The Stone Monkey (Lincoln Rhyme 4)

"Yes, Your Honor."

"If you could translate."

"Certainly."

"Usually the adoption process in this country is arduous and complicated. It is virtually impossible for a couple of uncertain immigration status to be given adoptive custody."

A pause while Sing translated. Mei-Mei nodded.

"But we've got some unusual circumstances here."

Another pause and the Chinese rattled explosively off Sing's tongue. Now both Chang and his wife nodded. They remained silent. Mei-Mei's eyes brightened, though, and her breathing was coming fast. She wanted to smile, Sachs could see, but she restrained herself.

"I'm told by Immigration and Naturalization that you've applied for asylum and, because of your dissident status in China, that it will probably be granted. That reassures me that you can bring some stability into the child's life. As does the fact that both you and your son, Mr. Chang, are employed."

"Yes, sir."

"'Ma'am,' not 'sir,'" sternly corrected Justice Benson-Wailes, a woman whose orders in court undoubtedly needed to be issued only once.

"I am sorry. Ma'am."

The judge now repeated for the Changs what she'd told Sachs about the probation and adoption.

Their understanding of English was apparently good enough so that they could comprehend the ultimate meaning of the justice's words without the need for complete translations. Mei-Mei began to cry quietly and Sam Chang hugged her, smiling and whispering in her ear. Then Mei-Mei stepped up to Sachs and hugged her. "Xiexie, thank you, thank you."

The justice signed a document in front of her. "You can take the child with you now," she said, dismissing them. "Attorney Sing, see the clerk about the disposition of the paperwork."

"Yes, Your Honor."

*

Sam Chang led his family, now officially increased by one, to the parking lot near the black-stone Family Court Building. This had been his second court appearance today. Earlier Chang had testified at the Wu family's preliminary hearing. Their asylum bid was less certain than the Changs' but their lawyer was guardedly optimistic that they would remain in the U.S.

The Changs and the policewoman now paused beside her yellow sports car. William, who'd been sullen and moody all day, brightened when he saw it. "A Camaro SS," he said.

The woman laughed. "You know American cars?"

"Who'd drive anything else?" he asked derisively. The lean boy examined the sports car closely. "This is fucking sweet."

"William," Chang whispered threateningly and received back a cold, uncomprehending look from his son.

Mei-Mei and the children continued on to their van and Chang remained beside the policewoman. Translating his words slowly, Chang said to the red-haired woman, "Everything you do for us, you and Mr. Rhyme . . . I am not knowing how to thank you. And the baby . . . See, my wife, she has always--"

"I understand," the woman said. Her voice was clipped and he realized that though she appreciated the gratitude she was uneasy receiving it. She dropped into the seat of her car, wincing slightly from a sore joint or pulled muscle. The engine fired up with a powerful rattling noise and she drove quickly out of the parking lot, spinning the tires as she accelerated.

In a moment the car was out of sight.

The family was due soon at a funeral home in Brooklyn, where the body of Chang Jiechi was being prepared. But Sam Chang remained where he was, gazing at the complex of gray courthouses and office buildings around him. He needed a moment of solitude, this man caught between the yin and the yang of life. How badly he wanted to slough off the hard, the masculine, the traditional, the authoritarian--the aspects of his past life in China--and embrace the artistic, the feminine, the intuitive, the new: all that the Beautiful Country represented. But how difficult it was to do this. Mao Zedong, he reflected, had tried to abolish old customs and ideas with a simple decree and had nearly destroyed his country as a result.

No, Chang reflected, the past was with us always. But he didn't know, not yet, how to find a place for it in his future. It could be done. Look at how close in proximity was the Forbidden Palace with its ancient ghosts to Tiananmen Square with its very different spirits. But he suspected that this reconciliation would be a process that lasted for the rest of his life.

Here he was, half a world away from everything familiar, steeped in confusion and beset by challenges.

And pummeled too by the uncertainty of life in a strange land.

But some things Sam Chang did know:

That at the autumn tomb-sweeping festival he would find comfort in tidying his father's grave, leaving an offering of oranges and conversing with the man's spirit.