The dinner was, as I had predicted, perfectly civil.
Meng Suyin was there — I had not expected that, though I should have. She occupied a position at the far end of the main reception room, near a window that looked out over the winter garden, in a deep amber dress that made her look like she had been deliberately placed there as an architectural element. She saw me the moment I saw her, and the almost imperceptible inclination of her head told me everything I needed to know about her current state: alert, controlled, and entirely aware of every conversation happening in the room.
We did not approach each other directly. That would have been obvious. Instead we moved through the evening on parallel tracks, each working our own section of the room, each cataloging what we saw and heard in the way that people who have been watching carefully for years do without thinking about it anymore.
