“mary! mary! You must come out of there!” The door flew open. Mary Lever stood there, facing her husband. She was dressed to go out, her hair neatly combed, a small travel bag in one hand. He took a step back. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going, Michael. I’m leaving.”
He made a sound of disbelief. “But you can’t. I mean, it was nothing. Gloria and I ... we’re friends, that’s all. We’ve been friends since we were two, three years old. And there’s nothing more to it than that, I swear to you, Em. Why, I wouldn’t think—“ She shrugged. “I just have to, that’s all.” “But you can’t,” he said once more. “I won’t let you.”
“No?”
There was a movement of pained exasperation in his face—an expression that reminded her vividly of his father. “Look . . . can’t we talk this through? If you’re unhappy—“ “Unhappy?” She laughed sourly. “You don’t know, Michael. You just don’t know!”
“But I thought”—and now there was both pain and bewilderment in his face.
He looked down, like a scolded child—“I thought you loved me.”
She sighed. “I do. The gods know I do. But. . .” He met her eyes again, looking for reassurance. “Then why?” he asked. “If you love me, why do you have to go? Why can’t we work it through? It was just an argument, that’s all. Everyone has them. But it’s no reason to go, really it isn’t. I love you, Em. And if there’s something wrong—if there’s something you want to change . . . well, tell me. I’ll listen. And I’ll try. You know I’ll try.”
She stared at him, her face softening. Even so, she was determined. “It’s not you, Michael. Try and understand that. You’re a good man. You’ve turned out better than your breeding. But”—again she shrugged—“I guess it’s me. This life ... I wasn’t born to it.” He frowned. Still he didn’t understand. But was that so strange? He didn’t know her. And maybe he never would. Not in the way she wanted to be known. “I still love you, Michael, but it isn’t enough anymore.”
“Why?”
She shivered. Was there no way to avoid this? No way he’d simply stand back and let her go? She shook her head. “You don’t want to know.” “What? How can you say that? How the fuck can you say that?” It was the first time he had sworn at her. The first time, in fact, he had ever lost his temper with her. He lifted a hand in a gesture of apology. “Look ... I didn’t mean ...”
“No,” she said softly. “Nor I. You want to know why, eh?”
He nodded, his eyes still trying to fathom her.
She let the bag drop, then took a long breath. “It’s difficult. It’s . . .” She could feel the pain welling up inside her—could feel how tight the muscles in her face were—but she had come too far now to turn back. “It started years ago. . . .”
She saw his eyes widen and shook her head. “No, Michael. It’s not another man.”
No, she thought. Nothing so simple.
“It’s a ... feeling I have. A belief. It’s ... I guess it’s who I really am. Being with you, it was good, Michael. Never doubt that. Better than I’d ever dreamed it could be. But it wasn’t enough. All these years ...” She swallowed, all of the frustration suddenly there in her, focused in the fist she raised. “I denied myself and denied myself, until I just couldn’t do it anymore. I’d look in the mirror and wonder who the hell I was. The other night...”
She took a breath, controlling all the hurt she felt, all the unsatisfied anger. “The other night it came to a head. I looked out across that hall, then looked at myself, and I said, What the fuck are you doing? Who are youl Well. . . it’s time to find out. Time to take up where I left off.” She paused, willing him to understand. “I have to go down-level, Michael.”
“Down there?” He stared at her as if she was mad. “But you can’t.”
“Why not?” she said, more calmly than she felt. “It’s where I came from. .
. .”
His eyes slowly narrowed. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying . . . that you don’t know me, Michael Lever. I’m saying . . .”
His lips slowly parted. “Who are you?”
She stared at him a long time, trying to remember hard what it had been like not to know him. Trying—beyond all else—not to imagine what it would be like without him.
“Emily . . .” she said, the word strange on her lips. “Emily Ascher.”
“Em . . .” he said softly, surprised. Then, slowly, his face changed.
“Then it’s all been a lie. All along.”
She shook her head, pained by the look of accusation he was giving her.
“No. I really did love you. I really did try to fit in with your world.
But it didn’t work, Michael. Your friends—“
She stopped, horrified. He was crying. Michael was crying. She shuddered. No, she thought. Please no. Then, quickly, before her resolve failed her, she picked up her bag and swept past him, hurrying down the stairs.
li yuan stood beneath the Tree of Heaven, looking out across the wind-feathered surface of the long pool. Nearby, embedded in the dark North China earth, was the Family tablet, the huge rectangle of pale cream stone carved with the symbols of his ancestors. He studied it, trying to comprehend what it represented; to picture all of the hopes and fears, the happiness and sorrow, the hatreds and the passion, distilled into each name.
Stone. It all reduced to stone.
It was evening, and in the stillness of the walled garden he found himself thinking back, remembering the sprig of white blossom he had plucked from his brother’s fine, dark hair, that day that they had buried him. And the wind blew. And the haft of the ax rotted. . . . He looked up, into the branches of the tree. The moon was up, speared by the topmost branch.
“Ghosts . . .”he said quietly, offering the word to the darkening sky.
“This world is full of ghosts.”
Even to be standing there seemed unreal. To be alive at all seemed . . . strange, unexpected, as if, at any moment, he would wake from life and find himself within the silent vault, there beside his father and his brother, his body cold and still.
Ghosts . . . tonight they walked this walled enclosure. As he looked down again, the wooden gate set into the wall on the far side of the garden swung slowly open. A figure stood there briefly in the opening.
“Ben? Is that you?”
Shepherd closed the door and came across. He was taller than Yuan remembered and broader at the shoulder. Moreover, he had grown a beard—a short, dark sailor’s beard. It changed him. Yet the eyes were still the same. A vivid green, they burned within the tanned perfection of his face. “You asked for me, Yuan.”
“And if I hadn’t?”
“I would have come anyway.”
Yuan smiled. “How did you find out?”
“It wasn’t difficult. When the screens went black I knew something had happened. I tapped through at once and spoke to Master Nan.” Yuan raised an eyebrow, surprised. “You were watching, then?” “The game . . . Outside my work it’s one of the few things that interests me these days.”