I Did Not Kill My Husband

by Liu Zhenyun

  “We’ll take planes,” the police chief sputtered, “we’ll take planes. But what about the cost? We haven’t budgeted for something like this.”

  Zheng Zhong had a thought. He had no plan to tell Chief Justice Wang Gongdao about the dragnet in Beijing. Instead, he’d leave it up to Wang to take court personnel to Beijing to scour the city’s streets and byways for Li Xuelian. A two-pronged strategy was just cumbersome enough.

  “Keep this plan secret,” he cautioned the police chief. “Don’t tell a soul, including anyone at court.”

  “At court?” the police chief said. “I won’t even tell my own father.”

  He left, scared shitless.

  11

  Wang Gongdao and fourteen of his men had been in Beijing three days without spotting Li Xuelian. Unaware that dozens of county police had thrown up a net around the Great Hall of the People, Wang assumed that he had sole responsibility for finding her. He divided his cadre of personnel, including himself, into five teams of three to conduct a carpet search through the city. Two of his people had been in Beijing to look for Li before, so they led teams to the inns and hostels she’d stayed in. Located mainly in remote lanes, they were dirty, smelly places often in the basements of tall buildings. They also looked up all the people she’d known back home who now lived and worked in Beijing—diner owners, construction workers, food peddlers, even trash pickers. They failed to find a trace of her. The other three teams concentrated on Beijing’s train and long-distance bus stations, in hopes either that Li would arrive in the city after them and they’d be there waiting for her or that she would not have money to rent a room and would spend her nights in one of those stations. But not one of the hundreds of thousands of people who came and went in any of those spots was Li Xuelian.

  Wang Gongdao took his frustration out on Jia Congming, who hadn’t planned on coming to Beijing, but had been forced into it the same way Wang had been forced by the county chief.

  “What makes you think you could get out of this mess? It was all your doing. If not for you, we wouldn’t be here searching for her. You’re not the only victim of your selfish desires. We all are, and you’re not getting out of the search.

  “The question isn’t whether or not you’ll join in the search, but whether or not you find Li Xuelian. If you don’t, before I get sacked, I won’t just remove you from the judicial committee, I’ll see that you’re barred from public office.”

  Knowing how badly he’d screwed up, Jia came along, a doleful look on his face, hoping to atone for his misdeeds by working hard to find the woman. But finding someone is not the same as working hard to find the person. There was no assurance that Li had come to Beijing in the first place, and if she had, she could be staying anywhere. An unsystematic search was a waste of time. He didn’t realize how big a city Beijing was or how many people lived there until he started searching. Finding her would be a stroke of luck; not finding her was inevitable. But search he must, with no earthly idea when or even if that search might succeed.

  He contacted the Beijing police, checking in at precinct stations near every hotel, every construction site, every marketplace, and every trash picker hangout he searched. He visited every train and bus station, showing Li Xuelian’s photo around. Partly because they were especially busy during that time, owing to the ongoing National People’s Congress, and partly because people from all over the country were in Beijing searching for missing people, the police had no time to help. They were ignoring all requests from outsiders. You could take out letters of introduction from the county or the city, even the province, and nothing helped; no wonder Wang Gongdao and the others were discouraged. At a few of the stations, the police were puzzled by the letters they were shown.

  “Missing persons are police matters. Why are the courts involved?”

  Seized with anger, Wang pointed to Jia Congming.

  “Ask him!”

  The comment surprised the local police. Jia Congming, shamed by his own misdeed, felt like crawling into a hole. Wang wasn’t the only one whose blood was boiling over what Jia had done; his thirteen fellow searchers were angry at him for making such a mess of things and creating problems for them just so he could wrangle a promotion. Beijing wasn’t a tourist spot if you were there to search for a person. Tourists toured the city with a carefree mind; searchers’ heads were filled with legal matters. Tourists turned in nice and early; the people searching for Li Xuelian were out till two in the morning, the best time to look for people in the hotels and train and bus stations, no matter how exhausted the searchers were. On this night, after searching for her till two in the morning, they returned to the hostel tired and hungry, grousing at Jia Congming, who tried to placate them by offering to treat them to a midnight snack. Like what? they asked. If it’s a bowl of wontons, skip it. We’ll be better off getting some sleep. When Jia said he’d treat them to a full meal and a couple of bottles of liquor, the carping stopped, so he went to get Wang Gongdao to join them.

