Hold Your Breath, China

by Qiu Xiaolong

  ‘It’s also about the point you have raised regarding the mask. What was Xiang having for breakfast that morning? The earthen oven cake with the fried dough stick. For such a breakfast, people have to have it fresh and hot. Once cold, the taste would be mostly gone. Most people would start eating on the street. But how could someone have done so without taking off the mask?

  ‘And the scene of the cake-eating girl, in retrospect, really illustrates the point. She had a mask on while waiting in front of me in the line, but once she started eating, she took the mask off. Even so, it could be a bit messy to have the sesame-strewn cake on the street, with the sesame stuck to her lips and cheeks; she had to wipe her face with a pink paper napkin.’

  Chen seemed to be talking in a rather jumpy way, but Yu got his point.

  With the phone still in his hand, Inspector Chen moved into the Shanghai Writers’ Association, but he learned nothing new about Qiang there.

  He remained in mysterious disappearance.

  People were worried, but they were unable to do anything other than report it to the police bureau. And according to regulations, it was too early for the bureau to step in for an investigation. They had to wait at least another day.

  So Chen had to make phone calls to someone surnamed Liao in the bureau, making sure that Qiang’s name was immediately put on the missing persons’ list.

  ‘He could be drinking a cup of tea somewhere, you know,’ Liao said darkly, ‘for a man with sensitive information in his position.’

  That was exactly what worried Chen, but he said nothing about it to Liao, nor to the people in the association.

  Ouyang was out for a meeting. Chen asked some questions of Meiling instead, who seemed to be evasive, hemming and hawing, unwilling to look him in the eye.

  He checked his watch. Already near twelve. It was not a day for him to spend hours on questions that seemed to be leading nowhere.

  So he was ready to leave the association for the preview in the New World.

  After lunch, after selecting the pictures, after sending a text message to Peiqin, Detective Yu asked Detective Qin over to his office.

  With Qin focusing on the number four victim Xiang, Yu began by raising the point about her mask and cake that morning, ready to bring up Inspector Chen’s analysis for support. He had hardly got into any details, however, when Qin brushed it aside, waving his second finger.

  ‘We have noted that, Inspector Yu. But it was more than a block – not just several steps, as you have said – from the Wenhui building to that snack stall. So it made sense for her to pull on a mask to go there. As for the incompatibility of eating the cake and wearing the mask at the same time, Xiang could have worn the mask with just one of its straps on while biting at the cake in her hand. You may have seen young people doing that on the street. Sort of rakish among them. Nothing to wonder about.’

  ‘Yes, it could have been like that,’ Yu said, admitting to himself that he should have thought of the possibility. As a result, he found himself at a temporary loss as to how to go on discussing the other issues of the mask.

  And Qin was already standing up. ‘I’m going to a meeting with Internal Security again. I’ll keep you posted. Don’t worry about it, Inspector Yu.’

  The moment Qin was out of the office, Yu began dismissing the scenario of her having the mask on with only one strap.

  A young woman like Xiang could have done that. It sounded plausible in theory – but far-fetched. Yu started pacing about in the cubicle alone.

  Some of the details of Inspector Chen’s analysis came back to him. It would have been messy to eat the sesame-strewn cake from one’s hand, not to mention the oily fried dough stick. If Xiang had kept the mask on with one strap, letting it dangle over her cheek, it could have been easily smeared, unwearable afterward.

  His cellphone buzzed. It was a text message from Peiqin in response to his sent before the discussion with Detective Qin.

  ‘I’ve just talked to Lianping again. Here’s one detail from her about the mask – if that’s what you’re really focusing on.

  ‘The snack stall is nearby. No need for a mask with such a short distance, at least that’s Lianping’s take. When Xiang walked out that morning, neither her colleagues in the building nor the doorman at the entrance remember seeing her wear a mask. Besides, Lianping has never seen anyone wearing a yellowing mask in Wenhui. She checked with Xiang’s colleagues in the same section. The same impression.’

  ‘It’s unbelievable that Lianping would have done all that for the investigation.’

  ‘Don’t think she has done that for you, my husband. It’s for Inspector Chen. By the way, any news about his trip to Wuxi?’

  ‘No news, but one more question,’ Yu typed back. ‘If she had worn the mask to the food stall, what would she have done with it when she started eating?’

  ‘She could have put the mask in her pocket or purse.’

  ‘Was it possible to have the mask on by wearing only one strap around her ear?’

  ‘What’s the point of doing that? The mask would get smeared with the street food, or it could be blown away by the wind.’

  ‘Exactly, Peiqin,’ Yu typed back. ‘You are really the better half of a cop.’

  ‘Like in a favorite proverb of Old Hunter’s: “When she marries a cock, go along with the cock, and when a dog, with the dog.” Alas, I married a cop.’

  There was no possibility of pulling pig-headed Detective Qin around, Detective Yu realized, even if he tried to talk to him again with the combined arguments of Peiqin and Inspector Chen. So Yu decided to move further along that direction by himself.

  The first step was for him to find more information about the yellowish mask.

