A Loyal Character Dancer

Chapter 38

It was not exactly a café, but a corner partitioned off from the waiting area by metal posts and plastic cords. There were several tables and chairs, and a counter sporting an array of imported coffees. A waitress stood near the tall window framing the airplanes on the runway.

“Black coffee?” Catherine asked.

“Tea for me today,” Chen said.

“Can we have tea?” she said in Chinese to the waitress.

“Lipton?” The waitress said in English.

“No. Chinese green tea. With the tea leaves in the cup.”

“Sure.” The waitress gave them a stainless thermos bottle with two cups and a small bag of tea leaves.

As they moved toward a table, Chen cast a glance in the direction of the meeting room. His colleagues sat behind the glass door, watching over Wen and Liu. There were a number of plainclothes men stationed around the area. He was not concerned with the airport’s security.

He experienced a deflation of mood as he seated himself at the table. In the meeting room, he had had to persuade Wen, and then to explain his decisions to others. He’d had to worry about the reaction of Party Secretary Li-with Internal Security prowling in the background. To his relief, Li had reacted positively, though Chen knew that this reaction in the presence of Inspector Rohn was not something to be relied upon.

Now, sitting with her, he did not feel the satisfaction of a detective in a mystery story at the successful conclusion of a case. He might have done his job-a “wonderful job”-according to Party Secretary Li. Yet was it wonderful for Wen? Her life in China was coming to an end, a chapter closing with a tragic climax. And her life in the United States was nothing to look forward to.

What role had he played in bringing about this result? Chief Inspector Chen could make all the convenient excuses for himself, of course, that ‘Eight or nine out of ten times, things go wrong in this world,’ or that ‘It’s nothing but the ironic causality of misplaced yin and yang.’ There was no denying the fact, however, that he had done his part in sending a helpless woman to live with the rogue who had ruined her life.

And what could he do about the gangs? Any major move against an international organization like the Green Bamboo had to be decided upon, in Party Secretary Li’s words, after careful review of political considerations. The body in the park had been identified, but what then? The information from Gu about the power of the triads and their operation would be easily dismissed. Li had said that they should celebrate the successful conclusion of the matter. ‘All’s well that ends well.’ The message was clear: there would be no further investigation of the gangs. Chen was in no position to do anything about it.

Nor was Chen in a position to be elated about his remaining work.

There was something never to be done, like a probe into corruption in the Fujian police or an inquiry into the source of Qian’s cell phone. There was something to be done, but never mentioned, like the parking lot deal for the karaoke club. And there was something perhaps never to be thought of, like the higher authorities’ possible involvement.

And he wondered whether Internal Security would choose to disappear at the conclusion of the case.

Inspector Rohn was carefully putting green tea leaves into the white cups, pinchful by pinchful, like a Chinese, as if concentrating on something far more important than the questions she was going to ask.

As on the day when she first arrived, sitting in the car, so on the day she was going to leave, sitting in the cafe, he did not know what she was thinking.

She picked up the thermos bottle, poured an arc of water into a cup for him, and then prepared another cup for herself.

“I like the Chinese way of drinking tea, watching the leaves leisurely unfolding, so green, so tender in the white cup.”

He gazed at her as she sipped her tea. For a second, she was merging into another woman, one who had accompanied him in another teahouse, in Beijing. She, too, had looked pale, with black circles under her eyes revealed in a flood of sunlight, with a green tea leaf in her white teeth.

The tenderness of the tea leaf between her lips, / Everything’s possible, but not pardonable…

“Li is not behaving like a Party Secretary today,” she said, meeting his gaze. “To encourage his hand-picked successor to have a tête-à-tête with an American officer!”

“I don’t know how you get your information, but that is just like Party Secretary Li-politically correct, but not to a fault.”

“So you will be like him one of those days?”

“No one can tell, you know that.”

“I know. What will happen to you, Chief Inspector Chen?” She gazed into her cup. “I mean, when will your next promotion be?”

“That depends on a lot of unforseeable factors, factors beyond my control.”

“You’re a political rising star, you cannot help yourself.”

“Do we have to talk about politics until you take off?”

“No, we don’t, but we live in politics, like it or not. That’s one of the modernist theories you have lectured me on, Chief Inspector Chen. I’m learning the Chinese way fast.”

“You are being sarcastic, Catherine,” he said, trying to change the subject. “Ten days here will be enough. I hope, to keep up your interest in Chinese studies.”

“Yes, I’ll go on with my Chinese studies. Perhaps I’ll take some evening courses this year.”

He had expected she would ask more questions about the investigation. She was entitled to, but she did not.

Actually, there were some things he had chosen not to disclose in the meeting room. For one, he had learned from Gu that the gangsters had been instructed not to carry guns while following the chief inspector and his American partner. According to Gu, because of Chen’s connections at the highest level, the gangsters did not want to make an enemy of him. Then, too, the Beijing government would never let the matter drop if an American marshal was killed in China. This might also explain a common aspect of the earlier accidents, which, though serious, had not been intended to be fatal. Not even the shot fired at Yu.

