A Case of Two Cities

you’ll take care of the group.”
     
    It was a practical arrangement. No one raised any objections, except Bao, who declared in a miserable tone, “It’s really yangzhui to watch opera. I would rather stay in the hotel.”
     
    “Yangzhui?” Catherine repeated it in puzzlement. She hadn’t heard the Chinese expression before.
     
    Literally, yangzhui meant “foreign or exotic punishment or torture.” In its extended usage, it could refer to any unpleasant experience. For Bao, an opera in a foreign language for three hours would be indeed long and boring. Chen chose not to explain. He simply said, “Comrade Bao may be a bit tired.”
     
    But Bao changed his mind. In spite of his disinclination, he agreed to take the delegation to the theater. “One of us has to be responsible for the delegation, Chen. So you can go to the Central West End.”
     
    * * * *
     
    Outside the hotel, Catherine had a greenish car of German make. Not Volkswagen, but a brand not available in Shanghai. Chen took his seat beside her. A seat belt slid across his shoulder automatically. The moment she put the key into the ignition, however, her cell phone rang. She started the car and began to drive with the phone in her hand. It didn’t sound like a business call, he thought. He leaned back and looked out of the window. In spite of the time he spent studying the St. Louis guidebook, he couldn’t make out the direction. Fumbling in his pocket for the city map, he noticed the car already slowing down.
     
    “Euclid,” she said, flipping closed the phone. “Central West End is over there.”
     
    Central West End was an area with a marked difference. Small streets, quaint buildings, sidewalk cafés, colorful boutiques. The streets also boasted the city’s oldest and most impressive private homes. To Chen, all this seemed to have changed little from Eliot’s day.
     
    It took her quite a while, however, to find a parking place. As they walked out, turning into a side street, the evening breeze came like a greeting from a half-forgotten poem. They were in no hurry to talk about the delegation schedule. It was an excuse, they both knew.
     
    For this evening, for the moment at least, at Central West End, he wanted to feel like a Chinese poet, walking along the streets an English poet had walked.
     
    And to feel like a man walking in the company of a woman he cared for. It was the first time that they were really alone.
     
    Whatever might come next, he didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t seem to be in a hurry to talk about their work, either.
     
    “It’s pleasant to walk here on a summer evening,” she said.
     
    “Yes, it’s so different here.”
     
    Fragmented lines came with the evening spreading out against the sky, he contemplated, against all the possibilities . . .
     
    Do I dare, do I dare?
     
    Perhaps it was here a poet had once had the impulse to say the words, but failed to bring himself to the task. Perhaps too meticulous to roll the moment into a decisive ball. . .
     
    He checked himself. It was absurd of him to think of Eliot. A cop, at this moment more than ever, he should be aware of his responsibility, with a homicide case on his hands, another related murder case in China, and in the company of another cop.
     
    “What are you thinking, Chen?”
     
    “I’m glad to be here with you.”
     
    “Did you ever think about an evening like this?”
     
    “Yes, a couple of times.”
     
    She walked by his side, their shoulders occasionally touching. She wore a black dress with thin straps. Possibly the same dress she had had on the night of the Beijing opera at the Shanghai City Government Auditorium.
     
    A squirrel jumped over a tiny rainwater pool. He saw a gray-haired woman walking toward them, and he approached her. “Excuse me, do you know where Eliot used to live?”
     
    “Eliot? Who is he?” the woman said in surprise, pushing the gold-rimmed spectacles up her nose ridge. She looked like a schoolteacher, carrying a plastic grocery bag in her hand.
     
    “T. S. Eliot, you know, the poet who wrote ‘The Waste Land.’ “
     
    “Never heard of him. Eliot. I’ve lived here for twenty years. What is the waste land?”
     
    “Thank you,” Catherine cut in. “Central West End is quite a large area, Chen. We can ask at the bookstore.”
     
    “Yes, the people there are nice,” the woman said, eyeing them for the first time with interest. “Sorry, I can’t help