Free A Cup of Light by Nicole Mones

town, Gao Yideng met his friend Pan, a Vice Minister of Culture. They sat in the high-ceilinged bar, its walls filled with shelves and lined with books. Gao had exactly twenty-five minutes to allocate but appeared relaxed and companionable behind his brandy. “Heard any news?” he asked his friend.
    Pan drank deeply. He understood the question. For years now Gao had been a major donor to several of the museums under Pan’s purview, and Pan had clearly noted a passion for porcelain. Gao loved to know what was being bought and what was being sold within China. He also loved the gossip about things being spirited out of the country. They both knew that as fast as privatization was bringing China’s heirlooms out of the shadows and onto the market, at the same rate they were draining away. It may have been a trickle next to the flood of goods being smuggled
in
to China, but it was a bad loss all the same. Pan wiped a sheen of sweat off his brow. “There was a shipment of gold-leafed Buddhist statues, Han Dynasty, intercepted in Shenzhen last week. And they caught a fairly sizable cache of porcelain leaving through Yunnan.”
    â€œWhat’s going to happen to it?” Gao’s eyes were bright with interest.
    â€œIt will be a choice of several museums. We have to hold more discussions.” When antique masterpieces were seized, they went to the government for allocation—if they made it past corrupt and avaricious local officials.
    Gao listened attentively. Of course, he was not being real with Pan. His questions were atmospheric. What he really wanted to know was what came through between the words. So far, very good. Pan had still not heard anything about his own pots.
    And of course Gao would not be the one to tell him. “My dear friend,” he said with a crinkling of sunny warmth, and raised his glass to touch it against that of the other man. They clicked, raised them to their mouths, and drank, Gao taking his first sip and Pan draining the last drops of his. Gao smiled over the top of his glass, in the dim light from the egg-shaped lamps all around them. “Always a pleasure to see you.”
    Michael Doyle, the wide-chested man from the back court, rolled his bike out to the hutong. The rapid, high-pitched clicking of the wheels followed him out of the main gate, where life and noise rose around him. He swung onto the seat in a single movement and pedaled into the brown miasma, weaving through the people, their talking and laughter, the carts and the bicycles down Houyuan'ensi Hutong. The lane all but disappeared ahead of him in the dirty mist.
    It was unwise to exercise outdoors in Beijing, even now, even after they’d improved the air some, but Doyle didn’t care. He’d been ill already. It might come back but this was no longer a thing he feared. Not that he wanted it. But he was prepared.
    He rode west through the flat, interweaving labyrinth of walled lanes, the mass of his body balanced easily on the thin wheels of the bike. Through the open doors set in stone blocks, worn down by centuries, he peered into the bricked-up tunnels where people lived. There were only a few neighborhoods like this left around the city, this infill of tightly built rooms that had used up every square meter of the old courtyard homes decades ago, as the population swelled and people needed more space.
    He remembered the house he’d had in L.A., the flat-angled roof and the little white room next to the kitchen where they ate. But he was here to forget that. He put his mind on sounds. There was the creak of wheels coming up behind him, punched through with the vendor’s three-syllable cry. Wind made a shushing ruffle in the overhanging branches. He pedaled under the trees.
    Wooden gates passed him with old brass joins, geometric patterns of rivet; tiny shops with sliding aluminum windows selling soda, gum, cigarettes, and local phone service, one
yuan
a call. He thought about