Enigma of China (28 page)

He started looking through the entries. The second register covered the period he wanted to check. It only took him five or six minutes before he came to the date, the time slot, and a name, even though it didn’t correspond to the number of the computer from which the e-mail with the photo had been sent to Melong.

Another piece of the puzzle fell into place.

Gazing at the page, Chen heaved a long sigh.

He looked at the surveillance monitor, which showed Iron Head Diao pacing about, smoking and glancing up furtively. His enormous head hung low, as if weighed down with worries.

Chen then did something quite unusual for him. He tore out a couple of pages from the register and stuffed them into his pocket. It surprised even himself, as it was something he couldn’t have envisioned doing even a minute before.

It was unprofessional and unjustifiable, particularly for a police officer.

There were things that took precedence over being a cop, however, he hastened to assure himself. And he might not have to worry too much about it. A couple of missing pages from an outdated register might not be noticed.

He closed the registers, climbed down the ladder, and handed them back to Iron Head Diao.

As he left the Internet café, with Iron Head Diao waving at him from the door, still grinning from ear to ear, Chen realized that he hadn’t written his name in the register. That might be just as well. Like the other day, at the Internet café in Pudong, there were always loopholes in regulations.

On the street corner, he saw a white-haired man in rags shuffling out of a sordid lane across Yunnan Road, despite the superstition that people should avoid walking under wet clothing, which was hanging from bamboo poles that crisscrossed the alley overhead. But what could an old man do, moving slowly, leaning on a bamboo cane? Possibly born, raised, and then grown old in that same narrow lane, he would have had to enter and exit the lane here, day in and day out, likely to be down and out until the very end.

Chen was about to cross the street when a black BMW convertible sped along Jinling Road, splashing muddy rainwater on him.

“You’re blind!” The young driver cursed at him with one hand on the wheel and the other on the shoulder of a slender girl sprawled beside him, her bare legs stretched out like fresh lotus roots.

That such a contrast had become a common sight in the city depressed him.

Perhaps he
was
blind. At the moment, he really had no idea where he was heading. Then he got a phone call from Young Bao at the Writers’ Association.

“I’ve got it, Master Chen,” Young Bao said breathlessly. “And something more-hopefully, something that will surprise you.”

TWENTY-FOUR

Lianping was waiting for Chen in an elegant private room at a high-end restaurant he had suggested. It seemed to her to be quite new. It was near the front entrance of Bund Park, and the window of the second-floor room overlooked a panorama of ships coming and going along the distant Wusongkou, the East China Sea.

Her mind was in a turmoil. So much had happened the last few days, and it was as if it had happened to somebody else. She thought back on all of it in disbelief.

But one thing proved that it really had happened-the dazzling diamond ring on her finger. Xiang had proposed, and she had accepted. He’d put the ring on her finger without waiting for a response. She hadn’t taken it off.

She didn’t know what to say to Chen, but she had to tell him about her decision. She owed it to him, and for that matter, she owed it to Xiang too.

On a fitful May breeze, a melody came wafting over from the big clock atop the Shanghai Custom Building. Her left eyelid twitched again. She must be stressed out, or perhaps it was just another omen. She remembered a superstition from back home in Anhui about twitching eyes.

Agreeing to marry Xiang wasn’t an easy decision for her. It was more like an opportunity she couldn’t afford to miss than something she really wanted. After all, she lived in materialistic times, having read and heard all the tabloid stories about pretty young girls hooking up with Big Bucks and living “happily ever after.”

Tapping her fingers on the table, she wished she could have lived in the world of the poems recited by Chen back in Shaoxing, but she had to face reality. Just the day before, her father had written to her about the problems his factory was facing with both a shrinking market and the rocketing price of commodities. She could no longer bring herself to ask him for help with her mortgage payments. The subdivision committee had just increased parking fees, but it was still difficult to find an open spot, so they suggested, as an alternative, that she buy a permanent spot for thirty thousand yuan. And gas prices kept going up too. The list went on and on.

