Don’t Cry, Tai Lake

in their hands? Nothing but money. My grandfather believed in the Nationalists, but Chiang Kai-shek shipped all the gold to Taiwan in 1949. My father believed in the Communists, but Mao’s Red Guard beat him into a cripple in 1969. I believed in the reform under Deng for the first few years, but then the state-run company where I had worked all my life went bankrupt overnight.”
    “Talking about Mao, do you remember the picture of Mao swimming in the Yangtze River?” Zhang said, vehemently poking the eye of the smoked fish head with a chopstick as he changed the topic.
    “Yes, I remember it. Mao took that picture before the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution as an evidence of his health,” Chen said, glad to comment on something he knew. “It was meant to reassure people that he could still vigorously lead China forward.”
    “Well, with China’s rivers and lakes so polluted now, Mao jumping into the river would be seen as a suicide attempt.”
    “Eat, drink, and leave Mao alone,” Li cut in, with a surly tone. “At least the lake wasn’t that bad under Mao. Nor were there so many unscrupulous plants dumping industrial waste into the Tai water. Now it’s a country overrun by wolves and jackals.”
    “Don’t be such a sore loser, Li. You lost your job because your factory went bankrupt competing with Liu’s. But it’s just the way of the brave new world.”
    “No, that shouldn’t be the way. Our plant was run in accordance with the environmental regulations. It was run with conscience, you might say. How much is a pound of conscience worth in today’s market? Liu had none at all, but look how much he profited.”
    “Excuse me,” Chen cut in. “I heard that a chemical company head named Liu was recently murdered. Are you talking about him?”
    “Yes. Now that’s really retribution. Karma.” Li poured himself a full cup and screwed the bottle cap on tightly, as if that meant something. But it was of no use because the cap was being unscrewed almost immediately by Zhang.
    “Liu’s chemical company is damned,” Li went on. “Irrecoverably cursed.”
    “How?”
    “A couple of months ago, thousands and thousands of fish died in the water near that company, turning up their white bellies like so many angry eyes staring at the black night. It was all because of the damned poisonous pollution. The Wuxi Number One Chemical Company is one of the biggest enterprises in the city, and it’s also the worst polluter. In Buddhism, a life is a life, whether an ant or a fish. For inhuman deeds, there’s no escaping retribution. No one escapes.”
    “You mean Liu’s murder.”
    “Believe it or not, I saw Liu walking by the lake with his little secretary one evening just about one month ago. It wasn’t far from here. All of a sudden, she turned into a white fox spirit looming against the dark night. You know how a bewitching fox spirit brings a curse to the man that’s with her.”
    “Liu’s little secretary?” Chen said, playing dumb.
    “Mi. I think that’s her name. What a shameless bitch! She slept her way into that position.”
    “Come on, I don’t buy that story about the fox spirit. That’s total bull,” Zhang said, noticing Chen’s sudden interest as he raised the empty cup high. “But a bitch she is, no question about it. I, too, happened to see something just about a week ago.”
    “Just about a week ago?” Chen waited, but Zhang didn’t go on, staring into the empty cup, as if lost in recollection.
    The second bottle of Erguotou was now finished too, Chen noticed. He wondered what kind of a man he appeared to be in Zhang’s eyes. Possibly one interested in the “bitch” of a little secretary, for some untold reason. Nevertheless, Chen ordered another bottle.
    “So what did you see, Zhang?” Chen resumed when the old waiter placed the new bottle on the table.
    “She was walking with another man—a much younger man—arm in arm, billing and cooing and kissing,” Zhang said, talking a deliberate long sip from his newly filled cup. “It was under the cover of night. Around midnight, I would say.”
    “Do you remember what day?”
    “I can’t remember the exact date, but it was about a week ago,” Zhang said, then added, “More than a week ago, I believe.”
    That was before Liu’s murder, Chen calculated, raising his cup only to put it down again.
    “That was not too surprising,” Zhang went on, shaking his head. “She’s still in her early twenties, and Liu