Don't Cry Tai Lake

by Qiu Xiaolong

  “No, it wouldn’t have been good for her husband’s official career if it became known that his wife went to church every week,” Peiqin said. “But what about the mahjong game?”

  “People like playing mahjong with old partners. It’s not just a game, you know. Around the mahjong table, people chatter a lot too. But for her, it was mostly because she didn’t want to stay in that big house in Wuxi, all by herself, imaging what her husband was doing with another woman.”

  “So she knew about his affair?”

  “Yes, she knew about it. She suffered so much because she was too proud to admit it, or to face it.”

  “For a Big Buck like her husband, something like a little secretary can be common nowadays,” Peiqin said.

  “But I’ve known her from the very beginning. A beauty has a thin fate, like a piece of paper. In the early years, so many young men were after her in school. But of all the candidates, she chose Liu. When he began to succeed in Wuxi, we were all so happy that she had made a good choice. Things in this world are like flowers, however, that blossom only for a short while. He soon began to have little secretaries, karaoke girls, massage girls, and whatnot. After he got the so-called home office, he came home less and less. With their son having left for college in Beijing, she was all alone. What could she do except imagine her husband in bed with another woman, wallowing in the cloud and rain of sex? To give the devil his due, however, he tried to be good to her in his way. He swore never to divorce her, declaring that she’s the only one that really cared for him, that all the others cared only for his money, and were capable of doing anything behind his back. So he provided for her generously and bought her a high-end apartment in Shanghai. Of late, things between them had improved somewhat. Their son is graduating from college and coming back to Wuxi, which might be another reason that they hadn’t divorced. She didn’t tell this to anybody except me. She cares too much about face, which would have been totally lost if people in Shanghai learned that Liu had chosen another woman over her.”

  “She could have divorced him if she were that miserable.”

  “No, not a woman like her, who puts face before anything else. That would have been an admission of disastrous failure in marriage. Her life had to remain a success story, something enviable to other women, who would do anything to be in her shoes. Of course, they don’t know what’s behind the glossy and glorious appearance.”

  “Even if they knew,” Peiqin said, “I bet some of them would still be willing.”

  “You’re so right about that. What a shame that men are all like that! Once they become successful, they start looking for girls their daughters’ age. It’s as if they were rejuvenated overnight.” Bai went on after a short pause, “She really tried. I have to say that for her. Last Sunday, after the church service here, she went back to Wuxi with a Wufangzai urn of wine-immersed pork tongue, Liu’s favorite. As I mentioned, of late, things seemed to be improving between them. She’d planned a dinner at home with him. But he called her and said that he would be staying at the home office that night. She was so upset that she came to my place late in the afternoon. She knew we were having a mahjong game that night.”

  “One more question,” Yu said. “You mentioned that there were many young men after her years ago. Some of them must still be in Shanghai. Are any of them still in contact?”

  “Come on. You know the difference between men and women. Men in their forties and fifties are in their prime, especially those with a rising career. But women our age are like yesterday’s flower trodden in mud. She is too proud to be pitied by those who had once cared for her. No, she never contacts them.”

  “A different question,” Yu said, not giving up. “Are any young men seen with her at the mahjong table?”

  “Well, there are sometimes some hanging around the table. For a rich woman like her, that’s not really surprising. But they’re all no good, just sucking up to a ‘Big Auntie’ for a little tip. She knows better.”

  “So her coming back to Shanghai is more a retreat into a shelter,” Peiqin said, “where she could still cling to her imagined image or appearance of old.”

  “Yes, you’re a woman and you understand.” After glancing at her watch, Bai added, “Playing mahjong may help her forget, but more importantly, she is beginning to find peace in the church here. It’s a long story. But I’m afraid I have to leave for the train now.”

  “Thank you, Bai. What you told us really helps.”

  They then rose and watched Bai hurry out of the park.

  “What do you think, Peiqin?” he said.

  “Mrs. Liu is desperate to keep up her appearance in others’ eyes. A lot of the things she does, like the frequent trips home and mahjong games, may not make sense to others, but they are full of meaning to her.”

  “When did you become a psychologist, Peiqin?”

  “I’m not. You heard Bai. Mrs. Liu kept casting herself in the role of a successful woman so she could continue to bathe in the admiration and envy of others. But it’s different with Bai, since they’ve been friends for so long. As for her churchgoing, she might find some real solace there that is unavailable to her elsewhere.”

  “That’s quite an analysis, Peiqin,” he said. He couldn’t help adding an ironic edge to his tone. “I might just report it to Chief Inspector Chen verbatim.”

  “You know what? I’m glad that you’re not that successful,” Peiqin said, changing the topic. “Or I’ll have to worry like Mrs. Liu.”

  “Come on, Peiqin. But what we have learned probably won’t help our Chief Inspector Chen a lot.”

  “Let’s go to my old neighborhood again.”

  “Why?”

  “I have a feeling,” Peiqin said, “that it wasn’t a karaoke girl that Fu picked up in front of that cheap hotel.”

  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 ful
l?

  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 naïve 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.