The lines came almost effortlessly, more or less to his own bewilderment. Was he the persona “you” in the first stanza? That’s not possible. He had been staying by the lake for only a few days. But a sense of guilt in it was unmistakable. In a symbolist way, perhaps. The second stanza in parentheses probably was the result of his recent experience at the center, but what did it really mean?
Nevertheless, these lines could develop into a long poem and not one about himself, but more about her and the lake, about what’s happening in China, and about an unyielding spirit …
Then he paused and compelled his thoughts back to the case again, thinking with confidence. There was something else at the crime scene; what, exactly, he couldn’t yet tell. So he picked up the list of things in Liu’s apartment, a list he had already gone over several times.
This time he came to a stop at one particular item-a lacquer jewelry box with a black pearl necklace, gold earrings, and a green jade bracelet. None of it was of extraordinary value. But it was at his office, not his home. According to Mrs. Liu, she didn’t stay there. So why was a jewelry box there? If anything, it only served to confirm Shanshan’s account about Mi, the little secretary. But that didn’t prove helpful, however, in his effort to connect the dots of possible clues.
Then he pulled out the pictures of the crime scene. He placed them on the floor of the living room, then seated himself in the midst of them. He looked over them one by one. Still, he failed to see anything; all he had was a vague feeling that there was something missing. Perhaps something common in everyday life, but it eluded him for the moment.
He could no longer hide in the background, he concluded. At the very least, he should personally examine the crime scene and talk to some of the people involved. It wouldn’t be a big risk. Chief Inspector Chen couldn’t help being curious, one could argue, about a murder investigation in Wuxi, the town where he happened to be on vacation.
And he might still keep his movements secret as long as he and Huang proceeded cautiously.
After he took the herbal medicine, fielded a mysterious wrong number phone call, and drank a third cup of lukewarm coffee, he realized that he had spent practically half a day doing nothing in the villa. He was like one of those high-ranking cadres supposedly recuperating there in lassitude, still wearing pajamas around eleven o’clock.
He felt stupidly useless sitting there.
So he got up to get ready for the rescheduled lunch with Qiao, which he could no longer put off.
The restaurant was in the main building of the center, where the waitresses all wore colorful silk mandarin dresses with high slits, like Qing palace ladies. In the midst of their bowing and greeting, he walked up a flight of steps covered by a red carpet held in place by shining brass clips.
It turned out to be an expensive banquet of “all lake delicacies,” just as Qiao had promised, in an elegant private room. Several high-level executives of the center joined in, greeting and toasting the distinguished guest.
“All the lake delicacies are carefully selected. They are not the so-called ‘lake special’ that you might find in the market,” Qiao said reassuringly.
It was quite possible that the meals here were specially prepared for Party officials. Chen had heard about the unique treatment reserved for high cadres-not just for those staying by the lake here.
But what about the ordinary people who lived by the lake?
A huge platter of hilsa herring covered in sliced ginger and scallion was served. The fish was steamed with Jinhua ham and chicken broth, along with some white herb Chen didn’t recognize.
“It’s not from the lake here,” an executive named Ouyang said, the oldest of the group, who was probably going to retire soon. “We simply call it
“Yesterday I walked out along a small road in the opposite direction of the park,” Chen said, for once not talking like a gourmand at a banquet. “I happened to pass by a chemical company. People were saying that somebody was murdered there. Have you heard anything, Director Qiao?”
“Yes, I heard about it too. Liu Deming, the general manager of the chemical company, was murdered in his home office,” Qiao said. “It is a very successful company, and he was killed right on the eve of a huge IPO too. What a pity! He could have become a billionaire.”
“A billionaire, but so what?” Ouyang cut in, shaking his silver-haired head like a dream lost in the light streaming through the windows. “As in the old proverb, rich or poor, people inevitably end up alike in a mound of yellow earth. There’s no escaping
“Or you may say karma, Ouyang,” Chen said. “I’ve heard people are talking about the ecological pollution caused by those lakeside factories.”
“No, not karma. I’m not a man of letters, Mr. Chen. I’m too dumb to understand those high-sounding theories about environment. Before the economic reform, however, people here had hardly enough to feed themselves. Many died of starvation during the so-called three years of natural disasters. As Comrade Deng Xiaoping put it well, development comes before everything else. Can you imagine the present-day prosperity of Wuxi without these factories?”
“The company donates a large annual sum to our center,” Qiao said pensively. “I don’t know if the new boss will continue to do that.”
Indeed, perspective determined everything, Chen thought. It was little wonder that local officials defended the pattern of the economic development.
Chen had lost his appetite, but he managed to get through the meal, absentmindedly eating, drinking, and saying things as if playing and replaying a CD from a hidden groove of his mind. Afterward, he took leave of his host with some sort of excuse and walked out.
The center was like a miniature park. The pavilions built in the traditional architectural style, alongside Western-style buildings, made for a pleasant mixture of Oriental and Occidental landscape. He followed a cobble- covered path without purpose or direction, walking past a man-made waterfall against grottos of exquisite rocks before he reached the foot of the verdant hill. He ended up near the fence door at the back, though he had come here by a different route last time. As before, no one was there. He sat on a slab of rock, looking out over the shimmering expanse of water.
He was thinking of her again, but that afternoon, he started to realize what a battle she had been fighting in
