with his lips then handed it back to the gatekeeper.
The man eyed Ding Gou’er suspiciously.
‘You don’t want any?’ he asked.
Tm not much of a drinker,’ Ding Gou’er replied.
‘You’re not from around here, I take it?’ the gatekeeper asked.
‘Old-timer, that is one plump, fair-skinned toddler,’ Ding Gou’er said.
He studied the gatekeeper’s face. It was a look of dejection. The man took another hefty swig and muttered softly, ‘What difference does it make if I burn a little coal? A whole ton of the stuff doesn’t cost more than…’
By now Ding Gou’er was so hot he could no longer stand it. Though he found it hard to take his eyes off the toddler, he opened the door and walked out into the sunshine, which was cool and comforting.
Ding Gou’er was born in 1941 and married in 1965. It was a garden variety marriage, with husband and wife getting along well enough, and producing one child, a darling little boy. He had a mistress, who was sometimes adorable and sometimes downright spooky. Sometimes she was like the sun, at other times the moon. Sometimes she was a seductive feline, at other times a mad dog. The idea of divorcing his wife appealed to him, but not enough to actually go through with it. Staying with his mistress was tempting, but not enough to actually do it. Anytime he took sick, he fantasized the onset of cancer, yet was terrified by the thought of the disease; he loved life dearly, and was tired to death of it. He had trouble being decisive. He often stuck the muzzle of his pistol against his temple, then brought it back down; another frequent site for this game was his chest, specifically the area over his heart. One thing and one thing only pleased him without exception or diminution: investigating and solving a criminal case. He was a senior investigator, one of the very best, and well known to high-ranking cadres. He stood about five feet eight, was gaunt, swarthy, and slightly cross-eyed. A heavy smoker, he enjoyed drinking, but got drunk too easily. He had uneven teeth, and wasn’t bad at hand-to-hand combat. His marksmanship was erratic: in a good mood he was a crack shot; otherwise he couldn’t hit the broad side of anything. Somewhat superstitious, he believed in blind luck, and fortune seemed to follow him everywhere.
The Procurator General of the Higher Procuratorate handed him a China-brand cigarette and kept one for himself. Taking out his lighter, Ding lit the Procurator General's cigarette, then his own. The smoke filling his mouth tasted like buttery candy, sweet and delicious. Ding Gou’er noticed how ineptly the Procurator General smoked. He opened a drawer and took out a letter, glanced at it, then handed it over.
Ding Gou’er quickly read the scrawled letter from a whistle-blower. It was signed by someone calling himself Voice of the People. Phony, obviously. The contents shocked him at first; but then came the doubts. He skimmed the letter again, focusing on the marginal notations in the florid script of a senior official who knew him well.
He studied the eyes of the Procurator General, which were fixed on a potted jasmine on the window sill. The dainty white flowers exuded a subtle perfume. ‘Do you think it’s credible?’ he asked. ‘Could they really have the guts to braise and eat infants?’
The Procurator General smiled ambiguously. ‘Secretary Wang wants you to find out.
Excitement swelled in his chest, yet all he said was, ‘This shouldn’t be the business of the Procuratorate. What about the public security bureaus, are they napping?’
It’s not my fault I’ve got the famous Ding Gou’er on my payroll, is it?’
Slightly embarrassed, Ding Gou’er asked, ‘When should I leave?’
‘Whenever you like,’ the Procurator General replied. ‘You divorced yet? Either way it’s just a formality. Needless to say, we all hope there isn’t a word of truth in this accusation. But you are to say nothing about this to anyone. Use any means necessary to carry out your mission, so long as it’s legal’
‘I can go, then?’ Ding Gou’er stood up to leave.
The Procurator General also stood up and slid an unopened carton of China-brand cigarettes across the table.
