TWO

THE NEXT MORNING, CHEN woke with a start. He thought he heard first a knock on the door, then heard the doorknob turning. Still disoriented, he sat up in bed, thinking that he must have been dreaming.

“Room service.”

A young attendant came in bearing a sweet smile and a silver tray of coffee, toast, jam, and eggs. She had clear features, a slender figure, and a willowy waist. She might have been specially selected to appeal to high-ranking cadres.

He got out of bed and tried to find some change for a tip in the pocket of his pants draped over a chair, but she had already left the tray on the nightstand and had withdrawn light-footedly.

The coffee tasted strong and refreshing. This was like staying in a five-star hotel, except that it was even more sumptuous. A whole villa to himself. He sipped at his first cup of coffee in bed, looking out the window at an expanse of lake water shimmering in the morning light.

Then his phone began tinkling, as if rippling up from the dainty coffee cup.

It was Comrade Secretary Zhao in Beijing.

“I know you’ve been working hard, so enjoy the vacation, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen, and don’t worry about things back at the bureau.”

“But the vacation was supposed to be for you.”

“I’m retired, so I’m practically on vacation every day. You should take it. It’s also an opportunity for you to observe—do social research about China’s reform. Keep your eyes open to new things and any problems that might arise in the current economic development. You have to prepare yourself for new responsibilities—not necessarily as a policeman, and not just in Shanghai. At the end of your vacation, write a report and turn it in to me.”

It was a hint, but a positive one. It was the Party’s tradition for a young cadre to do “social research” before being promoted to a higher position.

“But I’m a stranger here. People might not talk to me.”

“I’m not looking for anything special. In the report, I mean. Just your impressions and observations. I’ll make sure that the people in Wuxi know that I asked you to come.”

“Thank you, Comrade Secretary Zhao. I’ll keep my eyes open and report to you.”

After the call, Chen was vaguely disturbed. Zhao might simply want to see things through his eyes, so to speak, but he might want something more. It wouldn’t be a bad idea for Chen to have something like an emperor’s sword, however, in case he really wanted to do something while he was in Wuxi. In ancient times, a trusted minister might receive from the emperor a sword, a symbol of supreme empowerment that enabled that minister to do whatever he thought was right and required in the emperor’s name.

In the meantime, he was going to enjoy the treatment usually reserved for high-ranking cadres. There was no point looking a gift horse in the mouth. He didn’t have any specific plans for this vacation, which might be the very thing to tune himself up—to get his body’s yin and yang rebalanced, according to Dr. Ma, an old Chinese-medicine doctor he knew in Shanghai.

Chen once again looked out the window to the lake. He took a deep breath, dimly aware of a tang in the air, which might be characteristic of the lake. The water looked green under the morning sunlight. He thought of a line in a poem entitled “South of River,” an area including Wuxi: When spring comes, the water is bluer than the skies—

The doorbell rang, interrupting his thoughts. He went to open the door, and saw a gray-haired, stout man standing there, smiling, holding up a bottle of champagne.

“I’m Qiao Liangxin, the director here at the center. I’m so sorry, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen,” Qiao said with sincerity. He stepped in and turned on the air conditioning. “I was in a meeting in Hangzhou yesterday, so I didn’t know about your arrival—not until I got Comrade Secretary Zhao’s message. He called again this morning and said that you’ve been doing a fantastic job for the Party and that you should have a wonderful vacation. A vacation like the one he himself enjoyed a few years ago. I hurried back, but you were already here. I really apologize.”

“You don’t have to, Director Qiao,” Chen said, seeing no need for Qiao’s apology. Qiao’s Party rank was higher than Chen’s. For that matter, so were the ranks of most, if not all, of the other cadres staying at the center.

“This is the best building in our center. These are premium accommodations reserved for the top leaders from Beijing. The exact same arrangements have been made for you as would be for him.”

“I am overwhelmed, Director Qiao.”

“If there’s anything else you need, let me know. We’re going to assign a young nurse to you too.”

“No, don’t worry about a nurse. I’m just a little overworked, that’s all. But I do need to ask you for a favor,” Chen said. “Keep my vacation here as quiet as possible. The presence of a chief inspector may make some people uncomfortable.”

Chen had conducted several high-level investigations, and this place was crowded with high-ranking cadres. He had no idea what some of them would think; he wasn’t that popular in the system.

It was not always easy to be, or not to be, Chief Inspector Chen.

“You make a good point, Chief Inspector Chen,” Qiao said. “So I won’t call you Chief Inspector in the presence of others. Our old Comrade Secretary mentioned that you have a lot of important work on your hands. Do you have anything special planned during your stay here?”

Apparently, Qiao was having suspicions about the purpose of Chen’s visit.

“No, it is just a vacation.”

“Wonderful. Let me arrange a welcome lunch for you—a banquet of all the lake delicacies. I’ll summon the other executives and some local officials too.”

“No, please don’t do that, Director Qiao. You have so many things on your plate already.” Though not a stranger to lavish meals at the government’s expense, Chen shunned the prospect of spending two or three hours at a banquet table, saying things in official language that he didn’t want to say, in the company of officials he was in no mood to spend time with. He came up with an excuse. “Besides, I have a lunch appointment today.”

