“Yes, please come up. The top floor.”
“I’m already at your door.”
“Oh, just one minute.”
The door opened, and she was standing there in a white robe, drying her hair with a towel, her face glowing.
“Sorry, Chen. I was taking a shower. I didn’t hear the doorbell. Luckily I had the cell phone with me in the bathroom,” she said. “What favorable wind has brought you over today?”
“I was in the subway, and I heard ‘the next stop is Lujiazui,’ so I decided to get out and drop by for a visit.”
“I’m so glad you did.” She looked excited, as she finished towel-drying her hair.
“I should have called first, but what a nice apartment! It suits your status as a successful businesswoman.”
“You don’t have say that, Chen. Besides, the room is a mess.”
It was a spacious living room, but it was something of a mess. There were rumpled clothes on the couch by the window and a yoga mat stretched out on the floor, with a pair of high heels beside it. It looked like she’d been doing her workout routine before taking a shower.
Following his glance, she blushed. She pulled up a chair for him and seated herself on the edge of the couch. Her hair still wet, she gave off a clean smell, probably of herbal shampoo. Barely settled on the couch, she stood up again.
“What would you like to drink?”
“Water is fine with me.”
“I’ve a bottle of very rare Irish whiskey.”
“Whatever you have.”
She took a bottle from a glass cabinet, poured for him half a glass of the amber-colored liquid, straight, and for herself, just two or three drops over a lot of ice cubes.
“Oh, I’ve forgotten to give you the apartment tour,” she said, combing the slightly wet hair with her fingers. “Finally, I have something like a home in the city of Shanghai.”
“That’s the Shanghai dream, isn’t it?”
“In a couple of hours, when all the lights are on, there is a fantastic view of the Bund across the river. It’s your favorite part of the city, and you can’t miss it.” She added softly, “You told me how, as a student, you spent so many mornings studying in Bund Park, dreaming about the future.”
So she wanted him to stay for “a couple of hours.” After all, it was his first visit here. She was probably aware that there was something more than the merely social behind his unannounced visit. But for the moment, she seemed to be pleased to have him there.
Had we but world enough, and time… But they were not in Andrew Marvell’s world, and there wasn’t the time.
Her cell phone rang. She picked it up and looked at the screen without saying anything. It was probably a text message.
“Sorry, it’s about business,” she said, typing a response. “I have to reply.”
“What a hard-working businesswoman.”
“You don’t have to laugh at me.”
“I’m in no position to laugh at a successful entrepreneur.”
“Let’s go into the other room,” she said with a touch of coyness. “It’s too messy in here.”
It was to the bedroom rather than the office that she led him, however. She gestured him to a corner sofa, and then perched herself on the edge of the bed. She was half facing an antique mahogany dressing table, which must have been made in the days when a Chinese lady didn’t have the luxury of a separate bathroom. Now the table served more as a decoration than as furniture. Not far from them, the bathroom door was ajar.
“Sorry, my hair is still wet,” she said, taking a look into the mahogany-framed mirror above the dressing table before she sat down again, half reclining against the headboard.
He’d come here on the spur of the moment, but now the situation unnerved him. She was surprisingly nice to him, lying there gazing at him.
He was in such deep trouble. Why drag her in? There was no way he could ever pay her back.
She seemed to be reading his mind, but she said nothing.
“I want to thank you again for your help that day at the salon,” he started with difficulty.
“You were my first customer there-my first personal customer. Usually, one of these girls would wash a customer’s hair. And guess what? That afternoon I thought of something from my childhood in the Anhui countryside. In those days, it took a lot of effort to wash one’s hair. For my father, it was almost like a ritual, and he did it only once or twice a year. On New Year’s Eve, my mother had to boil two kettles of hot water, and then dip his head in and out of a small plastic basin, constantly mixing hot and cold water. I was a little girl then, and I remember giggling at the sight of his hair covered in grayish bubbles.”
Was she hinting at something?
In the west, the sun was wrapped in the gathering dusk, as if it were on the wing of a black bird, sinking into the darksome water.
“They’re still in Anhui. I thought about moving them to Shanghai, but I don’t know whether they’d be happy living here with me.”
“How could they not?”
“They are very old-fashioned, and they don’t know anything at all about my business. I’m not a filial daughter,” she said, contemplatively. “Anything new about you?”
“Well, I didn’t say much on the phone the other day.”
“Yes, please tell me about it, Chen. It may help if I’m able to focus on something more specific.”
The big clock on top of the Customs House began chiming, the sound faint from across the river, as if accentuating her words in some sort of mysterious correspondence.
He made up his mind to tell her what had happened over the last few days. It wouldn’t be fair to ask for more help without giving her a true, hopefully objective picture of the situation. Only then could she decide whether she wanted to get further involved or not.
She listened quietly, without interruption. But when he mentioned what had happened to his mother earlier that day, she sat up, crossing her bare legs.
“In her old age, my mother still worries about me,” he concluded with a sigh. “Do you know why she refuses to move in with me?”
“Why?”
“She wants me to have the privacy to bring a girl to my apartment, so I can settle down and have my own family.”
“Then why don’t you?” she asked.
“There’s something I’ve never discussed with her. Even though it looks like I’m successful and well connected, I’m actually holding on to the back of a tiger. It’s just matter of time before the tiger throws me to the ground and finishes me up. The system doesn’t have room for a cop trying to seek justice when it’s not in the Party’s interest.
“It’s nothing short of miracle that I have survived this long. If it wasn’t for luck, and the help I’ve gotten from people like you, Peiqin, Yu, and others, I would have perished long ago. So I’ve kept telling myself: I can’t think only of myself. As a cop, I accept both the job and the consequences. But it wouldn’t be fair to drag anyone else into all the troubles.”
“But what if that someone doesn’t care about those troubles?”
“Still, I have a responsibility for others, both as an investigator and in my personal life.”
“You’re always a cop, before anything else,” she said, sitting up, her bare toes digging into the lush carpet.
“Now I’m a fired cop.”
A short silence fell over the room.
“What can I do for you, Chief Inspector Chen?”
It was the first time that evening she had used his former title, and in doing so, she’d made herself clear. Whatever the changes in his position or troubles in his career, she was ready to help.
“I’m glad you’ve come to me tonight,” she went on, “in the midst of your troubles. It shows that you think of me as one you can trust.”
“This afternoon, when I first learned about my mother, I felt so sick and helpless. Perhaps it’s not too late for me to throw in the towel-to forget about all the politics, to live an ordinary life, to be a filial son, at least one who doesn’t bring trouble to her.”