“Different companies have different ways. It’s something new and unprecedented in China, at least since 1949,” she said. “I’ve heard a little about the so-called large noncirculating shares and the small noncirculating shares. The bosses who initiate an IPO each get a number of shares, an amount in accordance with his position, at a symbolic price which is practically for free. Once a state-run company goes public, the Party member CEO can become a millionaire or even a billionaire. No one can tell the difference between socialism and capitalism anymore.”
“That’s totally against the Party tradition. Cadres are supposed to serve people wholeheartedly, selflessly.”
“That’s why people want to be Party cadres nowadays,” she said with an ironic smile. “But as for an IPO, that’s about all I know. How could I know anything about a company that’s far away in Wuxi? Your boss must be desperate. As the proverb says, When one’s seriously sick, he will go to any doctor.”
“You mean you think that Chen’s in trouble?”
“He’s desperate for something. Perhaps it’s because of the affair with the young woman. Anyway, the stock market is closed on Saturday, so it would be useless for us to go there. Besides, I don’t know anyone who works there.”
“And I can’t approach anyone there. Chen made a point of saying he didn’t want me investigating officially. Even if I did try to ask a few questions, they wouldn’t have to cooperate with me. I have no authority whatsoever in these matters.”
“No, it would be of no use,” Peiqin said. “Unless we could find someone who has inside connection and information.”
“So, what are we going to do now?”
“Let’s go to visit the other one’s neighborhood. Fu’s.”
That area happened to be Peiqin’s childhood neighborhood, where she had lived until the start of the Cultural Revolution. Her family, being a “black” one, had never mixed much with their neighbors and then during the Cultural Revolution had been driven out of the neighborhood. The memory of being a “black puppy,” with its head hung low and its tail tucked in, still stung. Peiqin hardly ever went back there.
“After so many years,” she said pensively, “I may not find anyone who still knows me, let alone someone who will tell us anything about Fu. The address you have is in a side lane, if I’m not remembering wrong, and in those years I didn’t go there often.”
However, after having made several calls on the way, Yu had better luck. One of his colleagues was acquainted with the neighborhood cop there, Wei Guoqiang, who promised to help.
Wei was waiting for them at the neighborhood committee office. Though no longer as powerful as it had been in the years of “class struggle” under Mao, it was still something of a grass-roots organization responsible for neighborhood security. Wei had no problem obtaining information for a general background check on a local resident.
According to Wei, Fu had been born to and raised by a poor family here in this mainly lower- and middle-class neighborhood. Three generations of Fu’s family had been squeezed into a single room of fifteen square meters in a shikumen house: his grandfather, his parents, and Fu and his younger brother. Even though Fu worked in Wuxi now, he still came back quite regularly. When there, he shared a retrofitted attic with his brother.
“Hold on,” Yu cut in. “Fu serves as the head of a large state-run company in Wuxi. He should have been able to buy an apartment for himself, if not for the family.”
“Is he already the head?” Wei asked, then went on without waiting for an answer. “But there’s a reason he hasn’t bought an apartment here, that I can tell you. This neighborhood is included in the city reconstruction plan. The old houses may soon be pulled down and replaced by new construction. When that happens, the Fu family will be given at least two apartments as compensation, and Fu could have one of them when he gets married. If instead he bought one now and moved out, it would be a different story. Housing compensation is based on the number of people in the family.”
“I see. But he works in Wuxi. Does he have to come back to Shanghai regularly as part of the housing plan?”
“Well, it is said that he has a girlfriend in Shanghai, someone who used to live in this same neighborhood. She would come to see him here whenever he was back, but I’ve not seen her for a while. Perhaps a lovers’ fight or something like that. Between two young people, you can never tell.”
This was something Chen hadn’t mentioned-a girlfriend in Shanghai, Yu noted to himself. It could be totally irrelevant, however.
“Is there anything strange or suspicious about him, Wei?”
“What do you mean? Is there anything strange or suspicious? No, I don’t think so. He passed the entrance exam and was accepted to Fudan University. As his parents are both barely educated, it wasn’t easy. He studied hard. He became a representative at a national Youth League conference and then joined the Party. And he must have worked really hard at his job, too, if he’s already the head of a large state-run factory.”
“How long have you worked here?” Peiqin cut in.
“Three-almost four years.”
“I used to live here,” she said with a wistful look on her face, “but it was almost thirty years ago.”
“Really!”
“I’d like to take a walk around, Yu. It’s such a fine day today.”
“Good idea,” Yu said.
“Come back if you have any other questions,” Wei said, smiling.
They took leave and walked out of the neighborhood committee office.
As Peiqin had supposed, a lot of old neighbors had moved away. After half a block, she hadn’t recognized anyone. It was almost lunchtime, and there was a group of people standing around. Some were cooking on a coal stove, some were using a common sink, and some were enjoying early lunch. Only one or two looked up in curiosity at the two strangers passing by.
Finally, she noticed a makeshift scallion and ginger booth on a street corner facing a side lane. The old woman sitting at the booth used to live in the building next door to her family. Back then, Peiqin called her Auntie Hui. Now, white-haired, toothless, sitting on a small stool with a pronounced stoop, she must have been in her seventies. The booth looked the same as always, though, with the green onion still succulent, and the ginger still golden, spread out on the same narrow wooden board. The one difference after all these years was that the small bunch of green onion that had cost only one cent at that time now cost fifty cents. Peiqin stepped up to the booth and introduced herself.
“I was a slip of a girl then, Auntie Hui. Once you gave me a bunch of green onion for one cent and a large piece of ginger for free. After that, my mother called me a capable girl for days.”
“You still remember that after all this time,” Auntie Hui said, her face wreathed in smiles like a dried-up winter melon. “And this is…?”
“Oh, this is my husband, Yu.”
Auntie Hui was pleased by the unexpected reunion, and the two spoke of little other than memories of the bygone days. The continued existence of the tiny booth spoke for how little the old woman’s life had improved since then. Peiqin finally brought the conversation around to the question she had in mind.
“The Fu family lives just opposite here, right?”
“Yes, three generations of them now.”
“I’ve just heard that Fu Hao, the eldest grandson, is now the managing director of a large state company in Wuxi.”
“Yes, I heard about that too,” the old woman said, eyeing Peiqin somewhat warily.
“Our old neighborhood has produced some successful people,” Peiqin said with a smile.
The door of the shikumen house opposite opened with a grinding sound, as if echoing from twenty years ago, and a tall, angular man wearing a light gray wool suit and a pair of gold-rimmed glasses walked out.
Auntie Hui looked up at Peiqin and whispered, “It’s none other than Fu Hao. Do you know him?”