From what I gather, there was simply no discussion about my name during my mother’s pregnancy. It was to be Peter, for my father’s father. After all, there would be no grandchildren from my father’s brothers, Ruby and Bernard. The former had been shot down over Italy during the War, and the latter, completely incapacitated from birth by cerebral palsy. My mother had no problem with calling me Peter. Although she might have wanted her first child named for her mother, there would be many children born to her siblings who could easily honor their matriarch.

There was a problem, though, when it came to my middle name. My father also wanted me named for his late brother. Meaning no disrespect, my mother put her foot down, not because she was keeping score, but rather out of superstition. She was not about to name her firstborn after two men who had died so young. But, mindful of the unlikelihood that her late brother-in-law would ever have a namesake, she suggested that only his “R” be kept, thereby honoring his memory without burdening the baby with such unfortunate karma. Thus, I became Peter Rupert and not Peter Ruben.

Three decades later, I had the good fortune of making my first trip to China. The Cultural Revolution had just ended, and rare tours were tentatively venturing into a country long cut off from the outside world. These were the days before posh excursions catering to sniffy travelers. Rather, we were a random bunch of adventurers defying type who simply had to be in China.

On a long coach ride in the environs of Kaifeng (we were the first foreigners to visit this former capital and center of Jewish life in China), I was seated beside an enormous nurse. Despite all of our outings along the way, we had never been in each other’s company. I had heard only that her suitcase was filled with special scotch that she was taking to some nuns in Hong Kong, where our tour would conclude.

We chatted leisurely on a bus wandering through a bleak winter landscape, and she mused at just how far away she felt from home. Anyone on that bus could have made the same comment, and I casually asked whence she had come. “Florida,” she replied. After describing it as God’s waiting room, I congratulated her on sitting next to a very rare breed—a native Floridian! We had a good laugh and began chatting about the state I had left at eight, occasioned by the divorce of my parents. There had obviously been tremendous change since my departure. The combination of desegregation and the Cuban diaspora had certainly transformed the sleepy, red-neck area of my early childhood beyond recognition—to be sure, “Dixie” was no longer sung each morning in the classroom.

My seatmate had just retired from a career in nursing and as though programmed to do so, she immediately took off to China, a place that had long obsessed her. Though she didn’t like Chinese food, was disinterested in Chinese culture, and ill suited to travel—her girth made the simplest activities both awkward and exhausting—her place at my side made sense. I understood perfectly just how China can get you by the throat.

There we were, in the heartland of the Middle Kingdom, chatting away. Though decades and geography divided us, we quizzed each other about life in the Sunshine State. That I spoke Chinese interested her, and she recalled our guide putting me in my place on the airplane journey into China, warning me that he was in charge and that the expertise he brought to the table as a seasoned traveler was far more valuable than a bit of Chinese spoken by a school teacher from California. All I had done was offer to help people fill in their customs documents, as the English on the papers made no sense. But as events unfolded over the course of the trip, the guide grew completely dependent on me, his initial snub so redressed by deference that I came to resent the responsibility. Nonetheless, the nurse’s sensitivity was most appreciated.

All of her working life had been spent in a hospital. She liked the structure, the sense of community. Her sexuality a puzzlement, I sensed her need somehow to belong. Hand-carrying bottles of scotch, obviously available in Hong Kong, further illustrated a desire to please. Such a public gesture, with its attendant hassles, gave the impression that she was happily obligated to and valued by her nuns.

A sense of inevitability prompted a question without thought.

“By any chance, did you ever work at St. Francis Memorial Hospital in Miami Beach?”

To her immediate affirmative response, I volunteered that I had been born in that hospital.

“Of all things, I was an obstetrical nurse!” she gushed.

We then chatted about dates.

“Nineteen forty-nine! I was working there in the delivery room. It’s a shame that you don’t know the name of your mother’s obstetrician,” she commented with disappointment.

“But I do.”

Then and there, on the outskirts of Kaifeng, within sight of the Iron Pagoda, the tallest structure in the world when built during the Song Dynasty, I recounted the tale of my naming.

“… I became Peter Rupert—not Peter Ruben, and the name of my mother’s doctor was Rupert Arnell.”

“I was his nurse,” she chuckled. “I guess we have no secrets, young Rupert.”