Nine Days by Fred Hiatt Read Free Book Online Page A

thought. But neither of them seemed uncomfortable. Horace Kwan was studying Ti-Anna as though if he looked hard enough he could read what was on her mind—but in a nice enough way, and she waited patiently.
    Finally, he broke the silence.
    “I’ve heard so much about you, for so long, Ti-Anna,” he said. “This is a great pleasure.” You could tell he meant it.
    “I’ve heard a great deal about you, Mr. Kwan,” she said.
    There was another pause, and then he asked, “What brings you to Hong Kong? Are you meeting your father?”
    “Well,” Ti-Anna said. “We hope so. But that is why we came to see you. We don’t know where he is.”
    I was studying his face, but I didn’t see any change of expression—maybe a tensing, a slight leaning forward in his chair.
    “What do you mean?” he said. “Please explain.”
    You could imagine his using the same calm tone for someone who came in and announced, “I just beheaded my husband,” or something along those lines.
    So Ti-Anna explained—how her dad had gotten a message that excited him, how he’d left for Hong Kong, how he’d hardly been in touch since—and how unusual that all was.
    “I am certain that if he came to Hong Kong he would want to see you,” she concluded. “So I thought you might be able to help us.”
    It was her turn to sound calm, but I knew she wasn’t feeling calm. If Horace Kwan couldn’t help, I wasn’t sure where we’d go next.
    He put his long fingers together in a steeple, searched Ti-Anna’s face again and then glanced over at me.
    Following his gaze, Ti-Anna said, “I have no closer friend than Ethan.”
    I blushed, and thought I’d tuck that away to replay later. I realized—I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me before—that if not for me they would have been speaking in Chinese.
    “Well, then Ethan is my friend also,” Horace said. “I’m sure you know”—he was looking at me now—“that Ti-Anna’s father is one of our bravest and most important patriots.”
    Now it was Ti-Anna’s turn to blush.
    “Though you would not know it from Chinese newspapers today, I’m sure he will go down as such in our history books. If,” he added drily, “Chinese students are ever permitted to study their true history.”
    He turned to Ti-Anna. “You know, this may surprise you, but I’ve always thought the bravest thing your father did was to leave the country,” he said.
    “To leave? Why was that brave?”
    “He could have endured whatever they dished out in prison. But he knew how hard it is in China to be the family of a patriot—of a dissident, as they are called. I think he worried how much more your mother could stand, with him in jail and plainclothes police camped on the landing outside your apartment door, listening in on every phone call, following her on every trip to the market.”
    Ti-Anna perched on the edge of the sofa, facing Horace, totally still. I didn’t know if she had any memory of those police guards. Somehow I was sure that she had never heard her parents talk about any of this.
    “So,” Horace said, “he left. Very difficult for him. He knew few would understand the different kind of courage required. He worried especially about the opinion of those who mattered most to him—especially his daughter.”
    I thought I might get teary, so I could only imagine how Ti-Anna must be feeling.
    “He knew the normal fate of the exile—forgotten, overlooked, belittled. Somehow, if our suffering diminishes, then supposedly so does our moral authority. It is a strange calculus.” He gazed out at his stunning view.
    “In any case,” he resumed. “Your father was determined to fight against this fate. Not for the sake of his ego, you understand, but for China. Even from America, he never stopped fighting for democracy in our homeland. And so, yes, I did see him here, quite recently, on his latest mission in that quest.
    “He stopped in the day he arrived,” Horace said. “Like you, he did