Don't Cry, Tai Lake

NINETEEN

When Chen woke up, it was almost nine A.M.

The curtain still drawn, the room appeared enveloped in a gray opaqueness, as if its contents were waiting to be mailed into the morning.

He remained lying in bed, disoriented by the lingering sensations of the night, before he turned and reached out for her.

But she was gone.

He sat up with a jerk, looking at the rumpled sheet.

“Shanshan!”

The echo of her name resounded like a dream in the empty stillness. But their evening wasn’t a dream. The white pillow against the headboard remained rumpled with the shape of her head, still slightly warm, as he touched it again.

He put on his robe and hurriedly searched through the house, but she was nowhere to be found. Stepping outside, he shivered with a premonition, seeing the stone steps strewn with fallen petals after the night’s clamor of wind and rain. The sound of birds chirping was heard here and there.

He moved back inside to see on the desk a note, upon which was placed her black plastic hair band. She’d taken it off last night while standing beside him at the window. The note said:

Don’t try to look me up. It wouldn’t be good for you to be seen in my company. You’ve been so kind to me. Thanks for everything. But you have your destination, and I, mine.

Shanshan

What? He was totally confounded. The last sentence seemed somewhat familiar, yet he failed to recall where he’d come across it.

Beside the note lay the bulging folder she’d entrusted to him last night. It was heavy when he weighed it in his hand.

So what was Chief Inspector Chen going to do?

He started pacing about, as if anxious to catch the echo of her footsteps from last night.

He could hardly make sense of her appearance last night. Or her disappearance in the morning. Was she so depressed that she simply wanted to let herself go in the company of a man she cared for, for one night?

The willow shoots are looming through the mist. / I find my hair disheveled, / the cicada-shaped hairpin fallen to the ground. / What worries should I have / about the days to come / as long as you enjoyed me, tonight, to the full?

But the folder in his hand didn’t speak to that scenario. She wasn’t going to give up the environmental cause. It meant more than that-perhaps it was her way of saying thanks for his help in the uphill battle to come.

It wasn’t a moment, however, to indulge in such speculations. Chen had to decide on an immediate course of action. To leave the whole matter behind was one possibility, as was suggested in her short note. No obligations. No commitments. They hadn’t talked about future plans. He would, of course, keep his word by taking the folder with him-there was no need for him to hurry and make a specific move. In the long run, doing a good, effective job as Chief Inspector Chen would be in the best interest of the country and the people.

Alternatively, he could try to help her through the crisis. He should be able to keep her out of the clutches of Internal Security, who had targeted her because of her relationship to Jiang. Her “cooperation” wouldn’t be that crucial; with or without it, Jiang would be convicted. As a last resort, Chen could go so far as to appeal to Comrade Secretary Zhao, though such an option did not appeal to Chen.

But he could also choose to get further involved, as he had said to her, by clearing Jiang of the charge. That was an effort that Chief Inspector Chen should make if Jiang proved to be innocent. Chen wondered, however, whether he would be able to throw his weight about here in Wuxi. It wasn’t just a homicide case, and it wasn’t his territory.

Besides, if he endeavored to help Jiang, Chen might actually be helping out a potential rival. He paused, then brushed aside that consideration. If he were to give up because of that, then he would never be able to consider himself worthy of her or of being a cop.

But he had no authority here. It wasn’t feasible to confront Internal Security, by whom he had long been considered a troublemaker, having blocked them on several occasions. There was no way to argue with them about what was considered a “state secret,” as that was something defined by them and in the interests of the Party.

It wasn’t possible to pressure the local cops, either. It was out of the question for him to rush onto the scene. What he had told Huang about Comrade Secretary Zhao and his “special mission” wouldn’t really stand up.

“Room service, sir-”

The young attendant came in bearing the breakfast tray along with the thermos bottle of herbal medicine. Smiling a sly smile, she might have noticed something different about the room.

“Thank you,” said Chen, reaching for the thermos.

He finished the herbal medicine in two or three gulps as he watched her withdraw. He then dialed the cell phone he had given Shanshan, but it was turned off.

It might not be a good idea for him to visit her dorm, since it was most likely being watched by Internal Security. Instead, he decided to go to Uncle Wang’s eatery. There he could wait, or at least learn something about her. Before he stepped out, he picked up a soft leather briefcase-a gift from the center-and put in a bunch of the photos as well as other information related to Liu’s murder. What he was going to do that day, he had no idea, but he might as well restudy some of the material while he waited for a call from her.

That morning, the same old route felt almost unbearably monotonous. He walked on without looking around, lost in thought. A maroon convertible suddenly sped past him with a strident rumble. The driver, a young man in his early twenties, waved his hand dashingly at him. An extremely slender girl in a light-blue dress sat reclining in the back, dangling her bare feet off the side. To his surprise, the car came to a screeching halt and backed up a couple of yards. The driver looked over his shoulder.

“My dad stays at the center too, you know,” he declared with a proud grin. “Would you like a lift?”

An HCC-high cadre’s child, or Communist prince. Chen knew their ways. A high-ranking Party cadre probably brought along his family for a vacation at the center.

