Don't Cry, Tai Lake

EIGHTEEN

Not until Sunday morning did Detective Yu receive a callback from the message he’d left for Bai.

“I know you’re a good friend of Mrs. Liu, so I’d like to talk to you,” he said, repeating the message he’d left for her.

“I would like to talk to you too, Mr. Yu, but I’m going to church right now. And I have to leave for Nanjing this afternoon,” Bai said. “If it’s something really urgent, though, we could meet after the service this morning. I will be at Moore Memorial Church, near the Peace Movie Theater. I may go directly to the train station from there.”

So that Sunday morning Yu and Peiqin arrived at the church, which had been named to memorialize an American donor in the late eighteenth century.

It was a gothic building of umber brick on the corner of Xizhuang Road, with a huge cross installed on the top of the bell tower. It might have been something of a landmark in earlier years, but like other old buildings such as the Seventh Heaven, it appeared lost among the new modern and ultramodern high-rises looming around. Still, the church looked as if it had received an extensive face-lift in recent years.

The service had just started when they got there, but there were a considerable number of people still standing around, greeting each other, and talking outside.

“I’ve been to the movie theater several times,” Peiqin said, “but I’ve never once stepped into the church.”

“Neither have I.”

“Well, better to believe in something than to have nothing to believe in, I would say.”

“What do you believe in then, Peiqin?”

“I don’t have any grand theories, but I believe it’s wrong for people to kill other people. That’s why I wanted to come out with you today.”

“Thank you.”

They moved inside. The church looked impressive with its rectangular pillars in the hall and the colorful stone balusters in the balcony, and it was packed. According to the brochures they picked at the entrance, it could accommodate about a thousand people, including some in the hall and some in the balcony.

Yu and Peiqin failed, however, to find seats for themselves, so they had to stand in the back. To their surprise, they saw a large number of young people. Beside them, a fashionable girl in a low-cut yellow summer dress prayed devotedly, clutching a Bible in her hands, her head hung low, her hair dyed golden. She was perhaps in her early twenties.

They waited patiently, hand in hand, till the end of the service.

As soon as people began to pour out of the building, Yu pressed a number on his cell phone.

“Who is it?” Bai said.

“Oh, it’s Yu. We talked earlier this morning. I’m waiting for you near the entrance.”

A middle-aged woman came over to them with questions in her eyes. She was in her late forties or early fifties, slightly plump, with a pair of gold-rimmed glasses on her round face.

Small groups of people still lingered outside, conversing loudly. They might have come to go to the movie theater, or they might have just left church. At least some were holding tickets in their hands. The traffic rumbled on continuously along Xizhuang Road.

“This is no place for us to talk,” Peiqin said. “Let’s go to People’s Park across the street.”

They went through the underground tunnel to the park, which looked much smaller than Peiqin remembered. The park was built after the racetrack built by the British in the nineteenth century was torn down. Originally, the park was extraordinarily large, considering its location in the center of the city. In recent years, however, a lot of new construction had started to chip away at the park.

They found a stone table with stools around it near the back, where they could look out onto the People’s Square.

“I’m confused,” Bai started the moment she sat down with them. “Does Mrs. Liu know you two?”

“No, but a friend of ours is trying to help her in Wuxi,” Yu said.

“But what can I do to help you?” Bai said. “And to help her? Liu’s dead. No one can do anything about it.”

“Well, some people are trying to push the investigation ahead with her as a suspect.”

“What? That’s too much! She’s already lost her husband.”

“The Wuxi cops must have contacted you to talk about her alibi,” Yu said. “To them, there must seem to be something inexplicable and suspicious about her. The night her husband was killed in Wuxi, she wasn’t at home but with you here in Shanghai. Could that have been a coincidence? And they’re puzzled by her frequent trips back to Shanghai, trips taken during weekdays and over weekends simply for a game of mahjong. They are also aware that their marriage had long been on the rocks.”

“I’m lost, Mr. Yu,” she said alertly. “If that’s the case, I don’t know how you or your friend can help.”

Yu took out his badge. This revelation couldn’t be avoided, he decided. He also produced a business card of Chen’s.

“Wow. Chief Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police Bureau! I think I’ve read about him in the newspapers.”

“Yes, he’s my partner, and he’s the one who’s now in Wuxi. He’s not there on official business, but he’s trying to help Mrs. Liu in any case. That’s why he wanted me to contact you.”

“Now I see, Detective Yu.”

“So tell us what you know about her,” Yu said. “Right now, I’m approaching you informally, and talking to you as a friend of hers. Let me assure you that you are helping us and helping her too. It will be in everybody’s best interest. Once other officials take over, it will be a different story.”

“Thank you for your frankness.” Bai started slowly. “I’ve been her friend since middle school. So of course I would like to help, though I may not be able to answer all of your questions. But as for her frequent trips back to Shanghai, particularly on the weekends, I can tell you why. She comes for the church service here.”

“But aren’t there churches in Wuxi?”

