by Qiu Xiaolong
“From a fairy tale told to our children long, long ago, the sky was blue—”
“The water was clear—”
“The fish and shrimp were edible—”
“The air was fresh—”
“From a fairy tale told to our children long, long ago … now I drink the cup—”
It was almost like the linked verse, a game among classical Chinese poets. The line “From a fairy tale told to our children long, long ago” sounded like a refrain. The participant could repeat it after every four or five lines, perhaps as an excuse to gain a breath. The one who failed to say a parallel line similar in content or in syntax lost the round and had to drink. The only problem with the game was when both of the drinkers wanted to drink. They could purposely lose in order to drink a cup.
Chen had no idea how long the game had been going on. Judging by the half-empty bottle, the two must have been sitting there for quite a while. It wasn’t the form of the game but its contents that attracted him. Absurd as those lines might have sounded, they presented satirical, scathing comments on society. Indeed, so many things that had been taken for granted now appeared to be unrealistic and unattainable, as if in a fairy tale.
So he seated himself at a table next to theirs, tapping his finger on the liquor-stained surface, as if beating to the rhythm of the game.
He chose to sit there, however, not just because of the drinking game. The pub was located not far from the chemical company. Into their cups, people sometimes talked with loosened tongues. During another case, some time ago in Shanghai, he happened to obtain a piece of crucial information from a drunkard, an old neighbor he had known for years. Here, in another city, dealing with two strangers, he doubted he could have the same luck. Still, it was worth a try.
Aware of his interest in their game, the two appeared to be growing more energetic and effusive, popping up with proper and prompt responses to one another.
“The court was for justice—”
“The doctor helped the patient—”
“The medicine killed the bacteria—”
“From the fairy tale told to our children long, long ago … now I drink the cup—”
A crippled waiter emerged limping out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on an oily gray apron like a discolored map and smiling with a wrinkled face like a dried-up winter melon in the sunlight.
Chen ordered himself a beer, a smoked fish head, and half of a rice-wine-pickled pork tongue. On impulse, he also ordered the white smelt stir-fried with egg. That was one of the celebrated “three whites” here in Wuxi, the one he had not yet tried. Going by the prices on the blackboard menu hanging on the discolored wall, none of them cost more than ten yuan.
The two customers at the neighboring table must have been paying close attention to the discussion between Chen and the waiter. They even halted their game for two or three minutes. At this place, Chen must seem like a Big Buck customer. The moment the waiter limped away with his order, the two started their drinking game again, evidently with even greater gusto.
“An actress did not have to sleep with the director for a role—”
“A child’s father did not have to be tested for fatherhood—”
“People did not have to take off their clothes when taking pictures—”
“An idiot could not be a professor—”
“A married man could not keep little sisters—”
“Sex could not be bargained or sold—”
“Embezzlement was not encouraged—”
“Bad guys were punished—”
“Stealing was prohibited—”
“Rats were still in awe of cats—”
“A barbershop only cut hair—”
This time the game went on longer but was also more disorderly, no longer strictly following the parallel structure and without either of them stopping for a cup.
The waiter brought back Chen’s order and put it on the table without saying a word, then retreated back into the kitchen.
Raising his cup, Chen noticed that the bottle on the other table was empty and the two were looking at the “feast” on Chen’s table. One blinked his eyes obsequiously, and the other raised his thumb in exaggeration. The message was clear: they were waiting for his invitation. Chen couldn’t help wondering whether people in their cups were eventually all alike, too addicted to have much self-esteem or dignity left.
He nodded and said, “I happen to have overheard some of your brilliant maxims. Very impressive.”
“Thank you, sir. You are one who really appreciates the music,” the taller and thinner of the two said, grinning, smacking his lips. “My name is Zhang.”
“When the world turns upside down, you cannot but suffer when staying sober,” the short and stout one said, with his red pointed nose even redder in excitement. “My name is Li.”