“No, thank you.”

“We live in the villa next to yours. It’s not too bad, but there’s no real fun inside the complex. It’s old and filled with old-fashioned people. We have to party outside to entertain ourselves.”

“You’re right. Perhaps another time,” Chen said.

He watched as the car drove away in a cloud of dust.

Surely it was a waste for one man alone to occupy a whole villa, but then according to the policy, only a high cadre-a cadre of a certain rank-was entitled to such treatment. Of course, Chief Inspector Chen himself wasn’t a high cadre, and he was only there because of his connection to one. He wondered how far he could go with all his connections, and whether he really wanted to go that far.

Whistling, he tried Shanshan’s number one more time. Still no answer.

The phone still in his hand, a call came in. He recognized the number shown on the screen. It was Sergeant Huang.

“Oh Chief, I’ve just learned something,” Huang said, with a strange edge in his voice. “I told you that Shanshan’s phone was being bugged because of her connection to Jiang, you remember?”

“Yes?”

“Her connection to Jiang wasn’t just because of their work. According to Internal Security, she’d had an affair with him. That’s how her name appeared on a list-not our list, but Internal Security’s. They took pictures of her sneaking out of his apartment late at night several months ago.”

Even though Chen knew Shanshan and Jiang had dated, he was momentarily at a loss for words. Whatever their relationship, he hastened to remind himself, they had parted.

If anything, it only proved that Internal Security must have been following Jiang for a long time. And perhaps Shanshan as well. He thought of the suspicious peddler he’d seen a couple of times in the last few days. But then again, he might simply be jumpy.

“She made a phone call to him just a couple of days ago,” Huang went on, having not gotten any response from Chen.

“What did they say to each other when she called?”

“He didn’t pick up.”

“Thanks, Huang,” he said. “If there’s anything new, let me know.”

Still, the timing of the call couldn’t have been worse. How would Huang have reacted had he learned about Shanshan staying overnight at the center with the Chief Inspector?

All of a sudden, a siren shrieked, piercing the grayness of the overcast morning sky. Chen looked up to see that he had arrived at the shabby eatery, with Uncle Wang bending over a large stove outside.

“You’re early today, Chen,” Uncle Wang said, busy setting up the fire with old newspapers and dry twigs before he threw in a ladle of coal balls. He must have just started. “We don’t serve breakfast. There’s nothing for you at the moment. But I can have a bowl of salty bean soup microwaved if you’d like.”

“Don’t worry about it, Uncle Wang. I’ve had my breakfast. Has Shanshan been here?”

“Not this early and not today. It’s Sunday. I didn’t see her yesterday either. Do you know if there’s anything going on with her?”

“No, but I saw her last night.”

“Oh, I’m so concerned about her,” Uncle Wang said. “And about you, too. The day before yesterday, a couple of strangers came here. They asked me a number of incriminating questions about her, and about the man seen with her in the last few days.”

“Really!”

“Of course, I didn’t tell them anything.”

So they were already checking on him. Perhaps it was naive of him to think he could provide protection for her. If Internal Security found out about their relationship, it might only be to her disadvantage. Nor was he untouchable, in spite of the assurances he’d given Shanshan. In China, everything was politics. His enemies could hit him hard by saying that his involvement with her was another example of his “bourgeois lifestyle.”

A lanky middle-aged man on a tricycle rode up with the morning’s food supply piled in the trunk. Uncle Wang picked up a carp, smelled it, threw it back, and then began bargaining with the supplier.

As Chen watched, his cell phone rang again. It was Detective Yu. He must have been calling from the street again, given all the noise in the background.

Yu summed up his encounter with Bai after the church service.

“According to Bai, Mrs. Liu may be attending church in Wuxi today,” Yu said.

“So she seems to find some peace in the church.”

“Yes, at least Bai thinks so.” Yu summarized what he had termed Peiqin’s analysis before he shifted to another topic with renewed excitement in his voice. “But you know what, Chief? I’ve just talked to Wei, the neighborhood cop, again. He recognized the girl with Fu in front of the sleazy hotel from the pictures we took. She’s none other than Fu’s longtime girlfriend. There’s something weird about that. Why would they be so stealthy?”

“It might not be that odd. It could be as simple as Fu having to sneak off for a quickie with his girlfriend at such a hotel, because of his housing situation in Shanghai.” It was not uncommon for two or even three generations of a Shanghai family to squeeze together in a single room.

“True. Still, people always find ways to do what they want to do. Peiqin and I lived in the same apartment with my parents for years, as you know. But Peiqin insists that she would never spend money for something like that.”

“Peiqin is so perceptive. I’ll check it out here,” Chen said. “Anyway, you’d better keep the pictures of the lovers. Someday, you might be able to sell them for a lot of money.”

Closing the phone, Chen thought that it must have been an anticlimax for Yu, who had spent his weekend learning nothing really useful, at least not from a cop’s perspective.

As for Mrs. Liu, Chen didn’t know what else he could do. If anything, this new information made her more of a character but less of a suspect. It wasn’t the first time, however, that the chief inspector had an elaborate theory end up as nothing more than just that: an unsubstantiated theory.

