by Qiu Xiaolong
Chen kept watching, spellbound, like sitting in the movies.
She had been busy with the Chinese delegation for days. It was an afternoon when she had a few hours for herself. So of course she had taken care of her personal things.
It was unrealistic to imagine that a young, spirited woman like her would lead a colorless life like his. There should be a man-or men-in her life. Too absurd of him to imagine her shutting herself in after their meeting in Shanghai, as in a Tang dynasty poem-with the fallen petals in the yard, collected too much to open the door.
A chance encounter, like in the poem he had once read for her, memorable as the light produced out of their brief meeting, and then they had to move on, along their respective directions. In fact, they had both known it the first time, in China.
So it was this time. He really should be grateful for the unexpected second time. There’s no stepping twice into the same river, but it sort of happened to him. Different, yet nonetheless wonderful.
But for her generous help, he would have got nowhere in his investigation. Or worse, his fate could have been sealed like that of the interpreter.
She was the more realistic one. There was no future of them being together. She knew. So parting like this would be best.
Long after she had gone back into the building, he remained sitting there, against the window. He took his time sipping, after the fashion of a regular customer. The waitress put down another glass for him, and he nodded over those lines, like one really lost.
The window of her room was lit up. He pushed back his chair one or two inches farther from the window. Dimly, he could see her figure silhouetted against a scroll of traditional Chinese landscape paintings hung on the wall.
The sun is setting in the west-
how many times?
Helpless that flowers fall.
Swallows return, seemingly no strangers.
He was about to finish his last glass of wine when she came out, carrying a black plastic trash bag. Now in a white T-shirt and shorts, barefoot, she looked more like a college student. She went into a small lane next to the building. Then, emerging with the trash bag gone, she came to a stop by the mailbox at the foot of the staircase, the doorway framing her against the twilight, her face wistful. He rose from the table. She took out her cell phone.
To his surprise, his phone rang. He glanced at the number shown on the screen. It was from her. No mistake. But for some inexplicable reason, he hesitated to push the talk button.
What would she like to talk to him about? Not about the scene he had witnessed, surely. And what would he say to her?
Then the ringing abruptly stopped.
And she disappeared into the building again. The street stretched in front of the bar, like a tedious argument of ambiguous intent, again leading to an overwhelming question.
Indeed, what could be said by him? A cop who had hardly met his responsibilities, or, to say the least, who was stuck halfway in his work, with two people killed because of him, and their justice apparently beyond hope, with his investigation ordered to stop, which he accepted without a fight. No use denying the fact to himself, he contemplated. The parody of Prufrock threw unexpected light on his spineless self. After all, he was no poet like Eliot, who redeemed himself through writing about those flickering moments. Chen was but a cop beating a pathetic retreat, in spite of all the high sentences from Beijing, and the lines on the notebook did not change that fact. So how could he prove himself worth answering her call? How should he presume-
His phone rang again. He pressed the button in a hurry. “Catherine-”
“No, it’s Yu.”
“Oh, what’s up?”
“Lei’s in trouble.’’
“Lei?”
“Your friend at the Shanghai Morning. He called me, saying that you alone can help-to prove that he did nothing wrong that afternoon in the bathhouse. It’s urgent, he said, and he insisted that you would understand.”
Chen thought he knew why this was happening. Whatever trouble it was for Lei, it was really designed for the chief inspector. A “confession” by Lei would serve to prove Chen’s “decadent bourgeois way of life.” So those rats were pouncing on him. Lei might be holding on for the moment because he believed in Chen’s power to intervene.
“Tell Lei to hold on for one or two days. I’m coming back. And I’ll take care of it.”
“You are coming back so soon, Chief?”
“Yes. And I’ll have a lot to discuss with you.” Chen added, thinking, “Call Comrade Zhao about Lei’s trouble. You may tell him I wanted you to make this call.”
It might provide some help. Also, Comrade Zhao would explain the Beijing decision to Yu, who had not yet learned anything about the latest development. It could spare Chen the disagreeable task.
“Great. I’ll do that right now. Tell you what. Peiqin has been talking about a special dinner for you.”
“In celebration?”
“Not exactly. She’ll explain. Old Hunter is going to join us too. He’s so proud of the part he had played in breaking China ’s number-one corruption case. And his invention-’red rats’-has gained incredible circulation in the city. He’ll bring an urn of Maiden Red he has saved for thirty years.”
All that sounded wonderful. He wondered what the occasion could be. Surely it wasn’t yet another dinner in honor of his return to Shanghai -in addition to the one in Comrade Zhao’s hotel, with his bottle of Maotai, Chen reflected, draining the glass.