After picking up the cigarettes and leaving the Procurator General’s office, Ding rode the elevator to the ground floor and left the building, deciding to go first to his son’s school. The renowned Victory Boulevard, with its unending stream of automobiles, blocked his way. So he waited. Across the street to his left a cluster of kindergartners was lined up at the crossing. With the sun in their faces, they looked like a bed of sunflowers. He was drawn to them. Bicycles brushed past, like schooling eels. The riders’ faces were little more than white blurs. The children, dressed in their colorful best, had tender, round faces and smiling eyes. They were tied together by a thick red cord, like a string of fish, or fruit on a spit. Puffy clouds of automobile exhaust settling around them glinted like charcoal in the sunlight and filled the air with their aroma; the children were just like a skewer of roast lamb, basted and seasoned. Children are the nation’s future, her flowers, her treasure. Who would dare run them over? Cars stopped. What else could they do? Engines revved and sputtered as the children crossed the street, a white-uniformed woman at each end of the line. Faces like full moons, encasing cinnabar lips and sharp white teeth, they might as well have been twins. Stretching the cord taut, they brusquely maintained order:
‘Hold on to the cord! Don’t let go!’
As Ding Gou’er stood beneath a roadside tree with yellowed leaves, the children crossed to his side, and waves of cars were already whizzing past. The column began to curve and bend; the children chirped and twittered like a flock of sparrows. Red ribbons around their wrists were fastened to the red cord. No longer standing in a straight line, they were still attached to the cord, and the women only had to draw it taut to straighten them out. Thoughts of the earlier shouts of ‘Hold on to the cord! Don’t let go!’ enraged him. What bullshit! How, he wondered, could they let go, when they’re tied to it?
He leaned against the tree and asked one of the women coldly:
‘Why do you tie them like that?’
She gave him an icy glare.
‘Lunatic!’ she said.
The children looked over at him.
‘Lu-na-tic-!’ they echoed in unison.
The way they drew out the syllables, he couldn’t tell if it was spontaneous or coached. Their lilting, falsetto voices rose like birds on the wing. Smiling idiotically, he nodded an apology to the woman on the far end, who dismissed him by looking away. He followed the column of children with his eyes until they disappeared down a lane bordered by a pair of high red walls.
It was a struggle, but he finally made it to the other side of the street, where a Xinjiang vendor roasting skewers of lamb hailed him in a heavy accent. He wasn’t tempted. But a long-necked girl walked up and bought ten. Reddened lips like chili peppers. Dipping the skewers of sizzling, greasy meat into the pepper jar, she bared her teeth as she ate, to protect her lipstick. His throat burning, he turned and walked off.
A while later he was in front of the elementary school smoking a cigarette and waiting for his son, who didn’t see him as he ran out the gate with his backpack. He had blue ink smudges on his face, the marks of a student. He called his son’s name. When the boy reluctantly fell in behind him, he told him he was being sent to Liquorland on business. ‘So what?’ Ding Gou’er asked his son what he meant by So What? ‘So what? means So what? What do you expect me to say?’
“So what? That’s right. So what?’ he said, echoing his son’s comment.
Ding Gou’er walked into the mine’s Party Committee Security Section, where he was greeted by a crewcut young man who opened a floor-to-ceiling cabinet, poured a glass of liquor, and handed it to him. This room too was furnished with a large stove, which kept the temperature way up there, if not as stifling as the gate house. Ding Gou’er asked for some ice; the young fellow urged him to try the liquor:
‘Drink some, it’ll warm you up.’
The earnest look made it impossible for Ding Gou’er to refuse, so he accepted the glass and drank slowly.
The office was hermetically sealed by perfectly dovetailed doors and windows. Once again Ding Gou’er started to itch all over, and rivulets of sweat ran down his face. He heard Crewcut say consolingly:
‘Don’t worry, you’ll cool off as you calm down.’
A buzzing filled Ding Gou’er’s ears. Bees and honey, he was thinking, and honeyed infants. This mission was too important to be undone by carelessness. The glass in the windows seemed to vibrate. In the space between heaven and earth outside the room, large rigs moved slowly and noiselessly. He felt as if he were in an aquarium, like a pet fish. The mining rigs were painted yellow, a numbing color, an intoxicating color. He strained to hear the noise they made, but no dice.
Ding Gou’er heard himself say:
