“But now as the office manager, she may take on more responsibilities.”
“That’s true. Interestingly, Fu gave her that job only a couple of days after Liu’s death.”
“Did Fu offer any explanation for the appointment?”
“He said that it was a promotion that Liu had decided on long before and that Fu was just carrying it out. Of course, he might need her help. There might be things in the company known only to Liu and her.”
“Yes, he needs her help.” Chen went on, “By the way, I’ve just heard Fu has a girlfriend in Shanghai.”
“How could you-” She didn’t finish the sentence, saying instead, “I didn’t know that. He never told anybody about it. What’s the point of keeping it a secret?”
Fu’s companion could have been one of “those” girls that get picked up in front of a sleazy hotel, Chen thought, but Yu’s description didn’t make her sound like one.
“Are you sure he kept it a secret, Shanshan?”
“Fu himself told me that he didn’t have a girlfriend, as he was sort of making a pass at me. It wasn’t too long ago, though it was before I got into trouble.”
“Well, I’m not surprised that he made a pass at you or that he told you what he did. As The Book of Songs says, ‘A man cannot but go / after a beautiful girl.’”
“Come on, Chen, you don’t have to say such things to me. To be fair to Fu, he didn’t push it too far,” she said with a slight frown. “Sorry I’ve digressed. There’s something about Mi I need to discuss with you.”
“It’s my fault, Shanshan. Please go on.”
“Let’s say she happened to have worked late that evening, which I doubt. Still, she lied about something else.”
“What’s that?”
“You told me that she witnessed Jiang arguing with Liu in the office on March 7, the day before the Women’s Day. That’s what she remembered, right?”
“That’s right.”
“But that’s not true,” she said. “I checked both the company calendar and the company Web site. According to them, Liu was in Nanjing that day, and he didn’t come back until late that night.”
“Hold on-Fu backed up that statement, I think.” He stood to go get the folder provided by Sergeant Huang and started checking through it. “Let’s see. Here, Fu didn’t say anything about the particular date, just that it was early March. He said that he saw Jiang in the office without knowing who he was, and Mi told him it was Jiang later that day.”
He was aware that Shanshan was paying close attention to the folder marked “confidential.” The sight of the label on the folder could add to her suspicion of his identity. It wasn’t the time, however, for him to worry too much about it. Instead of sitting down, he remained standing with the folder in his hand. After all, the folder might contain something that she shouldn’t read.
“I don’t know why Mi made that statement about Jiang. But with your connections, you might be able to find out.”
“Yes, I’ll ask Officer Huang for help,” he said, still standing. “We’ll double-check Liu’s itinerary on March 7. If need be, I can also call the Nanjing police bureau. No stone will be left unturned.”
Shanshan then stood up, a serious look on her face silhouetted by the soft light through the window.
“I’ve also come to ask a favor of you, Chen.”
“Anything I can do for you, Shanshan.”
“I’ve gathered some information about the industrial pollution here.” She produced a bulging folder from her satchel. “Firsthand, authentic data. None of it has appeared in even the so-called inside newsletters.”
“Yes?”
“Internal Security might come to search my room at any time. I want you to keep the folder for me. If you have an opportunity, publish the information. Not for me, but for the people who’ve been suffering as a result of the pollution.”
“Nothing will happen to you, Shanshan.”
“It might not be easy, even for someone like you, but I’m still asking you to do it.”
“I will do whatever is possible to get it published. I give you my word.”
“You’re the only one I trust,” she said, looking into his eyes.
“I promise,” he repeated and gripped the folder in her hand.
And he then grabbed her hand too.
She leaned toward him unexpectedly, her hand in his, her head touching his shoulder. He became aware of her breath, warm on his face.
They were standing close to each other, by the window. Behind her, the lake water appeared calm and beautiful under the fair moonlight. In the deep blue evening sky, the night clouds grew insubstantial.
She tilted her face up to him, her eyes glistening. He tightened his grasp of her hand, which was soft, slightly sweaty. She raised her other hand, her long fingers moving to smooth his face, lightly, as a breeze from the lake.
Several lines came back to him, as if riding on the water: Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!.. / Ah, love, let us be true / To one another …
Another poet, long ago, far away in another land, looking out the window at night, standing in the company of one so near and dear to him, thinking of the reason why they should love each other:… for the world, which seems / To lie before us like a land of dreams, / So various, so beautiful, so new, / Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, / Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain …
It was a melancholy love poem, presenting love as the only momentary escape-from a faithless world, hopeless with “human misery, and the eternal note of sadness.” But at this moment, this world of theirs by the lake was even worse-an utterly polluted one. There was no certitude even in the air, in the water, or in the food. They were here … on a darkling plain / Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, / Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Still, they could be true to one another.
He had had some vague anticipation since her arrival, but they had been so busy talking about the murder, conspiracy, and politics around them. Now, in the sudden silence, the significance of the night fell upon them.
A moment ago, she had looked preoccupied, but now she was intensely present. The moonlight seemed to focus on her face in a stilled glare. He put the folder on the windowsill and touched her lips, and she murmured his name against his hand.
“Well,” he said.
“Haven’t we talked enough about other people and things?” She tugged his hand, turning.
Turning to their right, he saw the door of the bedroom standing open, inviting, the lambent light shedding like water.
SEVENTEEN
He awoke at midnight.
She was sleeping beside him, her head nestling against his shoulder, her legs entangled with his. Through the curtain, slightly pulled aside, a shaft of moonlight peeped in. Her naked body presented a porcelain glow, a small pool of sweat beginning to dry in the hollow between her breasts barely covered by a rumpled blanket.
Through the window, he glimpsed a faint light flickering in the distance, then vanishing across the nocturnal water. The stars appeared high, bright, as if whispering down to him through the lost dream. A ship sailed by in silence. The tick of the electric clock was measuring the invisible seconds.
So it had happened. He still found it hard to believe. It seemed as though he had been another man earlier, and now he was reviewing in amazement what had happened to somebody else. He looked at her again, her black hair spilled over the white pillow, her pale face peaceful yet passion-worn, after the consummating moment of the cloud coming, and the rain falling.
In the second century BC, Song Yu, a celebrated poet of the Chu state, composed a rhapsody about the liaison of King Chu Xiang and the Wu Mountain goddess. At parting, the goddess promised she would come again to him in clouds and rain. A breathtaking metaphor, which had become a sort of euphemism for sexual love in classical Chinese literature.