In the next clearing there’s a teahouse, a large wooden pagoda with seating in front, plastic chairs and square tables. Most are occupied. People are playing mah-jong or cards, eating snacks. Large vacuum flasks are on or beside the tables – perhaps they hold tea or hot water. The noise is dense, percussive, the chatter, and the clatter of tiles. A waiter walks among the patrons clicking metal tongs together.
‘We’d better ring the consulate when we get back,’ Tom says, ‘tell the guy we’ve arrived.’
‘I wish we’d insisted on meeting this afternoon,’ I say, ‘to get things moving.’ But we had been persuaded that it would be wiser to wait until the day after our long journey.
We take a small path that leads onto a humpback bridge where there is a gazebo above a fish pond.
‘Stop a minute?’ I say.
I lean on the bamboo bench there, burnished smooth with wear, and peer down. The water is dark, reflecting the delicate tracery of leaves in the canes high above. Large koi, deep orange, some golden, weave and turn. Umbrella plants and ferns, the sort of things we’d keep as houseplants, ring the shore.
‘How do you feel?’ Tom says.
‘Wiped out – like I’m still on the plane.’
He grunts agreement, gets out a cigarette. I drink some water.
Fatigue ripples through me and my legs soften. ‘Head back?’ I say.
As we follow the path round the outside of the park to the gate, music starts to play though some PA system in the trees, a flute, I think, cool notes that tremble and dip, then climb.
The calligrapher is there still with his brush, the characters on the ground ghosts beneath our feet.
Retracing our steps, we pick our way among the crowds along the side street, my eyes roaming over all the faces, the dark heads of hair. I ignore the stares I get in return, the expressions of interest and open-mouthed curiosity.
That’s her! My stomach falls. ‘Lori!’ I grasp Tom’s arm, clutching tight. Yell her name – ‘Lori! Lori!’ Ahead of us, walking away.
I let go of him and chase after her, knocking into people, running out into the road when the throng is too busy to get through, my bag bumping against my hip, the dusty air dry in my mouth.
‘Lori! Lori!’
I reach the corner where a woman sits, selling orange fruits laid out on a blanket. Panting, I search frantically, right then left, eyes running over heads and faces. Tom is at my side.
‘It was her!’ I say. My heart is hammering in my chest. ‘I can’t see her now.’ I bend forward, brace my hands on my knees, a stitch stabbing my side.
