She hardly knew how she walked out of the hotel on her own.
She must have wandered, her legs moving mechanically, her mind a total blank, for a long while until she noticed that she was walking along a narrow, nameless trail that skirted the lake. The willow shoots looked long, tender, yet sorrowful. The hotel behind her wasn’t visible. She slowed down to a stop and stared out at the lake. Her reflection in the water rippled out in a soft sigh of breeze.
There was no point in struggling anymore, she decided.
A lone wild white goose flashed into flight. Where would be the end of its journey? There was nothing but factory chimneys, far and near, along the shore.
She then did something that surprised her. She sat down on a slab of rock overhanging the lake, kicked off her sandals, and put her feet into the water.
The cool touch of the water brought back memories of her childhood in Anhui. There was a gurgling brook behind their farmhouse. As a little girl in that rural village, she used to sit there alone, dabbling her feet in the clear, crystal stream, dreaming of a different future for herself when she grew up … Time flowed like the water between her toes. And then, after elementary school, after middle school, after college, a different life spread out ahead of her, far away from home, when she had first come to work at the chemical company in Wuxi. But soon, everything had changed.
She had done the same thing just a couple of days ago, she then recalled, dabbling her feet in the water in the sampan with Chen.
She was beginning to cool down, her mind no longer so confused. If anyone could help her at this stage, it had to be Chen.
He was a mysterious man, but well connected in his way. Even Internal Security, who might not know his name, reluctantly acknowledged his resourcefulness.
Thinking of him, she pulled her feet out the water and put on her sandals. She had a feeling that she could hardly understand, one that surged through her all of a sudden, like a swift spring tide. He had come into her life at a time when she was unprepared. Having just parted with a man who had caused her nothing but trouble, she was in no hurry to start another relationship. And the trouble in which she found herself made her even less inclined. Still, she was not unaware of something in Chen that attracted her, from their first encounter at the eatery. As for Chen, he had since made his feelings transparent to her, going out of his way to help, even putting himself at risk.
Among the scenarios he had laid out for her, one was particularly convincing. She had been thrown into the same boat with Jiang. His sinking would inevitably bring her down too. If he was convicted, she would surely be prosecuted and punished as an accomplice.
But she didn’t believe Jiang was the murderer. In fact, she couldn’t even believe that Jiang would have come to the offices to talk to Liu. Not in the beginning of March, not after the promise Jiang had made her. What she believed, however, didn’t matter. She had no proof.
She stood up, and an idea sprung up like a rabbit out of the tall, wild weeds. She stumbled, then collected herself, turned around, and made her way straight to the company offices. All the way, she kept thinking hard.
The security guard at the front gate was surprised to see her, but he didn’t ask any questions.
“It’s the weekend, Shanshan. You’re working too hard.”
“I need to check something. It won’t take long,” she said readily.
An engineer could choose to work in their lab over the weekend if, for one reason or another, they needed to. It was something she had done in the past-last weekend, in fact.
In her office, she started by checking the company calendar. The one on her desk had certain dates marked in red pencil, and occasionally, a few sloppy words understandable only to herself. Then she logged on to the company Web site and looked through the events listed for the month of March.
She was right. Heaving a sigh of relief, she stared at a Web page with the dates and events for March clearly marked.
At the beginning of March, she had planned to report to Liu about a new, cost-effective method of wastewater treatment, but Liu wasn’t in the office. He was at a meeting in Nanjing. The date marked on her calendar was March 7. It was crossed out with a note: “Liu out, till 8th.” Liu didn’t come back until late that night. The information on the company Web site confirmed that. Mi, who worked in the reception area, claimed to have overheard their argument in the inner office, but there was no possibility that Liu met with Jiang at the offices on March 7, the day before Women’s Day. She picked up the office phone and began making calls, to see what she could learn from other colleagues.
When Shanshan left the building, the dusk was already spreading out against the sky. It was a long walk from the company back to the dorm, but she was barely aware of the distance, absorbed as she was in her own thoughts.
When she reached her room, she was exhausted. She locked the door after her, let down the curtain, and flung herself across the bed. Never had she felt so helpless. She tossed the faded blanket aside and tried to drive the confusing thoughts from her mind. For several minutes, she stared up in bewilderment, waiting for the end of the day to reveal inscrutable images against the ceiling.
As the evening progressed, she gradually became aware of the noisy cooking along the corridor, particularly of a strong smell of salted fish coming from a neighbor’s sizzling wok.
She thought back to Chen’s visit the other day. Would there be another light knock at her door this evening? She didn’t think so. But she hoped there would be.
She got up, changed into her robe, and sat down on the chair Chen had used that evening, putting her feet on the bed. There was a red patch above her left ankle and another on the back of her right foot. Idly scratching, she wondered whether they were from her exposure to the lake water today, or earlier, when she was in the sampan beside him. The water was unfit for human touch, as she had told him.
The fragmented memories continued to resurface, undulating in the stillness of the evening in the small room. That evening, he was having a hard time taking his eyes off her, she recalled, fingering the belt of her robe.
What kind of a man he really was, however, she still had no clue. He surely wasn’t the bookish school teacher he claimed to be. On the contrary, he was more likely an emerging cadre with extraordinary connections, a “successful man” in today’s society. That was a far more plausible explanation for the mysteries about him. Whatever his true identity was, though, why had he concealed it from her?
But then, did she tell him everything about herself?
Whether he could do something to help or not, she wanted to see him that evening. He was, as the cliche put it, a solid shoulder to lean her head on.
She then turned her thoughts to Jiang, who didn’t fit the same cliche. She had been trying not to think about him, but she hadn’t always been successful. Not for one single moment could she bring herself to believe that he was a murderer. Especially after the research she had just done at the company.
More than ever, she was convinced that this conclusion was being pushed by Internal Security based solely on political considerations. Jiang must have been aware of this all along. In fact, he had told her about the perilous situation in which he had landed himself. Could that have been the reason he was so willing to break up with her? It wasn’t his fault, not exactly, that she had got into trouble, too. He had just been too eager to do the right thing for the environment, not for himself.
She decided not to think about her relationship with Jiang anymore tonight. Her head had started aching from the circular thoughts. Besides, she had another idea for this evening.
FIFTEEN
Late Saturday afternoon, Chen decided to take a break. He got up and opened the windows. As the leaves rustled in a low pitch and the lake stretched out against the horizon, Chen saw a lone silver fish jumping up, in the distance, over the darkening water.
He shook out a cigarette from a new pack.
Chen had spent most of the day inside the villa, shutting himself off from the world as he pondered the