“Then another time,” Qiao said, moving to the door. “Enjoy your day in Wuxi. There is a lot to see.”

* * *

After Qiao’s visit, Chen felt obliged to leave the villa and head out to his “lunch appointment.”

He had planned to go to the park, but he changed his mind when he saw that it was packed with tourists. He could go there another time, preferably in the evening, when it would be less crowded. Instead he made a right turn again, following the same route as the day before.

He noticed weather-beaten tourist attraction signs along the way, but there were no tourists walking there. At a turn in the road, a black limousine sped past him at full speed. He had to quickly flatten himself against the hillside. The road must have been built so that Party officials could enter and leave the center without having to walk through the crowded park.

He cut through the small square and took several unfamiliar turns, but to his surprise, he found himself heading toward Uncle Wang’s place again.

It couldn’t be because of her, Chen assured himself. The food there was not bad, he thought, trying to rationalize his return to Wang’s. Also, there was the quiet, anonymous atmosphere. He was nobody there, and there was nobody else there, either.

As for the possible food contamination she had warned him against, it would probably be the same everywhere.

Uncle Wang didn’t seem surprised at his reappearance.

“You’re early, Mr. Chen. What would you like today?”

“It’s not quite lunchtime yet. Perhaps a pot of green tea first.”

“Sure, a cup of tea to start. Whenever you’re ready to order, let me know.”

Soon, a pot of tea was placed on the table, along with a dish of fried sunflower seeds and a light blue ashtray half full of cigarette butts, presumably the same one as yesterday.

He sat sipping his tea and looking around the street.

Not far away, a family of three was eating brunch out on the street, sitting in a circle consisting of a plastic chair, a wooden stool, and a bamboo recliner, without a table in the center. The little boy was gazing up at a brightly colored kite dangling from a tree while being chided by his mother, who was insistently pushing the bowl up to his mouth. His father was enjoying a leisurely smoke, looking over his shoulder. All of them seemed contented and at peace with their surroundings.

Past the family, there was a middle-aged peddler squatting over a piece of white cloth, on which he exhibited an array of souvenirs and knickknacks. It was a strange place to have chosen. On a side street not frequented by tourists, there would hardly be any customers for his goods. Still, the peddler, dressed neatly in a short-sleeved white shirt, looked contented, like someone relaxing in front of his own house. But then Chen didn’t know this area, so his interpretations of these people could well be wrong.

Anyway, they seemed to be ordinary people and ordinary scenes, and they calmed him.

Ready to settle down to work, he took out his notebook. He conceived some lines on the experience of being a non–chief inspector here. For the past few months, he had been writing less and less, with the always-present excuse of his heavy workload.

Where else are we living—/ except in our assumed identities / in others’ interpretations. / So you and I are zoomed, posing / against a walnut tree whispering / in the wind or a butterfly soaring / to the black eye of the sun. / Only with ourselves in the proper light, / and the proper position too, / can we be recognized as meaningful, / as a woodpecker has to prove / its existential values / in the echoes of a dead trunk …

The lines moved in an unanticipated direction, growing inexplicably melancholy. He slowed down, yet he persisted. It was something worth doing, he told himself.

Uncle Wang came over to add hot water to his purple sand teapot.

It was probably close to the lunch hour, but Chen remained the only customer. It was none of his business, but he thought of the young woman again. Holding the pen, he was bothered by something she had said—about the irrelevance of poetry in today’s society. Maybe reflecting on identity was a sort of “luxury” affordable only to a nothing-to-do tourist like himself. People were too busy getting whatever they could in today’s society. Who would care about these metaphysical ideas? Besides, it hardly mattered whether being a cop was fulfilling or not. What else could he possibly do?

“Take your time,” Uncle Wang said, coming back to the table with a menu. “No hurry.”

Having read through the one-page menu describing local freshwater fish, shrimp, lilies, and chestnuts, Chen decided on the white water fish. It was “live, fresh from the lake, recommended,” according to a smaller line of print in parentheses. There was no way to add hormones to the lake, he figured.

“Good choice, the fish is medium-size today,” Uncle Wang said. “Live.”

It was quite an experience seeing the old man prepare the fish outside. It wasn’t a large one, but it was still struggling, its silver scales shining and tail thrashing. The old man finished his job in two or three minutes and he threw the fish into a wok full of sizzling oil.

Soon after, the fish was served, still steaming hot, its skin golden and crisp, its appealing white meat tender. It was lying sensually atop a bed of red peppers.

“Not too many people today, Uncle Wang?” Chen asked, raising his chopsticks.

“Well, most of my customers come from the chemical company nearby. The food in their canteen is no good. But this morning something happened at the plant.”

“What—you mean Shanshan’s company?”

“Yes, several police cars rushed there early in the morning. Someone was murdered, I heard. I didn’t think the employees would come out for lunch today.”

“Oh…” Chen said, putting down the chopsticks. He hastened to remind himself that it was not his business—not here in Wuxi.

