For over a year the damp secrets of Lin Yao's body remained unseen; touched occasionally as they lay on the hillside in the spray of a waterfall, their notebooks open if unused beside them, but always unseen.

"You must taste the plum and split the peach," Grandfather Luo would insist, almost crossly. The man had been a great radical in his time. Too famous to kill and too dangerous to be let loose. His contempt for the timidity of the generations which had come after his own was widely known and had lost him many friends. "How else will you know if you want to keep the bowl?"

Madame Mimi had other views. As often happened, these conflicted not just with those of his grandfather but with themselves. A part of her was delighted that her grandson had found a girl traditional enough to wait for marriage. Another part suspected Lin Yao might be Uighur.

Larger than France, Germany and Italy put together, China's north-west province of Xingjian had long been Moslem, and though all China was now traditional Market-Leninist the old tribal ways continued, if quietly.

She tried catching the girl out but Lin Yao answered carefully, revealing little, as careful answers usually did. And in the end, having watched the black-haired girl for weeks which turned to months and then became a year, Chuang Tzu's grandmother decided that perhaps, after all, it didn't matter.

The girl lit joss sticks when required, ate pork dumplings if they were put in front of her and observed the important feast days. Sometimes appearances were enough.

And every afternoon, Chuang Tzu and Lin Yao climbed the lower slopes of Ragged Mountain, in whose shadow Grandfather Luo's farm existed, and walked together to the waterfall, their shoes crunching dry bracken underfoot or dragging through wet grass as the seasons bled into each other. Until finally even Madame Mimi was anxious for something to happen.

"I won't live forever," she told her grandson one breakfast, her face as creased as an old poem. "And before I die I want to see your children."

Flames danced over an iron griddle and buds blossomed on the fingers of a cherry tree in the farmyard outside. The kitchen was as perfect as his grandmother could make, far removed from the glitzy chrome of Shanghai or the lightweight adventures of holidays on the moon.

Most of those who visited Chuang Tzu's grandmother assumed her house was a bid for reassurance, like most retreats into tradition. This was to miss the point. The stone-built farm with its small meadows and old orchard, wild deer and pheasants was Madame Mimi's revenge. As was its décor of bamboo scrolls, paper screens and silk carpets.

It was her revenge for the Westernized years spent in exile in Paris. For the child she later lost to a New York taxi and the Rue St. Honoré frocks she left behind on their much-publicized return to Beijing.

She could remember the evening they decided to return. Sitting in the Chieng-Mai on Rue Frédéric Sauton, at one of those centre tables with a little glass screen on either side to keep conversations private. Two Americans in leather jackets had been sitting next to them, feeding a tramplike man who seemed more concerned with bolting his ground chicken and chilli than listening to what they had to say.

Chuang Tzu's father had been a baby then, his car seat slung on the floor beside their table. The Chieng-Mai was good like that. On the table between them lay a letter from the embassy offering her husband full immunity and the return of his family farm. All he had to do was come back to Beijing. They would not even try to control what he could say or limit his access to the Western press.

Of course, the letter didn't say there'd be no electricity or that the roads to the village would be allowed to become impassable and visas as good as prohibited to journalists wanting to visit the area.

It had been Grandfather Luo's choice. His decision.

Now she felt amusement and regret and small shards of resentment that caught her unaware like paper cuts. So she made her life in the shape of memories which had been old when she was a child and lived out her exile from Paris within another exile, this one.

When Chuang Tzu woke from the darkness for the third time it was to roll over and reach for the girl in his dreams. Only the girl was gone and the sheet under which he slept was hard and scratchy, a fact Chuang Tzu forgot as soon as she walked into his room both naked and smiling.

Neither of which was likely or even possible. The last time he'd seen Lin Yao had been by the waterfall, as she sat half naked on her heels in his shirt, slow tears sliding down her cheeks to fall on summer grass.

"You're leaving," she'd told him, back then.

"No." Lifting her narrow chin, Chuang Tzu kissed away the tears. It felt a very adult thing to do. "You're wrong." There was blood on the tail of his shirt, but much less than either of them had been expecting.

Their first attempt at sex had been brief and clumsy, her anxiety and his nervousness leading to relief only when they simultaneously decided that perhaps the time was not right.

"Swim?"

Lin Yao had looked so surprised at his suggestion that Chuang Tzu almost smiled. Neither one had braved the pool in all the months they'd been walking from the farm to the waterfall and back. And though Grandfather Luo's pig keeper said that snakes slept in its depths, neither Lin Yao nor Chuang Tzu believed him, any more than they believed that bathing in its icy water brought visions.

It was the pool's steep sides and the force of the waterfall that made them stick to the river that ran past the village.

"Come on," said Chuang Tzu, reaching for her hand. And that was what decided it. Lin Yao let her fingers lock around his and then, only half willing, she let herself be pulled to her feet and led to the lip of the pool. He undid her blouse and slid the sleeves down her arms, dropping her top onto the grass. Then he shrugged himself out of his own shirt and tossed it beside hers.

"How are we going to do this?" asked Lin Yao, shivering.

Chuang Tzu looked at her. "We jump," he said.

"And how do we get back?" Nodding at the long drop, Lin Yao indicated the problem.

"We climb," said Chuang Tzu, only then searching for the means to make this true. There were splits in the granite and narrow ledges, holes worn by water and the occasional bush busy clinging to the side. It should be possible, provided the first bit was not too slippery.

"There are handholds," he said.

Lin Yao was doubtful.

"Let me go first," suggested the boy. "If it's safe then you can go second."

Long black hair swept Lin Yao's naked back as she shook her head. "No," she said. "We jump together."

The drop was maybe twice their height, the depth of the pool unknown, and it wasn't clear to Chuang Tzu whether they were testing themselves or each other. Either way, Lin Yao twisted her fingers tight into his, stepped up to the lip and counted down from three.

"Lift off," said Chuang Tzu, and they jumped, falling forever until white water came up to hit them and the shock tore their hands apart.

"Cold," he gasped, voice frozen in his throat.

Lin Yao nodded, unable to speak because an iron band was being tightened by unseen fingers around her ribs.

Kicking towards the rock, the boy stopped when he realized Lin Yao had remained where she was. So he swam back, grabbed the girl's wrist and dragged her after him, only letting go when Lin Yao reached round him to grab at a crack in the rock-face.

"You go first," he said. "You're colder."

Lin Yao looked uncertain, as well she might. But she reached up and found a handhold, scrabbling with her toes as she pushed and pulled her body half out of the water. Her shoulders as she reached for a fresh hold were sharp as blades and her muscle stood out, root-like, beneath pale skin.