“ ‘I spoke with Major Ulrich. I said I’ll bring the list the police want. He’s promised to stop them from hurting Kai-rong, and also to say nothing to the general-though his price was high! And would be higher if he knew everything I’m planning, which of course I didn’t tell him! Though I don’t believe he’d stop me out of loyalty to the Japanese or friendship for the general. Such a nasty man.

“ ‘But Rosalie agreed to his price, for Kai-rong! What choice is there? As soon as the car’s ready I’ll take little Li to his Aunt Rosalie-they love each other so much! He won’t cry when I leave him there. If Kai-rong really does have this list, I know where he keeps it: in that leather case he’s shut quickly, twice, when I entered his room without warning. The first time was years ago, soon after he came home. He teased and made a game of it, he keeping his secret, me trying to guess. I said it was letters from his secret love. He turned red as a rose! That was the moment I knew he did have a secret love. Oh, what days those were, when we laughed! I had so much, and I didn’t know! I thought I was miserable, locked inside the villa walls. Kairong warned me, but I wouldn’t listen. Of course he was right-I had no idea what misery was.

“ ‘The second time was less than a month ago. Rosalie was with Cook when I arrived, so I went to see Kai-rong. He swiftly closed the case as I entered. Our game of years ago came flying back, and jokingly I demanded to know what was in the secret case. I suppose I was hoping to recapture that time. But he didn’t even smile. He said I must never ask, and never say a word to anyone that the case was here.

“ ‘I’ve never asked myself what Kai-rong was doing on his trips to the north. More than once Father told Kai-rong he was wrong, that there was no wheat or salt, no kerosene or coal to be brought from Russia or Mongolia. He wanted Kai-rong to give up this idea of northern opportunity and stay in Shanghai, but Kai-rong insisted and kept traveling. I thought he was only stubborn. As I’ve always been, right or wrong.

“ ‘I think Rosalie knew. She said she’d been afraid something like this would happen-why would she be, if she had no idea, if she thought it was only business he was traveling for?

“ ‘I hear the gravel crunch-the car’s rolling up the drive. Soon the houseboy will come to say the driver’s ready, and Amah will bring little Li. I look at these pages and feel like laughing. How many times did Teacher Lu tell me the practice of calligraphy would steady my nerves? He made me so angry-all the old ways made me angry! And yet, why have I been rattling on, writing down every thought in my head, if not to calm myself for the day to come?

“ ‘I’ll pack up my pens now-if I can’t find Kai-rong’s list, I swear I’ll invent one! Rosalie will be ready. I won’t tell her my fears. What good would that do? She’s beside herself with worry as it is, and with the new little one growing inside her she has more than enough to think of. Major Ulrich’s price is very hard on her, but she’d give any treasure, all treasures, to save Kai-rong. Oh, how I wish I’d just once felt a love like that! The value of the thing will mean nothing-though it’s everything to that German vulture!-but the tie to her mother will make it painful to give up.

“ ‘Here’s the knock on the door. So many pages in this book still empty! Maybe they’re fated to stay that way.

“ ‘And maybe not. Soon, we’ll see.’ ”

Stunned, I read the last lines again, and again. “My God! Bill!” I finally stammered. “ ‘The value of the thing will mean nothing, but the tie to her mother-’ ”

“I’m with you.”

“Major Ulrich. Who was he? What happened to him?”

The car’s rhythm changed; I looked up and needed a moment. Bill was pulling into a parking lot. Dark-clothed people flowed slowly down the path to a synagogue’s open door. “Go on in,” Bill said. “I’ll call Professor Edwards. Maybe this is a trail he can follow.”

So I left Bill outside under the gray sky, while I put my hat on and went in to say good-bye to Joel. And to Mei-lin, too.

I understood nothing that went on at Joel’s funeral except the rabbi’s eulogy, which was in English. He praised Joel as a devoted family man, a tireless member of the synagogue he’d helped found, an enthusiastic Hebrew school teacher, a volunteer always ready. All of which he probably was, though I’d heard him find fault more than once with his slacker son, and grumble about another insufferably boring Men’s Club meeting. The only thing the rabbi said about Joel’s professional life was that he was “well respected.” Joel would have rolled his eyes at such bland anonymity. What he was, was a damned good investigator who got a kick out of his work. And taught me a lot. And had an annoying habit of giving orders and sticking his nose into everyone’s personal life. But the Joel I knew, the rumpled, dogged detail man always ready with uninvited advice, who started or ended every conversation with some awful off-key rendition of a Broadway song, that Joel wasn’t mentioned. You change in death; I’d noticed this before. It’s as though the whole you isn’t good enough to deserve all this sadness, so the suspect parts get pared away until you’re something more wonderful-sounding, though flatter and a lot less you.

Besides the eulogy, everything else was a matter of Hebrew prayers. When the congregation quieted, the cantor’s voice rose, then hushed, swelled, fell away again. A chill went through me. Here was a sorrow too deep for speech, an ancient grief that could only be told in song. That sorrow, I thought, wasn’t just for Joel. Five thousand years of tragedy called through that voice; and yet it also was for Joel, for this one, unique loss.

I tried to follow, doing what everyone did, as far as I could. At times the congregation stood, or responded to the rabbi in unison. More than once the entire thing seemed to break down into what I had a sneaky feeling might have been Joel’s favorite part: a murmuring, swaying, every-man-for-himself chaos. Every-woman-for-herself, too, where I was; a low curtain divided the room down the center, women on the right, men on the left. I could see Bill over there, wearing a black yarmulke. I took one quick peek to find him and turned away, because I wasn’t sure it was okay to look over the curtain. At that, I heard Joel’s exasperated voice in my head: Chinsky, if it wasn’t okay, we’d have put a higher curtain.

Oh, give me a break, Pilarsky, I thought, as I had so many times, and was surprised to find the woman next to me giving me a quick hug. She held out a pack of Kleenex. Finally it dawned on me I was crying. Good going, Chinsky, that’s some detective work.

I thought about suggesting to Joel that he could only stay in my head if he promised not to sing, but maybe it’s impolite to set conditions on the dead at their own funerals. So I sat a little longer, and stood a little more, and Joel had nothing else to say, and then we must have come to the end because people started filing out.

In silence and with me wielding Kleenex, Bill and I drove to the cemetery in a line of cars. We stood as a pine coffin with a Star of David on the lid-a box that looked too small for Joel-was lowered. There were more prayers, and some people spoke, including Joel’s now-grown slacker son who broke down in tears and couldn’t finish. Joel’s wife, Ruth, and his children wore black ribbons on their lapels; the rabbi ripped each one in half. Rending the garments, a funeral custom among my people, too. Ruth lifted a small carved box and poured a stream of sand into the grave. “From Israel,” whispered the kind woman I’d been sitting beside, who turned out to be a cousin of Joel’s. “It’s a mitzvah to be buried with soil from the Holy Land. Joel brought it back with him years ago. But not from Jerusalem,” she added with a smile. “From the beach.”