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for—look for—" He was still chopping the air, bringing his hands together as if he wanted to clap hard at the air and, with the sound, dispel something. He could not get his hands together. "Then—then—" He saw the vet bend down over the donkey and take something out from his bag to take a specimen. Yat said, "Sexual assault—are you crazy? What are you talking about? Are you crazy? " The hand-painted sign on the owl's cage read in English and Chinese and Urdu, MR. SCHOLARLY OLD OWL WHO KNOWS SECRETS . Yat, turning, wanting to get away, finding no way out, seeing only all the things on the ground, all
    the uniforms, all the instruments and plastic bags, his two boys dressed up to go out crying as if he had somehow spoiled their day, said, "Knives and— how was this done ?"
    "With an iron bar and a knife." At the kiosk, Constable Yan, watching Lee with the vet, began to walk over toward the two keepers to take their statements. The kiosk was in the shape of Noah's Ark. It sold soft drinks and ice cream for children. Feiffer said, "It happened during the rain. Nothing else had been touched except the animals and the locks on their cages." By the kiosk there was what looked like a white painted rock that was being removed a section at a time by chipping. He had brought his son here once. He knew what the rock had been. Feiffer said, "And the Wishing Chair has been smashed."
    "It was the dog's area. It was where Wai the dog waited so children making wishes could pat him. 'Wishing Chair—Wai Will Grant Wishes For Good Children.' It's written on the sign." He asked, "Where is he? Where's Wai?"
    "He's dead too."
    Yat said, "He was a nice old dog. He was thirteen years old. He belonged to my two boys." His eyes were filling with tears. The pain in his stomach and behind his eyes was, somehow, getting longer and more exquisite: it was a pain that had nowhere to go, would not abate, and to which there would be no end. Yat said, "He lost all his teeth and he couldn't eat meat and he used to eat the soft sweets and sandwiches children brought him and—"
    Feiffer said softly, "I'm sorry."
    "Children made wishes on that chair! Most of the time—when you heard them whisper to their parents what they had wished for—they had wished for Wai!" Yat said, "He had no teeth! Someone—he would have come up to someone hoping for a pat and he—" Yat, his eyes staring, said in sudden English, "Who's done this? Who's done this? " Yat said, "They're not worth anything, the animals—they're just ordinary animals! They're tame. They just came up to you and they—" He saw his boys' faces. "It made people happy!" Yat said, "It made me happy! I was an accountant for a shipping company, I made a lot of money from it. I make nothing from this, but it—" Yat said suddenly, "Look! Those two keepers—they're not keepers at all! They're my children! I was an accountant! Now I work in a kiosk selling sweets and listening to wishes and I—" Everything, everything was dead. Yat said, "Look! Look!" He took Feiffer by the shoulder and turned him to look back through the trees in the main area down one of the walks, "That's the city! That's the city of Hong Kong! Look! Look at it! There are no trees or birds or animals or wishes there, all there are are accountants and companies and— People came here to be happy!" Yat said suddenly calmly, "I was an accountant before. Before, when my two boys didn't even know who I was, I was an accountant." He nodded, "Basic value of assets in zoo: sixty-four animals and birds, common species; buildings: various, no sale value; land: three and one-third acres: reclaimed from sea for parking area, found to be unsuitable for building without unacceptable level of capital investment; present value of business: nil; trained staff: none." Yat said softly, I was a man making a lot of money." He looked across to his two sons. "I was dying little by little." He asked, not to Feiffer, but to the decision he had made a long