Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway.

A voice calls out urgently. She rises, summoned.

"Yu-Jing, laundry!" It is harsh and altogether unkind. She glides into the hall, gown flowing behind askance. Her eyes rest on the floor.

She is addressed without being seen. "Have them cleaned. Collect them tomorrow." The girl gathers, bundles, wraps, more delicately than they deserve. The red gown flows behind her over the floor, across the doorway, into the streets. Yu-Jing takes her master's bundle to the laundromat, the red splashing colors into the muddy pools of the...