A Case of Two Cities

mountains,
    nor any footprint discernible
    on thousands of trails,
    only a solitary boat,
    a bamboo-capped-and-clad old man
    alone, fishing —
    the snow
    in the cold river.
     
    Such a lonely world, and such a solitary man, Chen contemplated. The image of the bamboo clothing added to the chilliness of the scene. Chen was struck by the ambiguity of the last few lines—not necessarily angling for fish, nothing but the snow in the cold river. Perhaps more of a gesture.
     
    Liu was the poet who had written the fable about the barn rats. Chen recalled Yu’s comment: It’s a fable, Chief. In real life, Liu had ended up helpless, like the old fisherman in the cold river.
     
    But Chen understood why his mother wanted to give the scroll to him. In spite of her failing health, her mind remained clear because of her studies of the Buddhist scripture: no illusion of self, so she can see clearly.
     
    He left his mother’s place without having sorted out his thoughts. He could not see clearly ahead.
     
    The chess game was still going on outside the hot-water shop. None of the audience looked up at him as he passed. He was irrelevant to the battle in the world of a chessboard. Only Chang, the owner of the water shop, seemed to be nodding at him, as in the days of his childhood. His mother had hot water delivered to her attic room from time to time. But Chang could have been nodding at a master move in the chess game.
     
    Then Chen was overtaken with an ominous question: why, all of a sudden, had she chosen to part with the scroll she had cherished for years? He struggled to push the unanswerable out of his mind.
     
    * * * *
     
    Late that evening, a sealed package was express-delivered to Chen at home. No one had told him about such a package. He looked it over in puzzlement. The young, bean-sprout-thin courier refused to tell him the name of the sender.
     
    “No, I can-can-not say,” the courier stammered, his face as scarlet as a cooked shrimp. “My customer is strict about it.”
     
    “That’s fine,” Chen said, putting a rumpled ten-yuan bill into his hand. “Thank you.”
     
    Closing the door after him, Chen opened the envelope only to have a bunch of pictures fall onto the table.
     
    They were pictures of An in a variety of scandalizing poses with a man. Chen took in a sharp breath. One of her drying herself with a white towel, her bare ass like two shining moons, the man sitting on the edge of a bed, his hand reaching out to her breasts. Another of her throwing her naked body across the bed strewn with pear blossom petals. In still another, the two were sitting up in bed, her bare shoulders flashing out of the blanket, reading, leaning against his . . . The pictures were not of high quality— most of them were out of focus. Possibly taken by a hidden camera in a hotel room.
     
    Whoever the man in the pictures was, it was not Han. Moving the lamp over, Chen took a closer look at the clandestine lover. A tall, gaunt, middle-aged man with gray-streaked hair. There was a mole noticeable above the left corner of his mouth. Chen did not recognize him.
     
    Chen was no moralist. In the mid-nineties, an extramarital affair was no longer seen as something corrupt or scandalous. Not in An’s circumstances. In spite of a story of success with fame, family, beauty, and her own company too, he sensed her loneliness behind the glittering façade.
     
    Exquisite as jade,
    she cannot compete with the autumn crow flying
    overhead, which still carries the warmth
    from the Imperial Palace. . .
     
    It was understandable that there was some other man in her life. Or men. Chen did not want to judge, though he could not help feeling slightly depressed.
     
    He could guess who had sent those pictures. He had talked about An with Gu alone. The shrewd businessman hadn’t promised anything specific, but the man in the pictures was no ordinary man. So here came the message: a potential lead in the romance. The sender chose to remain anonymous—for good reason.
     
    It was a quiet evening. He pushed open the window and the air seemed instantly filled with the message of the early summer. One cicada started screeching in the foliage, and then a group of them followed in chorus. Still, Chief Inspector Chen did not see the necessity of approaching An in the name of the special investigation. Not immediately.
     
    He returned to her file on the desk. In addition to her TV show and business, she had recently published a book based