Sensing somebody approaching the car, Zhang looked up and saw Naemi crossing the pavement. He closed the book quickly and slid it beneath the seat in front of him.
“Sorry I was so long,” she said when she got in. “Kung Lan wouldn’t let me go.”
“Well, it’s his night,” Zhang said.
She leaned over and kissed him. “The look on your face when you saw that photograph of me…”
“Actually, I bought it.”
She stared at him. “What?”
“I bought it,” he said. “It wasn’t cheap, but I’m told that Kung Lan’s work is really beginning to take off. I think it’s probably a good investment.”
His deadpan answer made her smile, though he sensed that his purchase had shocked her, and made her uneasy. It wasn’t a straightforward response.
As they drove across the city, he decided to change the subject.
“How was London?”
“It was lovely.” She sighed. “The air had that autumn smell already—fireworks and dead leaves. There were dead leaves everywhere.” She glanced at him, the blue neon passing through the inside of the car making her blonde hair look cold. “Have you been?”
“Once or twice,” he said, “but never at this time of year.” He looked out through the window and saw an office building with all its lights on, no one sitting at any of the desks. “Tell me about your mother.”
“My mother?” she said. “Where did that come from?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m curious.”
“She was restless. Quite wild. She was a Sami. I think I mentioned that before.”
“Did she look like you?”
“Not really. She was about my height, but she had black hair. Her eyes were blue.”
“When did she die?”
“Years ago.” Naemi stared straight ahead. “I loved her very much. I miss her.”
Black hair, blue eyes. If what Naemi was telling him was true, it put paid to his theory that she was the daughter of Nina, the girl Gulsvig had known.
He tried another angle. “Did she ever go to university?”
“My mother?” Naemi laughed. “I told you. My parents were country people. I grew up in the middle of nowhere.”
“It seems so unlikely,” he said, “you being the child of country people.”
“That’s me. Unlikely.”
Some minutes later, Chun Tao pulled up on the north side of People’s Square. The Shanghai Museum stood in the middle, rounded and glowing, like an interplanetary craft that had just landed.
“I want to show you something,” Zhang said.
Naemi contemplated the floodlit museum for a few moments, then turned to look at him. “Are you sure about this?”
“I’m sure.”
They entered the museum by the side entrance and climbed the steps to the second floor. As always, the building housed a grainy silence. When they reached the ceramics gallery, he led her to an ivory-colored vase with a round body and a long neck. The small white card below it said: T’ang: 618–907. The vase was almost defiant in its plainness and its simplicity, and yet it carried with it a sense of all the years that it had lived through. All the centuries. He glanced at Naemi, and saw a new stillness in her face. He didn’t ask her what she was thinking. She would speak if she wanted to. There was no need, in fact, to speak at all. Like meditation, it was an experience that transcended words.
“About the photograph,” he said. “Did you mind me buying it?”
“No, of course not. It’s just—” She cut herself off, unwilling to go further. “Just what?”
But she wouldn’t say anything else.
They moved on round the gallery. Most of the pieces had the same qualities of elegance and blankness. She was drawn to a celadon jar or bowl that stood in a glass case of its own in the middle of a room. Made in the early eighteenth century, during the reign of Yongzheng, it had a pale green glaze, and was decorated with an embossed design of mingling clouds and dragons.
“This doesn’t feel quite as calm as the others,” she said.
“If the others are ascetics or holy men,” he said, “this one’s a kind of warrior.”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“The people who made these pieces were channeling something much bigger than they were. They were real masters of their craft, but they were servants too. They weren’t entirely in control.”
“They were vessels,” she said. “Vessels making vessels.”
“That’s clever—and true.” Slipping an arm round her waist, he drew her close and kissed her.
Later, when they were outside again, he told her that he always felt different afterwards. “Cleaner than before, somehow, and capable of anything. Or nothing.”
Her eyes on the ground, she nodded and smiled.
As they walked back to the car, he suggested they sit for a few moments. She sank down onto a bench and looked up into the trees. The night was warm and damp. Leaning sideways, he took a little dark green box out of his jacket pocket.
“Here,” he said.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“A gift.”
She shook her head, a movement so small that it was almost imperceptible. He couldn’t tell if she was disapproving or overwhelmed.
“Why don’t you open it?” he said.
She undid the catch and lifted the hinged lid. Inside was an antique ring he had bought for her earlier that day, a single oblong piece of jade in a setting of carved gold. Her lips parted, and her black eyes seemed to be emitting light.
“Try it on,” he said.
She did as he asked. The milky green stone was precisely the same width as her ring finger. She didn’t speak. A breeze pushed through the branches overhead.
“The moment I saw it,” he said, “I thought of you. The way the beauty of the gold combined and yet contrasted with the mystery of the jade.” He took hold of her hand and looked down at the ring. “We have a saying here in China. Perhaps you know it: Gold has a value, but jade is priceless.”
“I don’t think I’ve heard that before,” she murmured.
“People think jade wards off evil spirits, and that it brings good fortune. They also think it stands for longevity. I don’t know whether you believe in any of that. I’m not sure I do.” He smiled faintly. “In any case, it can’t do any harm.”