“Not good.”
“Really! The white fish came fresh from the lake. It was recommended on the menu.”
“You’re from Shanghai, so you don’t know. Local farmers raise fish in enclosed ponds, and they add drugs to the water to increase production. For instance, antibiotics, lots of them-so the fish won’t get sick,” she said. “Now let’s suppose, instead of being pond-raised, the fish is caught in the lake. You should take a good look at the lake. The water is so polluted that it is totally undrinkable. How could the fish from there be any good?”
He had heard stories of serious environmental problems throughout the country, not just here in Wuxi.
“Is the water really so bad? Not long ago I heard a song about the beautiful water of Tai Lake. You know it.”
“Yes, they play it on TV,” she said, pausing before she went on. “You’re a tourist, so you may not know. Have you seen or heard of the green algae blooms in the lake?”
“No, I haven’t been back to Wuxi in years, and I only arrived yesterday. I haven’t been able to walk around the lake yet.”
“The whole lake is covered with a thick, foul-smelling canopy, leaving people without drinking water for the last several days.” She raised the bottle of water.
“Have people tried to do anything about it?”
“What’s the use? The city government calls the outbreak a ‘natural disaster’-due to the warm weather, the bacteria ‘exploded’ at rates unseen in the past. Whatever reason they may make up, though, you wouldn’t believe it if you saw pictures of the factories dumping waste into the lake. The local residents form long lines to buy bottled water, and the neighboring cities shut sluice gates and canal locks to prevent the contamination from spreading. Still, the local officials won’t do anything because Wuxi’s economic boom has been built on the ever-increasing revenue of the factories around the lake. Economic miracle indeed. The only standard for success in today’s China is money, so people are capable of doing anything and everything.”
She wasn’t just being fastidious about food or jumping on one of the fashionable trends of vegetarian diets or organic food. Instead of simply doing the job she’d been assigned, checking on environmental problems, it seemed that she had made efforts to look into the social and historical causes too.
“Oh, I shouldn’t be such a wet blanket,” she exclaimed, noticing the fish sitting untouched on the platter.
“From my window at the center, the lake appeared okay. Like in a Tang poem, the spring water ripples bluer than the sky.” At least one advantage of an identity as a bookish tourist was that he could quote poetry at length, letting it say what might otherwise be too difficult. Serious, yet not that serious.
“Where are you staying?”
“Wuxi Cadre Recreation Center.”
“But that’s a place for high-ranking cadres, and you’re-you told me you’re a schoolteacher.”
“Someone gave me his vacation package. A small potato like me couldn’t afford to let it go.”
“I see,” she said, eyeing him up and down. “For free?”
“For free.” He wondered whether she believed him. But it was true, and he noted that she was not in a hurry to leave-not yet.
“You’re going to the ferry,” he said on the spur of the moment. “How about letting me walk you to the ferry? You can tell me more things about the lake.”
And something about the murder too, he thought but didn’t say.
“I’m not a good guide for a tourist.”
“No, perhaps not for a tourist, but what you said about the lake interests me,” he said, pointing at his notebook before he closed it. “As I said, occasionally, I write poetry too. The image of the horribly polluted lake may serve as a poignant background, like in ‘The Waste Land.’”
She studied him with a sort of mixed expression, and then changed her mind.
“Fine, let’s walk there. But I have to warn you, it’s not the part of the lake you can see from your window at the center.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” he said. He rose and left some money under the platter on the table. “Let’s go.”
They were already close to the end of the street when Uncle Wang hurried out of the kitchen, waving his hands, shouting out to them.
“Your white fish, Mr. Chen, and your steamed buns, Shanshan!”
“Don’t worry about it. We’re going to the lake,” he said, waving back at him. “I’ll buy something for her on the way.”
THREE
They walked on without immediately beginning to talk. A light breeze stirred the tops of the trees with a rustle like a sigh, which hung in the air before falling back into silence.
Shanshan was surprised, but then not too surprised, by Chen’s offer to walk with her to the ferry. Was the man interested in a vacation fling? She was in no mood for it. Still, it would have been impolite for her to refuse, particularly after having spoiled his appetite for the fish.
“Thank you in advance,” he said, “for a different, non-tourist introduction to Tai Lake.”
“Well, you’ll see the lake for yourself. But you seem to have developed a passion for Uncle Wang’s place.”
“The center is close by. I’ve got nothing to do there, so I wandered along a trail and ended up at his place this morning.” He added, “But I didn’t think about the possibility of seeing you there.”
Smiling, she chose not to respond. It was unusual for someone staying at the center to visit the same grubby place a second time, just to sit and read for a couple of hours. She didn’t think he had really been waiting for her there, but a tourist could be lonely, no matter how fantastic the center might be. She’d never stepped into it, but she’d heard about the luxurious treatment there.
“My parents took me to Wuxi when I was a child,” he went on, “but it was many years ago. I barely remember anything except the Wuxi soup buns my mother brought back home-standing all the way in an overcrowded train, carrying a small bamboo basket of them. I’m going to bring a basket back for her, if I can find the old restaurant where she bought them. Indeed, Who says that the splendor / of a grass blade can prove / to be enough to return / the generous warmth / of the ever-returning spring sunlight?”
“The city has changed a lot,” she said, unexpectedly touched by the way he talked about his mother. What about her own parents? They would be worried sick if they learned what happened at the company. “I hope you find the restaurant you’re looking for, but many restaurants and stores sell Wuxi soup buns. You might even find them at the railway station. But I’ve been here three or four years, so I am not sure. I came here after I was assigned to work at the plant after I graduated from Nanjing University.”
“So you majored in environmental protection.”
“Yes.”
“You’re lucky to get a job in the field you studied.”
“What about you? You majored in English, I assume.”
“Well, yes, but I wanted to write and translate.”
There seemed to be a glitch in his voice, she noted, as they turned onto a quieter path that led to the lake.
“But weren’t you writing something at the eatery?”
“Oh that, just some random thoughts about the construction and deconstruction of one’s identity in others’ interpretations.”
“That’s too abstract for me. Can you give a concrete example?”
“For example, to Uncle Wang, I’m probably nothing but a gourmet customer, ready to indulge in a large platter of fried white fish. It is a convention in Chinese literature to depict a man of letters traveling to enjoy the local delicacies, as in the writings of Yuan Mu, Lu Xun, Yu Pingbo-”
“But you are a man of letters, aren’t you?” she said. “So in your interpretation, we live only in others’ interpretations.”
“Well done. You put it succinctly.”
Normally, she would have been intrigued by his conversation, but she was disturbed by what had happened at the company. Still, she couldn’t help taking another look at him-possibly in his mid-thirties, tall, austerely good-looking, dressed in a beige jacket, white shirt, and khaki pants. Nothing conspicuous, yet with an air of prosperous distinction that fit well with his clothes. Slightly bookish, well read, poetry-quoting in his conversation, and well connected too, considering his stay at the center. But he wasn’t one of those upstarts, who wouldn’t have revisted Uncle Wang’s place.