Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. She thought red would be more appropriate than black. After all, she wasn't going to the funeral. She would have her own at home, remembering him as he was a week ago right there with her. He had greeted her where she now sat, kissed her blushing birdstone cheek. He was handsome then, his black hair like starling feathers nestled against her as they embraced.

But now it was time to think of those who had died. Not just him, but all the pantheon of people waiting in some not-place knowing her. The boy from the rice mill: when she was six she had bought lumpy burlap bags from him. His cheeks were very round and made him look younger than he was when he died in an accident with a farm machine. And the old lady from the corner store, she had bright-tan skin only slightly wrinkled from seventy years the sun brought her. One day her shop was closed and she was gone. Her grandfather, a man she hardly knew. He kept red and yellow birds in a small cage on the windowsill and told her not to bother them. She was a little girl, she wanted a dress as red as their feathers than beat against the brass bars in penance for freedom. And here she was in that dress. She was a free woman.