  “How can you can think about food before we’ve found her?” Wang demanded icily.

  Jia could see that Wang’s unwillingness to join them for food was not just about the search that had so far failed, but that he did not want to help Jia look good. And yet the gesture would be meaningless if Wang did not join them, So Jia put aside his pride and implored:

  “I know you’re angry, Chief Wang, but a great man does not hold petty grudges.”

  He slapped himself across the face for added effect.

  “It’s all my father’s fault,” he said. “He talked me into trying to help my leaders out of a jam.”

  So Wang thought it over and wound up joining the others in their late-night meal. He took some pleasure in knowing that while they hadn’t found Li Xuelian in the three days they’d been in Beijing, she hadn’t caused a scene during that time. If they spent another ten days in blind pursuit of her, till the curtain came down on the NPC, and she did not make an appearance, they could return home without her and still say they’d done their job. County Chief Zheng phoned every day to ask if they’d apprehended her. Admitting that the search had been futile so far, Wang explained that as long as nothing happened in the ten days the NPC was still in session, they could still say they’d accomplished their mission. Imagine his surprise when Zheng Zhong exploded:

  “Crazy talk! If that’s what you’re thinking, then a slipup is guaranteed. Li Xuelian has a pair of feet attached to two good legs, so how can you be sure she won’t show up during those ten days? The NPC is only one third finished. The longer it goes on, the greater the chance of something happening. This is no time to drop our guard. Remember what I said: If you don’t catch her, bring a letter of resignation the next time you come to see me.”

  “Yes, yes,” Wang sputtered. But catching someone on the run was tough. Of course they would continue to look for her but was is it wrong to hope that she wouldn’t stir up any trouble?

  They were out in the cold each day till two a.m. looking for Li Xuelian. On the fourth day, two of the searchers fell ill, coughing during the day and spiking a fever at night, one as high as 102. Wang Gongdao sent them to a local hospital for IVs, but by the next morning, the fevers had not broken and one of the men had traces of blood in his sputum from coughing so badly. So when the teams went out to continue the search that day, they were short the two sick men and a third who stayed with them at the hospital. Wang had no choice but to reorganize the five teams into four for the time being. Then a man named Hou complained that he had to return home to prepare for the third anniversary of his mother’s death. His father had died years before, and she had raised him all by herself. He was in charge of the preparations, and had been under the impression that they’d only search for a few days; he could not take part in a drawn-out campaign. When the others heard his complaint, they too were getting antsy. Wang criticized Hou by asking what was more important, personal interests or the job. Under normal circumstances, Wang would have done more than simply give Hou
time off to make preparations; he’d have personally showed up on the day of the anniversary. The problem was, Li Xuelian could be on her way to protest while the NPC was in session. Now, which was more important, he asked, the People’s Congress or the third anniversary of your mother’s death? How could a Party cadre not weigh the importance of contrasting affairs? That would be like an itinerant barber not knowing which end of his carrying pole was light and which was heavy, which was cold and which was hot. Why is the Congress tied to your mother’s rite? Because Li Xuelian is on her way to protest. If you want to vent your unhappiness, vent it on her. He concluded with a promise that if Hou focused on the big picture and decided not to return home for the anniversary, once she had been apprehended and they were back home, he would ask the Party organization committee to consider Hou for a promotion from assistant to regular justice. By cajoling, employing both the carrot and the stick, he managed to convince Hou to stay put and, in the process, calm the others, thereby stabilizing morale.

