A Case of Two Cities

kept her company a lot. Alone, she did not go out much, much less so after her recent stay in the hospital.
     
    “With the cable, I can watch many stations,” she said with a smile, turning off the TV with her remote. She made him a cup of green tea. “The tea’s from one of your friends,” she said. “I can hardly remember his name. The big buck who came to the hospital, I remember. Specially delivered from Hangzhou. The fresh tea of this year: Before the Rain. Quite an expensive kind, for all I know.”
     
    He thought he detected a subtle sarcastic note in her comment, but he said nothing. Instead, he kept breathing into the cup. People described him as a good son, but he was not so sure about that.
     
    In time-honored Confucian doctrine, the worst thing possible for a man was to be without offspring to carry on the family name. That happened to be one of his mother’s favorite topics, even though she did not elaborate so directly. To his relief, she did not appear eager to bring up the topic that afternoon.
     
    “You have something on your mind, son.”
     
    “Well, no, not exactly.”
     
    “I don’t know anything about your work, but I know my son.”
     
    “I’m doing fine. But there are so many things for me at the bureau. I may not be able to come here as often as I would like. How about moving in with me for a couple of weeks? I can take better care of you.”
     
    “Everything is so convenient here. Peddlers deliver fresh vegetables and meat to the room for a yuan. The old neighbors help a lot too,” she said. “You are busy with your work. If I stayed with you, then when you come back late, I would be worried.”
     
    That was true. Even when he came back early, all the evening phone calls would not be pleasant for her. Not to mention some of his discussions.
     
    “But I’m concerned about you.”
     
    “And I am concerned about you,” she said, taking an appreciative sip. “All these gifts, and the tea too. Your friends keep sending me presents here.”
     
    “Really!”
     
    “Because of your position, I am afraid.”
     
    “I understand, Mother. I have known some people through my work, but I draw a line for myself. In fact, the Party Discipline Committee has just assigned me to an important case.”
     
    “The Party Discipline Committee? Oh, what kind of case has the committee given you?”
     
    In recent years, the committee had become the institution responsible for fighting corruption. Hence its popularity among the people. She looked both pleased and perplexed.
     
    “An anticorruption case.”
     
    “Yes, the committee is like the police of the Party. Corruption is getting out of control with all the officials helping one another. It’s time that the Beijing government does something about it.”
     
    “Yes, the Party authorities are determined.” He went on, taking a sip at the tea. “It may be a tough job, and I am afraid I cannot take good care of you.”
     
    “Don’t worry for me. You have taken a path different from your father’s, but I think he would be pleased with your conscientious work if he could know of it in the underworld,” she said slowly. “Of late, I have often dreamed of seeing him. Perhaps the day is not too far away.”
     
    “Dreams are dreams, Mother. You have missed him very much.”
     
    “I don’t know what advice to give you, son, but I remember what your father used to say. There are things a man will do, and things a man will not do. ”
     
    “Yes, I always remember that.”
     
    Another Confucian quote, but he did not know how to apply it in the present case. Such a truism could be applied to anything, depending on the perspective a person took.
     
    “Not all people are in a position to do something,” she said.
     
    There had been a subtle change in her attitude, he noticed. She had never really approved of his profession, but of late, she seemed to be more resigned to it, perhaps because she thought her late husband would have approved of her son serving the country as a police officer. She got up, moved to the chest, and produced a silk scroll of calligraphy.
     
    “This is something your father left behind. Better in your apartment. I don’t even have the room to hang it properly.”
     
    The scroll presented a poem, “River Snow,” copied in his father’s calligraphy. The verse had been written by Liu Zhongyuan, an eighth-century Tang dynasty poet:
     
    Not a single bird visible
    in hundreds of