The Uninvited

Chen’s mood shifted. His eyes roamed therestaurant, as though he was expectingsomeone to appear. At one point hereached for the salt dish, took a pinch ofcrystals and put it on the end of his tongue.This struck me as strange, and I speculatedit was due to a residual nervousness. Toreconnect to him, I asked him a fewquestions in Mandarin which he answeredpatiently, using simple phrases I couldunderstand. I learned that he had a wifewho was a teacher, and three daughters,two still at school and one at university.When he asked about my own domesticarrangement, I told him I had recently splitup with Kaitlin (for simplicity’s sake Icalled her ‘my wife’) and I now livedalone. I told him about Freddy, that Icollected foreign-language dictionaries