This morning, at the former Democracy Wall, I struck up a conversation with a young man whose father had once been prominent in the Communist Party. Perhaps because the man could see by my clothing that I was an overseas Chinese, a huh chiao, he spoke with surprising candor.

He told me that his father had once enjoyed a promising career, that he had risen in the bureaucracy from a street cadre to being a Party officer of some standing. One night, while dining with several comrades at a restaurant here in Peking, the Party man recited a poem that he had written to celebrate the Cultural Revolution. It was an amateurish but lively verse that extolled Mao and glorified the progress of the Party. The last lines of his father's poem, the young man told me, said:

And in the radiant future, all China's children Will sing in freedom and dance in universal happiness.

Several weeks passed, the young man recounted, and then his father was suddenly arrested by the army. He was stripped of his Party membership and charged with counterrevolutionary behavior. At his trial, the prosecutors charged that the man's poetry encouraged laziness and immorality. Why? Because good, strong Party workers would never have the time, or desire, for song and dance. Such frivolous things, the prosecutors said, belong only in the theater.

The man, whose name was Cheng Hua, was never given a chance to speak in his own defense. He was not even permitted to introduce the complete poem into evidence to demonstrate his loyalty and love for the government.

Cheng was sentenced to eight years in a prison camp. His son told me he is not allowed any visitors, but letters are delivered once every two months. One of his father's closest friends is the man who turned him in, the young man told me. This story made me profoundly depressed.

At lunchtime I met my niece, Kangmei. She is a beautiful girl of twenty-three, slender, with a luminous smile and a very quick mind. Unlike most Chinese women, she likes jeans and silky shirts-from Hong Kong, she told me. She was fascinated by my descriptions of the United States, so much so that I could scarcely get her to tell me anything about life in China. Of her father-my brother-she said little. "He is a man of power and achievement," Kangmei said-but, of course, this I already know.

She described her studies at the Foreign Languages Institute and impressed me with her flawless English. In a few months, she will graduate and assume a prestigious job as a government translator. Kangmei said she is looking forward greatly to the travel opportunities, and to meeting more European and American visitors.

Finally, near the end of our lunch, I asked my niece about the young man whom I had met at Democracy Wall. I told her his sad story.

"Such events were not uncommon," she remarked. "The boy's father was very unwise to reveal his poem, even to friends. Within the Party, many cadres rise and prosper by informing on fellow workers. Everyone should be cautious."

"But it seems so wrong," I replied.

"Your outlook is different," Kangmei said. "We who live here understand. There is freedom only for the old men who exploit the Chinese people."

As we talked more, I learned that my niece is a woman of firm opinions. She possesses a keen, questioning intellect-and I am heartened by it. We promised to meet again after I had seen Wang Bin. august 12.

Today I walked down the Avenue of Eternal Tranquility, toward the western wall of the Forbidden City. I had a notion to visit the palaces, but first I stopped to buy a knitted hat from a vendor named Hong.

I noticed that one of his legs had been removed at the hip. Because of his youthfulness-he appeared about thirty-such a handicap seemed unusual. I asked him if he had been in a bicycle accident, which is common in the city.

Hong smiled and said no, he had lost the leg as a teenager. The year was 1966.

His father was a prominent scientist. One of his colleagues, a Party member, was very jealous. He accused Hong's father of secretly passing scientific papers to pro-Western publications in Taiwan.

The Red Guards came to the scientist's apartment. Hong, who was seventeen and full of fire, took a punch at one of the intruders. The youth was quickly knocked to the floor, and beaten so badly with the butt of a rifle that his leg bones were shattered. His father was put in detention for eighteen months, and was freed only after his accuser was arrested-for lying about the loyalty of another fellow worker.

Hong told me that he bears no ill will toward the Red Guards. I find that difficult to believe.

Later this afternoon, I had a marvelous surprise by the lake at the Summer Palace. I ran into an old friend, Thomas Stratton. He once was a student of mine at St. Edward's, and now teaches art history at a college in New England. Tom is visiting China with a group of art historians and he is understandably eager to break away from the entourage as soon as possible.

I promised him a personal tour of Peking, as soon as I return from Xian. There's some wonderful Qing hung porcelain on display in a state gallery near the Heping. I think we'll stop there first.

Tomorrow is the biggest day of my trip. In the morning, I fly to Xian where I am to meet my brother at eleven sharp. After lunch, we will tour the archaeological site of the tomb of the Emperor Qin.

I'm thrilled about visiting this historical dig, but I'm even more excited about seeing Wang Bin again. He is only a year younger, but history and political fortunes have cast us centuries apart. Even without knowing him, I fear that we will be the inverse of each other. Perhaps not. Perhaps the journey backward to our Chinese childhood is not so great. It is easy to remember little Bin's face as a boy. But it has been fifty years since we were together in my father's home. And, in that time, I have not seen so much as a photograph. His invitation was so unexpected that I didn't know how to respond.

I think it will be a powerful reunion.

Tom Stratton closed his friend's journal and walked thoughtfully back to his hotel.

The words faithfully belonged to David, and reading them freshened Stratton's grief. It was so typical of his old friend, he thought, to be moved more by the people of Peking than its art or scenery. David Wang had not returned for the temples and tombs of China, but for the people like Cheng and Hong. Each day had brought new faces, new chances to learn: What is it really like? What have I missed? Should I have come back sooner?

But David Wang was a circumspect man; not all of what he saw and heard would be recorded in his notebook-of this Stratton was sure. The professor had probably altered the names of the Chinese to protect them from reprisals. He had also carefully refrained from political commentary that could backfire against his brother, the deputy minister.

But the journal ended too abruptly.

It contained no mention of David Wang's trip to Xian, or of his reunion with his brother. Stratton was baffled, for the professor unfailingly wrote in the notebook each night before going to bed. Why-full of such emotion, and dazzled by exotic sights-would David have forsaken this habit while on this most important trip?

Opening the journal again in his room, Stratton flipped to the last written pages. Something caught his eye. He retrieved a metal fingernail file from his luggage and slipped it between the pages, pressing toward the spine of the notebook. The binding easily gave way, and the pages separated in loose stacks.

Stratton ran a finger across the inside borders of the paper. It felt sticky. He held one page to his nose. The glue was pungent, and new. Someone had pried Wang's journal apart, and then glued it back together so it would appear undisturbed. No ragged stubs revealed where the missing pages had been.