The Flower Net by Lisa See

tell?
The New York Times?
The
National Enquirer?
” But many of his cases were “sensitive,” and he wasn’t supposed to discuss them. So another wall had built up between them.
    When David had pushed past her chariness and told Jean that he was going to China, a long silence had followed. Finally Jean had spoken again. “I hope you find what you’re looking for,” she’d said softly, then the phone had gone dead.
    Outside this building was a whole new world. Maybe he would find what—who—he was looking for.

6

    J ANUARY 30
    The Ministry of Public Security
    D avid woke abruptly at 3:00 A.M. He tossed and turned for a while, trying to go back to sleep. At four he got up, searched around for a brochure outlining the hotel’s facilities, and discovered that breakfast wouldn’t be available until seven. Too tired to read a book or do any work, he turned on the television to International CNN. How strange the news was on this side of the world. He watched sports reports on cricket in England and soccer in India. He saw a documentary on the sultan of Brunei. He listened with vague interest to a report on the rupture in U.S.-China relations caused by the arrest of several Chinese nationals caught smuggling nuclear trigger components into Northern California.
    At six, he pulled open the heavy drapes and looked out at a cold sepulchral dawn. Just below him, the Liangma River crept past. Across the river, which seemed little more than a canal, the German-owned Kempinski Hotel and Department Store rose up. To his left, across a large thoroughfare and a raised highway, he could make out the Kunlun Hotel.
    David knew that only exercise would clear his head. He pulled on a warm-up suit and went down to the front desk to ask directions to a jogging path. When the clerk suggested David use the hotel’s treadmill, he decided to take his chances outside.
    Before leaving Los Angeles, he’d looked up the weather for Beijing in the newspaper, but nothing could have prepared him for the freezing air that hit him as soon as he swung through the hotel’s revolving doors. Two doormen stared at David in wonder as he nodded and set out, jogging over to the path that bordered the river. The cold stabbed his lungs and hurt his eyes, but as his muscles warmed with activity and his body reached an easy rhythm he began to take in the sights around him. Where the hotel’s grounds ended, low buildings spread as far as David could see. This residential neighborhood seemed ancient, gray from age, closed off from the modern world. Looking down the few alleyways that cut between the buildings, he saw laundry frozen on bamboo sticks, piles of refuse, a bicycle leaning up against an earthenware jar. Once he caught the eyes of a woman as she threw the contents of a slop bucket out her door. He saw an old man loading large baskets onto a low-slung boat. Some of these he hefted easily onto his back, while others made him bend over until his face nearly touched his knees.
    The longer David ran, the more people he saw. Early risers, bundled in bulky padded jackets, bicycled or trudged resolutely to work or school. He saw faces wizened by age and hard times. He saw sweet-featured children who looked like they could be in storybooks, walking, skipping, giggling along the path with backpacks and book bags. The few teenagers he passed looked as if they might freeze to death. They had dressed in what David realized must be the Chinese version of trendy. The girls wore leggings and bright scarves; the boys wore jeans and black scarves; both sexes completed their outfits with leather jackets and army boots.
    In the days to come as David made this run a part of his routine, his presence would become more familiar, but for now most of the people ignored him pointedly. Others looked at him in bewilderment. He could imagine what they thought: Only a foreigner would be so incurably strange as to run for exercise in weather like this. A few people even called out to