A Case of Two Cities

protection here, but there was no guaranteeing Chen’s safety elsewhere in the U.S., or back in China, as long as he persisted with the investigation. Nothing could help Chen except a fundamental change of the situation—in which the people posing the threat no longer had the capability or necessity to do so.
     
    Chen moved on to talk with Professor Thurston of the Chinese studies department, she observed, about Ming and Qing short stories. She edged close to him. Chen tried to respond with the newest terms favored by the serious sinologist.
     
    “I don’t know how to deconstruct a Chinese story, or how to read it in the light of New Historicism, but for a text formed in the process of passing it from one storyteller to another, generation after generation, some dissimilation would be imaginable in terms of re-creation through readers’ response.”
     
    “You have put it well,” Professor Thurston said. “That’s why I’ve included a detailed bibliography in the anthology.”
     
    “Oh, what’s up, Catherine?” Chen appeared relieved at the sight of her.
     
    “People don’t need my interpretation. I think I’ll excuse myself for a couple of hours. Things are piling up on my desk, you know. I’ll come back for your reading.”
     
    “Take your time.” Chen added, “It’s just a random talk about Eliot in China.”
     
    “I’ll be back in time,” she said. “It’s your favorite topic. I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
     
    Instead of going back to her office, however, she headed to her apartment, which was close to the university. Taking a shortcut through the overpass across Mallinckrodt Road, she walked fast. She nearly stumbled at the end of the staircase. She didn’t think she’d strained her ankle, but she slowed down, recalling what she’d experienced in a dusk-enveloped garden in Suzhou.
     
    The moment she got to her place, she kicked off her shoes. Her ankle wasn’t swollen, but it hurt. She slumped onto the sofa. It wasn’t the time for a break, she told herself. So she got up and made a pot of coffee. Another habit picked up in his company.
     
    She shuddered again at the possibility of Chen being the real target. There was a lot Chen might not have told her, and there were things Chen himself might not have known. But he must have considered this possibility too. She paced about the room, barefoot, on a wool rug brought back from Shanghai. Out the window, cars and buses rolled by like waves along the street, and people moved on, hurrying to their own destinations. All of a sudden, she wished that Chen could be one of them, walking toward her apartment at this moment. Perhaps she was still under the spell of a poem she had read last night.
     
    She stands leaning against the balcony,
    alone, looking out to the river
    to thousands of sails passing along
    none is the one she waits for,
    the sun setting slant,
    the water running silent into the distance.
     
    But it was only the fluctuation of a fleeting moment, she knew. There was no possibility of his stepping back into her life like that.
     
    Across the street, she saw an old couple standing by a red-painted newsstand, unfolding the newspaper, pointing, talking, and patting each other’s shoulder, so meaningful to themselves, but inaudible, incomprehensible to others. Distantly, it reminded her of a shadow play in the Forbidden City.
     
    She took out the transcript of Bao’s phone conversation the first day in St. Louis. It made more sense now. The phone call was really about Chen.
     
    What about the information she had about Xing? If she couldn’t make use of it, it could be the result of her insufficient background knowledge. These corruption cases in China were extremely complicated, involving high-ranking officials in a maze of connections.
     
    Her mission was one of damage control, and among other things, it was her responsibility to prevent anything else from happening to the delegation, and to Chen. It would be in everyone’s interest for the conference to come to a conclusion without further incident. What she was going to do was justified, she decided, even from the perspective of her government.
     
    She was ready to pass to Chen the information about Xing’s activity in the U.S. It wasn’t just for the sake of Chief Inspector Chen, she told herself, as she turned on the computer.
     
    According to the CIA file, Xing had been making frequent phone calls to China. Aware of possible surveillance here,