So we walk down to the bus stop. "Have you heard any more about your friend?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "I talked to someone back home last night. He said my friend is still suspended from teaching, but nothing else. Everyone is still waiting."

"How did they find out about your friend?" I ask.

"It's complicated," he says.

Rebuffed, I say nothing.

The sun is hard on the street. Traffic is not heavy at mid-day, a street sweeper running off a power line raises and absorbs clouds of yellow dust. The window across the street is full of empty bird cages, in a square of sunlight, a white cat sleeps beneath them. It doesn't feel like home, the light is different or something. Maybe when I go back to New York I'll get a cat. Chinese people do not keep pets very much, it seems particularly Western to make an animal a member of the family.

"The District Superintendent of Education is a fag," Haibao says. "He hired my friend and I. He was arrested in a park. Then my friend was suspended. That's all anyone really knows."

The District Superintendent must be how Haibao got to study engineering. It must be a big scandal that someone in education is gay, someone so important, a big person.

"Do you think they'll be looking for you? The school hasn't suspended you."

"Not yet," Haibao says. Chinese never say 'no'.

I see the bus, far up the street. Segmented buses look as if they are hinged in the middle, they bend a bit when they go around corners.

"I'm not feeling very well," Haibao says. "Maybe I'll go back and take a nap. You go on, celebrate your good mark." He smiles tiredly, "I forgot to say congratulations."

"Don't go back," I say. "You'll just sit by yourself, that's bad, I know."

"I'll take a nap," Haibao says.

"No you won't, you'll try to sleep but you won't. I promise, we'll only be gone an hour, you'll sleep better if you do something."

He shakes his head. The bus is coming.

"Haibao," I say, "I don't know how to dress, what to buy." I remember feeling the way he does. "If you won't come shopping with me, I want to go back to your flat with you."

The bus stops, the door hisses open.

He shakes his head again, but gets on. I palm the credit and pay for both of us. He slumps down into the seat and looks out the window.

I feel as if I shouldn't leave him alone, although I'm not sure if it's him that shouldn't be alone, or me. Surreptitiously I run the flat of my hand over his thigh. He glances over at me and smiles a little.

"You are one son of a bitch," he says.

"Have you talked to Liu Wen?" I asked.

"Not since the night the three of us went out."

"He is an unusual person," I say.

Haibao laughs dryly. "You have such a way of putting things. Yes. Liu Wen is 'unusual'." He watches out the window for a moment. "Maybe I'll call him. Do you have an early class on Friday?"

"Yes."

"Then Saturday. Maybe we'll go play pressball, if he'll pay."

"Is he rich?"

"Sometimes. When he has a good week."

"What does he do?"

"Cui cui."

Hurry-hurry? Slang is the most difficult part of Mandarin for me. "What's that?"

"Sells himself."

My face must betray me. Haibao breaks out laughing. "You are right, it's good to come out with you, you cheer me up. You look as if I told you he murders little girls."

"Why does he dress that way if he, cui cui?"

"Because they like it. Talk softly."

"You say I always talk softly," I hiss, feeling the heat rise in my face. I glance around, the bus is nearly empty.

"Well, don't stop. Do you not want me to call him?"

I want very badly to play pressball, I want to get ten points. I've never been out with a man who goes for money. I mean, pick-ups, of course. When I was fifteen I used to go out to Coney Island and wait to get picked up, and when I was older, go to pick up, but not for money.

"What's wrong with it?" Haibao says.

"It spreads disease," I say.

He rolls his eyes. "I won't call him."

"No," I say, "call him."

"We are corrupting you," he says, then laughs. I, of course, do not find this funny.

New clothes. I have waited all week to for Saturday night. Because Haibao likes it that way I have tied my hair back. My suit is black and in Haibao's words, "So ruthlessly conservative it's not. Everyone will think you're a vid artist or something."

Liu Wen, sitting on the couch and needing his hair brushed, as usual, approves. "Pretty," he says. "Need to make some money on the side?"

"No," I say curtly.

He grins at Haibao. Liu Wen is wearing a business suit coat that has seen better days, over gray tights that have been worn so often that they bag at the knees. Haibao is in white and looks, this evening, perfect. He is also in a good mood. A delightful mood. His hair is freshly trimmed, he smells ever so slightly of ocean and evergreen. He smiles when he sees me, gives me a beer which I shouldn't have but which I drink anyway.

We look as if we are going to three completely different places.

"You look like a bride," I tell Haibao.

Liu Wen laughs, "I told him he looks like a funeral."

"Funerals in the west are still in black," I say.

"And brides in the east wear red," Haibao says.

"The east is red," Liu Wen says, "and now that we've had our cultural exchange hour finish your beers because I'm hungry."

But we don't. Haibao doesn't want to leave yet, he wants to watch the sunset from his window. So we talk, about my engineering mark, about Liu Wen's week (in carefully vague terms.) Liu Wen has apparently had a fair week, business-wise.

Outside the window it is the west which is red. The towers of the overcity, the new communes, rise above Nanjing. The sides that face west are red, and those between us and the horizon are black silhouettes. Red and black, the colors of good luck. While Liu Wen and I talk, I watch Haibao. He is engrossed in the window. The city goes blue-gray, and we sit in the halflight until it is almost dark, finally silent, as the lights come on in the city.

"I want to give you each something," Haibao says, "you have both been my friends through this difficult time."

Liu Wen looks amused. I'm taken a bit aback. To Liu Wen he gives a ring set with Australian opal. "It is not your style, I am aware," Haibao says, smiling, "but it is one of my favorites."

Liu Wen looks perplexed but tries it on. It fits his smallest finger.

To me Haibao gives a small gold box set with a tiger-eye. "It's very old," he says, "Qing Dynasty, 1600s. Open it."

Inside it says Guai-zi, 'Ghost.'

"A tiger-eye always seemed a bit guai-yi," strange, or unusual, same first character as 'ghost', "and so I thought of your assumed name," he says.

"Thank you," I say. Chinese people do not usually give gifts in this way, they normally leave the gift and you look at it after they are gone. I am uncomfortable and so is Liu Wen.

Haibao says, "Let's go."

The hall is painfully light, and Haibao's eyes are too bright.

As if he was about to cry. But he moves quickly, excited. "Are we going to the new place?" he asks Liu Wen.

"If you want," Liu Wen says. "I don't care where we go."

"Somewhere where business is good," Haibao says, watching me and smiling. Liu Wen grins. I am still confused by the little ritual, I wonder if I should have had something. I search for something to say.

"Something I have wanted to ask," I say, hearing in my own voice the diffidence that Haibao teases me about.

Liu Wen cocks an eyebrow as if to say, 'Yes?'

"The last time we went out, why did we go to the tomb of Zhong Shan?"

Liu Wen grins again. "Did you think we were trying to tell you something?"

"I didn't know," I answer.