Don’t Cry, Tai Lake

Decades of unchecked, unbridled pollution have left much of the water in big lakes and rivers unfit to touch, let alone drink. They have pollution levels of Grade 5 or worse, meaning that the water is unfit even for human contact.”
    “Hold on a minute, Shanshan. Are all these figures based on research?”
    “Yes. They are no state secret, I can assure you. If you do your research, you can find all of this in the officially published material.”
    “It’s shocking.” He searched his pockets for a scrap of paper, but without success. “Can I have a piece of paper to write down some of those figures?”
    “Why, Chen?”
    Chen was thinking of the report he had to turn in to Comrade Secretary Zhao. At the moment, the chief inspector didn’t have any solid evidence to support his argument. However, he wasn’t going to tell her the real reason, even though he would never do anything to get her into trouble.
    “I’ve been trying to write a poem about the pollution in China, but I’m not an expert like you. Still, I don’t want to publish something unsupported by facts.”
    “Are you serious?” she said. “That might get you into trouble. Besides, I doubt if such a poem would be publishable.”
    He was serious and had, in fact, already written several stanzas.
    “I have the connections to get it published, I think. Connections aren’t something to be proud of, but they do help get things done.” After a short pause, he went on. “After our conversation in the sampan, I did some serious thinking about the issue. Environmental protection must be an uphill battle. It is as difficult as it is complicated. But what is at the root of the ever-worsening pollution problem? Human greed. Pollution isn’t a problem that pertains to our country alone—as the proverb says, crows are black all over the world—but the shape the problem takes here is certainly characteristic of China.”
    “Characteristic of China,” she said, looking him in the eye, “as the newspapers say about China’s socialism.”
    “Because China lacks any history of a sound legal system and because of the general ideological disillusionment, particularly resulting from the disastrous Cultural Revolution, people take whatever they can grasp in their hands, by hook or by crook, in this brazen ultra-acquisitive age. Some economists even declare greed a necessary evil for our economic development. Marx himself said something to that effect too, though he was very critical about it.”
    “Wow, you even dragged Marx into it, Chen. But I know the passage you mean. According to Marx, for a three hundred percent profit, a capitalist would do anything, commit any crime, even at risk of being hanged.”
    “Exactly. I don’t think doing everything possible for profit will lead to anything good—not for the environment or anything else. But the issue is complicated. The Party authorities must be aware of the environmental problem, but, to some extent, the legitimacy of the Party’s regime depends on maintaining economic growth, so any regulatory effort that gets in the way of growth will be suppressed.”
    “You’ve hit the nail on the head, Chen!” she said, her eyes bright.
    “I’ve been thinking a lot about all this, Shanshan,” he said earnestly, “because of your company, and because of the poem I’m working on. I’ve just started, but it could be a longer, more ambitious poem than any I’ve ever done before.”
    “Let me get my folder for you.”
    She got down on all fours, reached under the bed, and pulled out a cardboard box, her bare legs sticking out and her elegantly arched soles faintly dabbed with dust. She emerged out from under the bed with a blue folder in her hand and a smudge on her face.
    “Anything you might want to know,” she said. She seated herself at the table and opened the folder.
    Chen moved his chair nearer to the table so he could read the small print on the pages in the folder.
    He was reminded again of his college years, when he spent hours bent over a similar table in a similar small dorm room: idealistic, passionate, and doing what he believed to be the right thing.
    Outside the room’s small window, the color of the sky was changing, dimming into a deep blue with sparse glittering stars starting to show.
    He didn’t know how long they had talked. He was only aware of her hair touching his cheek, once or twice, like a refrain in a half-forgotten poem, and of her slender finger pointing at the