Chapter 12: Uncle Tang

Tang Zhenhai crossed the mud with both arms open.

He was fifty-eight, heavy and silver-haired, in a camel coat that had never been near a pond.

His face was square and kind, the face of a man who remembered your mother's name.

"Yuhe," he said. "Look at you. You're thin."

Meng Yuhe had come down the stairs behind Lu Qing in yesterday's shirt, and now he stood at the gate.

He stood very straight, with his hands at his sides, and let himself be embraced.

"Uncle Tang," he said.

"Two years I've been writing to you. Two years!"

Tang Zhenhai held him at arm's length and laughed with wet eyes.

"And Wenjie finds you in a village hall. I could have wept."

"I got the messages," said Meng Yuhe.

"And did not answer. Never mind. A man is allowed to disappear."

He patted Meng Yuhe's cheek.

Lu Qing watched.

He had seen Meng Yuhe tired and silent and asleep.

He had never seen him obey.

It was in the shoulders and in the way the chin went down.

It made Lu Qing's stomach go cold.

"And this," said Tang Zhenhai, turning, "must be the young man with the pond."

"Lu Qing," said Lu Qing.

"I've heard so much. Wenjie says you're a clever boy. A finance graduate who gave up Hangzhou for fish."

He shook Lu Qing's hand with both of his.

Tang Zhenhai's eyes went to Lu Qing's collar, where the buttons were one out.

They rested there a moment, and the smile did not move.

"That's character."

"Thank you, sir," said Lu Qing.

"Please. Uncle Tang. Yuhe's friends are mine."

His eyes went round the pond as he said it, unhurried.

They passed the hut, and the east bank, and the dam.

They rested a little longer on the weir at the upper end, where the stream came in under the old stones.

"Old," he said. "That weir."

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