Enigma of China (11 page)

ELEVEN

Lianping started her day with a visit to Yaqing, the literature editor of Wenhui Daily, who was on maternity leave. Yaqing lived in a high-end apartment that was about a five-minute walk from the newspaper office building.

Yaqing answered the door with a smile, standing slender, suave in a red silk robe embroidered with a golden phoenix, and in soft-heeled leather slippers. A huge diamond dazzled on her finger. She looked like an elegant, high-class lady, and Lianping didn’t immediately recognize her.

Her place was a huge two-story apartment overlooking a small man-made lake. Ji Huadong, Yaqing’s husband, was one of the “successful elites” in the city, dealing in exports and imports.

A nanny served them Dragon Well tea in the spacious living room, along with a platter of fresh lychee.

“This is this year’s new tea,” Yaqing said, breathing lightly into the cup. “Before the Rain.”

“It smells so refreshing. How is Little Ji?”

“A wet nurse is feeding him in the nursury.”

“That’s so nice. I won’t take up much of your time, Yaqing. I just wanted to catch you up on how things are going with the literature section of the newspaper.”

“Don’t worry about it, Lianping. At Wenhui, the literature section is symbolic at best. Few people read it, and that’s why our boss didn’t bother to bring in another editor to work on it while I’m out on leave. I know it has added so much to your workload. I’m sorry.” After taking a sip of tea, Yaqing resumed casually, “I may or may not come back to the newspaper after my leave. I haven’t yet told anybody at the paper, but Ji thinks it’s not worth it. He’s been so busy with his work, and when he comes home, he wants me to be there for him.”

“But what about your journalist career? It’s hard for me to imagine an intellectual like you living the life of a full-time wife. For a couple of months, perhaps, but in the long run, wouldn’t it be boring?”

“No, not at all. At least, not for me. With his business expanding, Ji has a lot of social obligations that require my attention and company,” Yaqing said, and then changed the subject. “Your boyfriend Xiang has an even bigger family business. Remember that tide and time wait for no man-or no woman.”

“There you go again.”

“I’ll tell you what. I just received the officially approved list of 170 new expressions compiled by the Beijing Education Ministry. According to it, if a girl hasn’t married by the age of twenty-six, she’ll be called a ‘leftover.’ And at age of thirty, a ‘senior leftover.’ And after thirty-five, ‘a leftover saint,’ which is a sarcastic reference to the Monkey Saint from
Journey to the West
.”

“That’s so cruel.”

“But so realistic. Even our Education Ministry has approved the phrases. What’s the use of saying anything against it?”

“Well, not everyone is as lucky as you,” Lianping said, trying to change the subject again.

“You can say that again. On the day of our son’s birth, Ji bought me a Lexus SUV. But you aren’t doing so bad, either. You got a Volvo from Xiang, right? You definitely deserve it. You’ll make a perfect match for him. You’re pretty, highly educated, and intelligent.”

“Come on, Yaqing. Xiang just loaned me the down payment. I have to pay all the installments and repay the loan from him as well.”

Actually, Xiang had tried to insist on buying the car for her, but he wasn’t exactly her boyfriend, and she declined his offer. She hadn’t made up her mind about the relationship. Neither had he, apparently. He was traveling with his father on business in Guangdong. She’d been expecting a phone call from him but hadn’t heard anything so far.

Because of his family background, she’d been keeping the budding affair secret, except among close friends like Yaqing. She was concerned what people might say in this materialistic age. Perhaps, as a newly popular saying went, finding a good husband was far more important than finding a good job.

She did not consider hers a good job, though it was secure, with a decent salary, and extra income when her writing was reprinted elsewhere.
Wenhui
had a contract with Xinhua Agency, syndicating news articles to foreign agencies, with the only requirement being that everything had to be politically acceptable. That requirement was what bothered her.

For a girl from outside of Shanghai, she was considered to be doing fine for herself in the city. Thanks to a down payment made by her entrepreneur father, she’d been able to buy an apartment just a couple of blocks behind Great World, a well-known entertainment center in the middle of the city on Yan’an Road. Still, she was feeling the increasing pressure of the mortgage payments. It was the same with her car, not to mention the other necessary expenses required for her to maintain a “successful” image in her professional circle.

