“Let’s not worry about things too far in the future,” he said.
“Qinqin is going to an English camp in Hangzhou,” she said, switching to yet another topic. “Three weeks. Possibly a large sum. If we are going to move again, there will be another expense. I’d better put in more time at Old Geng’s, and you have to take good care of yourself.”
Yu did not make an immediate reply as she stood up to clean the table. He helped with a wet mop in his hand.
It was about ten when they went to bed.
“Oh, he wants me to keep this envelope for him,” he said, reclining against a propped pillow. He took out the padded envelope, opened it, and the pictures fell out on the bed.
For the next few minutes, Yu and Peiqin gaped at the lurid photos without uttering a sound.
“It’s An Jiayi,” Peiqin finally said, her hand grasping his on the towel. “They killed her, didn’t they?”
“Chen interviewed her two days before her death.”
“That’s too much.” She suddenly rested her head against his chest. “Why did he give those pictures to you?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think he wants to carry them with him.”
It was probably not true, he knew. And she knew too. Neither of them wanted to discuss it. He caressed her hair in silence.
One of the pictures appeared to be staring back at them. An nestled against a man on the bed, her bare breasts hardly covered by the quilt, her long black hair streaming like a fall.
Yu lost his mood, holding on to Peiqin, feeling her toes pressed against his leg.
That night, he lay awake for a long while. Beside him, she began snoring, lightly, worn out with work and worries.
He tried to think about things he could do for Chen, but without much success. Finally, sleepiness seemed to come over him in a confusion of fragmented images.
Among them, a very blurred image of several crabs bound together with a straw rope. For a moment, he seemed to be one of the crabs, caught out of water, producing bubbles of crab froth for each other’s survival in the dry night, and the next moment, it was Chen who was the crab, waving its claws in a futile attempt to scissor through the silence. In bewilderment, Yu turned to touch Peiqin’s bare shoulder. She turned over, nestling herself against him in sleep.
He realized that she had been worried about him. Her reaction at dinner could have been an effort to stop him from joining Chen in the investigation, but she did not really push. The same way he had earlier tried to talk Chen out of the case. He took another look at his watch in the dark. It was almost eleven-thirty. Qinqin was not back yet.
And the chief inspector must be flying over the Pacific Ocean, wondering what Detective Yu was doing at this moment in Shanghai.
13
CHEN QUOTED THE TANG dynasty lines as the airplane was beginning to land at the Los Angeles airport. He added in a hurry, “Of course, ours is a Boeing, not a boat.”
Perhaps he should have chosen another poem, more appropriate for the occasion, in the company of these established writers. The flight had been delayed for ten hours in Tokyo. Nor had any monkey been heard or seen throughout the journey. It was not like in his bureau, where, whatever the chief inspector chose to cite, his colleagues would raise no question. Still, reciting the lines seemed to have relieved his tension. So far, everything had been smooth sailing, in spite of the delay, in spite of unexpectedly finding himself the delegation head.
Chen knew he wasn’t a popular choice as head of the delegation. It wasn’t difficult to understand their reservation, if not resentment. His police background projected him as sort of a politically reliable watchdog, hardly anyone had read his poems, and except for Little Huang, the interpreter, Chen was the youngest in the group. It was a pleasure to meet and talk with these well-known writers, but not necessarily so to serve as their boss.
But he had little time to worry about those things.
It was early morning in Los Angeles. The American host waited for them at the airport-greeting, handshaking, self-introducing and introducing each other, business card-exchanging, all the polite, meaningless, yet necessary talking. Boris Reed, a history professor of the University of California and one of the original sponsors for the conference, was overwhelming in his welcome speech.
What happened next was like a surrealistically hectic montage. What with the jet lag and the culture shock, Chen and his writers remained disoriented during the long drive through the awakening highway, through the unfamiliar skyscrapers and unbelievable slums… Because of the delay at the Tokyo airport, the delegation arrived in the morning instead of the previous evening. As the first session of the conference had been scheduled several weeks in advance and a couple of American writers were there for only one day, the Chinese barely had time to check into the hotel before they had to hurry over to the conference hall.
It was a huge, impressive hall with Chinese and American writers sitting around tables set up in an oblong ring. In spite of the simultaneous interpretation equipment, Chen made his speech first in Chinese, and then in English. A speech of formalities, decked with quotes from classical Chinese and modernist Western writers. Then he was repeating the Tang dynasty lines in conclusion.
“Li Bai’s poem reminded me of another poet,” Chen said in his opening speech. “An American poet. I read his poems years ago in Shanghai. Now it’s morning here, and it’s evening in Shanghai. ‘Let us go, you and I, / when the morning and the evening / are joining against the sky.’”
“A different delegation from a different China,” an American critic commented. “Now we can really talk. Whether from East or West, we are writers.”
As if in contradiction to the American’s comment, Bao took the floor. It was a speech full of clichés from the Peoples Daily, but thanks to Pearl, the talented American simultaneous interpreter, it sounded quite smooth in English. The audience politely applauded.
American writers spoke too, one after another. It was the first conference after the interruption of 1989. They had a lot to tell, and a lot to ask too. When Professor Reed began to talk about the significance of their meeting, Chen was hardly able to keep himself focused, though he kept nodding and applauding as before. The jet lag had started kicking in. And there was something else waking up in the back of his mind.
But the conference went on. Every attendee, Chinese or American, was supposed to talk for five to ten minutes, interesting or boring. Chen felt like lighting a cigarette, but there was no ashtray on the table.
An unexpected topic came up in the discussion. As most of the Chinese writers introduced themselves as “professional writers,” James Spencer, an American poet, took a great interest in it. “I wish there were an institution here like your Writers’ Association. A sort of government salary for your writing. It’s fantastic. In the States, most of us can’t make a living on writing. That’s why I teach at a university. We all envy you. I would love to go to Beijing and become a professional writer too.”