A Case of Two Cities

instead.
     
    Now as for Xing’s return to China, it might be another ironic casualty of misplaced yin and yang. Chen’s effort here, while unpleasant to the secret agents, brought about some surprising results. Through unforeseeable circumstances, Chen and his partners managed to arrest Ming, which, at least on the surface, appeared to be the last straw for Xing. Chen knew better, though; far more complicated factors had been working behind the scene.
     
    But Chen still had no clue how Xing and his associates had learned that Chen had suspicions about Little Tiger. One possibility pointed to Tian. Not that Tian would have talked to anyone, but Bao and his mysterious L.A. man knew Chen had spent an afternoon with Tian. Still, two friends’ unexpected reunion wouldn’t have appeared so suspicious. The fact that nothing had happened to Tian spoke for itself. Other than Tian, Catherine was the only one aware of his secret work. He didn’t have to consider the possibility. Some of the most crucial information had come from her.
     
    A more likely scenario would be that his phone discussions with Yu had been overheard. After the first few times, they had largely given up their weather terminology. A necessary yet disastrous decision. He had gambled on Yu’s home line not being tapped. In one of their discussions, he had mentioned Little Tiger in the context of the Xing . . .
     
    But then these thoughts began depressing him. There would be time enough for him to think, once back in China, about whatever he was going to do or not do, as a cop.
     
    He rose and took a local newspaper from a rack. The waitress came to him again. He had another glass of wine. Reading rather absentmindedly, he noticed three or four grammatical mistakes in one short article. He recalled what American writers had said of his English writing.
     
    You can be a good writer here.
     
    Perhaps he would be able to launch a new career here. The long-faded dream of his college years, of writing whatever he wanted to, and of not worrying about politics and corruption. It wouldn’t be a choice, he told himself, made out of any materialistic consideration. It might not be too late—with a wonderful friend staying in the background.
     
    These thoughts had barely come crowding into his mind when he started to drive them out. Even in the confusion of a fleeting moment, he knew he had moved too far from the cherished vision of his college years. Like a green light he had read about long ago, already beyond his reach there and then. Or perhaps like Tian, who, with his booming business in L.A., like it or not, had found a new self with a young wife and a million-dollar mansion. Chen, too, had come to find himself more and more, ironic as it might appear, through those fatal investigations.
     
    Besides, what about the people who stood by him all the way?
     
    Looking out, he tried to refocus his thoughts on her, which seemed to be the only thing that could possibly cheer him up. With so many gloomy things surrounding him, with the memory of a poet musing at such an evening, with something like a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floor of the subconscious, however, even those self-indulgent fantasies took on a self-debunking color . . .
     
    He suddenly felt an impulse he had not experienced for a long time. Turning to a blank page in his notebook, he started scribbling—to his surprise, in English, in a quite different strain, almost like a parody.
     
    Shall I go, shall I go
    with my Chinese accent, and a roast
    Beijing duck, to her home,
    when the evening is spreading out
    like a gigantic invitation poster
    against the clouds of doubt?
     
    I’ll go, across the Loop, where
    a young girl hums a little air,
    her shoulder-length golden hair flowing,
    lighting the somber wall, singing.
    My necktie asserted by a pin,
    my alligator leather shoes shining.
    (They will think: “How yellow his skin!”)
    What will they say — to my quoting
    from Shakespeare, Donne, and Hopkins,
    In short, I am not sure.
    (They will say: “But how strong his accent!”)
     
    He took a gulp of his wine, as if smashed with a bizarre combination of rhythm and rhyme—in a language not really his own, and with those lines coming out of nowhere. It appeared doubtful whether they would make their way into a poem, or into anything readable. But he’d better put them down, he knew, while the inexplicable urge still clutched him.
     
    Would it be worthwhile
    to bite a Mac