But he was still worried about Lei. It came to an ironic circle. He had first heard of the Xing case in the company of Lei, in that bathhouse, and now at the end of the case, Lei was in trouble because of his company. But how could people have learned about that afternoon in the bathhouse? The net around the chief inspector must be a phenomenally large one. Again, it might prove naive of him to think that Comrade Zhao would step in to help. Then, did he really have a choice?
“One more thing, Chief. Jiang has booked a ticket to Canada. Through a Canadian airline.”
“What’s the date?”
“Early next week.”
That would be before his originally scheduled return, and Jiang could change the date when he got the news that Chen was returning early.
“Hold on, Yu-are you calling from a public phone?”
“Yes, anything else?”
“I’m leaving for China tomorrow. Tomorrow evening, Shanghai time, you move ahead and arrest Jiang and Dong.”
“Jiang and Dong-what about the arrest warrant?”
“Remember the authorization for my work as an emperor’s special envoy with an imperial sword? Don’t worry about a search or arrest warrant. Yu may act on my behalf, that’s what Comrade Zhao has agreed too.”
“But can we wait until you come back?”
That was a good question. Chen didn’t know what would befall him upon his return. He would be relieved of his power as an emperor’s special envoy, that much was certain. In a worse scenario, he wouldn’t even be able to walk out of the airport as a government delegation head.
“Did you wait until I came back for the raid of the Apricot Blossom Village?”
“I thought-”
“You are a good go player. In a go game, as you know, you sometimes have to make a win-or-lose strike. I’m not sure I’ll have the power to make that strike once I come back.”
“Oh, so it’s not time for a celebration dinner yet,” Yu said. “You don’t have to say any more. I’ll tell Old Hunter to get ready.”
“No, anybody in the special case squad will do, but don’t say a word beforehand. Search their homes thoroughly. Keep whatever you find. If people question you, tell them that it’s my order-under the Party Discipline Committee. I’ll take full responsibility.”
“Whatever responsibility, Chief, is mine too.”
“Choose a couple of the pictures I gave you-without An’s face, if possible, but definitely with Jiang’s. Give them to Lei, along with the information about Jian
g’s Canadian visa. He should know what to do with them.”
It was a moment of the fish dying or the net breaking. He had to take action while still in the position to do so. Comrade Zhao had emphasized a successful conclusion for the chief inspector in St. Louis, but it didn’t necessarily mean his investigation of those connected to Xing in Shanghai. Thanks to the earlier limelight on Chen and his investigation, and with Lei at his side, he might be able to stir-fry it through the official media too. With the evidence in his hands-Xing’s statement at the temple, and then during his phone conversation-Chen should succeed in removing Jiang and Dong from their positions. Somebody would try to intervene, but the news would have spread out. A canoe is already carved out of the wood. The Parthian shot by the emperor’s special envoy would be seen as justified.
And it could be more than that. With luck, Yu might find more evidence, leading to further developments in the investigation. It might not get Chen too far-he told himself that he had to be realistic-but he would fight every step of the way. From the arrest of Jiang and Dong, Chen would be able, at least, to work his way to the solution of the An case, to which he had pledged himself.
Chief Inspector Chen had always been told to act in the interests of the Party, but for once, an emperor’s special envoy for the Party, he believed that he didn’t need to wait to be told so.
What was more important, he had been fighting this time, in spite of being blacklisted by some in the Forbidden City, in spite of knowing that his luck, like in the casino boat, was capable of changing at any minute.
And he really should consider himself lucky so far. He was not alone. But for the help from all those people, Yu, Peiqin, Old Hunter, Tian, and of course, Catherine, he would never have pulled through, and because of them, he wasn’t going to quit.
Indeed, what more could he possibly have asked for?
In a way, he even had those poets on his side. Poetry could still make something happen. It was through those Prufrock-inspired lines that Chen once more made up his mind to be someone different, someone not always politic, cautious, and meticulous, someone worthy of answering her call, even across mountains and seas…
As he walked out of the café, he looked up to her room again. She was reaching out of the open window, looking up to the sky. She did not see him.
He saw a pale moon rising in the sky.
Several lines Su Dongpo’s came back to him in correspondence to the moment.
As people have sorrows and joys,
meeting or parting,
as the moon waxes and wanes
in clear or cloudy skies,
things may never be perfect.
May we all live long,
sharing the same fair moon,
though thousands of miles apart.
Chief Inspector Chen was ready to go back to Shanghai.
Qiu Xiaolong
***
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