Still, she had to achieve the Shanghai dream-not just for herself but for her family too. Xiang represented an opportunity she couldn’t let slip by, as her colleague Yaqing had repeatedly pointed out. Even though he was always busy and business-oriented, this could also bode well for his future. He was just like Chen in that he was overwhelmed by his work.

Looking back on it, she realized that the flirtation with Chen was perhaps the result of a vain, vulnerable moment. A connection to a high-profile Party cadre like Chen would be helpful to her as a journalist, and publishing his work in her section would also be to her credit. Add to this the fact that Xiang had vanished without telling her first or contacting her for days.

Then it developed further than she anticipated.

But now Xiang was back with an explanation for his behavior-a reasonable one-and with the surprise proposal, accompanied by a passionate speech as he slipped the ring onto her finger: “In Hong Kong, after finally signing the business deal, I realized that all the success in the world meant nothing without you.”

To be honest, she’d been waiting for Xiang to make a move. Xiang hadn’t done so earlier because his father had wanted him to make a different choice, one that made more business sense. Specifically, he wanted an alliance with another rich family in the city. Xiang finally made his own move, though, when she least expected it. She couldn’t afford not to accept.

So what explanation could she offer Chen?

It occurred to her that maybe neither of them had taken it too seriously, from the day they first met at the Writers’ Association. If there was a moment when something came close to developing between the two of them, it would have to be that afternoon in Shaoxing, with memories of the romantic poems and stories echoing around them in Shen Garden. It was also that afternoon, however, that she realized that nothing would ever develop between them. It wasn’t that he was first and foremost a policeman or that he was too much of an enigma for her; it was that he had disappointed her in the same way Xiang had, and he had done so even more dramatically than Xiang.

She reached into her bag and touched the book of translated poetry he’d given her. Somehow she’d brought it here with her. Looking out the window, she recalled some lines from the volume.

She leans against the window / looking out alone to the river, / to thousands of sails passing along- / none is the one she waits for. / The sun setting slant, / the water running silent into the distance, / her heart breaks at the sight / of the islet enclosed in white duckweed.

Except for the absence of white duckweed, it was the same scene, more than a thousand years later.

She couldn’t shake off the feeling that Chen might have approached her with an ulterior motive, though in her high-strung state of mind, she could be imagining things.

A waiter approached her with a pot of tea and interrupted the train of her thought. The service here was excellent. She had researched the restaurant online. It was obscenely expensive, yet perhaps that fact appealed to upstarts eager for a taste of elite status. Sipping at the tea, she looked out the window at the park.

It wasn’t much of a park, and it looked even more crowded with the recent additions, such as the concrete monument that looked like the logo of Three-Lance underwear, the fashionable new cafés and bars, and the array of other architectural add-ons along the bank. She had never understood why the Shanghainese made such a big deal of the park, but she’d heard it was a place special to Chen.

Beyond the park, petrels glided over the waves, their wings flashing in the gray light, as if flying out of a fast-fading dream. The dividing line between Huangpu River and Suzhou River became less visible.

It was then that Chen stepped into the room, smiling. To her surprise, he was wearing a light gray Mao jacket. He had never dressed so formally in her presence.

“Sorry I’m late. The meeting with the city government took longer than expected. I had no time to change.”

“No wonder you’re wearing a Mao jacket. That’s very politically correct, but there’s no need to change, Chen. Mao jackets are also fashionable now: even Hollywood stars vie to wear one at the Oscars. It fits well with this upscale, high-priced restaurant.”

“The food is not bad here,” he said, “and it’s on the Bund. You’re paying for the view.”

“To be exact, you pay to have your elite status confirmed, and for the satisfaction of knowing you can afford it.”

“Well said, Lianping. For me, it’s really more for the view of the Bund in the background. My favorite place in the city.”

“It’s your feng shui corner,” she said, still hesitant about broaching the subject of her decision, though it wasn’t fair, she knew, to put it off any longer. “Tell me more about it.”

