“What does the phrase folk east of the river mean?” Catherine asked, as she put her cosmetics into a small bag.

“It means the people at home who have high hopes for you. Lord Chu was defeated in a battle around 200 B.C. and declared that he was unable to face his folk east of the river. So by the Wu River, he committed suicide.”

“I’ve seen a tape of a Beijing Opera called Farewell to His Imperial Concubine. It is about the proud Lord of Chu, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s him.” Chen was not in the mood to talk more.

He was increasingly uneasy about this trip back to Fujian. Wen had appeared so determined, yet every delay increased her risk.

He excused himself and went to smoke a cigarette. There were people at one end of the corridor, holding plastic basins filled with clothes. They were carrying their laundry to the public laundry room the hotel manager had shown him-a long concrete groove with a number of faucets. There was no such thing as a washing machine around here. He walked to a window at the other end. Next to it was a door opening to a flight of steps, which led to a small concrete platform, a part of the flat roof. There a young woman was busy hanging her wet clothes on the clothesline. Wearing a slip with thin straps, bare legged and bare of foot, she looked like a gymnast ready to perform. A young man emerged from behind the clothes and embraced her in spite of the beads of water glistening on her shoulders. A couple on their honeymoon trip, Chen guessed, his eyes squinting from the cigarette smoke.

Most of the people here were not affluent and had to endure the inconveniences of a cheap hotel, but they were contented.

He wondered whether he had done the right thing for Wen.

Was Wen going to have a good life with Feng in that faraway country? She knew the answer. That’s why she had chosen to stay in Suzhou. With the best years of her life already wasted in the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath, Wen was trying to hang on to the last remnant of her dreams by staying here with Liu.

What had he done? A cop was not paid to be compassionate.

Some unexpected lines came to him as he stared out of the window…

“What are you thinking about?” Inspector Rohn came to his side by the window.

“Nothing.” He was upset. But for their interference, Wen might have stayed on with Liu, though he knew it was not fair to blame Inspector Rohn. “We have done our job.”

“We’ve done our job,” she repeated. “To be exact, you have done it. A wonderful job, I have to say.”

“A wonderful job indeed.” He ground out the cigarette on the windowsill.

“What did you say to Liu in his study?” she asked, touching his hand lightly. She must have sensed the change in his mood. “It couldn’t have been easy for you to bring him around.”

“There are so many perspectives from which we can look at one and the same thing. I merely provided another perspective for him.”

“A political perspective?”

“No, Inspector Rohn. Not everything is political here.” He noticed the young couple staring at them from the roof. From their perspective, what would they think of the two of them, a Chinese man and an American woman standing by the window? He changed the subject. “Oh, sorry about turning down the dinner invitation. It would have been a sumptuous dinner, I imagine. Loads of toasts to friendship between China and the United States. I was not in the mood.”

“You made the right choice. Now we have a chance to take a walk in a Suzhou garden.”

“You want to go to a garden?”

“I have not visited a single one yet,” she said. “If we have to wait, let us wait in a garden.”

“Good idea. Let me make one more phone call.”

“Fine, I’ll take a few pictures of the hotel out front.”

He dialed Gu’s number. Now that they were about to leave Suzhou, it should be safe for him to make a call to Gu in Shanghai.

“Where are you, Chief Inspector Chen?” Gu sounded genuinely anxious. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

“I’m on my way to another city, Gu. Is there anything you want to tell me?”

“Some people are after you. You have to take care.”

“Who are those people?” Chen said.

“An international organization.”

“Tell me about them.”

“Their base is Hong Kong. I have not yet found out everything. It’s not convenient for me to talk at the moment, Chief Inspector Chen. Let’s discuss it when you come back, okay?”

“Okay.” At least it was not Internal Security.

Catherine was waiting for him in front of the hotel. She wanted to take a picture of him standing by the burnished bronze lion, his hand on its back. It did not feel like bronze. He examined it more closely, and found it was made of plastic, covered with gold paint.

Chapter 32

Chen was still in a dark mood, which soon proved to be infectious. Catherine was also subdued as they entered the Qing-style landscape of the Yi Garden.

There was something on his mind, she knew. A number of unanswered questions were on hers, too. Nevertheless, they had found Wen.

She did not want to raise those questions for the moment. And she felt uncomfortable for a different reason as she walked beside him in the garden. In the past few days, Chen had played the role of the cop in charge, always having something to say- about modernism, Confucianism, or communism. That afternoon, however, their roles had become reversed. She had taken the initiative. She wondered whether he resented her.

The garden was quiet. There were hardly any other visitors. Their footsteps made the only sound.

“Such a beautiful garden,” she said, “but it’s almost deserted.”

“It’s the time of the day.”

Dusk was beginning to envelop the garden path; the sun hung above the tilted eaves of the ancient stone pavilion like a stamp. They strolled through a gourd-shaped stone gate to a bamboo bridge where they saw several golden carp swimming in the clear, tranquil water.

“Your heart’s not in sightseeing, Chief Inspector Chen.”

“No. I’m enjoying every minute of it-in your company.”

“You don’t have to say that.”

“You’re not a fish,” he said. “How do you know what a fish feels?”

They came to another small bridge, across which they saw a teahouse with vermilion posts, and with a large black Chinese character for “Tea” embroidered on a yellow silk pennant streaming in the breeze. There was an arrangement of strange-shaped rocks in front of the teahouse.

“Shall we go there?” she suggested.

The teahouse might have served as an official reception hall in the original architect’s design, spacious, elegant, yet gloomy. The light filtered through the stained-glass windows. High on the wall was a horizontal board inscribed with Chinese characters: Return of Spring. By a lacquer screen in the corner, an old woman standing at a glass counter gave them a bamboo-covered thermos bottle, two cups with green tea leaves, a box of dried tofu braised in soy sauce, and a box of greenish cakes. “If you need more water, you can refill the bottle here.”

There were no other customers. Nor any service after they seated themselves at a mahogany table. The old woman disappeared behind the screen.

The tea was excellent. Perhaps because of the tea leaves, perhaps because of the water, or perhaps because of the peaceful atmosphere. The dried tofu, rich in a spicy brown sauce, also tasted good, but the green cake was more palatable, sweet with an unusual flavor she had never tasted before.

“This is a wonderful dinner for me,” she said, a tiny tea leaf between her lips.

“For me too,” he said, adding water into her cup. “In the Chinese way of drinking tea, the first cup is not supposed to be the best. Its taste comes out in a natural way in the second or the third cup. That’s why the teahouse gives you the thermos bottle, so you can enjoy the tea at your leisure while you view the garden.”