Chapter 8: The Garden at the Hotel

The delegation's hotel had a walled garden behind the lobby, with a pond and four stone benches, and nobody used it after dark.

Yan found the Minister on the third bench at nine on the eighth night.

The Minister sat with a thermos of his own tea and a blanket over his knees, watching the carp turn under the lamp.

"Mr. Yan," he said in Norvane, without surprise. "I wondered when you would stop sending your interpreter to do your walking."

"Minister."

Yan sat down at the other end of the bench.

He had spoken this language to dockers and landladies, and once in a lift to Lu Wen.

He had never used it to ask an elder for a favour.

"I want to ask you for tomorrow," he said.

The Minister waited.

"At the ninth session, something will be said at the table that sounds like an accusation against my interpreter."

"I see," said the Minister.

"I'd like you to hear all of it before you decide what it means."

The Minister poured a cup of tea from the thermos and held it out.

Yan took it, because refusing would have been rude.

"You are very formal, Mr. Yan," said the Minister, "for a man who has understood every word I've said since the first morning."

Yan's hand did not move.

The tea stayed level.

"You knew," he said.

"On the first morning my deputy said something to me about your haircut," said the Minister mildly.

"It was not kind, and it was not for your ears."

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