He was aiming his chopsticks at the fish again when Shanshan appeared, crossing the street to the eatery.

Uncle Wang greeted her in a loud voice, “Shanshan, you’re late today. Your friend has been waiting here a long while.”

It was true that Chen had been sitting here for quite a while, but he had not been waiting for her. He chose not to contradict the old man, instead smiling and waving his hand at her. She had to have taken him for a bookish tourist. Why not continue to play the role?

She stopped and nodded at him before turning to Uncle Wang.

“No time for lunch today, Uncle Wang. I have to hurry to the ferry. Leave the lunch in the refrigerator for me, please?”

“But you have to eat something. Let me warm you a couple of steamed buns. You can eat them on the way.”

Uncle Wang dashed into the kitchen, leaving the two of them alone. She took a glance at his notebook spread out on the table. A question seemed to start rippling in her large eyes, eyes that were serene, clear like lake water. The metaphor came to mind before he realized it was inappropriate given what he’d heard of the lake water here.

“I thought you might come here for lunch,” he said.

“Something happened in the factory. A mess. Now I have to catch a ferry.”

She wouldn’t talk to an almost stranger about a murder, a reluctance that was quite understandable.

“Well, what do you think of my choice today?” he asked, trying to change the topic. “It’s one of the three special whites in Wuxi.”

“Not good.”

“Really! The white fish came fresh from the lake. It was recommended on the menu.”

“You’re from Shanghai, so you don’t know. Local farmers raise fish in enclosed ponds, and they add drugs to the water to increase production. For instance, antibiotics, lots of them—so the fish won’t get sick,” she said. “Now let’s suppose, instead of being pond-raised, the fish is caught in the lake. You should take a good look at the lake. The water is so polluted that it is totally undrinkable. How could the fish from there be any good?”

He had heard stories of serious environmental problems throughout the country, not just here in Wuxi.

“Is the water really so bad? Not long ago I heard a song about the beautiful water of Tai Lake. You know it.”

“Yes, they play it on TV,” she said, pausing before she went on. “You’re a tourist, so you may not know. Have you seen or heard of the green algae blooms in the lake?”

“No, I haven’t been back to Wuxi in years, and I only arrived yesterday. I haven’t been able to walk around the lake yet.”

“The whole lake is covered with a thick, foul-smelling canopy, leaving people without drinking water for the last several days.” She raised the bottle of water.

“Have people tried to do anything about it?”

“What’s the use? The city government calls the outbreak a ‘natural disaster’—due to the warm weather, the bacteria ‘exploded’ at rates unseen in the past. Whatever reason they may make up, though, you wouldn’t believe it if you saw pictures of the factories dumping waste into the lake. The local residents form long lines to buy bottled water, and the neighboring cities shut sluice gates and canal locks to prevent the contamination from spreading. Still, the local officials won’t do anything because Wuxi’s economic boom has been built on the ever-increasing revenue of the factories around the lake. Economic miracle indeed. The only standard for success in today’s China is money, so people are capable of doing anything and everything.”

She wasn’t just being fastidious about food or jumping on one of the fashionable trends of vegetarian diets or organic food. Instead of simply doing the job she’d been assigned, checking on environmental problems, it seemed that she had made efforts to look into the social and historical causes too.

“Oh, I shouldn’t be such a wet blanket,” she exclaimed, noticing the fish sitting untouched on the platter.

“From my window at the center, the lake appeared okay. Like in a Tang poem, the spring water ripples bluer than the sky.” At least one advantage of an identity as a bookish tourist was that he could quote poetry at length, letting it say what might otherwise be too difficult. Serious, yet not that serious.

“Where are you staying?”

“Wuxi Cadre Recreation Center.”

“But that’s a place for high-ranking cadres, and you’re—you told me you’re a schoolteacher.”

“Someone gave me his vacation package. A small potato like me couldn’t afford to let it go.”

“I see,” she said, eyeing him up and down. “For free?”

“For free.” He wondered whether she believed him. But it was true, and he noted that she was not in a hurry to leave—not yet.

“You’re going to the ferry,” he said on the spur of the moment. “How about letting me walk you to the ferry? You can tell me more things about the lake.”

And something about the murder too, he thought but didn’t say.

“I’m not a good guide for a tourist.”

“No, perhaps not for a tourist, but what you said about the lake interests me,” he said, pointing at his notebook before he closed it. “As I said, occasionally, I write poetry too. The image of the horribly polluted lake may serve as a poignant background, like in ‘The Waste Land.’”

She studied him with a sort of mixed expression, and then changed her mind.

“Fine, let’s walk there. But I have to warn you, it’s not the part of the lake you can see from your window at the center.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” he said. He rose and left some money under the platter on the table. “Let’s go.”

They were already close to the end of the street when Uncle Wang hurried out of the kitchen, waving his hands, shouting out to them.

“Your white fish, Mr. Chen, and your steamed buns, Shanshan!”

“Don’t worry about it. We’re going to the lake,” he said, waving back at him. “I’ll buy something for her on the way.”