one point we rode hidden in an oxcart. If not for my father’s smoldering fury and my loneliness, it would have been thrilling. Finally we arrived in Chongqing. We set up house. A new amah—young and beautiful—and new tutors. My father, as always, gone much of the day, and I more lonely than before. I missed my stepmother. I missed my small brother, who made me laugh. It was a long time before I let go of the idea that Mei-lin had returned to Shanghai. I pictured the garden at the Chen home, the acacia in bloom, everyone playing, happy together. I was consumed with envy! But of course I said nothing to my father. He, in a change of heart I only understood years later when I learned the reason for our flight, had joined the army of Chiang Kai-shek. I did the same myself when I was of age, though as I said, my value increased with my unit’s distance from actual combat. But my lack of military talent pales beside my father’s political judgment. He had a genius, apparently, for picking the losing side. In a three-way war, he chose it twice.
“Now.” C. D. Zhang’s smile re-emerged. “That’s our sordid family story, and I’m ready to be enlightened. Where in all this is the Shanghai Moon?”
Well, we’d made a deal. Before I could start, though, Bill asked, “Could you just tell me one more thing? How did you and your father get out of China?”
C. D. Zhang waved an arm. “I’ve told this to Ms. Chin. I thought partners shared everything! Our escape was dramatic, but not unique. With companions from my unit, I reached Shanghai scarely ahead of Mao’s barefoot soldiers. My father had gone earlier, to negotiate passage on the Taipei Pearl—one of the last ships. I nearly missed boarding it. A frantic crush streamed up the gangway, many losing their footing, plunging into the oily water. My father, on the deck, screamed at the crewmen repelling the mob to let me board. As though they were troops under his command! Of course they ignored him. As my friends and I fought our way to the top of the slope, a desperate sailor unhitched the gangway from the ship. I leapt, crashing onto the deck as the steel plates fell away below and sent hundreds into the river. My companions were among them. With screams still echoing we set course for Taipei.”
His sharp eyes flicked to me. “Ah, Ms. Chin, you look so sad! The past is gone. Those hundreds are long dead, and many worse things have happened since those days, and many better ones, too. As for my father and myself, when the ship reached Formosa—or as we now say, Taiwan—Chiang’s men settled in to await the day, sure to come soon, when they’d regain the country. My father mocked them as fools. He said China and the past had both betrayed us and he wanted nothing more to do with them. We continued to America, to start new lives in the land of opportunity! Where, for a man who told any who’d listen that he’d turned his back on the past, my father spent a good deal of time tending his garden of bitter memories.”
“One of those memories was Mei-lin’s betrayal?” My synapses suddenly made a connection. “That’s why he wouldn’t have wanted you to sponsor your brother and your cousin?”
“Yes, Ms. Chin. Exactly.” C. D. Zhang offered the teapot around. I accepted; Bill declined. “Now, you’ve heard my story and wrested from me a dark family secret. The very least you can do is tell me why. Do you suppose Mei-lin had the Shanghai Moon with her when we left, and my father unwittingly . . . discarded it?”
“No, that’s not it,” I said. “Do you remember a German friend of your father’s, a Major Ulrich?”
“Major Ulrich, of course. A sneering fellow, not so different from my father. Why?”
“He’s the man who stopped the Municipal Police from beating Kai-rong. To get him to do that, Mei-lin and Rosalie may have promised him the Shanghai Moon.”
A flush of excitement crept into C. D. Zhang’s face. “Ms. Chin! New discoveries indeed! How did you learn this?”
“We’ve found some documents. Mei-lin’s diary and some other things. Papers no one’s seen before.”
“My stepmother’s diary! And other things?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t elaborate, and after a moment he asked, “Where did you find them?”
“As an academic told us, it’s unbelievable what’s maintained in government archives at taxpayers’ expense.” That