Tell Me No Lies by Elizabeth Lowell

they kept that a secret as long as they could. When I was eighteen I had to declare citizenship in one country or the other. I was living in San Francisco by that time, so I chose to become American."
    "Was your father in the import-export business?"
    "My parents were missionaries."
    Catlin's black eyebrow arched. "Tough job under any circumstances," he said. "In the early stages of the People's Republic it must have been hell."
    Lindsay's chopsticks hesitated for an instant over the shrimp as memories sleeted through her, screams and shots, blood turning black in the moonlight. And something worse. Something she remembered only in nightmares, forgetting again the instant she awoke. "Yes," she said huskily, "sometimes it was just that. Hell."
    "You must have been glad to leave," Catlin said, seeing again the shadow of fear tighten Lindsay's face, hearing fear in the thinning of her voice.
    Again, Lindsay hesitated. "It was home, and childhood, and now all I have left are memories. Some of them are very good. Oil lamps and candle flames, so graceful, so warm. The scent of ginger and garlic sizzling in hot oil on a frosty night. The women in the kitchen laughing and talking and chopping vegetables with miraculous skill. The pungent smell of cigarettes and the click-click of stones as the men played mah-jongg."
    Lindsay looked beyond Catlin, seeing not the gleaming restaurant but the seething past. "We all lived together, our houses leaning against one another. The church was little more than a handmade altar hung with scarlet, the Chinese color of joy and good wishes. We sang hymns in half scales." She smiled. "I didn't realize what 'Onward Christian Soldiers' really sounded like until I got to San Francisco. Do you know," she said, focusing on Catlin instead of the past, "that hymns sung by Americans using the European scale sounded alien to me?"
    Catlin nodded, understanding exactly what Lindsay meant. When he finally had returned to America, it had been years since he had used English to do anything but break coded communiques. His native language had sounded foreign to him.
    Suddenly Lindsay realized that she had been monopolizing the conversation. That was unlike her. She had learned that few people could relate to the experiences she had had as a child, much less understand them. Usually it was she who listened, other people who talked, and her memories slept. Catlin was different. He was a good listener. His quiet questions, his genuine interest in her answers, and the feeling of safety she had with him peeled the years away, leaving only memories silently welling up like blood from an open wound.
    "How did you learn to use chopsticks?" asked Lindsay.
    "Hunger is the best teacher," Catlin said wryly. "Sticky rice helps. In no time you're eating like a native." He glanced around the restaurant. "Well, almost. True natives hold the bowl under their chin and shovel as fast as they talk. If we did that, the Anglos around here would think we were barbarians."
    "They certainly would," agreed Lindsay, laughing. "A polite Western child says grace and bends at the waist to bring the mouth closer to the food. A polite Oriental child says grace, brings bowl to mouth and lets the devil take the hindmost."
    Catlin's smile flashed. "Did your parents have a large congregation?"
    "Hardly. Christianity wasn't very popular at the time. You know how it is – when things go wrong in China, foreign devils are blamed." She glanced at her plate heaped with food and the full rice bowl beside it, remembering all the times she had gone hungry. "Lots went wrong in China after the turn of the century. The half-century mark was no treat, either."
    "I'm surprised your parents stayed, particularly with children."
    "Child," she corrected. "I was the only one. That caused great despair to the congregation," she added, smiling. "Large families in general and sons in particular are a source of great face in rural China. To follow a man who had only one