Liuyuan and Liusu spoke very little. It used to be that when-ever they took a short trip in a car there was a dinner-party's worth of conversation, but now, walking together for miles, they had nothing to say. Once in a while, one of them would start a sentence, but since the other knew exactly what would come next, there was no need to finish it.

"Look, on the beach," said. Liuyuan.

"Yes."

The beach was covered. with tangled coils of barbed wire. Past the barbed wire, the white seawater gurgled, drinking in aud spitting out the yellow sand. The clear winter sky was a faint blue. The flame of the forest was past its flowering season.

"That wall ..." asked Liusu.

"Haven't gone to check."

Liusu sighed. "Doesn't matter."

Liuyuan was hot from walking, he took off his coat and. slung it over his shoulder, but his back was still covered with perspiration.

"You're too warm," 'Limu. said. "Let me take it."

Before, Liuyuan would never have agreed, but now he wasn't so chivalrous; he handed his coat to her.

As they walked farther, the mountains got taller. Either it was the wind blowing in the trees, or it was the moving shadow of a cloud, but somehow the greenish yellow lower slopes slowly darkened. Looking more closely, you saw that it wasn't the wind and it wasn't the clouds but the sun moving slowly over the mountain crest, blanketing the lower slope in a giant blue shadow. Up on the mountain, smoke rose from burning houses-white on the shaded slopes, black on the sunlit slopes-while the sun kept on moving slowly over the moun-tain crest.

They were home. They pushed open the half-shut door, and a little flock of pigeons took wing and fled. The hallway was full of dirt and pigeon droppings. Liusu went to the staircase and cried out in surprise. The brand-new trunks she had put in the rooms upstairs were strewn about wide open, and two of them had slid partway down to the ground floor, so that the stairs were buried in a flowing mass of satins and silks. Liusu bent down and picked up a brown wool-lined cheongsam. It wasn't hers. Sweat marks, dirt, cigarette burns, the scent of cheap perfume. She found more women's things, old magazines, and an open can of lychees, the juice dripping out onto her clothes. Had some troops been staying here? British troops who had women with them? They seemed to have left in a hurry. The local poor who'd turned to looting hadn't been here; otherwise, these things would be gone. Liuyuan helped her call for Ah Li. A last gray-backed pigeon scurried past, whirred through the sunlit doorway, and flew off.

Ah Li was gone, who knew where. But even with the servant gone from the house, the masters must go on living. They couldn't worry about the house yet; first they had to think about food. Scrambling around, they finally turned up a bag of rice, which they bought at a very high price. Fortunately the gas lines had not been cut, but there wasn't any running water. Liuyuan took a lead-lined bucket up the mountain to fetch some springwater for cooking. In the days that followed, they spent all their time preparing meals and cleaning house. Liuyuan did all kinds of chores—sweeping, mopping, and helping Liusu wring out the heavy laundered sheets. Even though she'd never cooked before, Liusu managed to give the food some real Shanghainese flavor. Liuyuan was fond of Ma-layan food, so she also learned how to make satay and curried fish. Food became a major source of interest, but they had to be very careful about expenses. Liuyuan didn't have a lot of Hong Kong dollars with him; they'd have to go back to Shanghai as soon as they could get a boat.

Anyway, staying on in Hong Kong after the disaster was not a feasible long-term plan. They had to scramble around all through the day just to get by. Then, at night, in that dead city, no lights, no human sounds, only the strong winter wind, wail-ing on and on in three long tones—oooh, aaah, eeei. When it stopped here, it started up there, like three gray dragons flying side by side in a straight line, long bodies trailing on and on, tails never coming into sight. Oooh, aaah, eeei wailing until even the sky dragons had gone, and there was only a stream of empty air, a bridge of emptiness that crossed into the dark, into the void of voids. Here, everything had ended. There were only some broken bits of leveled wall and, stumbling and fumbling about, a civilized man who had lost his memory; he seemed to be searching for something, but there was nothing left.

Liusu sat up hugging her quilt and listening to the mournful wind. She was sure that the gray brick wall near Repulse Bay was still as strong and tall as ever. The wind stopped there, like three gray dragons coiling up on top of the wall, the moonlight glinting off their silver scales. She seemed to be going back in a dream, back to the base of that wall, and there she met Liuyuan, finally and truly met him.

Here in this uncertain world, money, property, the perma-nent things-they're all unreliable. The only thing she could rely on was the breath in her lungs, and this person who lay sleeping beside her. Suddenly, she crawled over to him, hugging him through his quilt. He reached out from the bedding and grasped her hand. They looked and saw each other, saw each other entirely. It was a mere moment of deep understanding, but it was enough to keep them happy together for a decade or SO.

