Nine Days by Fred Hiatt

had spent enough time with Ti-Annato know I’d better take advantage, because who knew when my next meal might be. Besides, I thought, it was only polite, as a guest, to show enthusiasm.
    Finally, when every kind of cart had been wheeled past us, Horace leaned toward us and, in as quiet a voice as could be heard, asked Ti-Anna to retell her story, from the beginning.
    She described her father’s decision to go to Hong Kong, and how he had just disappeared after the second phone call, and how we had decided to follow. She ended with the broken hair and our plan to break free of the listeners.
    Horace nodded gravely. “It is worrisome,” he said. “I was certainly surprised to see you and your friend.”
    As far as I was concerned, that didn’t advance things much. Ti-Anna nodded and waited.
    “As you know, your father always believed that the key to bringing democracy to China would be uniting intellectuals like himself with workers from the factories,” he said. “Many people argued against him. The workers are too busy making money and worrying about feeding their relatives back in the village, they would say. But he would say, no, the workers also want to be free, it is just a question of overcoming their fear.”
    I was sure none of this was new to Ti-Anna. But she listened without impatience. I tried to follow her example.
    “When he came to see me, he was very excited, because he said he had a chance to meet with leaders of an underground workers’ movement,” Horace went on. “He seemed to think this could be the beginning of something big.”
    “Meet where?” Ti-Anna asked. “Inside China?”
    Horace shook his head. “He didn’t explain, and I didn’t ask,” he said. “But he told me the contact had come through a man who—well, do you know this name?” He slid an expensive-looking pen from his breast pocket and, rather than saying the name aloud,wrote three Chinese characters on a paper napkin, which he then swiveled so Ti-Anna could read it. She shook her head.
    “He moved from the mainland to Hong Kong about fifteen years ago, I believe,” Horace said, “probably barely in time to avoid arrest.”
    He crumpled the napkin into a ball and shoved it into his jacket pocket.
    “He started a radio program that attracted a huge audience inside China. Every illegal strike, every workers’ protest—somehow he would find out about it, and report on it, and people all through China would listen. Of course, no Chinese newspapers would write about such things.”
    He sipped his tea.
    “A few years ago, his radio station said they would not carry his program anymore,” Horace continued. “A business decision, they said—no advertisers. I’m sure there was pressure from Beijing.” He spat that out with disgust.
    “He kept his program going on the Internet. He still seems to hear more about what’s happening inside China than anyone else, I don’t know how. And somehow he earns enough of a living to keep going. I’m not sure how he manages that, either.”
    “So my father was going to meet him?”
    Horace nodded. “If anyone knows where your father was headed, it would be he. Your father told me they were getting together the day after he saw me.”
    Whatever food remained on the table was looking a bit gelatinous. Horace signaled for a waitress, who came over and counted our plates to figure out how much we owed. He pulled some bills from his pocket. I offered to help pay, but he waved me off.
    As the waitress walked away, Ti-Anna said, “Do you know how we can find this man?”
    “He lives on Lamma—you know the island?”
    Ti-Anna shook her head, but I said yes. I hadn’t read and reread the guidebook for nothing. Lamma was just south of Hong Kong Island, and in a way its opposite—only a few thousand residents, in a few fishing villages. People from the city took the ferry there to go to the beach or eat seafood at restaurants on the bay.
    “Do you know his number?” I