  Another three days passed, and Li Xuelian remained at large. She had not been heard from. Wang was experiencing contradictory feelings: anxiety over three more days of fruitless searching, but relief that nothing amiss had occurred during that time. Another week was all he needed, up to the day the Congress closed, for everyone to breathe a sigh of relief. That said, he was worried that Li might be playing a game of cat-and-mouse, that she had gone somewhere other than Beijing and had once again changed her mind about making her protest. And yet, she’d been doing it for twenty years, and habits are hard to break. When her fight with Big Head Zhao was added to the mixture, maybe she was just waiting for the right time to vent her anger in a new protest and was hiding out in Beijing, waiting for the Congress to move to the election phase to cause a disruption. That last thought had him in a cold sweat; County Chief Zheng’s outburst was starting to make sense.

  As he was walking out the door that morning, a man from home who had opened a restaurant in Beijing, a fellow named Bai, came to see Wang, who had visited him a few days earlier as part of the search. “Restaurant” was a stretch for a little eatery with no more than five tables where wontons, dumplings, and pig intestine soups were sold. Assuming that Bai had a lead on the search, Wang’s spirits soared. No such luck.

  “Chief Wang,” he said, introducing him to a man he’d come with, “this is Manager Mao, who’s from our township. He’d like to buy you dinner.”

  “Afraid not,” Wang replied, abruptly deflated, “I’ve got a job to do.”

  Aware that Wang was trying to locate Li Xuelian before she caused an incident, Bai said:

  “This is dinner we’re talking about. The Congress isn’t in session at night, so Li would be wasting her time crashing the party then. There’s nothing to worry about. You’ve been at this for more than a week and deserve a break, with some good food and drink.”

  Bai led Wang off to the side and, sort of on the sly, pointed to Wang’s men.

  “They can conduct the search without you for one night. You’re their leader.”

  However bad that sounded, the logic was irrefutable. Wang had to laugh.

  “Exactly who is he?” Wang asked, pointing to the man who’d come with Bai.

  “I won’t lie to you. He calls himself a manager and says he’s involved in commerce, while the truth is, he sells pigs’ guts.”

  That stopped Wang. Sitting at the same table as a seller of pigs’ guts might not look so good for a chief justice.

  “But not your ordinary pigs’ guts seller,” Bai said, noticing Wang’s discomfort. “He’s the wholesaler for all the guts sold in Beijing. It’s made him a rich man.”

  Wang nodded. He had to reproach himself for wanting not to be seen with a man just because of his trade. You can’t tell a person by his looks or measure the ocean by the water you see. But doubts crept back in.

  “Why does a pigs’ guts seller want to buy me dinner?”

  “No reason. We’re all from the same county and just happened to meet in Beijing. He’d like to get to know you.”

  “Hardly! It’s the people who say ‘no reason’ who have all the reasons.”

  “Well,” Bai said, deciding to come clean, “he has a case he’d like help on.”

  “Not a divorce case, is it?” Wang said fearfully.

  Aware of how Li Xuelian’s divorce case had put the fear of domestic quarrels in Wang, Bai was quick to respond:

  “No, not a divorce. A minor financial dispute.”

  Wang Gongdao was fearless where financial disputes were concerned. But before agreeing to anything, he needed more information. “We’ll see,” he said and took his men out to keep searching for Li Xuelian.

  By the end of the day Wang had forgotten about the invitation, and was surprised to receive a phone call from Bai at five that evening. Bai asked Wang where he was, saying that Mao wanted to treat him to dinner that night.

  “I’m at the Yongding Gate train station,” he said, reminded of their conversation that morning. “I think I’ll skip it.”

  If he thought that was the end of it, he was wrong, because half an hour later, Mao the pigs’ guts man drove up to the Yongding Gate station in a Mercedes Benz, with Bai in tow, to pick up Wang. One look at the car was all Wang needed to see that he should not have underestimated the man. Taking note of Mao’s apparent good faith and the fact that he hadn’t had a proper meal for seven or eight hard days, Wang looked forward to a nice, clean spot to enjoy some good food and drink. And so, with a show of reluctance, he climbed into Mr. Mao’s Mercedes after instructing his team to continue the search.

