surrounded by people in green plastic visors and pastel-colored leisure wear. A tour group from another part of China. Foreign tourists would never stay here. It was too far from the center.
When Naemi returned with a room key, they took a lift to the twenty-fourth floor. He wondered why she had chosen such an ordinary, out-of-the-way hotel. Was it anonymity that she was seeking? Did she want to avoid running into anyone they knew? Or was there a thrill to be found in places that were neutral, and characterless? What was happening between them was so vivid, perhaps, that it didn’t need much of a backdrop.
He followed her out of the lift and down a corridor. Pink carpet, cream walls. He watched her bare legs, her blonde hair shifting against her shoulders. The small of her back. She seemed so youthful, so healthy. Everything he learned about her while she was elsewhere—the gloomy apartment building, the sinister medical supplies, Mad Dog’s ghoulish visions—was undermined or contradicted the moment she appeared. He found it hard to equate one version with the other. In her hand was a white paper shopping bag he hadn’t noticed while they were in the taxi.
They arrived in the pool area. Glass walls stretched from floor to ceiling on all sides, the white-and-orange apartment buildings of Kangqiao clustered below, only dimly visible through the milky veil of the heat haze. A silver sculpture stood at the shallow end, its curves reminding Zhang of seashells. The surface of the pool was perfectly smooth. No one else was there.
“Are we going swimming?” he asked.
“You are.” She reached into the bag and handed him some trunks and a pair of goggles.
“You’re not coming in?”