But we didn't find much clarity out at the seaside, Noel and I, on the contrary. Everything grew hazier, cloudier. It started already in the taxi, the smell of it so bestial that we sat hunched in the backseat, thick scarves pressed to our faces. Noel's girlfriend rang and he talked intently for several minutes, contorting his long upper body this way and that to keep the reception from dropping. They chatted about the trip, as if there was nothing strange about leaving Beijing to celebrate New Year's Eve with another woman, but he made it sound innocuous and perfectly sensible, like a school outing.