  Mao was savvy enough not to take Wang to Bai’s eatery; instead, he drove straight to the upscale Mansion 888 on West Fourth Ring Road, where they were greeted by two rows of beautiful hostesses. With a sigh, Wang reveled in a feeling that he had returned to the realm of humanity. First to the sauna, where he bathed, took a steam bath, and gave himself a good rub; then, refreshed and clean from head to toe, he was taken to a brightly lit private room of more than a hundred square meters, with a bridge over a flowing stream through the center, through which the kitchen sent in an array of exotic dishes: shark’s fin and bird’s nest soups, geoduck clams, sea cucumbers stewed in millet … it was the sort of banquet Wang was used to at Peach Blossom Heaven back home, a remote, inland county restaurant that did not lack world-class seafood. After spending a hard week in Beijing without a decent meal, this banquet felt just right. As he took in the fairyland-like décor, he had to admit that Beijing and home were quite different places. The food was the same, the surroundings weren’t; or the food was the same, he was not. The him at home and the him in Beijing were two different people. Really a case of: that was then and this is now.

  Wang was a little drunk after seven or eight cups of strong liquor, but even if he hadn’t been, he’d have acted as if he were; that was something he’d learned from nearly a decade of being chief justice. The richer the spread, the greater the implications behind it, and the harder the fine food was to digest. But the word “drunk” could ward off a mighty force. After ten rounds, Bai gave Mao a sign that it was time to broach the subject. Wang pretended he didn’t notice.

  Mao said he had a cousin who’d gone into the business of selling hog bristles to the foreign trade bureau back home. Everything had run smoothly until the beginning of last year, when the trade bureau had stopped paying its bills. All attempts at mediation had failed, and a lawsuit was filed. Mao asked Wang for his advice.

  “How much are we talking about?”

  “Twenty million yuan.”

  Wang was bowled over. That much money for hog bristles! This was a recipe for a very difficult case.

  “I think I’m a little drunk,” Wang said, slurring his words.

  Again showing how savvy he was, Mao said:

  “Chief Justice Wang, we can talk about this some other day. I’m a fan of the saying, ‘Don’t talk business when drinking, and don’t drink when you’re talking business.’”
>
  Wang was impressed by Mao’s thoughtfulness, and by the time another ten rounds had occupied them, he was about as drunk as a man could get. So drunk that his mind betrayed him: he asked Mao for details about the case. Mao was happy to oblige. But Wang felt as if a battle for the ages was being fought in his head, since not a word of Mao’s explanation got through

  “Justice Wang,” Bai interjected, “this case is a snap compared to Li Xuelian.”

  The mere mention of the name had a sobering effect on Wang, sending the army of neurons in his head in her direction, and with that he interrupted Mao’s explanation to begin talking about the Li Xuelian case. Though he hadn’t grasped a word Mao had said, he was clear as a bell in talking about the Li case. Why? Because twenty years earlier it was he who had handed down the fateful decision; since then he had suffered every hardship, tasted every bitterness involved with the case, and there was no telling when, or if, it would ever end. On and on he talked, until he was weeping and pounding the table with his fists.

  “Li Xuelian, you old whore, you’ve made my life a living hell!”

  Bai and Mao exchanged puzzled glances as Wang stammered a few more words before his head drooped onto the table and he was out. They had no choice but to carry him out of the place, fold him into the car, and deliver him to his guesthouse.

  Wang had no memory of what had transpired the night before when he woke up in the morning. He was hung over and had a splitting headache. The Maotai they’d drunk was probably fake. With his head in his hands, he wished he hadn’t gone; sitting next to a pigs’ guts seller for the sake of a meal was not worth it and worse yet, he was unable to recall what he might have said to the man. But regret belonged to yesterday and had no place in today’s continuing search for Li Xuelian, so headache or no, Wang led his team out for the day’s search. His hangover hung on all morning. At noon, his team of three broke for lunch at a noodle shop. While the other two slurped their noodles, Wang sat there drinking water, the noodles and stewed eggs seeming to shimmer in the bowls in front of him. His cell phone rang. He opened it and looked at the screen. It was Hou, who was leading one of the other teams. Assuming he was going to make another attempt to take off to prepare for his mother’s funeral, he said listlessly: