Bao Qing said, ‘I’m in geology, not art appraisal,’ but Fatcat responded, ‘Don’t be so modest. In any case, you know more about it than any of us.’
Renzheng came over and carefully removed the vase for Bao Qing to have a look at. Bao Qing glimpsed an inscription in the floral design which said Tang Yin,8 but his expression was suspicious. ‘This was painted by Tang Bohu?’
A little nervously, Fatcat answered his question with another, ‘Why, aren’t Tang Bohu vases valuable?’
Bao Qing said, ‘That’s not what I meant. I think there might be a problem with the vase.’ Bao Qing took the vase and looked it carefully up and down; finally he could not suppress his laughter. ‘You’ve been cheated. I’m not an art expert, but they’ve written Jiaqing reign9 on this vase. By that time, Tang Bohu had been dust for years; so how come he was still painting vases?’
Fatcat blanched, ‘Take another look, carefully.’
Bao Qing, ‘No need. You’ve definitely bought a fake. It might even be that the vase itself is counterfeit as well as the attribution. How much did you pay for it?’ Bao Qing didn’t hear what Fatcat said in response. He raised his head and saw that everyone was staring at him with wide-open eyes, as if they were waiting for him to retract his comments. Fatcat’s expression was exceedingly strange: part of it was embarrassment, but a greater portion was rage.
He gave an oblique, squinting look at Renzheng, whose face had already paled, ‘I’ll go to Shanghai tomorrow and find Sanzi. He’s the one who vouched for it — he guaranteed it was real.’
Fatcat snorted and said, ‘How much was your kickback?’
Renzheng, panicking, shouted, ‘If I got one single penny, may lightning strike me dead; may the first passing car run me down.’
Fatcat sat down, staring sternly at Renzheng, who had dropped his head while looking up with an expression of pure innocence. Fatcat dropped the matter for the moment and rocked back on his chair, looking around the gathering, ‘Oh, stop all looking like your daddy just died. I’m the one who’s lost money — what the hell is it to you?’ He waved his hands dismissively and said, ‘Never mind. It’s only two hundred thousand yuan. I’ve been in business for long enough; it’s not like it’s the first time I’ve been cheated. I get cheated out of two hundred thousand, fine; but I’ll earn back two million.’
Everyone sat in silence; only the dishes on the table still sent off their warm fragrances. Bao Qing realized that he was at the root of all the unpleasantness and it filled him with regret. Bao Qing stood up and offered Renzheng a toast. He had been wearing a frozen, funereal expression, but now he bounded up as if there had been some pleasant surprise.
‘I’ll drink a forfeit! A forfeit!’ Bao Qing felt that, indirectly, he had also harmed Shaohong, and so he offered her a toast as well.
Shaohong, said ‘Now this’s more like it. You’re not even red in the face; you can keep drinking.’ Bao Qing noticed that Ms Zhong’s gaze seemed to linger on him. It wouldn’t be right to ignore Ms Zhong, so he offered her a toast, once again with reference to her father, his teacher, saying that he had always remembered his kindness, but that when he went home it was always so busy with his family that he had never got around to visiting him.
Ms Zhong said nothing, so Shaohong put in her tuppence worth, ‘You can still go and see him now. Go and check out his grave.’ He knew Shaohong was taunting him, but still he explained earnestly to Ms Zhong, ‘I won’t have time this visit. I’ll go next time.’
Bao Qing returned to his seat, labouring under a misconception that he had now done his best to carry out his obligations. He took up his soup spoon, intending to take a sip of chicken soup, but a liquor glass was suddenly extended to him from the side, bumping against his soup bowl.
It was Fatcat. ‘Bao Qing, we haven’t drunk yet. Why don’t you have soup and I’ll have wine? We’ll have a little drink, OK?’
Bao Qing put his bowl down and picked up his wineglass, saying, ‘If I have any more I’ll fall down.’
Fatcat said, ‘And if you fall over I’ll get a car to send you home. You’re drinking in Maqiao and you still worry about getting home?’
The liquor was stronger than Bao Qing. In his forty years, it was the first time he had drunk so wildly and he began to throw up. He remembered Renzheng taking him to the bathroom where he threw up out of the bathroom window and saw that the rain outside had stopped. The night was bluish, and you could vaguely hear the sound of firecrackers coming from the town. Bao Qing remembered he was about to go home: ‘I want to go home. My mum must be worried out of her mind.’
Renzheng said, ‘You’ll go when Fatcat lets you go. Have another drink with him and ask him to let you go.’ He was half pushing and half carrying Bao Qing. Renzheng remembered an autumn day when they had pushed him in the river. He hadn’t been able to climb the bank by himself, and in the end it was Renzheng who had felt sorry for him and hauled him out of the water and onto the bridge.
Suddenly, Bao Qing said to Renzheng, ‘Renzheng, I know you’re a good guy.’ But this displeased Renzheng and he spat out curses fuelled by alcohol, ‘What f***ing use is it being a good guy? If you don’t have money, a good guy turns into a bad guy soon enough.’
When he returned from the bathroom, Bao Qing kept Renzheng’s advice in mind: have one more drink with Fatcat and go. Taking the initiative, he proposed a toast, but Fatcat said, ‘Farewell toasts have to be three cups.’ Bao Qing vaguely knew that he was being toyed with, but he didn’t know whether it was because Fatcat had had too much to drink or because he was annoyed with him. But clearly he was being toyed with. ‘Never mind’, he thought. ‘I’m not afraid of you now. I don’t depend on you for my livelihood. I’ll put up with it for a while and then go.’ But things did not turn out as he’d anticipated. His body was acting unreasonably and impatiently. It was soft and intractable. The gravity of the earth was exerting an extraordinary force on him, and Bao Qing suddenly slipped off his chair and fell to the floor. He sat by Fatcat’s feet and drank the last cup of wine. What Bao Qing saw were Fatcat’s black leather shoes and piercingly white cotton socks. The shoes had a little streak of mud on them that made Bao Qing feel uncomfortable. Sometimes, the so-called corridor of memory can be bridged in a single step. The past had stealthily crept up on him and now Bao Qing heard a crude, familiar voice. The voice carried violence and threats in its commands. ‘Wipe the mud off! Wipe it off! Wipe it off!’ It was Fatcat’s voice when he was young: ‘Faster! Wipe the mud off!’ Bao Qing obediently took a napkin, just as he had been forced to do many years ago, spat lightly on the shoes and said, ‘I’m wiping. I’m wiping.’
Bao Qing heard the ebb and flow of their laughter, but he had no time to look up, for he was too absorbed in the task of shining Fatcat’s shoes. He saw that they had become glistening and new, and were now emitting a luxurious sheen. Then he heard a crisp bang and felt a slap on his face; Fatcat had struck him. The abruptness and unexpectedness of the blow ensured the slap was powerfully felt. Bao Qing had to put his hand out not to keel over. At the same time, he heard Fatcat snarl irritably, ‘Why have you only shined the left shoe? What about the right shoe? Hurry up! Shine the right shoe!’
Professor Bao Qing returned to Beijing on the third day of the new year. Everyone in Maqiao knew that his New Year’s visits were brief and hurried. Once again, it was his sister and her husband who accompanied him to the station, and once again they encountered Renzheng there. Bao Qing turned his back to him and blatantly ignored him, but Renzheng ran over and squeezed a big paper bag into his hands saying, ‘It’s wine, a present from Fatcat. The Wuliangye brand.’