'I do too.' Then: 'Do you think… I wonder what he would think.'

After another pause: 'If we move west, you must come with us.'

She invited Ibrahim to return, and when he came, Pao led him into the reception hall, which Kang had ordered filled with flowers.

He stood before ber, head bowed.

'I am old,' she told him. 'I have passed through all the life stages. I am one who has not yet died. I cannot go backwards. I cannot give you any sons.'

The life stages: milk teeth, hair-pinned up, marriage, children, rice and salt, widowhood.

'I understand,' he murmured. 'I too am old. Still – I ask your hand in marriage. Not for sons, but for me.'

She regarded him, her colour rising.

'Then I accept your offer of marriage.'

He smiled.

After that the household was as if caught in a whirlwind. The servants, though highly critical of the match, nevertheless had to work all day every day to make the place ready in time for the fifteenth day of the sixth month, the midsummer time traditionally favoured for starting travel. Kang's elder sons disapproved of the match, of course, but made plans to attend the wedding anyway. The neighbours were scandalized, shocked beyond telling, but as they were not invited, there was no way for them to express this to the Kang household. The widow's sisters at the temple congratulated her and wished her well. 'You can bring the wisdom of the Buddha to the hui,' they told her. 'It will be very useful for all.'

So they were married in a small ceremony attended by all Kang's sons, and only Shih was less than congratulatory, pouting most of the morning in his room, a fact Pao did not even report to Kang. After the ceremony, held in the garden, the party spread down to the river, and though small, it was determinedly cheery. After that the household was packed up, its furniture and goods loaded in carts either destined for their new home in the west, or else for the orphanage that Kang had helped establish in town, or for her elder sons.

When all was ready, Kang took a last walk through the household, stopping to stare into the bare rooms, oddly small now.

This square fathom has held my life. Now the goose flies away, Chased by a Phoenix from the west. How could one life encompass such change. Truly we live more lives than one.

Soon she came out and climbed into the sedan chair. 'It is already gone,' she said to Ibrahim. He handed her a gift, an egg painted red: happiness in the new year. She bowed her head. He nodded, and directed their little train to begin the journey west.

Three. Waves Slap Together

The trip took over a month. The roads and tracks they followed were dry, and they made good time. Partly this was because Kang asked to ride in a cart rather than be carried in a palanquin or smaller chair. At first the servants were convinced this decision had caused some discord in the new couple, for Ibrahim took to riding in the covered cart with Kang, and they heard the arguing between them go on sometimes for whole days on end. But Pao walked close enough one afternoon to catch the drift of what they were saying, and she came back to the others relieved. 'It's only religion they're debating. A real pair of intel lectuals, those two.'

So the servants travelled on, reassured. They went up to Kaifeng, stayed with some of Ibrahim's Muslim colleagues there, then followed the roads paralleling the Wei River, west to Xian in Shaanxi, then over hard passes in dry hills, to Lanzhou.

By the time they arrived, Kang was amazed beyond amazement. 'I can't believe there is so much world,' she would say to Ibrahim. 'So much China! So many fields of rice and barley, so many mountains, so empty and wild. Surely we should have crossed the world by now.'

'Scarcely a hundredth part of it, according to the sailors.'

'This outlandish country is so cold and dry, so dusty and barren. How will we keep a house clean here, or warm? It's like trying to live in hell.'

'Not that bad, surely.'

'Is this really Lanzhou, the renowned city of the west? This little brown windblown mudbrick village?'

'Yes. It's growing quite rapidly, actually.'

'And we are to live here?'

'Well, I have connections here, and in Xining, a bit farther to the west. We could settle in either place.'

'Let me see Xining before we decide. It must be better than this.'

Ibrahim said nothing, but ordered their little caravan on. More days of travel, as the seventh month passed, and storm clouds rolled overhead almost every day, never quite breaking on them. Under these low ceilings the sere broken hills looked even more inhospitable than before, and except in the irrigated, terraced central flats of the long narrow valleys, there was no more agriculture to be seen. 'How do people live here?' Kang asked. 'How do they eat?'

'They herd sheep and goats,' Ibrahim said. 'Sometimes cattle. It's like this all over, west of here, all the way across the dry heart of the world.'

'Astonishing. It's like travelling back in time.'

Finally they came to Xining, another little walled mudbrick town, huddling under shattered mountainsides, in a high valley. A garrison of imperial solders manned the gates, and some new wooden barracks had been thrown up under the town walls. A big caravanserai stood empty, as it was too late in the year to start travelling. Beyond it several walled ironworks used what little power the river provided to run their stamps and forges.

'Ugh!' Kang said. 'I did not think Lanzhou could be beaten for dust, but I was wrong.'

'Wait for your decision,' Ibrahim requested. 'I want you to see Qinghai Lake. It's just a short journey farther.'

'Surely we will fall off the edge of the world.'

'Come see.'

Kang agreed without argument; indeed, it seemed to Pao that she was actually enjoying these insanely dry and barbarous regions, or at least enjoying her complaining about them. The dustier the better, her face seemed to say, no matter what words she spoke.

A few more days west on a bad road brought them through a draw to the shores of Qinghai Lake, the sight of which took speech away from all of them. By chance they had arrived on a day of wild, windy weather, with great white clouds floored by blue grey embroidery charging overhead, and these clouds were reflected in the lake's water, which in sunlight was just as blue green as the name of the lake would suggest. To the west the lake extended right off to the horizon; the curve of its visible shores was a bank of green hills. Out here in this brown desolation, it was like a miracle.

Kang got out of the cart and walked slowly down to the pebbled shore, reciting the Lotus Sutra, and holding up her hands to feel the hard rush of the wind on her palms. Ibrahim gave her some time to herself, then joined her.

'Why do you weep?' he inquired.

Sothis is the great lake,"' she recited,

NowI can at last comprehend The immensity of the universe; My life has gained new meaning! But think of all the women Who never leave their own courtyards, Who must spend their whole lives Without once enjoying a sight like this. -

Ibrahim bowed. 'Indeed. Whose poem is this?'

She shook her head, dashing the tears away. 'That was Yuen, the wife of Shen Fu, on seeing the T'ai Hu. The Great Lake! What would she have thought if she saw this one! It is part of "Six Chapters from a Floating Life". Do you know it? No. Well. What can one say?'

'Nothing.'

'Indeed.' She turned to him, put her hands together. 'Thank you, husband, for showing me this great lake. It is truly magnificent. Now I can settle, let us live wherever you please. Xining, Lanzhou, the other side of the world, where once we met in a previous life wherever you like. It is all the same to me.' And she leaned weeping against his side.