Miles laughed as though those precautions proved she was difficult. Then he saw Lin waiting. The novelist had accepted his invitation to discuss literature, not to applaud his judgment of a server's intelligence. Her expression gave him little room to retreat. He called his assistant, who drafted a short written commitment on a tablet. Nia requested ordinary verification by an independent qualified interpreter and payment within ten business days after confirmation. The money would go to her, without publicity obligations or an endorsement of the foundation. Miles looked surprised by the final condition. "Naturally," he said. "This is a wager, not a marriage."
Oliver read the terms aloud. Lin's daughter, Fang, returned and asked what had happened. Nobody could summarize it without making Miles sound worse. Nia explained in Mandarin, then English, and asked whether Lin wished to proceed. The novelist glanced at the advance copy beside Adrian. "Yes," she said. "Let us begin with a question about books." Adrian put down his glass. For the first time all evening, he met Nia's eyes. She recognized the expression before he spoke: the silent request that an old friend agree to disappear. Nia pulled out the empty chair beside the wall and sat down.
Chapter 2
The Room Rose
Lin began with an ordinary question. What had first interested Nia in Mandarin? Nia described the public library near her childhood home, where a retired teacher named Mrs. Wu ran Saturday language classes beside the photocopier. She had joined because her best friend attended, stayed because the language challenged her, and eventually earned a scholarship to study in Chengdu. She had returned to Boston for a degree in comparative literature, then worked wherever she could while building a translation practice. Lin asked which writers she loved. Nia named three and explained why one of them annoyed her. The novelist laughed, recognizing a reader rather than a performer.
Oliver interpreted the main exchange for the table with Nia checking details. A professional remote interpreter, engaged through the foundation's event service, joined to observe and evaluate within the agreed scope. His name was Marcus Xu. He asked permission to record the challenge, confirmed everyone's consent, and reminded them that ordinary clarification did not constitute failure. Miles agreed impatiently. Adrian remained quiet. Nia could hear the kitchen beyond the wall, the scrape of cutlery, the small machinery of other people's dinners continuing. Her own dinner had been a banana at four. She wished someone had offered bread instead of an audience.
Dani brought a small plate of bread and left it beside the water without interrupting. Nia thanked her with a glance. The gesture made the chair feel less like a witness stand. Someone in the room remembered that she was a person who had been working through dinner.
Lin asked about a sentence she had written years earlier, one concerning a woman waiting beside a train platform. Nia explained that a literal English version could preserve every object and still lose the tension. She proposed two alternatives, describing what each gained and sacrificed. Marcus asked one followup question. Nia answered, then corrected her own choice of a verb. She did not pretend that speed made translation accurate. Miles glanced at the clock. "We are getting rather academic." Lin replied in English. "You asked for more than lunch." Someone laughed before remembering to look toward him for permission. This time, the laughter did not stop.
At eight minutes, Lin opened the blue book. "Try the first paragraph," she said in Mandarin. "I would like to hear how you approach it." Adrian leaned forward. "Perhaps something unpublished would make a better test." Lin looked at him. "The original is published. This is not a memory examination." She read the Mandarin aloud. Nia knew the passage so intimately that the room seemed to tilt. A woman arrives home carrying an umbrella that belongs to someone missing. In Nia's version, the final sentence made the umbrella look like a second person standing in the doorway. She had spent an entire Sunday finding that image in English.
She translated slowly, resisting the reflex to deliver her own remembered wording. She explained a possible reading of the last clause and offered the same image because it still seemed right. Lin looked down at the advance copy, then up again. She asked Nia to repeat one phrase. Nia did. Oliver opened another copy and followed the English text with his finger. It was almost identical. Adrian shifted his chair. Miles smiled, apparently believing coincidence confirmed his own excellent taste in selecting a challenge. Marcus said the language requirement had been met competently, subject to the ordinary written confirmation he would supply after checking the recording.
Lin did not look at Miles. "Where have you read this English version?" she asked Nia.
"I haven't read this edition."
"Then you have read another?"