her efforts to protect the environment.
Just like those people at the banquet, Liu and the others must have been putting a lot pressure on her.
He was again surprised by the voice in the lines, apparently one of mighty authority, like Liu and his people, speaking out to Shanshan, though the persona here was also more of a collective one-not necessarily in Wuxi, nor just by Tai Lake. But that voice might work for an ambitious multivoice, multiperspective poem-along with the lines he had dashed off earlier that morning.
With that thought he turned and made his way toward the gate.
NINE
As before, he took the small quaint road and turned to the right, instead of going into the park. Sometimes, walking helped him think, especially along a quiet road.
That afternoon, the road was still quiet, but there was something he hadn’t noticed before. At the intersection before the small square, he saw a road sign indicating the direction to the Party School of Zhejiang Province. The school, though not in the park itself, was nonetheless in the same scenic area. A black Mercedes sped along in that direction, honking and kicking up a cloud of dust behind it.
Further along, a tourist attraction sign pointed to a bamboo pavilion partially visible up the hill in the woods. He might have seen an indication of the attraction on the tourist map, something with a poetic name, but that afternoon he was not in a tourist frame of mind.
Soon he arrived at the small square, but he didn’t turn in the direction of Uncle Wang’s place. He plodded on, thinking once again about the case.
Sergeant Huang alone couldn’t help that much, in spite of all the efforts he’d been making. But Chen knew nobody else in the city except for Shanshan, to whom he was still unwilling to reveal that he was a detective. No, a sudden revelation like that would be too dramatic for their relationship. She wouldn’t speak as freely to him if she knew he was a cop, of that much he was sure.
He came upon a small pub at the corner of a narrow street. The pub was a simple and shabby one, where customers might have a cup or two with a cheap dish or no dish at all, probably like the old-fashioned tavern in a story by Lu Xun. There were also a couple of rough wooden tables with wooden benches outside.
At one table sat two middle-aged men, hunched with nothing but a bottle of Erguotou between them, drinking determinedly in the middle of the day. Possibly they were two alcoholics already lost in a world of their own, Chen reflected, but he slowed down when he heard something like a drinking game between the two, each saying a sentence of repartee in response to the other, one after the other in quick succession.
“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-”
