A Loyal Character Dancer

ancestors underground are grinning from ear to ear.”
     
    “Your ancestors bless you!” the third prayed. “You two have a wonderful future together!”
     
    “You’ll make tons of money abroad!” the fourth predicted.
     
    “No.” He kept shaking his head at the chorus in Suzhou dialect, which Catherine did not understand, fortunately.
     
    “What are they saying?” she asked.
     
    “Well, lucky words to please us, so we will buy their offerings or give them money.” He bought a bouquet of flowers from an old woman. The flowers did not look so fresh. Possibly they had been taken from somebody else’s grave. He did not say anything. Catherine bought a bunch of incense.
     
    As he finally located his father’s grave, the old women carrying brooms and mops rushed over to clean the tombstone. One of them produced a brush pen and two small cans of paint, and started repainting the characters with red and black paint. This was done as a service, for which he had to pay. It was partially because of Catherine, he thought. Those old women must have assumed he was immensely rich, with an American wife.
     
    He brushed away the remaining dust from the tombstone. She took several pictures. It was thoughtful of her. He would show those pictures to his mother. After sticking the incense in the ground and lighting it, she came to stand beside him, imitating his gesture, with her palms pressed in front of her heart.
     
    What would be the late Neo-Confucian professor’s reaction to this sight—his son, a Chinese cop, with an American woman cop?
     
    Closing his eyes, he tried to have a moment of silent communion with the dead. He had let the old man down terribly, at least in one aspect. The continuation of the family tree had been one of his father’s highest concerns. Standing by the grave, still a bachelor, the only defense Chief Inspector Chen could make for himself was that in Confucianism, one’s responsibility to the country was considered more important than anything else.
     
    This was not, however, the meditative interlude he had expected. The old women started their chorus again. To make things worse, a swarm of mosquitoes buzzed around them, huge, black, monstrous mosquitoes that intensified their bloodthirsty assault to the chorus of the white-haired ones’ blessings.
     
    In a short while, he suffered a couple of vicious bites, and noticed Catherine scratching her neck.
     
    She produced a bottle from her handbag and sprayed it on his arms and hands, then rubbed some on his neck. The mosquito spray, an American product, did not discourage the Suzhou mosquitoes. They lingered, buzzing.
     
    Several other old women loomed up from another direction.
     
    They had to leave, he concluded. “Let’s go.”
     
    “Why in such a hurry?”
     
    “The atmosphere is mined. I don’t think I will have a moment’s peace here.”
     
    When they reached the bottom of the hill, they ran into another problem. According to the cemetery bus schedule, they would have to wait there for another hour.
     
    “There are several bus stops on Mudu Road, but it would take us at least twenty minutes to reach the nearest one.”
     
    A truck pulled up beside them. The driver stuck his head out the window. “Need a lift?”
     
    “Yes. Are you going to Mudu?”
     
    “Come on. Twenty Yuan for you both,” the driver said, “but only one can sit inside with me.”
     
    “You go ahead, Catherine,” he said. “I’ll sit in the back.”
     
    “No. We’ll both sit in the back.”
     
    Stepping onto the tire, he swung himself over into the back of the truck and pulled her up. There were several used cardboard boxes in the flatbed. He turned one inside out and offered it to her as a seat.
     
    “It’s the first time for me,” she said, cheerfully, stretching out her legs. “When I was a kid, I wanted to sit in the back of a truck just like this. My parents never allowed it.”
     
    She slipped off her shoes and rubbed her ankle.
     
    “Still hurts? I’m so sorry, Inspector Rohn.”
     
    “Here you go again. Why?”
     
    “The mosquitoes, these old women, the trail, and now the truck ride.”
     
    “No, this is the real China. What’s wrong?”
     
    “These old women must have cost you a small fortune.”
     
    “Don’t be too hard on them. There are poor people everywhere. The homeless in New York, for instance. So many of them. I’m not rich, but giving away my change won’t bankrupt me.”
     
    Her