  To his dismay, however, the Internet research failed to show any picture of a yellowish mask.

  For his subsequent telephone inquiries, none of the pharmacy stores responded in a positive way either. Basically, they had never carried a yellowish mask. According to the salespersons, some young girls might have tried to make their masks prettier by adding flower or bird sticks, but a yellowish mask was not preferable by any standard.

  Not willing to give up so easily, Yu went out to several pharmacies in person, carrying the pictures of the mask in question.

  As anticipated, his police badge enabled him to get some more detailed information from the people working there, though far from close to anything like a breakthrough.

  ‘We have carried quite a variety of masks, Officer Yu. For instance, a pinkish one with embroidered patterns was quite a hit among young girls several months ago. People could not help taking another look at them. And the “another look” effect is what they really want. But for a yellowish mask, no, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Masks are the hottest commodity on the market of late, produced by quite a number of companies, and the most popular made by 3M. The American brand, you know. Some young people even wear them as a sort of personal or political expression, depending on the occasion. But we do not carry anything yellowish. No customer would care for such a color.’

  It was not until the fourth store Yu visited that a medical supply clerk studied the pictures of the masks and shook his head dubiously.

  ‘I’m the buyer for the store, but I’ve never seen such a mask – except in a sci-fi movie, the name of which I forget. Some hospital may have specially ordered that, though. It looks like it’s pre-treated, immersed in anti-bacterial solution.’

  It flashed across Yu’s mind that Peng, the first victim, had been attacked on her way from a hospital. She could have got that yellowish mask from there.

  Standing outside the store, Detective Yu immediately started making inquiries with a list of hospital phone numbers Baidued on his cellphone.

  Not exactly to his surprise, Shanghai Number One People’s Hospital, the first one he contacted, confirmed that the yellowish masks had been ordered and supplied for free to staff members and in-house patients, and to the family members accompanying the
patients there too. With the smoggy air, even healthy people were prone to flus, and the hospitals were particularly concerned with cross infection for the patients with low immune systems under chemotherapy.

  So it was not too surprising for Peng to have a yellowish mask for herself, even though she was not really a hospital staff member.

  But if that were the case, what about the third victim, and possibly the fourth? They too had the yellowish masks – possibly planted beside them.

  Inspector Chen arrived at the south entrance of the New World.

  He checked his watch. Still about twenty minutes before the meeting at the Oriental Club. He took a walk around the area first, pulling his gray felt beret lower, and adjusting a pair of amber-colored glasses along his nose ridge.

  The Oriental was a club for the successful elite in the high-end area of the city. Chen happened to know about the place through Mr Gu, the developer, who had pushed into the inspector’s hand a club membership card for free – ‘in recognition of your excellent translation of the business plan, which succeeded in securing the first international loan for the New World’.

  He did not see anything unusual after circling the club a couple of times.

  At the club entrance stood an elderly doorman in a red uniform, smiling, bowing, who stopped Chen with his white-gloved hand raised.

  ‘Mr Bian of the Air Product Group is sending me here as his representative,’ Chen said, producing his membership card as well for something like double insurance, ‘for the meeting at twelve thirty.’

  ‘Another representative,’ the doorman mumbled, casting a curious look at Chen’s amber-colored glasses and waving him in without further ado.

  On the first floor of the club Chen found a spacious meeting room arranged like a lecture room with a lectern and screen at the front, and rows of leather-cushioned chairs for the audience.

  The room was already in semi-darkness, with the windows closed and the curtains drawn, and quite a number of people sitting in there. Chen moved to seat himself at a corner in the back, surprised at the large turnout. Thirty-five or so, possibly more by the time the meeting began. Luckily, they seemed not to be interested in making small talk with each other. Rather, they appeared to be quite cautious, saying little to each other, and none to an unfamiliar face like Chen. They knew they were going to watch a movie soon.

  Less than five minutes later, a young woman came quietly in through a side door, walking straight to the lectern with a laptop satchel slung over her shoulder.

  From his seat in the back he could make out only a vague profile of her in the faint light. She was wearing a trench coat over white blouse pants.

  ‘Today’s agenda is simple,’ she started, speaking in a crisp voice, and taking a laptop out to the lectern. ‘Preview. But mind you, it’s not the final version of the documentary. There is still room for change.’

  Shanshan’s voice, which he immediately recognized, though it was slightly different at this moment. A note of mature confidence, he contemplated, speaking as a well-known environmental activist with millions of followers online.

  She did not look in his direction, for she was leaning down to a technician beside her, who appeared busy setting up a cable connection at the lectern.

  Chen was able to take a better look at her the moment the technician turned on the overhead light, which fell streaming over her face with a soft, intense transparency. She was as strikingly attractive as he remembered, her oval face framed by long black hair, vivacious with a radiance pouring out from within, a serene look in her clear, large eyes.

  She said some words in an abated voice to the technician while still smiling with her mouth subtly curved, explaining some computer issues to him.

  Then she turned to slip off the maroon trench coat, her long hair waving in a graceful move, which galvanized him with a sense of déjà vu.