Putting down her cup, she took a picture out of her purse. “I have something for you.”

It showed a young girl sitting at a table in a sidewalk café, playing a guitar, her shoulder-length hair shining in the sunlight, her sandals dangling over a brass plaque on the sidewalk.

He recognized her. “It’s you, Catherine.”

“Yes, five or six years ago, at a cafe on Delmar. Do you see the brass plaque? There are more than a dozen there, like in Hollywood, except that these honor celebrities associated with St. Louis. Including T. S. Eliot, of course.”

“Is that one of the celebrity plaques?”

“Eliot’s,” she said. “Sorry, I did not mean any disrespect to your favorite poet.”

“No, he would have liked it-a beautiful girl weaving the sunlight in her hair, singing, dangling her sandals over his memorial.”

“I asked my mother to dig out the picture and send it to me. It’s the only one connecting me to him.”

“What a lovely picture!”

“Someday you may be sitting there, talking about Eliot, stirring memories with a coffee spoon, when the evening is spread out against the sky.”

“I would like that.”

“That’s a promise, Chief Inspector Chen. You are on the invitation list of the U. S. News Agency, aren’t you?” she said. “Keep the picture. When you think of T. S. Eliot, you may think of me, too-occasionally.”

“I will not think of Eliot as often as-” he stopped short. He would be crossing the line. It was forbidden. Abruptly he envisioned himself, as Eliot put it, hearing the mermaids singing, each to each, but not to him, as he walked in Bund Park.

“And I look forward to reading more of your poems, in English or in Chinese.”

“I tried to work out some lines last night, but sitting beside Liu in the car, I realized what a lousy poet I am-And a lousy cop too.”

“Why are you so hard on yourself?” She took his hand across the table. “You are doing your best in a difficult situation. I understand.”

But there was a lot she might not understand. He did not make an immediate response.

She continued, “Did you tell Party Secretary Li about the parking lot deal with Gu?”

“No, I didn’t.” He had anticipated this question. Li had shown no surprise at his dealing with Gu. It appeared as if Li had known about it.

How deeply was Li connected with the Blue? As the number-one police official responsible for the security of the city, Party Secretary Li might have had to maintain some sort of working relationship with the local triad. In the Party’s newspapers, the slogan, “political stability,” was still emphasized as the highest priority after the eventful summer of 1989. But he seemed to be more deeply involved.

“What about Qian’s light green cell phone?” she said. “I did not remember seeing one in the market.”

“When you were behind the fitting room curtain, I saw someone dialing a cell phone of the same unusual color.”

A melody was being played in the bar. It was another song that had been popular during the Cultural Revolution. Chen failed to remember its words except for one refrain-”We shall be beholden to Chairman Mao, generation after generation.” He shook his head.

“What is it?”

“Just the song.” He was relieved at the change of topic. “There is a revival of those popular songs from the time of the Cultural Revolution. This one’s a Red Guard song. Wen could have danced the loyal character dance to it.”

“Do people miss those songs?”

“They appeal to people, I think, not because of their contents, but they were part of people’s lives-for ten years.”

“Which holds meaning for them, the melody or their memories?” she said, subtly echoing the line he had recited for her in the Suzhou garden.

“I don’t have the answer,” he said, thinking of another question that had just come up in their conversation.

Was he himself a loyal character dancer, in a different time and place?

He’d better turn in a report to Minister Huang now. He was not yet sure what exactly to say. At this stage of his career, it might be best for him to show his loyalty directly to the Beijing ministry, circumventing Party Secretary Li.

“What are you thinking about, Chief Inspector Chen?”

“Nothing.”

They heard Party Secretary Li calling to them from a distance, “Comrade Chief Inspector Chen, boarding in ten minutes.”

Li was walking toward the cafe, pointing at the new information displayed on the screen above the gate.

“I’m coming,” he responded before he turned back to her. “I have something for you too, Inspector Rohn. When Liu did his shopping for Wen on the way to the airport, I chose a fan and copied several lines on it.”

Long, long I lament

there is not a self for me to claim,

oh, when can I forget

all the cares of the world?

The night deep, the wind still, no ripples on the river.

“Your lines?”

“No, Su Dongpu’s.”

“Can you recite the poem for me?”

“No, I cannot remember the rest of the poem. These few lines alone came to me.”

“I’ll find the poem in a library. Thank you, Chief Inspector Chen.” She stood up, folding the fan.

“Hurry up. Please. It’s time,” Party Secretary Li urged.

The line of passengers started moving through the gate.

“Hurry up.” Qian was now at Li’s side, holding that light green cell phone in his hand.

Wen and Liu stood at the end of the newly formed line, holding each other’s hand.

It would be Chief Inspector Chen’s responsibility to separate the two, and to send Wen through the gate.

And Inspector Rohn, too.

Along with a part of himself, he thought, though he might have lost it long ago, perhaps as early as those mornings on the dew-decked green bench in Bund Park.