“In the early seventies, I used to practice tai chi with some friends in the park. Then I switched my major to English studies. Because of that, I was able to enter the college after the end of the Cultural Revolution with a high score in English. But as the proverb states, in eight or nine times out of ten, things in this world don’t work out as one plans. Upon graduation, I was assigned to the police bureau, as you know,” he said, taking a sip of tea. “But I still come back here from time to time, to recharge myself with the memories of those years. You may laugh at me for being sentimental, but here, on the very site where this restaurant now stands, for no less than three years I used to sit on a green bench almost every morning.”

“It’s the special feng shui of Bund Park for a rising star, where the water is constantly slapping against the memories of a forever youthful dream.”

“Now you’re being sarcastic, Lianping. It’s more like the fragments of the past that I’ve been using to shore up the present.”

“Now you’re being poetic,” she said in spite of herself.

“In those years, I never dreamed of being a cop, but now it’s too late for me to switch to another profession. It’s not the same for you-for you the world is still so young and various,” he said, changing the topic. “Well, let me tell you something about this restaurant. It doesn’t really reflect the history of Bund Park, but Mr. Gu, the owner of the restaurant, insists on doing it his way.”

“Mr. Gu of the New World Group?”

“Yes. Considering the history of the park, this should be a Western-style restaurant, one that is full of nostalgic flavor. However, Gu wouldn’t think of it. He wanted to serve Chinese cuisine to Chinese customers. This may just be his way of showing his patriotism.”

“It’s also a gesture of political correctness. There was the legendary sign outside the park, back in the twenties, that read ‘No Chinese or dogs.’ Of course, some scholars claim that the sign never existed, that it was a story made up by the Party authorities after 1949.”

“Well, the line between truth and fiction is always being constructed and deconstructed by the people in power. Whether or not Gu believes in the authenticity of the sign, I don’t know, but the controversy about it has helped the business. The restaurant is very expensive, which is symbolic of China’s new wealth. Of course, it is open to Westerners, too, as long as they are willing to pay the prices. In fact, I’ve heard that quite a number of Western businessmen make a point of inviting their Chinese partners to dine here.”

She looked at the menu and the prices, which were shocking, even after Chen’s warning.

“Don’t worry about it,” Chen said. “We don’t have to order a lot, and Gu won’t charge me those prices. I just wanted a quiet place to talk to you.”

She had no idea what he wanted to talk to her about, and she was debating with herself whether she should say something first. She had rehearsed a speech, but she hadn’t worked up the confidence to deliver it.

“So, do you know a lot of Big Bucks, Chen?”

“Not a lot, but in today’s society, even a cop can hardly accomplish anything without connections.”

“Do you know Xiang Buqun of Purple City Group?”

“Xiang Buqun-isn’t he the head of a large property group? I think I met him at the opening ceremony of the New World Project. Maybe on some other occasions as well. Why do you ask?”

“I want to talk to you,” she said with difficulty, “about something I might not have told you. I’ve been seeing Xiang Haiping, Xiang Buqun’s son, for quite a while. Last month he went to Shenzhen on business, but now he’s back, and he’s proposed to me.”

“Xiang Haiping, the successor to the group?”

“Possibly the successor,” she said in a low voice. She couldn’t look him in the eye, but she caught sight of something indecipherable in his expression. Whatever it was, it wasn’t the reaction she’d anticipated.

Before either of them could say anything further, Gu burst into the room. He was wearing a pair of rimless glasses, a light-colored wool suit, and a scarlet silk tie. A dapper man, though short in stature, he looked expansive.

“It’s the first time you’ve come here, Chief Inspector Chen. I’m honored to have you here,” he said, his glance taking Lianping in with unconcealed approval. “And Lianping is here with you today. I’m really honored to have
both
of you here.”

She’d met Gu at some business conferences, though they were barely nodding acquaintances. As the chairman of the New World Group, Gu kept a low profile and had declined her request for an interview.