There was more light in the sky now, and my eyelids were growing heavy. He said, Why don’t you lie down, I’ll wake you when it’s time to go. I tried to hang on, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open and dropped off as soon as I was horizontal. After some chaotic dreams, I woke to find a blanket over me. He was in a nearby chair, reading. I sat up tentatively. Backlit by the sun, his face looked like a bottomless well. Time for school, he said gently.

Before I left, he handed me a plastic bag containing some sliced bread and a couple of books. Breakfast, he said, this is all I have here. I looked at the books: foreign anthologies of poetry, old ones with library markings on the spine. Don’t lose those, he said, they’re out of print.

On the weekend, I photocopied both books, and went back to the loft to return them. He’d said he was usually there in the afternoons, which I’d taken to mean I was welcome to visit. Sure enough, there he was, writing a letter to a friend. There was a pile of manuscript paper on the desk. It was a cold day, and he wore a gray sweater-vest. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, revealing a luxuriant growth of hair on his forearms. He seemed delighted to see me, and produced a large bag of snacks from a desk drawer, as if he’d been expecting me to turn up. I showed him some of the poems I’d written, and he actually remembered the two I’d submitted to him before. He said, You ought to come to the next recital and share these with the group. My new poems showed improvement, he said, and asked why I hadn’t sent him any more. Keep writing, he insisted, don’t stop.

I stayed till dusk. He got a phone call and said to me, I’m meeting my wife for dinner, why don’t you join us? I expect your dorm doesn’t feed you on weekends. Along the way, he told me his wife Meng Jing had been a dancer until a leg injury forced her to stop, so I shouldn’t mention dancing in front of her.

Meng Jing was already at the restaurant and didn’t seem surprised to see me, so I guess Yin Zheng must have told her I was coming. For all I knew, he’d told her everything, including that I’d spent the night at his. She didn’t seem to mind, though. Maybe this was nothing to them. She kept her eyes fixed on me as I walked over, and when I’d sat down, she said, You slouch, you ought to pay more attention to your posture, sitting up straight will make you look more confident. I replied that I didn’t lack confidence, but what I actually wanted to say was, What’s it matter, it’s not like I want to be a dancer. We were in a dimly lit Western restaurant. White candles burned on the tables, and the silverware gleamed. I ordered a Caesar salad and grilled cod. A waiter came by and poured wine into our glasses, and Yin Zheng suggested we toast to a beautiful weekend. They ate out almost every weekend, he said, and Meng Jing always chose excellent restaurants. I’d never tasted wine before, and found it sour.