A Case of Two Cities

extremely slim. The American government was also under pressure from the Chinese. Once deported, Xing knew his fate would be sealed. So what did that mean?
     
    “I’ve been busy with Shan, looking for houses,” Tian went on. “I almost forgot to choose a present for you. So Mimi has wrapped a case of fish oil for you. And I have just dug out a scroll I bought last year. Allegedly the work of Zhu Sishan, a calligrapher at the beginning of the twentieth century,” Tian said, taking the scroll out of the box. “Possibly a fake, but at least not one of those mass-produced imitations you buy in China.”
     
    The calligraphy was angular and spirited, as if subtly animated with the qi of the calligrapher. What impressed Chen was the poem copied on the scroll. The poem was entitled “Fisherman,” written by the eighth-century Tang dynasty poet Liu Zongyuan.
     
    His sampan moored overnight
    by the western hills,
    the old fisherman fetches
    the clear water at dawn, and cooks
    with the southern bamboo.
     
    Disappearance of the smoke
    against the rising sun
    reveals no one in sight —
    the mountains and water green
    at the sound of the oar, the sampan
    is seen streaming down
    to the horizon,
    only the white clouds left
    to chase each other, inadvertently,
    over the rocks.
     
    A reminder of the “River Snow” his father had copied. By the same Liu Zongyuan. Whether the scroll was genuine or not, what mattered for Chen was the spirit of the poem, lonely yet uncompromising. It would make an excellent present for his mother. Possibly a message to her as well. Her son might not have followed her husband’s academic path, but there was still something in common between the two.
     
    “I don’t know how to thank you,” Chen said. “Remember the lines we read together in Beijing? ‘When you have a good friend in the world, / no matter far away, he’s like your next door neighbor. ’”
     
    “Of course I remember. We read it together while cooking a small pot of white cabbage over an alcohol stove,” Tian said, taking a look out of the window. “Oh, isn’t that the antique worker-poet in your delegation?”
     
    Sure enough, it was Bao standing outside the hotel, looking in the direction of the café. Then came another surprise. Bao produced a cell phone out of his pants pocket and started dialing. As far as Chen knew, Bao had a hard time making ends meet in Beijing. Now, all of a sudden, Bao had a cell phone here. An unnecessary luxury, which alone would have cost more than his delegation allowance. The hotel phone was covered by the Americans, at least in Los Angeles.
     
    If the phone call was about Chen, as Chen suspected, what could it possibly mean?
     
    * * * *
     
    After Tian left, Chen continued to think about Bao and his cell phone. Things had been strained between Chen and Bao. Not simply a matter of men of letters belittling each other. In modern Chinese literature, Bao had left his mark as a representative of a particular period, and the foreign visit before his retirement should be a crowning experience for him. But Bao must have found it hard to swallow a younger man’s having been appointed as the delegation head. Bao bore him a grudge, he understood, but there was something more than that.
     
    Instead of going back to the hotel, Chen used his phone card at a pay phone in the café.
     
    “I’ve been expecting your call, Chief,” Yu said.
     
    “How is the weather in Shanghai?”
     
    “Cloudy, but there seem to be some dark clouds approaching.”
     
    “What does that mean?”
     
    “It’s difficult to describe the weather on the phone, you know, so unpredictable.”
     
    Indeed, it was too difficult to talk the way they had agreed on. The weather terms had worked before, but not this time. There were so many new, unforeseeable factors involved. He wanted to know what Detective Yu had learned.
     
    “Forget about the weather,” Chen said. “Let’s talk.”
     
    It was a risk they had to take. Yu’s home line might not be tapped. Chen had not mentioned Yu’s assistance to anyone except Zhao.
     
    “Kuang has found out about your phone call to An. And he talked to Party Secretary Li about a romantic night you had with her in a fancy restaurant. Little Zhou, who was driving Li that afternoon, overheard the talk. And he told me.”
     
    “I interviewed An for Xing’s case. In order not to arouse any suspicion, I talked in a flirtatious way.”
     
    “You don’t have to