Chapter 14: Delivered

By midnight Anqi had translated two sentences.

She sat at her desk in the flat with the lamp on and the manuscripts stacked around her feet.

The bed behind her was made.

Mengyao had made it that morning, badly, with the corners pulled up crooked.

Anqi had not been able to look at it since she came in.

The English line on the screen said that the heroine had been sent for.

She deleted "sent for" and wrote "summoned."

She deleted that and wrote "fetched," and then she put her forehead on the desk.

Her phone lay face down beside the lamp.

It had buzzed a dozen times, and she knew every one of them was kind.

She had spent four years working inside other people's sentences.

She knew exactly how a line could be true and still be placed to do a job.

A card was only a card.

But a card was also a hand on the small of the back that said go on, sit there.

And she had gone.

At one o'clock she gave up on the desk and went out to sit on the stairs.

The stairwell was cool and smelled of other people's rice.

She sat on the landing between the fifth floor and the sixth with her elbows on her knees.

Below her a door opened, and slow footsteps started up.

Sturdy shoes, a steady climb, a stop at every turn.

Anning came around the last flight with her coat over her pajamas and her hair flattened on one side.

She was breathing hard.

"Six floors," she said. "You live on six floors. Who does that?"

"People who can't afford a lift."

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