Chen raised his cup in a friendly gesture of invitation. Sure enough, they moved over in a hurry, holding their two empty cups.
“I’m from another city and all alone here. As an ancient poet said, ‘How to deal with all the worries? / Nothing but the Dukang wine.’”
“Well said, young man.”
Chen pulled out two pairs of chopsticks for them and they didn’t wait for a second invitation, attacking the dishes as if they were at home.
“The pork tongue is delicious,” Zhang said, pouring beer into his cup, “but the beer tastes like water.”
Indeed, their cups were the tiny porcelain cups for liquor. So Chen ordered a bottle of Erguotou, the same as the empty bottle on their table. He also talked to the waiter about a salted yellow croaker pot, which Chen wanted to be sure wasn’t from the lake.
“No, just the Erguotou,” Li cut in like an old friend. “No more dishes.”
Before the waiter came back with the liquor, Li added in a hurried whisper, “You know how salted croaker is made. People spray DDT all over the fish to preserve it longer and cheaper. The other day I saw a fly landing on a salted fish here. Guess what? The fly died instantly. How poisonous!”
“Wow!”
“You’re an extraordinary man,” Zhang said, pouring himself a cup from the new bottle. “I could tell that with one glance.”
“Having listened to your extraordinary wine game, I have a couple of questions for you.”
“Go ahead.”
“Those comments were deep. But what about ‘Fish and shrimp were edible’? Let’s not talk about salted croaker. People relish fresh lake delicacies and especially so here.”
“Let me tell you something about the fish and shrimp in the lake. You can see how white the smelt looks, can’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Almost transparent, right?” Zhang said, taking a slow drink from his cup. “Now, let me tell you what. The smelt have long, long been immersed in formalin, so that they look dazzlingly white.”
“What? Aren’t they naturally white?” Chen said. “The three whites of the lake are widely celebrated.”
“In such a dirty, polluted lake, how can the smelt grow to be white and pure? If anything, they are now ghastly green or black, and no matter how long you put them in clean water, they remain discolored. That’s where the formalin comes in.”
“However contaminated the fish are, people still have to eat,” Li said with a dramatic sigh, resolutely chopsticking a smelt into his mouth. “To tell you the truth, I’ve not tasted it for months, tainted or not. How can a poor, down-and-out man like me afford to pick and choose?”
“Confucius says, Rites collapsed, music broken. That’s what happens in China today. When Chairman Mao led our country, there was no gap between the rich and the poor. A company boss earned about the same as a janitor. People all had secure jobs that were nonbreakable, like iron bowls.”
“You’re wrong, Zhang,” Li said, putting down his cup. “The gap was there under Mao as well, but you didn’t see it, not that easily. Not far away, for instance, is the high-ranking cadre center where Party officials can enjoy all the pr
ivileges for free. Could you have ever stepped into it?”
“Yes, this used to be one of the best resorts for high cadres, and they would come here from all over the country. But with the lake now so polluted, they aren’t so interested in it anymore.”
Was that the reason for Comrade Secretary Zhao’s refusal to come here? Possibly. In his position, Zhao could afford to pick and choose. Not so for Chief Inspector Chen. In fact, it was an amazing stroke of luck for him to be chosen to come here. Or was it?
“Wrong again. Do you think those high cadres will have to eat the fish and shrimp from the lake here? No way. Theirs are shipped in specially.”
Chen nodded. That was exactly what he had heard earlier at the banquet table in the center.
“What a crying lake! More and more people around here get cancer and other mysterious diseases. My old friend was rushed to the hospital with so much arsenic accumulated in his body that the doctors were all amazed.”
“What toxic air people breathe every day! More and more babies are born disfigured. My next-door neighbor had a son who was born looking like a toad, all covered with green hair.”
It began to sound like another round of the drinking game, except it was with more horrible, concrete examples. Chen listened without interrupting, or eating, or drinking. He hadn’t been hungry and was now even less so, while the other two had kept themselves busy devouring, then discussing, as if anxious to pay him back that way.