“Come on, I know he offered to buy the car for you,” Yaqing said, “but you insisted on accepting the down payment only as a loan. Actually, that was so clever of you-”

Lianping’s phone rang, which prevented her from explaining, though she wondered why Yaqing thought she’d been clever. She picked up the call.

“Hello, this is Lianping.”

“Hi, I’m Chen Cao. We met at a meeting of the Shanghai Writers’ Association not long ago. You later called about some poems for your section in
Wenhui
. Do you remember?”

“Oh, yes, of course I remember, Chief Inspector Chen. Do you have your poems ready for me?”

“Well, I haven’t forgotten your request.”

“I knew you would write for us.”

The fact was, however, she hadn’t thought he would. The high-ranking cop was far too busy, and she’d asked for his poetry perfunctorily, only because of her temporary position.

But she’d heard about him, as far back as her college years-not about him as a professional writer but as the legendary chief inspector. When she started working for
Wenhui
, she heard even more about him, particularly from her colleagues covering crime or politics in Shanghai. When she met him at the Writers’ Association, though, she wasn’t exactly impressed. He seemed to be a bit too reserved, not at all like the romantic poet she’d once imagined. For an emerging Party cadre, however, such a pose made sense, and she thought she could understand it.

“I tried to dig out some of my old poems.”

“Please send them to me. You have my e-mail address. I can’t wait to read them.”

“Actually, I’m in the lobby of your office building right now. I’d like to discuss with you-”

“Really, Chief Inspector Chen! I’ll meet you there in five minutes,” she said. “How about meeting me in the café on the fifteenth floor? It’ll be more comfortable for us to sit talking there.”

As she flipped the phone closed, she saw Yaqing eyeing her incredulously.

“No wonder,” Yaqing commented. “You have Chief Chen Cao waiting for you in the lobby-no, in the café.”

“I saw him the other day at a meeting of the Writers’ Association. It was all just to cover your section, you know.” She stood up in a hurry, “Sorry, I have to get back to the office.”

“He’s surely a character! A rising Party official with several major investigations to his credit, and connections to the top echelon in the Forbidden City. Not to mention that he’s a poet in his own right at the same time. We’ve published his work in the Pen column. Believe it or not, he’s said to have dated one of our journalists years ago, written poems for her, which she then published in the newspaper.”

“That’s incredible. But it didn’t work out between them?”

“No, but I don’t know the details. Her name is Wang Feng and she left for Japan. Which is all I know. He’s really something, an enigmatic Party cadre.”

“Isn’t he? As an official of his rank, I expect he can pick and choose when it comes to girls. He must have quite a number of them waiting around. By the way, do you remember the title of those poems?”

“I think I still have a copy of the newspaper somewhere.”

“Great. If you can find it, take a good photo of the text and send it to my phone.”

“Certainly, but why?”

“So I can talk to him about it.”

“I see. No problem, then. It might be a plus for you to publish his work in our newspaper. He’s now the deputy Party secretary of the city police bureau, but it’s just a matter of time before he’s the number one, according to Ji,” Yaqing said, nodding. “What a glutton you are! You have one full bowl in front of you, and you have your eye on another.”

“Come on, Yaqing. I’m merely interested in his poems.”

“But he’s a wild card,” Yaqing said, accompanying her out to the elevator. “And complicated too. You never know what he will come to you for. Your present boyfriend Xiang is a safer bet.”

Lianping, too, started to wonder about the reason behind Chen’s visit as the elevator started to go down. He didn’t have to come to the office to talk about his poems. A phone call or an e-mail would have been more than sufficient. And any of the official newspapers in the city would be eager to publish his work.

* * *

Five minutes later, she spotted him as she stepped into the lobby hall of the Wenhui Office Building.

“I have to show my ID and sign the register here,” he said. “I thought it might be easier for you to bring me through security as one of your authors.”

That was considerate of him. An official visit from the police might cause speculation, but no journalist would worry about having a professional connection such as Chief Inspector Chen.