He was just a selfish man; she was a selfish woman. In this age of chaos and disorder, there is no place for those who stand on their own, but for an ordinary married couple, room can al-ways be found.

One day, when they were out shopping for food, they ran into Princess Saheiyini. Her complexion was sallow; her loos-ened braids had been piled up in a fluffy topknot. She was dressed in a long black cotton gown she had picked up god knows where, though on her feet she still wore a pair of fancy Indian slippers, colorfully embroidered and bejeweled. She shook their hands warmly, asked where they were living, and wanted very much to come and see their new house. Noticing the shelled oysters in Liusu's basket, she wanted to learn how to make steamed oyster soup. So Liuyuan invited her for a simple meal, and she was very happy to go home with them. Her Englishman had been interned, and she was living now with an Indian policeman's family, people she knew well, people who had often done little things for her. She hadn't eaten a full meal in a long time. She called Liusu "Miss Bai."

"This is my wife," said Liuyuan. "You should congratu-late us!"

"Really? When did you get married?"

Liuyuan shrugged and said, "We just put a notice in the Chinese newspaper. You know, wartime weddings are always a bit slapdash."

Liusu didn't understand their English. Saheiyini kissed him, then kissed her. The meal was skimpy, and Liuyuan made sure Saheiyini understood that oyster soup was a treat. Saheiyini did not come back to their house.

After they had seen their guest off, Liusu stood on the threshold and Liuyuan stood behind her. He closed her hands in his and said, "Well, when should we get married?"

Liusu didn't say a thing. She bowed her head and let the tears fall.

"Now, now..." Liuyuan said, gripping her hands tightly. "We can go and put a notice in the paper today—unless of course you'd rather wait, and throw a big bash when we get back to Shanghai, invite all the relatives-"

"Those people! Who'd want them?" Saying that she laughed, leaned back, and let herself go, falling against him. Liuyuan ran his finger down her face. "First you cry, and then you laugh!" he said.

They walked into town together. Where the road took a sharp turn, the land suddenly fell away—in front of them was only empty space, a damp, pale gray sky. From a little iron gate frame hung an enameled sign with the words DR. ZHAO XIANGQING, DENTIST. The sign creaked on its chains in the wind. Behind it there was only that empty sky.

Liuyuan stopped in his tracks to stare. Feeling the terror in this ordinary scene, he shivered. "Now you must believe `Facing life, death, distance ...' How can we decide these thiugs? When the bombing was going on, just one little slip ... "

Liusu chided him: "Are you still saying you're unable to make this decision?"

"No, no, I'm not giving up halfway! What I mean is ..." He saw her face, then laughed. "Okay, I won't try to say it!"

They went on walking, and Liuyuan said, "The gods must be behind this; we really did find out what love is!"

"You said a long time ago that you loved me."

"That doesn't count. We were way too busy falling in love—how could we have found time to really love each other?"

When the marriage announcement was posted in the paper, Mr. and Mrs. Xu rushed over to offer their congratulations. Liusu wasn't altogether pleased with them, since they had moved off to a safe place when the city was besieged, not worrying a bit whether she lived or died. Still she had to greet them with a smile. Liuyuan brought out some wine and a few dishes for a belated celebration. Not much later, travel between Hong Kong and Shanghai became possible again, and they returned to Shanghai.

Liusu went back to the Bai household just once, afraid that with so many blabbermouths, something was sure to go wrong. And trouble could not be avoided: Fourth Mistress had decided to divorce Fourth Master, and everyone blamed Liusu for this. Liusu had divorced and married again with such astonishing success-no wonder other people wanted to follow her exam-ple. Liusu crouched down in the lamplight, lighting mosquito-repellant incense. When she thought of Fourth Mistress, she smiled.

Liuyuan even stopped teasing her, saving all his daring talk for other women. That was a good sign, worth celebrating, since it meant that she was his own—his wife in name and in truth. Still, it made her a little sad.

Hong Kong's defeat had brought Liusu victory. But in this unreasonable world, who can distinguish cause from effect? Who knows which is which? Did a great city fall so that she could be vindicated? Countless thousands of people dead, countless thousands of people suffering, after that an earth-shaking revolution ... Liusu didn't feel there was anything sub-tle about her place in history. She stood up, smiling, and kicked the pan of mosquito-repellant incense under tbe table.

Those legendary beauties who felled cities and kingdoms were probably all like that.

Legends exist everywhere, but they don't necessarily have such happy endings.

When the huqin wails on a night of ten thousand lamps, the bow slides back and forth, drawing forth a tale too desolate for words-oh! why go into it?