“It’s all for the sake of profit. But you can’t blame those factories alone. What else can people really grasp in their hands? Nothing but money. My grandfather believed in the Nationalists, but Chiang Kai-shek shipped all the gold to Taiwan in 1949. My father believed in the Communists, but Mao’s Red Guard beat him into a cripple in 1969. I believed in the reform under Deng for the first few years, but then the state-run company where I had worked all my life went bankrupt overnight.”
“Talking about Mao, do you remember the picture of Mao swimming in the Yangtze River?” Zhang said, vehemently poking the eye of the smoked fish head with a chopstick as he changed the topic.
“Yes, I remember it. Mao took that picture before the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution as an evidence of his health,” Chen said, glad to comment on something he knew. “It was meant to reassure people that he could still vigorously lead China forward.”
“Well, with China’s rivers and lakes so polluted now, Mao jumping into the river would be seen as a suicide attempt.”
“Eat, drink, and leave Mao alone,” Li cut in, with a surly tone. “At least the lake wasn’t that bad under Mao. Nor were there so many unscrupulous plants dumping industrial waste into the Tai water. Now it’s a country overrun by wolves and jackals.”
“Don’t be such a sore loser, Li. You lost your job because your factory went bankrupt competing with Liu’s. But it’s just the way of the brave new world.”
“No, that shouldn’t be the way. Our plant was run in accordance with the environmental regulations. It was run with conscience, you might say. How much is a pound of conscience worth in today’s market? Liu had none at all, but look how much he profited.”
“Excuse me,” Chen cut in. “I heard that a chemical company head named Liu was recently murdered. Are you talking about him?”
“Yes. Now that’s really retribution. Karma.” Li poured himself a full cup and screwed the bottle cap on tightly, as if that meant something. But it was of no use because the cap was being unscrewed almost immediately by Zhang.
“Liu’s chemical company is damned,” Li went on. “Irrecoverably cursed.”
“How?”
“A couple of months ago, thousands and thousands of fish died in the water near that company, turning up their white bellies like so many angry eyes staring at the black night. It was all because of the damned poisonous pollution. The Wuxi Number One Chemical Company is one of the biggest enterprises in the city, and it’s also the worst polluter. In Buddhism, a life is a life, whether an ant or a fish. For inhuman deeds, there’s no escaping retribution. No one escapes.”
“You mean Liu’s murder.”
“Believe it or not, I saw Liu walking by the lake with his little secretary one evening just about one month ago. It wasn’t far from here. All of a sudden, she turned into a white fox spirit looming against the dark night. You know how a bewitching fox spirit brings a curse to the man that’s with her.”
“Liu’s little secretary?” Chen said, playing dumb.
“Mi. I think that’s her name. What a shameless bitch! She slept her way into that position.”
“Come on, I don’t buy that story about the fox spirit. That’s total bull,” Zhang said, noticing Chen’s sudden interest as he raised the empty cup high. “But a bitch she is, no question about it. I, too, happened to see something just about a week ago.”
“Just about a week ago?” Chen waited, but Zhang didn’t go on, staring into the empty cup, as if lost in recollection.
The second bottle of Erguotou was now finished too, Chen noticed. He wondered what kind of a man he appeared to be in Zhang’s eyes. Possibly one interested in the “bitch” of a little secretary, for some untold reason. Nevertheless, Chen ordered another bottle.
“So what did you see, Zhang?” Chen resumed when the old waiter placed the new bottle on the table.
“She was walking with another man—a much younger man—arm in arm, billing and cooing and kissing,” Zhang said, talking a deliberate long sip from his newly filled cup. “It was under the cover of night. Around midnight, I would say.”
“Do you remember what day?”
“I can’t remember the exact date, but it was about a week ago,” Zhang said, then added, “More than a week ago, I believe.”
That was before Liu’s murder, Chen calculated, raising his cup only to put it down again.