Then he thought about the “something weird,” as Detective Yu had phrased it, about Fu’s behavior yesterday. There could be a number of explanations for it. For one, Fu might be a sly dog who kept his affair “in a stealthy way,” so that he could approach other girls at the same time. When Chen was first assigned to the Shanghai Police Bureau, he also tried to keep secret his relationship with his HCC girlfriend in Beijing, though for a different reason.

Chen decided not to think too much about it. He could see no interpretation that applied to the investigation.

“You’re no schoolteacher, are you?” Uncle Wang said, breaking into his thoughts.

“Sorry, I’ve just had a phone call from Shanghai.”

The old man, perhaps having overheard some of the phone call, studied him closely.

“Shanshan can be stubborn, but she’s a nice girl,” Uncle Wang went on wistfully as he seated himself on a bench opposite Chen. He picked up a cup from another table. “Let me tell you something about myself.”

“Go ahead,” Chen said, wondering what the old man wanted to tell him. He poured himself a cup of tea.

A few doors away, a middle-aged woman with a bamboo basket of wet, green shepherd’s purse blossom looked at the two in curiosity, and then smiled pleasantly.

“I used to be a school teacher in the Anhui Province. During summer vacation several years ago, I came to Wuxi and fell in love with the city. To be honest, it was mostly because of the lake fish and shrimp. The three whites, you know. So after I retired, I moved here and started this eatery. I didn’t do it for business reasons exactly. I have to cook for myself, and I like cooking anyway. A single retiree with grown children in Xinjiang with their own lives, I simply wanted to enjoy the remaining years of my life with a cup of Southern rice wine and a platter of steamed lake fish. But it was a decision no one seemed to understand.”

“But I do, Uncle Wang. In ancient times, a poet-official missed a particular fish that was available only in his hometown, so he resigned his position to return home. I think his name was Jiying. No, your decision was no mistake.”

“So you know the story. That’s great. ‘With the west wind rising, / Jiying’s still not back.’ The world is meaningful only in what has meaning to you. Anyway, I didn’t think it was a mistake, at least not at the time. Then the lake became less clear, and the fish and shrimp less fresh, and, at the same time, the city an increasingly commercial tourist destination. Alas, it’s too late for me to go back.”

Chen didn’t comment, wondering what the old man was driving at.

“That’s why I’m so sympathetic to Shanshan’s efforts to protect the environment,” Uncle Wang resumed, nodding. “I’m just an old man; nothing really matters for me now. But it’s an issue that affects so many people-all people, you might say. She really believes in what she does, no matter what others might say. It takes an extraordinary man to appreciate someone like her in today’s climate.”

Chen was more than impressed, and not just because of Uncle Wang’s story. One way or another, people pick up a given discourse, that which makes the world meaningful or sensible to them. Then they live in accordance to it, even though what they do may not make any sense to anyone else. Peiqin apparently just said something to the same effect, as reported by Yu in the recent phone call.

Indeed, things could be connected by an invisible net. Years earlier, Uncle Wang happened to recall a story about a fish-loving scholar while enjoying the lake fish here, so he decided to move and set up a small eatery in Wuxi. That might appear to be the last link in the chain of cause-and-effect for the old man, but no one lives in a vacuum. Years later, because of the environmental crisis at Tai Lake, he formed a bond with Shanshan, and eventually, the chief inspector from Shanghai, on a compulsory vacation, walked into Uncle Wang’s eatery by chance, where he met Shanshan. So many links, mysteriously connected. If only one piece had been missing or misconnected, it could have turned into a different story. In Buddhism, as is sometimes said, one peck, one drink, is all predetermined, and is predetermining too.

“For whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee-”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, that was just a quote. I’m thinking of the environmental disaster in China.”

But he was also thinking of the present murder case.

The people were connected and interconnected. Liu, Mrs. Liu, Mi, Jiang, Shanshan, Uncle Wang, Fu, and perhaps many others, all in a long chain of yin/yang causality. It could be difficult for him to determine whether or not those links existed in reality. For instance, he had tried to look into the remote possibility that there was something in common between Mrs. Liu and Fu due to their frequent trips to Shanghai, but there didn’t prove to be a link there.

However, one piece was falsely connected in the official investigation-Mi’s statement about Jiang having met and argued with Liu on March 7. That is, unless Shanshan was purposely trying to mislead the investigation. After all, she might be another “unreliable narrator.” But he chose to believe in her. More importantly, he appreciated “someone like her in today’s climate,” as Uncle Wang put it. So Chief Inspector Chen would check into it.

Now, Mrs. Liu might not remember clearly a particular date from a couple of months ago. But her husband coming home at midnight, which might have woken her up, might be a different story.

But how was he going to approach her? The last time he was in the company of Sergeant Huang. Would that be necessary this time? The way things went, it was probably only a matter of time before his involvement became known to Internal Security. If he could manage it alone, it’d be better not to drag Huang into it.

Decided, he abruptly stood up and said, “Thank you, Uncle Wang. You’ve really been a help, but now I have to leave. Call me if Shanshan comes here.”

He took leave of the old man and hailed a taxi.