He was wearing a light gray blazer, white shirt, and khaki pants that morning. He certainly didn’t look like a cop, but he didn’t look like one of those long-haired romantic poets, either.

“I’m so glad you could make it over today, Chief Inspector Chen. Let’s go on up. It’s much quieter, and it has a better view.”

“Thanks. Please just call me Chen. For one thing, having a cop around might not be so popular in your office.”

“But a high-ranking policeman like you is certain to be popular anywhere, particularly so at our Party newspaper.”

“Well said,” he remarked, apparently appreciating the repartee.

They took the elevator up to the café on the fifteenth floor, where they chose a table by the window.

He ordered a cup of freshly ground coffee. She ordered herself a cup of fresh jasmine tea, breathing onto the water, making the white petals ripple out against the green, tender tea leaves.

Everything is possible but not necessarily plausible, she reflected, a jasmine petal between her lips.

“I really appreciate your support of literature, Lianping. It’s an age when few people read poetry,” he started, taking a sip of coffee. “But my pen is rusted. I happened to be passing by the Wenhui building this afternoon and I thought of you. So I decided to drop in and discuss it with you.”

She couldn’t help feeling flattered. At least he’d taken her request seriously.

“So what poems have you brought me today?”

“Sorry, nothing yet. I have a special case on my hands, so I’m really busy at the moment. But I would like to talk to you about what topics would be appropriate for
Wenhui.
”

“Let me see, I may still have the poems you wrote for us earlier.”

She pulled out her phone and pressed a button. Sure enough, Yaqing had sent over the text. She then turned the phone over to Chen.

He took a quick look at the screen and handed it back with an embarrassed expression on his face.

“Wow, that was written years ago,” he said.

It was a group of poems entitled
Trio
, which she hadn’t read. She started reading the first piece, entitled “Tenor”:

Straw-stuffed, caught in the rain, too / saturated to shake in the wind, to be / is to be constructed: plastic buttons / for your eyes to keep the horizon / high-buttoned in a shroud of drizzling mist, / a carrot nose, half-bitten by a mule, and a broken ancient music box for your mouth, / wet, eccentric, repeating / Ling-Ling-Ling / to the surrounding crows at dusk. / Setting afire a straw-yellow / photograph, murmuring “Let bygones / be bygones,” as if whistling alone, / in the dark woods, I open / the window to the sudden sunlight. / Another day, when it begins to rain, / I am you again-

“Please don’t read any more, Lianping.”

She found it hard to juxtapose the persona in the poem with the Party cadre sitting opposite, stirring his coffee with a spoon. Could it be the poem that was written for Wang Feng, or was it for another girl, perhaps named Ling? Stories about the chief inspector circulated among her circle, and it would be difficult for people not to speculate.

“You are so romantic,” she said, looking up from her phone.

“That is a too-sentimental piece,” he said, seemingly self-conscious. “But it will never do to mistake the persona for the poet. To use T. S. Eliot’s words, poetry is impersonal. I dashed off those lines after watching a Japanese movie, conjuring up the agony of the protagonist, and saying what he does not say in the movie. An objective correlative, so to speak. With creative writing, using such a persona may have a liberating effect.”

“I see. What about an ordinary cop’s persona, then? Of course, you are an extraordinary one. But you could choose to focus on an unextraordinary cop, like one of those working under you, where there is a lot of sacrifice but no flower or limelight. That would be a subject appropriate for a Party newspaper like
Wenhui
, and naturally you are familiar with the details.”

He didn’t respond immediately, but he seemed genuinely intrigued, nodding and sipping at his coffee again.

“Yes, you’ve made a good suggestion, and a politically correct one too. I’ll definitely think about it, Lianping. So, have you been in charge of the literature section for a long time?” Chen asked.

“No, it’s actually not my section. I normally edit the finance section.”

“You majored in finance?”

“No, in English.”

“Oh, that’s interesting,” he said, though he chose not to follow up on it. “Finance is far more popular today.”

“What do you mean, Chief Inspector Chen?”

“According to a novelist who was popular in the eighties, it’s far more popular nowadays to be a businessman, so he’s become a prosperous CEO and no longer writes.”