“That was not too surprising,” Zhang went on, shaking his head. “She’s still in her early twenties, and Liu was in his mid-fifties. How could he have possibly satisfied her? It would have surprised me if she hadn’t been carrying on with a young stud in secret.”
“It served Liu right, with his heart smoked in the smell of money like the fish head on your plate.”
“No, the dogs ate his heart long, long ago.”
“Another question. I’m not a local, but isn’t there anyone fighting against the pollution here?” Chen said. “I was at an eatery yesterday. Uncle Wang’s, I think. It was not too far away from here. I heard about a young woman engineer who was trying to stand up for environmental protection.”
“Oh, she’s trouble. True, she may have brought some attention to the problem. But then what? It was no use at all. The chemical company keeps on manufacturing as before, at a great cost to the lake. ”
“And she’s an impossible bitch too,” Li said.
Chen wasn’t sure why Li called her a bitch, but he decided not to ask.
“You can’t keep your eyes shut all the time. So drown yourself in the cup, and forget all your worries,” Zhang said, finishing another cup in a single gulp.
“You should go and see Liu’s house. What a magnificent mansion! It’s only three or four blocks away, but you can also see the chemical company dorm. Then you’ll understand why people want to sell their souls for money.”
“Really!” Chen said, his voice rising with a new idea. “Thank you so much for your enlightening talk. But I think I have to leave now. Do you know if there is a cell phone store nearby?”
“Just go straight ahead. Only half a block away. You won’t miss it. Tell them Zhang sent you there.”
“I will. Again, thank you both so much.” He didn’t think he could get much more out of the two, so he rose to pay for the meal. It wasn’t much, but he didn’t want the two of them to go on drinking like that. If they kept getting drunker and louder, they could become a liability.
Before he got to the cell phone store, he came to a halt. He found an envelope—the only paper he had with him—and a pen. Standing against
a blossoming dogwood tree, he wrote down a jumble of fragmented lines and images that had come to him unexpectedly.
Terrible headache—
Go drink and forget—
You should see a doctor, man.
What can you see?
In the company production chart,
Does the boss see the curve
of the production rising
or that of the employees falling
with headache, herpes, and sickness?
Look, isn’t the pinnacle of the cooling tower
like the nipple of a sterile woman?
Tell me, where are you?
At the hair ribbon of Fortune Goddess,
or at her crutch?
Another bottle of beer pops open,
bubble, bubble, bubble …
She pushes away the cup, walking
into the sour drizzle and twelve o’clock.
Who’s the one walking beside you?
As before, it could be made into part of a larger whole, but he still didn’t have an exact idea of what it would be. Possibly it would be a “spatial form,” which was a term he had picked up years earlier, where the form replaced traditional narrative sequence with spatial simultaneity and disjunctive arrangement. Those long-forgotten critical details seemed to be coming back to him all of a sudden. So the stanza about the conversation between two drunkards could also fit in. She, too, finally appeared in the poem. As for the line “Who’s the one walking beside you,” it might serve as a refrain, like in the drinking game he’d just witnessed. Also, it sounded like an echo, remotely, from a poem he’d read long ago.
He put the envelope away and resumed walking toward the cell phone store.
TEN
IT WAS ONLY AFTER about three or four blocks that he thought he saw the dorm building for the chemical company with its many clotheslines stretching across the outside.
He took a look around. It wasn’t yet six o’clock. In the space in front of the building, some people sat outside with their dinner in their hands. A middle-aged woman sat on a bamboo chair, soaking her feet in a plastic basin of herbal liquid. There was also a peddler squatting with his goods spread out on a white sheet under a dogwood tree. There was something eerily familiar about the peddler, Chen noticed, thinking he might have seen him somewhere. It wasn’t unimaginable for a peddler to move around in a city of tourists like Wuxi, but this wasn’t a tourist area and wasn’t a place a peddler would usually choose to set up.