"No reason," Haibao says. "Truly. We often go to the park, but usually we walk down the Avenue of Stone Animals. Just once we were there it seemed fitting to go by the tomb."

"Do you mind if I ask you something?" Liu Wen asks.

"Go ahead," I say.

"Why do you ask people to call you just 'Zhang'?"

"If your first name were 'Zedong' would you want people to call you that?"

Liu Wen shakes his head, "I understand why you don't use Zhong Shan. But to just call you Zhang sounds… well, rude. If you know what I mean. Don't you have a nickname?" I know what he means, it sounds too short. Chinese people like names to come in two syllables.

"Rafael," I say.

"Shemma?"

"Rafael."

"Ur-ah-fa-"

They both try it. Mandarin has a different 'r' than the west, and they have difficulty ending with an 'l'. They keep wanting to end with a vowel, since Mandarin ends in a vowel, an 'n' or an 'ng'.

"Ur-ah-fa-eh-la," Haibao manages.

I shake my head, "Rafaela is a woman's name."

"So, Zhang," Liu Wen says heartily, "how do you like it here in China?"

"We can't call you Xiao Zhang," Haibao says. Xiao Zhang would be the diminutive, 'Young Zhang.' It's like saying 'Billy' for 'Bill.'

"'Lao Zhang'," Liu Wen laughs. Elder Zhang.

"Must be the suit," I say.

We eat a leisurely dinner. Pork and bamboo shoots, french fries, Sichuan (spicy) cabbage. I drink two beers, I know I shouldn't but it's always hard for me to eat spicy food without pijiu. We get down to the warehouse district. I assume that we are going to the same club, but Liu Wen leads us to a heavy red door-was the last door red? I cannot remember. Up the stairs we go into a red and gold place, full of rooms with two or three tables in each and gilt sitting platforms along the walls. Some of the tables have men and women at them, which surprises me. We wander through a maze.

Liu Wen buys Haibao a mao tai and I have a beer. Liu Wen says he'll be back. I gaze, mesmerized, at the gold light rising like mist off the tables.

"You have an unusual face," Haibao says.

I am not bad looking, I know. Not truly handsome, the way Liu Wen would be if he chose to be. I fancy I hear wistfullness in Haibao's voice, little does he know how much I envy him, a Chinese citizen, worldly and polished.

"Do you know where in China your family was from?" Haibao asks.

"My gene scan said that my mother's family was apparently Philippine huaqiao," I say. It didn't make any difference. Since I qualified by working on Baffin Island, I could still go to Nanjing University without having to qualify for a huaqiao seat. Competition for the waiguoren seats is fierce. Many candidates, few places.

If my genetic map is within tolerance, then I am Chinese, right?

Physically, if not culturally. I mean, they are obviously not concerned with the information in my files, that my mother is not Chinese. The University has to know. Someone at the University, at least.

"You are more yourself tonight," I say.

He looks thoughtful, "Truly?"

"Have you heard any more about your friend?" I ask.

"Let's not talk about it," he says. He puts his hand on my arm, looking off across the room, and then shudders.

Idiot, I shouldn't have said anything. I search for other topics. "How did you meet Liu Wen?" I ask.

"Through friends," he says. "I don't really know Liu Wen very well. I like him though, he has been good for me." He smiles sadly, "So have you, ghost."

"Have you been here before?" I ask, trying to push him away from this mood.

He nods.

Liu Wen comes back and I am relieved to see him. If we play, Haibao will be distracted. "We're at a table in the back," he says. A young girl with a smooth white face and painted eyebrows comes to lead us to our table. I watch the swing of her narrow hips in her imperial Chinese gown embroidered with cranes and realize suddenly, she is not a woman.

Fascinated and more than a little amazed I cannot take my eyes off the boy. He gestures with exaggerated grace, catching hold of one sleeve and pointing with the other hand. He keeps his eyes cast down, glancing up at me only as I pass him. He doesn't smile and his eyes flicker down.

Am I aroused? No, only curious. There is nothing in cross-dressing I find stimulating.

But I watch him walk away, watch his hips swing, and look back to see Liu Wen grinning.

Into the golden glow. There are the five balls; one black lacquer, one red lacquer, two silver and in the center, a golden ball, almost invisible in the glow. Liu Wen flicks the silver ball directly at me and I barely manage to avoid taking it. I ricochet the red ball off the edge hoping it will come back towards me and Haibao hooks it in a long gliding curve and captures it and we drop out of contact. So fast.

"My point," Haibao says. He is all edge and excitement, and I think, this will be his night.

And it is. Even Liu Wen and I together can't stop him.

Every time we break contact Haibao is more exhilarated. His color is high, sweat beads along his upper lip and his wisps of hair lay wet at his temples in fine black curves like pen strokes. His hands rest lightly on the table edge, fingernails pink with perfect white half-moons. He doesn't move and yet like a cat, perfectly relaxed, he has the air of something on the edge of motion.

We break contact and Haibao says, "Seven," and I am clenching the table, my palms wet. He smiles, perfect white teeth, golden skin, white clothes and all wrapped in golden light. White and gold and electric. Liu Wen looks at him hungrily, and so do I.

Haibao looks down at the table, the light under his eyes and carving his normal flat face into planes and high cheeks. His eyes are hooded. Liu Wen opens his mouth as if to say something-I know what he is going to say, to stop the game, and I want him to say it and I don't because I want the game to end but I don't want Liu Wen to get Haibao-and we drop back into contact.

I score four points and never once touch the golden ball. Liu Wen scores more often, but is hit with the silver too many times. He scores six points only by taking the gold ball. And immediately after that, Haibao, at seven points, reaches past where Liu Wen and I are playing with the black lacquer ball and effortlessly sets the red spinning into the gold. I reach reflexively for the golden ball, and Liu Wen sends the black careening to cut it off but I end up interfering with the black and it collides with the red and both skid off on tangents towards empty parts of the table. And Haibao effortlessly takes the golden ball.

We break contact. Haibao's head is thrown back, his eyes closed, his back slightly arched. His hands remain resting lightly on the edge of the table. He sighs, a shudder more like a sob, then opens his eyes and looks at us and smiles. "Ten points," he says.

Liu Wen starts to say something, clears his throat, "Do you want to keep playing, Zhang? I'm sure they can find a table for you." He isn't looking at me.

I should be good, I should disappear, as Liu Wen did the last time, but I wait, because it is Haibao's night. It is Haibao's choice. I swallow. He looks at Liu Wen, and then at me, and then back down at the table. I am reminded of the boy who led us here, and the way he didn't look at me. I think I have read something in Haibao's look, my heart begins to hammer. He will choose me. Choose me, Haibao.

The lights on the table flicker, and the lights above us dim, for a moment I see the bare bones of the building, normally hidden by a scrim of light and color, and this is an old, not very attractive place. The light comes back even brighter, distantly I hear the sound of glass shattering.

We look towards the sound, through the opening we see other people listening, and then I see someone yank off their contact.