He stood in the waiting hall of the station, searching the crowd for a seat, the Chinese squatting among their baggage and eyeing him like children through the half-muted light of the clerestory. The air was smoke-filled and dusty and close and very hot, and, as the sun set, the shadows from the muntins tracked its course overhead. He reached down and gathered his belongings. Although he did not have much, what he did had been packed in the luggage at his feet – a carryall, a trolley case, a p. . .