  Was it the trench coat she had worn, coming to him in the small sampan by Tai Lake that morning?

  That so-long-ago morning, while waiting at the lakeside, he saw her moving through a gourd-shaped stone gate at a distance, tripping light-footed across the verdant meadow dappled in the shadow of a boxwood tree. She was dressed for the occasion, wearing a maroon trench coat of light material over a white strapless dress, and high heels. He was overjoyed with the idea that she was dressed for his company, like in a Confucian saying: ‘A woman makes herself beautiful for the man who appreciates her.’

  He registered the details vividly at the time. Later on, he realized it was like the scene he put – slightly modified – at the beginning of that long poem.

  She walks in a red trench coat

  like a bright sail cutting

  through the poisonous smog

  enveloping the lake and its shore.

  Amid chemical drops from a network

  of corroded pipes overhead, long

  in disrepair, a mud-covered toad

  jumps upon the pollution report

  in her hand, opening its sleepy eyes,

  seeing all around still murky,

  slumping back to sleep …

  ‘During our previous meetings,’ she resumed speaking at the lectern with the light getting dim again, ‘we discussed a number of issues. We have since incorporated your suggestions into the documentary. After the preview today, we are going to have another short discussion.’

  With the room falling back into darkness, the documentary began with an image of her standing in front of a larger screen, making a PowerPoint presentation. Dressed casually in jeans and a white shirt, she paced back and forth on the screen, talking, holding a pointer in her hand, combining personal narrative, investigative reporting and explanatory observations to explore the causes of the dire air pollution that was plaguing Chinese cities.

  The documentary consisted of interviews, charts and scenes from different perspectives, with poor people suffering in a ‘lung cancer village’, environmental scientists complaining about the difficulty of enforcing regulations, the local officials mouthing about the importance of keeping up production in spite of the PM 2.5 level over ten times higher than the international standards …

  Chen pressed the button of a mini recorder hidden in his trouser pocket. A lot of research had been done for the documentary and it was out of the question for him to remember the specific details, let alone to digest them. He knew he had to review some of them later.

  In the shifting scenes of the movie, Shanshan was seen consulting scientists for explanations about why tiny particles in the ever-worsening air could prove to be particularly lethal; comforting a little Shanxi girl who said while sobbing that she had not seen a real star, nor white clouds, nor blue sky for more than half a year; conducting the research with equipment that effectively filtered out the air particles of a small room into a large bowl of pitch black water.

  The movie eloquently demonstrated how China had been losing its ‘battle against air pollution’, though not jumping to any political conclusion. The targets of its criticism included the GDP-oriented economical practices, making examples of such state-owned mega companies as Zhonghua Petroleum Company, Petro Shengzhou, and National Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, all of them shown ruthlessly tramping the environmental regulations in their devil-may-care production. In the background, some government officials were shown collaborating with the companies, making adamant refusals to shut down those factories or productions, unable or unwilling to act in any responsible way.

  Shanshan spoke in the scenes in a gentle manner, once or twice smoothing her hair with her slender hand, her silhouette seemingly too slim against those heavy contents, yet standing there full of strength, a radiance shining from her visionary passion.

  The lights returned to the meeting room. She moved back to the lectern, arranging a folder as the film ended.

  A short silence ensued. It was an extraordinarily eloquent, enlightening, educational and convincing documentary from its multi-perspectives and vivid details. She stood waiting
for comments from the audience.

  It was then that Chen came to the full realization why some high-ups, including Comrade Zhao, were so concerned about the documentary. While the film refrained from pointing fingers, an implied message was perceivable: the Party government was held ultimately responsible for the environmental disaster.

  ‘Any questions or suggestions,’ she said.

  ‘How did you manage to do the interview with Kang, the head of Zhonghua Petroleum Company?’ a white-haired man questioned. ‘Did he actually allow you to record it?’

  ‘It took a long period of time making the video, as we all know. At the time of the interview, Kang simply saw what the company did as politically justifiable, and untouchable too. He accepted my interview request only to give me a lecture, which he later used for propaganda purposes in the company newsletter. But that was at the time when the governmental accusation against the conspiracy of the American Embassy was still echoing, and with few people really aware of the disastrous consequences of the smog-smothered sky. Believe it or not, some of the scenes in the film were also provided by the interviewees those days.’

  The interview in question represented Kang sitting opposite Shanshan, Chen recalled, describing the air pollution as the necessary price for the unprecedented economic development, declaring arrogantly that China had to move up to the top of the world that way.

  ‘The whole “petroleum gang” is now in big trouble, I’ve heard,’ the white-haired commenter chipped in again. ‘Allegedly the very target of the new government’s anti-corruption crackdown, with their boss Yong implicated in the background.’

  Chen had heard of that too. Yong, who had risen to the pinnacle of power from an entry-level cadre in the petroleum industry, was commonly regarded as the patron of the gang in question. As a member of the powerful Politburo Standing Committee, and with that in charge of Internal Security, Yong was said to be engaged in a last-ditch battle against the new general secretary of the Central Party Committee, a Red Prince from the Forbidden City.