“Some nights later, by the glow of a forbidden candle, and with my heart pounding, I retrieved the Shanghai Moon and held it out to him. He took it from me with a child’s interest in a sparkling, pretty thing, admired it, and gave it back. He didn’t seem to understand. ‘This is the Shanghai Moon,’ I said. ‘It was Aunt Rosalie’s. Cousin, in this life she cannot come back.’

“He smiled as though I was kind but simple-minded. ‘No,’ he said. ‘When I find the Shanghai Moon, she will come back.’

“Possibly you can imagine how it was for me then. A child alone with this secret, this quandary! Three more times in the next months I tried to show the gem to him, and three times he denied the jewel I had was the missing Shanghai Moon. Until finally he became angry with me. His shouting and his tears brought Uncle Paul running to see what the trouble was. Neither of us would say. In my terror of being discovered I professed ignorance, and my cousin said only that I had been teasing him. Uncle Paul asked us please to find ways to be kind to each other. Then he sat us down and said he had something to tell us that would make us sad, so he was going to tell us now, when we were sad already. He was going away, he said, leaving Shanghai. He was on his way to America, a beautiful place, and we were to stay with Kai-rong and Grandfather, but someday we could come see him in America, too. A few weeks later, he sailed from the harbor.

“I never again showed the Shanghai Moon to anyone, from that day to this. Aunt Rosalie’s death, my cousin’s anger, Uncle Paul’s leaving us-all these things were bound in my mind to the gem. As I grew to manhood, of course, I came to understand that the truth was both simpler and more complex than my childhood fears had made it. Still, it was years before the magic powers of the Shanghai Moon ceased to hold me, and to frighten me.”

Mr. Zhang turned the brooch in his fingers. “Those powers have never ceased to hold my cousin. He grew up obsessed with the gem. In time he began to laugh at his former connection between its return and Rosalie’s. The fantasy of a grieving child, innocent and foolish. Or so he said, and no doubt believed he believed. But his obsession did not diminish. Nothing interested him but gems. He read and studied, became an authority, and when we arrived here he took up his profession without hesitation. And, freed of the embargo against the world outside China under which we had grown up, he immersed himself happily in the search for the Shanghai Moon.”

Mr. Zhang’s deep brown eyes moved from Bill to me. “Mr. Smith? Ms. Chin? My cousin was mad. He is mad. The report of Kai-rong’s death soon after we arrived here sealed his folly, but really it had been complete for many years. His madness, though, has only one dimension. As long as he can continue the hunt for the Shanghai Moon, he’s as able to function in the world as you or I. He courted and wed and fathered two fine children. He has run a business honorably and participated in the life of his family and community. He’s been kind to me, and to my brother-kinder, I think, than I have been-and to Uncle Paul. All he ever asked was that I join him in the search. How could I refuse?”

The question floated in the air. The vigilant terra-cotta soldiers, the cricket cages and the scrolls, the traffic sounds and the shadows in the open safe all seemed part of it, this same question.

“The search…” I began.

“I’m not a wealthy man, but my business does well enough. When we were younger, one or the other would travel where the rumors led. Later, sometimes, we sent agents. The cost of travel was easily manageable. The larger cost, the cost my cousin counted on me for-the purchase of the gem itself, when we found it-I knew I would never have to pay.”

“Your brother-does he know this?”

“No. He’s looked skeptically upon our enterprise from the beginning, but for my part I’ve scoffed at his scoffing. As though I didn’t know he was right. My brother has no patience for memory, for nostalgia.” An ironic smile lifted the corners of Mr. Zhang’s mouth. “My cousin and I were taught the past must be smashed. My brother fought against that philosophy. Now I sell reminders of the past. My cousin seeks it. And my brother scorns it. No, he doesn’t know the truth. About the Shanghai Moon, or me.” Nor you about him, I thought. “My brother’s interest in gems is solely a function of their value. To him they have no deeper meaning.”

If you didn’t count purity or immortality. I wondered if the brothers had ever once, over the years, actually talked about the deeper meaning of anything.

“It seems to me,” Bill said, “that a lot of people have gotten caught up in your game over the last sixty years.”

“Please believe me, it was never a game. Yet what you say is true, and a source of regret. Many collectors, not just ourselves, have expended time and money in this search. I’ve comforted myself that to collectors the joy is in the chase, not the capture. Some other gem would have kept them running, if not the Shanghai Moon.”

“It wasn’t the thrill of the chase that drove Alice Fairchild,” I said.

Heavily, Mr. Zhang stood. He walked to the window and looked out over Chinatown. “No. And now two men are dead. My brother is hurt and my cousin very ill. Lives have been disrupted, and more heartbreak lies ahead. Because of me. Because instead of reality, I fostered illusion. Instead of truth, I encouraged dreams.” He turned to us. “Do you see? This is what was spoken by Uncle Kai-rong and Uncle Paul. This is the curse of the Shanghai Moon.”

A weary Mr. Zhang busied himself with kettle, tea canister, and little cups. Bill lit a cigarette and went to the window. I watched the Shanghai Moon sparkle against my fingertips.

It didn’t look cursed. On the contrary: The tiny diamonds’ sparkle and the green marbling of the jade made me hopeful, comforted me. As though, through everything, Rosalie and Kai-rong’s love still glowed.

But Mr. Zhang must be right. Look at all that had happened because of it. It must, in fact, be cursed.

Ah, what do you know, Chinsky? What was the last cursed thing you saw? I jumped at the voice in my head.

What, Pilarsky, you think this is funny? I silently demanded.

Hey, I’m one of the guys the thing took out, why would I laugh? I must’ve been losing it anyway, falling for Alice like that. But listen: That’s not the problem anymore.

What’s not?

In the first place, you can’t be serious, blaming that chatchke for all this tsuris. People made the mess, like always. Second, the bad guys are in jail. We’re square, you and me. Thanks, by the way.

Thanks? But I-

I said thanks, that’s it, no more, the end. Stick to business: You’ve got a bunch of old Chinese men here who still have troubles.

And? What am I supposed to do about it?

I should know? But you always said the old Chinese men, they were your problem.

“Ms. Chin? Are you all right?”

I looked up to see Mr. Zhang holding out a cup of tea. How long he’d been standing there, I couldn’t tell, but he seemed concerned. “Yes. Thank you. I’m fine.”

Bill had a teacup by his side at the windowsill. He was looking at me, too, quizzically but without worry. As though, whatever was going on, he knew I could handle it.

And of course, I could.

After all, I was Lydia Chinsky.

Mr. Zhang sat down and leaned toward me. “Do you understand, now, why this investigation must stop? If my cousin were to learn I never intended to buy the Shanghai Moon, and why… He’s just had a heart attack. Another might end his life.”

I sipped my tea. An idea began to glow in my mind, just a tiny pinprick at first, then brighter. Go, Chinsky! I had some more tea, to stall. Was I really about to do this? “Your brother,” I heard myself say to Mr. Zhang. “You know he would do anything you ask?”