“People at a church are like brothers and sisters, having known one another well for years. Wuxi isn’t that far away now, just a little more than an hour by train. I live in Minhang, and it takes me about the same amount of time to get here. But more importantly, being the wife of an important Party cadre, she didn’t think it would be a good idea to let the local people in Wuxi know about her church attendance.”

“No, it wouldn’t have been good for her husband’s official career if it became known that his wife went to church every week,” Peiqin said. “But what about the mahjong game?”

“People like playing mahjong with old partners. It’s not just a game, you know. Around the mahjong table, people chatter a lot too. But for her, it was mostly because she didn’t want to stay in that big house in Wuxi, all by herself, imaging what her husband was doing with another woman.”

“So she knew about his affair?”

“Yes, she knew about it. She suffered so much because she was too proud to admit it, or to face it.”

“For a Big Buck like her husband, something like a little secretary can be common nowadays,” Peiqin said.

“But I’ve known her from the very beginning. A beauty has a thin fate, like a piece of paper. In the early years, so many young men were after her in school. But of all the candidates, she chose Liu. When he began to succeed in Wuxi, we were all so happy that she had made a good choice. Things in this world are like flowers, however, that blossom only for a short while. He soon began to have little secretaries, karaoke girls, massage girls, and whatnot. After he got the so-called home office, he came home less and less. With their son having left for college in Beijing, she was all alone. What could she do except imagine her husband in bed with another woman, wallowing in the cloud and rain of sex? To give the devil his due, however, he tried to be good to her in his way. He swore never to divorce her, declaring that she’s the only one that really cared for him, that all the others cared only for his money, and were capable of doing anything behind his back. So he provided for her generously and bought her a high-end apartment in Shanghai. Of late, things between them had improved somewhat. Their son is graduating from college and coming back to Wuxi, which might be another reason that they hadn’t divorced. She didn’t tell this to anybody except me. She cares too much about face, which would have been totally lost if people in Shanghai learned that Liu had chosen another woman over her.”

“She could have divorced him if she were that miserable.”

“No, not a woman like her, who puts face before anything else. That would have been an admission of disastrous failure in marriage. Her life had to remain a success story, something enviable to other women, who would do anything to be in her shoes. Of course, they don’t know what’s behind the glossy and glorious appearance.”

“Even if they knew,” Peiqin said, “I bet some of them would still be willing.”

“You’re so right about that. What a shame that men are all like that! Once they become successful, they start looking for girls their daughters’ age. It’s as if they were rejuvenated overnight.” Bai went on after a short pause, “She really tried. I have to say that for her. Last Sunday, after the church service here, she went back to Wuxi with a Wufangzai urn of wine-immersed pork tongue, Liu’s favorite. As I mentioned, of late, things seemed to be improving between them. She’d planned a dinner at home with him. But he called her and said that he would be staying at the home office that night. She was so upset that she came to my place late in the afternoon. She knew we were having a mahjong game that night.”

“One more question,” Yu said. “You mentioned that there were many young men after her years ago. Some of them must still be in Shanghai. Are any of them still in contact?”

“Come on. You know the difference between men and women. Men in their forties and fifties are in their prime, especially those with a rising career. But women our age are like yesterday’s flower trodden in mud. She is too proud to be pitied by those who had once cared for her. No, she never contacts them.”

“A different question,” Yu said, not giving up. “Are any young men seen with her at the mahjong table?”

“Well, there are sometimes some hanging around the table. For a rich woman like her, that’s not really surprising. But they’re all no good, just sucking up to a ‘Big Auntie’ for a little tip. She knows better.”

“So her coming back to Shanghai is more a retreat into a shelter,” Peiqin said, “where she could still cling to her imagined image or appearance of old.”

“Yes, you’re a woman and you understand.” After glancing at her watch, Bai added, “Playing mahjong may help her forget, but more importantly, she is beginning to find peace in the church here. It’s a long story. But I’m afraid I have to leave for the train now.”

“Thank you, Bai. What you told us really helps.”

They then rose and watched Bai hurry out of the park.

“What do you think, Peiqin?” he said.

“Mrs. Liu is desperate to keep up her appearance in others’ eyes. A lot of the things she does, like the frequent trips home and mahjong games, may not make sense to others, but they are full of meaning to her.”

“When did you become a psychologist, Peiqin?”

“I’m not. You heard Bai. Mrs. Liu kept casting herself in the role of a successful woman so she could continue to bathe in the admiration and envy of others. But it’s different with Bai, since they’ve been friends for so long. As for her churchgoing, she might find some real solace there that is unavailable to her elsewhere.”

“That’s quite an analysis, Peiqin,” he said. He couldn’t help adding an ironic edge to his tone. “I might just report it to Chief Inspector Chen verbatim.”

“You know what? I’m glad that you’re not that successful,” Peiqin said, changing the topic. “Or I’ll have to worry like Mrs. Liu.”

“Come on, Peiqin. But what we have learned probably won’t help our Chief Inspector Chen a lot.”

“Let’s go to my old neighborhood again.”

“Why?”

“I have a feeling,” Peiqin said, “that it wasn’t a karaoke girl that Fu picked up in front of that cheap hotel.”