in the Chen family for fifty generations. To Kairong it rep resented enduring family love. The necklace Rosalie chose to dismantle for its diamonds was not the most valuable piece she brought to Shanghai, either. It was the one that meant the most to her.”
I looked up. “How do you know that?”
“Yaakov Corens told me.”
I held the brooch to the light as he went on, “By the time my cousin and I came to America, Lao-li’s obsession with the Shanghai Moon was total. Its legend had grown in the decades since it vanished, both in his mind and in the world of collectors. When I found we were in the same city with its maker, I could not risk Lao-li discovering its truth.”
“Why not? Did you have it by then?”
As though the words were cumbersome, Mr. Zhang spoke slowly. “I have always had it.”
“Then what are you talking about, ‘the decades since it vanished’? It never vanished. You had it!” I thrust out my hand, the brooch sparkling in it. “How could you do that to Mr. Chen? How could you let his obsession ever get started? Why didn’t you tell him? What was the point?”
The silence returned, and lasted so long I was starting to think Mr. Zhang had no answer. And really, what answer could there be? Greed? A family bitterness, a rivalry? Something to lord over his cousin, a way to control him?
Softly, Mr. Zhang spoke. “The seed of the legend of the Shanghai Moon was planted in desperate, dark times. It was watered with tragedy and tended in heartbreak. Public and private. Private and public.
“The truth you hold you in your hand, that small, flawed thing, was meaningless in the face of people’s need—Chinese people and exiled Jews and others besides—to believe something glorious could exist outside the despair and horrors of wartime Shanghai. No, more: could exist amid that despair and horror. From the moment it was made its legend began. That Rosalie would not show it only helped the legend flourish. In whispers, in rumors.
“Those rumors were why, years later, the robbers came for it.” He reached out and took the brooch from me. “But they did not leave with it.”
Mr. Zhang turned the gem in his hand, watching it gleam. “The moment he shot Aunt Rosalie, the robbers’ leader panicked. He commanded the others to retreat. They did. When I reached Aunt Rosalie—as I told you, I was the first—I found the Shanghai Moon’s gold chain broken but the gem still on it, on the floor beside her. I put it in my pocket. I wanted to be the one to give it back to her, when she was well. I wanted to be the one to bring her that happiness.
“But of course there was to be no happiness. Rosalie was dead. When Uncle Paul found her so, and saw the Shanghai Moon gone from about her throat, he wailed and, shocking me, began to curse the gem and those who now possessed it, calling down all manner of misery upon them. They had stolen it, they had killed for it, and now let them suffer all the torments of hell for it. His inconsolable grief and anger frightened me as much as the robbers had. He saw that, and calmed; he embraced me; he asked me to attend to my young cousin while he cared for Grandfather, who was badly hurt. I did so. For many hours I tried to comfort Lao-li with sweets and stories, sang to him, made tea. I brought water for Uncle Paul and tore cloth into bandages. I helped without question in whatever way I was asked. Trying to be good. Trying to hide my guilt and my terror. Because as day turned tonight I’d come to understand that the loss of the Shanghai Moon had killed Aunt Rosalie. Also that punishment was assured to—and deserved by—whoever possessed it now.”
Mr. Zhang paused, sad eyes still on the gem. He seemed to have shrunk.
“Oh,” I said, “but that’s—”
“Yes.” He nodded without looking up. “But I was eight years old.
“Over the next few days, barricaded in the kitchen, Uncle Paul nursed Grandfather while I tried to comfort and distract my cousin. In the dead of night we stole to the garden to bury Rosalie. Uncle Paul chanted prayers and shed tears. And I kept my terrifying secret.
“When Uncle Kai-rong surprised us with his return, he echoed Uncle Paul’s shock, his grief and his curses. Echoed and multiplied them. He