Her mother said, ‘You know, Mr. Li, I saw that broadcast, too. The children were very young then, and my husband and I stayed up late to watch the pictures beamed live from China. It was a big thing in America for people like us, after nearly thirty years of the Cold War. To suddenly get a glimpse of another world, a threatening world, a world which we had been told was so very different from our own. We were scared of China, you know. The Yellow Peril, they called you. And then, suddenly, there was our very own president going there to talk to Mr. Mao Tse Tung, as we called him. Just like it was the most natural thing. And it made us all feel that the world was a safer place.’ She shook her head in wonder. ‘And all these years later, here I am in China talking to a Chinaman who watched those same pictures, and was as moved by them as we were.’
‘Oh, spare me!’ Everyone turned at the sound of Margaret’s breaking voice, and were shocked to see the tears brimming in her eyes.
Her mother said, ‘Margaret, what on earth…?’
But Margaret wasn’t listening. ‘How long is it, Mr. Li? Two days, three, since I wasn’t good enough to marry your son because I wasn’t Chinese?’ She turned her tears on her mother. ‘And you were affronted that your daughter should be marrying one.’
‘Magret, Magret, what’s wrong, Magret?’ Xinxin jumped off her chair and ran around the table to clutch Margaret’s arm, distressed by her tears.
‘I’m sorry, little one,’ Margaret said, and she ran a hand through the child’s hair. ‘It’s just, it seemed like no one wanted your Uncle Yan and me to get married.’ She looked at the faces around the table. ‘And that’s the irony of it. Just when you all decide you’re going to be such big pals, there isn’t going to be a wedding after all.’
She tossed her napkin on the table and kissed Xinxin’s forehead before hurrying out of the Emperor’s Room and running blindly down the royal corridor.
For a moment, they all sat in stunned silence. Then Li laid his napkin on the table and stood up. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, and he went out after her.
She was out in the street before she realised that she had no coat. The snow was nearly ankle-deep and the wind cut through her like a blade. Her tears turned icy on her cheeks as they fell, and she hugged her arms around herself for warmth, staring wildly about, confused and uncertain of what to do now. The traffic on Tiananmen Square crept past in long, tentative lines, wheels spinning, headlights catching white flakes as they dropped. One or two pedestrians, heads bowed against the snow and the wind, cast inquisitive glances in her direction. The Gate of Heavenly Peace was floodlit as always, Mao’s eternal gaze falling across the square. A monster to some, a saviour to others. The man whose rendezvous with Nixon all those years before had somehow achieved great mutual significance for her mother and Li’s father.
‘Come back in, Margaret.’ Li’s voice was soft warm breath on her cheek. She felt him slip his jacket around her shoulders and steer her towards the steps.
The girls with the tall black hats and the red pompoms stared at her in wide-eyed wonder as Li led her back into the restaurant. ‘Is there somewhere private we can go?’ he asked. One of the girls nodded towards a room beyond the main restaurant, and Li hurried Margaret past the gaze of curious diners and into a large, semi-darkened room filled with empty banqueting tables. Lights from the square outside fell in through a tall window draped with gossamer-thin nets. While the emperor and empress dined in the room where Li and Margaret had intended to make their betrothal, the emperor’s ministers would have dined here. Now, though, it was deserted. Li and Margaret faced one another beneath a large gilded screen of carved serpents. The silence between them was broken only by the distant chatter of diners and the drone of engines revving in the snow outside.
He wiped the tears from her eyes, but she wouldn’t look at him. He wrapped his arms around her to warm her and stop her from shivering. And they stood like that for a long time, his chin resting lightly on the top of her head.
‘What is it, Margaret? What have I done?’ he asked eventually. He felt her take a deep, quivering breath.
‘It’s what you didn’t do,’ she said.
‘What? What didn’t I do?’
‘You didn’t tell me you would lose your job if we got married.’
And the bottom fell out of a fragile world he had only just been managing to hold together. She felt him go limp.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ She broke free of him and looked into his eyes for the first time, seeing all the pain that was there, and knowing the answer to her question before he even opened his mouth.
He hung his head. ‘You know why.’ He paused. ‘I want to marry you, Margaret.’
‘I want to marry you, too, Li Yan. But not if it’s going to make you unhappy.’
‘It won’t.’
‘Of course it will! For God’s sake, being a cop is all you’ve ever wanted. And you’re good at it. I can’t take that away from you.’
They stood for a long time in silence before he said, ‘What would we do?’
She gave a tiny shrug. ‘I don’t know.’ And she put her arms around him and pushed her cheek into his chest. He grunted involuntarily from the pain of it. She immediately pulled away. ‘I’m sorry. I forgot.’
‘How did you know?’ he said.
‘Does it matter?’
‘It does to me.’
‘Your deputy told me. Tao Heng.’
Anger bubbled up inside him. ‘That bastard!’
‘Li Yan, he didn’t know that you hadn’t told me.’
‘I’ll kill him!’
‘No you won’t. It’s the message that matters. Not the messenger.’
‘And the message is what?’
‘That it’s over, Li Yan. The dream. Whatever it is we were stupid enough to think the future might hold for us. It’s out of our hands.’
He wanted to tell her she was wrong, that their destiny was their own to make. But the words would have rung hollow, even to him. And if he could not convince himself, how would he ever persuade her? His life, his career, his future, were all spiralling out of control. And he seemed helpless to do anything about it.
He felt the weight of the world descend on him. ‘Will I tell them, or will you?’
It was half an hour before he got them all into taxis. Mei Yuan promised to see Mrs. Campbell back to Margaret’s apartment. None of them asked why the wedding was being called off, and Li made no attempt to explain, except to say that he and Margaret had ‘stuff’ to sort out. Xinxin was in tears.
When they had gone, he returned to the dining room of the emperor’s ministers and found Margaret sitting where he had left her. Her tears had long since dried up, and she sat bleakly staring out across the square. Her mood had changed, and he knew immediately that the ‘stuff’ he had spoken of was not going to be sorted tonight. He drew up a seat and leaned on the back of it, staring down at the floor, listening to the chatter of diners in the restaurant. He could smell their cigarette smoke and wished to God he could have one himself.
After a very long silence, he said finally, ‘Margaret—’ and she cut him off immediately.
‘By the way, I forgot to tell you earlier…’ And he knew from her tone that this was her way of saying she wasn’t going to discuss it further.
‘Forgot to tell me what?’ he said wearily.
‘I found a photograph on your desk this morning. One of the ones taken by Jon Macken at the club where that murdered girl worked.’
Li frowned. ‘Which photograph?’
‘A Westerner, with white hair and a beard. He was with some Chinese.’