Chapter 16: Whose Hand

Wanning was dressed and sitting at the kitchen table when the green door opened.

Captain Ji came in and did not take off his cap.

He laid a cream envelope on the table, and beside it a black notebook with a soft cover.

"Read the letter first," he said.

She read it.

It was short, and it was signed with her name.

Her stomach turned over, and she looked up at him.

"I didn't write this."

"I know."

"It says I married you to end the inquiry."

"It says you're to leave me when the year is up, and that Wen Zhe carried it."

She put it down. "Hanzhou, I never wrote a word of it."

"I know," he said again. "Your tails are longer."

"My what?"

"The last stroke of every word. You pull it down and out. This hand stops each one short."

She stared at him.

"You can tell my handwriting from a copy."

"Yes."

"How?"

He did not answer.

He pushed the black notebook across the table with two fingers, and took a step back from it.

"For a quarter of an hour this morning I believed that letter," he said. "It said what I was afraid of."

"I want you to know that before you read the other."

She opened the notebook.

On the first page, in square army handwriting, was a date in February and a name.

Qiao Wanning.

Under it ran a line she knew so well that for a moment she could not place it.

A lamp left on in a window is not a promise, it's only a lamp.

But I would sooner be the one it's left on for.

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