Li gazed up at her for a minute or more. Then he said, “I love you, American lady.”

Her heart seemed to be in her throat. Her voice came as little more than a whisper. “I love you, too, Chinese man.”

And they held each other on the fold-down bed in the compartment of a condemned sleeper car in this industrial city in the north of China for a very long time, embracing for the first time the hope of a future together.

II

Yongli returned in the late afternoon. Li and Margaret had eaten some of the fruit that Lotus had packed in the holdall, and they had talked, endlessly. She told him about her childhood in upstate Illinois, summers in New England, the day her grandfather had a stroke and her brother drowned in the lake. He talked of his boyhood in Sichuan, the horrors of growing up in the Cultural Revolution, the loss of his mother. There was so much they had to tell each other, and neither had any idea of how long they might have to do it.

They saw Yongli hurry across the rusted tracks, glancing cautiously around him, his lengthening shadow following in his wake. They heard him climb aboard and his steps heavy in the corridor. He was breathing hard and perspiring when he reached their compartment. “That was a lot harder than I thought,” he said. “But I got us some wheels.” He pulled some packs of cigarettes from his pocket and chucked them on one of the beds. Margaret handed him some bottled water and he drank gratefully. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and slumped on to the bed. “Cost me an arm and a leg. It’s no great shakes, but it should do the mileage there and back okay. I’ve to pick it up just after ten tonight.”