not closed-I give you my word as an old Bolshevik with thirty years in the Party. This is an emergency posting, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen.”
Could it be a trap? It would be much easier to connect him with malfeasance in the new position. Or could it be a demotion in the disguise of promotion? Such a tactic was well known in China’s politics. The new job was a temporary one, and after a while he could be justifiably relieved of it, and then of his chief inspectorship at the same time.
Anything was possible.
Outside the window, traffic was heavy along the Fuzhou Road, where a white car came rushing through the intersection recklessly.
A decision flashed through his mind. “You are right, Comrade Party Secretary,” Chen said. “As long as it is the Party’s decision, I accept it.”
“That’s the spirit,” Li said, apparently pleased. “You are going to do a great job there.”
“I will do my best, but I want to ask for something-a free hand. No Commissar Zhang or anybody like him. I need the authorization to do whatever I think necessary. Of course, I’ll report to you, Comrade Party Secretary Li.”
“You’re fully authorized, Comrade Director Chen,” Li said. “You don’t have to go out of your way to report to me.”
“When shall I start?”
“Immediately,” Li said. “As a matter of fact, the people there are waiting for you.”
“Immediately, then.”
As he stood up, ready to walk out of the office, Party Secretary Li added casually, “By the way, you got a phone call from Beijing yesterday. It was a young woman, judging by her voice.”
“She dialed your number?”
“No, she somehow had access to our bureau’s direct line, so it came to my attention. It was during the lunch break. We could not find you, and then I had to attend the meeting at the city hall. Well, her message is ‘Don’t worry. Things are going to change. I’ll contact you again. Ling.’ Her phone number is 987-5324. If you want to call back, you can use our direct line.”
“No, thanks,” he said. “I think I know what this is about.”
Chen knew the number, but he did not want to call back. Not in the company of Party Secretary Li. The Party Secretary was always politically sensitive. Ling’s access to the bureau’s direct line would have spoken for itself. And the phone number in Beijing, too.
She had made another effort to help-in her way.
So how could he be upset with her?
Whatever she did was done for his sake-and at cost to herself.
“So don’t worry,” Party Secretary Li said as Chief Inspector Chen left his office.
Chief Inspector Chen did not even have time to worry.
Downstairs, he saw a black Volkswagen waiting for him at the driveway. The driver, Little Zhou, was all smiles. Party Secretary Li was not just being dramatic about the urgency of the assignment.
“Good news!”
“I don’t know,” Chen said.
“Well, I know. We’re off to your new office,” Little Zhou said. “Party Secretary Li has just told me.”
The traffic was terrible. Chen thought about it, and about his new position, as the car crawled along Yen’an Road. It took them almost an hour to reach the Square Mansion, located at the People’s Square.
“What a location! And you’ll have a car exclusively for yourself, and a driver, too,” Little Zhou said, reaching out of the window before he drove away. “Don’t forget us.”
His new office was a multi-room suite in the Square Mansion in the center of Shanghai. The city government itself was located in the same building, together with a number of important organizations. Such an impressive office site was probably chosen to convince people of the serious attention being paid to traffic congestion by the city authorities, Chen reflected.
“Welcome, Director Chen.” A young girl wearing a pair of silver-rimmed glasses was waiting for him. “I am Meiling, your secretary.”
So he had a personal secretary working for him at a reception area in front of his spacious office. Meiling lost no time showing him the ropes. “The office is not just a department under the Shanghai police bureau. It’s under the joint leadership of the city government and the bureau,” Meiling said. “Even the mayor himself calls in here from time to time.”
“I see,” he said. “So there is a lot of work.”
“Yes, we’ve been terribly busy. Our old director was rushed to the hospital, and we have not had any preparation for your arrival.”
“Neither have I. As a matter of fact, I knew nothing about my appointment until a couple of hours ago.”
“Our old director has been sick for several months,” Meiling said apologetically, “There’s a backlog of work.”
So there was all the routine work he would have to familiarize himself with-documents to read, officers to meet, reports to review, and calls to make. Several papers were already waiting his signature.
Following Meiling, he made a tour of his office suite. There were several computers in each room, forming a network for metropolitan traffic control. In spite of the evening computer courses he had taken, he would require two or three weeks to become familiar with the system. A director’s responsibilities consisted not only of dispatching traffic police officers, but also maintaining close cooperation with the public transportation bureau, the construction bureau, and the city government.
After the tour, Chen felt even more disoriented. Earlier in the morning, he had been ready to quit, believing that his career coming to an end. Now he was sitting at an impressive desk, the tall window behind him overlooking the People’s Square, with the afternoon sunlight shining on his brass director’s plaque.
But he did not have the time to ponder this unexpected change. Meiling handed him a copy of the department newsletter. “The latest issue, just delivered to us.”
It was an edition focusing on traffic violation cases. Most of the offenders were quite young. Yet they might be seriously punished, for the report’s tone sounded politically serious. Some might even get ten or fifteen years.
He leaned back in his swivel chair, feeling both exhausted and exhilarated, watching Meiling arrange the papers neatly in a pile on the desk. His first secretary. It was wonderful to have one. He was intrigued by the difference produced by a female presence in the office.
He settled down to the work.
The day turned out to be much longer than he had expected. He told Meiling to go home at six. By the time he himself was able to leave his office, it was already past eight.
Little Zhou’s guess was right. Chen had a car for himself, and a driver, too, who had called his office asking when he would be needed. He declined the offer; as the director of the Shanghai Traffic Control Office, he felt obliged to learn the situation firsthand. With my horse galloping jubilantly in the spring wind, I see the flowers all over Luoyang in one day.
The decision to take the bus home instead of his car cost him another hour. The bus came to a stop in bumper-to-bumper traffic at Henan Road. The weather was hot, and the passengers cursed the stuffy air loudly. He, too, grew inexplicably exasperated- involved in the collective angst of the city. Still, it was an ethical necessity for him, he believed, to experience the traffic ordeal as one of the ordinary Shanghai people.
It was not until he had reached his apartment, and lit a cigarette, that he was able to look back at the day’s events. He should have been elated by the unexpected promotion, but its very unexpectedness was disturbing to him. Why should he, of all people, have been chosen to fill such an important position?
A man, once bitten by a snake, would be nervous all his life at the shadow of a straw rope.
Yet it did not appear to be a trap. He thought about the last remark by Party Secretary Li as he left Li’s office, about Ling’s long distance call from Beijing. Was his promotion just due to her family? That was what he dreaded.
