A Case of Two Cities

the most wealthy members. The chef there used to work in the Forbidden City for Chairman Mao. Mao’s Pork is his famous special. The nutrition goes directly to the brains. Mao had to eat a large bowl of it before finding his inspiration for a national movement. You have to taste it to believe it. The pork simply melts on your tongue, and then in your brains. Also the South Central Sea Carp. The fried fish is served on the table hot with its eyes still rolling, its tail still twitching—”
     
    “Have you been there?” She had to cut him short, knowing Overseas Chinese Lu would hardly stop once on the topic of food.
     
    “Only one time. Obscenely expensive. Most of the people going there are club members, those new upstarts showing off or those high officials squandering money out of the government’s pockets.”
     
    “Thanks, I think that’s all I need to know,” she said.
     
    At least it was a possibility. For people like Ming or Xing, nothing could have been too expensive.
     
    When she ran back to the shop, the old couple inside started talking to her.
     
    “How much does Chang pay you?” Chrysanthemum said.
     
    “Not much,” Peiqin said. “Better than nothing. A beggar cannot complain.”
     
    “Don’t be too disappointed. No more than fifty yuan business a day here, I would say,” Taro said. “With more and more families having propane gas tanks at home, people do not come to the water shop like before.”
     
    “You are right,” Peiqin said. So far she had made only ten cents. “Old Chang could turn it into a teahouse.”
     
    “Not in our location. Poor people can’t afford it, and rich people won’t come,” Taro said. “Chang hangs on to it because people say a subway station may be built here. In that event, a store will be worth more in terms of government compensation.”
     
    “Chang makes most of his money with the mahjong table,” Chrysanthemum said. “He charges a different price for a cup of tea.”
     
    “I see,” Peiqin said, nodding. Mahjong had been a popular game for years. It was not exactly gambling, but it was no fun without small money put on the table. Since 1949, mahjong had been banned. Of late, however, the city government had legalized the game—on the condition that no money was visible on the table. So that’s why the screen was in the shabby water shop.
     
    In the midst of her off-and-on talk with the old couple, Peiqin kept a lookout at the lane.
     
    Around eleven, she saw Chen’s mother walking out of her building. The old woman was not alone, but with a tall, slender girl supporting her. Could she be Chen’s new girlfriend? There was perhaps nothing to wonder at, Peiqin thought, as far as Chen was concerned. Still, this girl looked a bit too young for him. Only in her early twenties, and too fashionable. She wore a short, sleeveless top with her belly button revealed, swaying her hips seductively in her transparent high-heeled shoes.
     
    “What a dutiful daughter or daughter-in-law!” Peiqin said, turning toward the old couple.
     
    “She is neither,” Taro said. “I don’t know who she is. Possibly a temporary maid hired by the old woman’s son. Chen is somebody.”
     
    “No, not a provincial maid,” Chrysanthemum said. “Not the way she is dressed. Way too flashy.”
     
    “The old woman seems to be very fond of her,” Peiqin said. “Her son’s girlfriend?”
     
    “No, I don’t think so.” Chrysanthemum shook her head again. “I’ve never seen her in his company. Now that he’s visiting abroad, she comes with small and large bags in her hands. Perhaps she’s really after him. The old woman calls her White Cloud, or something like that.”
     
    “White Cloud.” Peiqin had heard the name before. A temporary “little secretary” for Chen during a translation project not too long ago. Yu had joked about Chen’s peach blossom luck, but as far as she knew, nothing had developed out of it. And Peiqin found it hard to imagine the chief inspector growing old with the fashionable swell girl, sitting in her company in a place like the water shop. “Wow, he has hired a young girl to take care of his mother.”
     
    “He’s a big bug, capable of doing that.” Taro took a long drink from his tea. “When he was still a nose-running kid, I already predicted a great future for him. He comes back here regularly to visit his mother.”
     
    “Then why hasn’t he let his mother move in with him?”
     
    “His mother