“At the time I supposed he was homesick, but later I wondered if he had been crying over that Russian woman, the one he was in love with. Isn’t it strange the moments your fate turns upon? I could have walked straight past without stopping; I could have comforted him then hurried on my way; but instead I went home with him that night and became his housekeeper and concubine.” She smiled at Val’s expression. “You look shocked! I can’t explain except to say that he moved me. From the moment I saw him, I wanted to take care of him.”

Ha Suran seemed more animated than earlier. Her energy levels clearly fluctuated according to the rhythm of the illness inside her.

“Did he tell you anything about his background?”

“First I had to learn Russian,” Ha Suran explained. “That took a while. But in the meantime I worked out a few things for myself. The house was always full of valuable paintings, icons, jewels, fox furs, silver samovars, and other precious items, which were there one day and gone the next. I realized he was selling luxury goods that had been stolen from the abandoned estates of Russian aristocrats. Hundreds of White Russians fled across the border into Manchuria during the civil war. Your father raided their houses then brought the goods to Harbin to sell back to them.”

Val was astounded. It had crossed her mind that her father might have made his fortune by criminal means, but she hadn’t truly believed it. “Did he ever get caught?” she asked.

Ha Suran nodded. “I know he was a wanted man. He fell foul of the regime in Russia somehow, and by the time I met him he couldn’t go back there anymore. There was a sadness deep in his soul—and, fool that I was, I loved him for it.”

Val was having trouble reconciling this lovestruck thief with the bullying father she had known. It was as if they were talking about different people.

There was silence between them for a while. Nicole had gone to market with Li Suran, and the only sound was the clucking of chickens in the yard and the buzzing of a persistent bluebottle.

“If he didn’t love you, why did he take you to Australia with him?” Val asked.

“Maybe it was easier to get a visa if you were a married couple. Maybe he was lonely.” Ha Suran shrugged. “We learned English together from a tutor he hired, who used to come to the house two evenings a week, then we got married in the Orthodox Church. It was all done in a rush, because he did not like the Chinese warlord Zhang Xueliang who took over Manchuria in 1929. I think he wanted to tax your father’s business interests. So he sold the house and car and packed up in a hurry.”

“Why Australia? Why not America? Or somewhere in the Far East?”