A Loyal Character Dancer

Chapter 18

They left the park.

People stood in a line along the bank, shoulder to shoulder, talking to each other without regard for those standing next to them. After a few steps, Catherine noticed a young couple vacating a small space by the embankment wall.

“I would like to stand here for a while.” She added, mischievously, “Stuck on the wall like a snail, to use your simile.”

“Whatever our distinguished guest prefers,” Chen said. “Perhaps more like a brick in the wall. A brick in the socialist wall. As a metaphor, that was more popular during the socialist education movement.”

They stood there, leaning on the railing. To their left, the park gleamed like a “night-brightening pearl,” a phrase she had read in a Chinese legend.

“How do you find time for literary pursuits in your present job?” she asked.

“Politics aside, I like my job because, in a way, it helps my writing. It gives me a different perspective.”

“What perspective?”

“In my college days, to write a poem meant such a lot to me, it seemed there was nothing else worth doing. Now I doubt that. In China ’s transitional period, there are many things more important to the people, at least of more immediate, practical value.”

“You put it defensively, as if you had to keep on convincing yourself,” she said.

“You may be right,” he said. He took a white paper fan out of his pants pocket. “How much I’ve changed since then.”

“Changed into a chief inspector. A rising star in the Shanghai Police Bureau, I believe.” She saw that there were lines in brush calligraphy on the folding fan. “Can I have a look?”

“Sure.”

She took the fan. There was a couplet on it. The writing was difficult to read in the flickering illumination provided by the ever-changing neon lights.

Drunk. I whipped a precious horse; / I do not want to weigh down a beauty with passion.

“Your lines, Chief Inspector Chen?”

“No, Daifu’s. A confessional Chinese poet, like Robert Lowell.”

“Why the parallel between a horse and a beauty?”

“A friend of mine copied the couplet for me.”

“Why those two lines?” She waved the fan lightly.

“His favorite couplet, perhaps.”

“Or a message for you.”

He laughed.

The ringing of his phone took them by surprise.

“What’s up, Uncle Yu?” he said, one hand cupped over the phone. He then took her by the elbow, and they began to walk as he listened.

She understood why he had to resume their stroll. Wedged between people along the wall, confidential conversation was out of the question. And the use of a cell phone was still rare and attracted attention. They encountered covetous glances from the milling crowd.

There was no change of expression as he listened. He spoke little. At the end of the conversation, he said. “Thank you. It is very important, Uncle Yu.”

“What’s up?” she said.

“It was Old Hunter. Something about Gu,” he said, turning off the phone. “I asked him to keep an eye on the karaoke owner. He has been tapping Gu’s telephone lines. It seems Gu is an honorary member of the Blue. He made several phone calls after we left the Dynasty. A couple of them were about a missing Fujianese. A man. Gu used a nickname.”

“A missing Fujianese,” she repeated. “Did he mention Wen?”

“No. The Fujianese seemed to have a mission, but they were speaking in triad code. Old Hunter needs to do some research tonight.”

“Gu knew something he didn’t tell us,” she said.

“Gu spoke of a visitor from Hong Kong, not from Fujian. So why look for a missing Fujianese-”

For the first time, they were talking like partners, without guarding their words or thoughts from one another, when a white-haired peddler approached them, displaying something in his hand.

“A family heirloom. It brings good fortune to young couples. Believe me. I’m seventy years old. The state-run factory I used to work for went bankrupt last month. I cannot get a single penny of my pension, or I would not sell it for anything.”

It was a Qilin-shaped green jade charm on a red silk string.

“In Chinese culture,” she said, looking up at Chen, “jade is supposed to bring luck to its owner, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I’ve heard that, but it doesn’t seem to have brought luck to him.”

“The red silk string is very pretty.”

In the moonlight, the jade shone deep green against her white palm.

“How much?” Chen asked the peddler.

“Five hundred Yuan.”

“Not too expensive,” she whispered to him in English.

“Fifty Yuan.” Chen took the charm from her hand and put it back in the peddler’s.

“Come on, young man. Nothing is too expensive for your beautiful American girlfriend.”

“Take it or leave it,” Chen said, taking Catherine’s hand as if to walk away. “It looks like plastic.”

“Take a close look, young man,” the old man said with an air of indignation. “Feel it. You can tell the difference. So cool to your touch, right?”

“Fine, eighty.”

“One hundred fifty. I can give you a five-hundred-Yuan receipt from a state-run store.”

“One hundred. Forget about the receipt.”

“Deal!”

He handed over a bill to the peddler.

She listened to their bargaining with interest. ‘Ask for a price as high as the sky, but bargain it down to the earth,’ she thought, recalling another old Chinese saying. In an increasingly materialistic society, bargaining existed everywhere.

“I cannot help marveling at you, Chief Inspector Chen,” she said as the old man started shuffling away with the money in his hand. “You haggled like-like anything but a romantic poet.”

“I don’t think it’s plastic,” he said. “Maybe it’s some sort of hard stone without real value.”

“Jade, I’m positive.”

“For you.” He put the charm in her hand, imitating the old man’s tone. “For a beautiful American friend.”

“Thank you so much.”

They walked through the night breeze.

The Peace Hotel came in sight, sooner than she had expected.

She turned to him by the gate. “Let me buy you a drink in the hotel.”

“Thanks, but I cannot come in. I have to call Detective Yu.”

“It’s been a lovely night. Thank you.”

“The pleasure has been mine.”

She took the jade charm out of her pocket. “Would you put it on for me?”

She swung around, without waiting for an answer from him.

They were in front of the hotel, with the red-capped-and-clad doorman standing at the gate, smiling respectfully as always.

She could feel the soft tendrils of her hair stirring with his breath as his fingers clasped the red string round her neck, lingering for a second at her nape.