Enigma of China(48)

He went back to the unfinished e-mail. It took longer than he expected to compose one to Comrade Zhao. He experienced a sense of relief when he finally sent it out.

Then he settled back to concentrate on the paperwork on his desk.

It was near four o’clock when he looked up again. The drizzle seemed to have continued off and on.

It could be a headache getting hold of a taxi on a rainy day, especially during rush hour. The Oriental Concert Hall was in Pudong, an area relatively new to him. He wasn’t sure if he could get there by subway or how bad the traffic would be. It would be better to leave early, he concluded, putting a paperback and a paper-wrapped heart-comforting cake into his shoulder bag.

He decided not to take the bureau car. It would be too much to have the driver wait there until the end of the concert, and he might also tell stories afterward. It took Chen more than forty minutes to get there by the subway, but it was still faster than he’d expected. When he emerged from the subway, the rain was finally easing off, with a suggestion of a rainbow stretching out against the dismal horizon.

To Chen, Pudong was almost like another city. The map he brought with him didn’t help much. Some of the streets and street names hadn’t existed when the map was printed about two years ago. The surrounding high-rises jostled together into an overwhelming oppression. At least, it felt that way to him. He looked up at the gray clouds sailing precariously among the concrete and steel skyscrapers.

He thought he might as well wander about a little, just like Granny Liu lost in the Grand View Garden in the Dream of the Red Chamber. But he soon got weary of bumping around aimlessly. He glanced at his watch again. There was still more than an hour before the concert.

He saw a small Internet café tucked in behind a construction site. Originally, it might have been a temporary place for the workers to take a short break. It would probably be pulled down once the high-rise was finished. It might not be a bad idea for him to check his e-mail here, he thought, before going on to the concert hall.

When he stepped up to the front desk, a young man asked him to show his ID.

“I just want to check my e-mail,” Chen said.

“It’s a new regulation just put into effect this month. It was under the strict orders of the city government, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Really!”

He produced his ID, and the young man recorded the ID number on a worn-out register before giving Chen another number.

“Fifty-one.”

That must refer to the computer assigned to him. He walked over to number 51, toward the end of a row of desks.

Chen recalled what he’d heard from others during the investigation. Apparently this new effort on the part of the government was another step in the ever-tightening control of the Internet. It was no surprise that such a regulation had gone into effect without his knowledge. Internet control, too, was beyond the domain of the police bureau.

He sat down at the computer and pressed the power button. A boy sitting next to him was noisily wolfing down a steaming bowl of instant beef noodles, his eyes still locked onto a game in a crisis as it played out across his screen.

Signing on to his account, Chen found among his incoming mail a reminder from Lianping about this evening’s concert. She was also still pushing him to write something for her from the point of view of an ordinary cop.

He then decided to check his Hotmail account, which he had acquired while visiting the United States as part of a delegation. Some of his friends in the States kept complaining about difficulties reaching him through his usual Sina e-mail account. He didn’t check the Hotmail regularly, but it was still early, and he had some time to kill.

But he had problems gaining access to the Hotmail account. An assistant came over, tried several times, but with no more success than Chen. Chen was ready to give up when the assistant pointed him to another computer.

“Try that one.”

Chen moved to the new one, which seemed to work better but was still mysteriously slow. After three or four minutes, he conceded defeat. He decided to do some research through Google instead but was again informed that he couldn’t have access to it.

Shaking his head, he switched back to his Sina account and retrieved a draft he’d saved.

Crumpling a rejection slip, I step back into my role / shadowed by the surrounding skyscrapers. / I try in vain to make the case reports yield / >a clue to the bell tolling over the city. / For all I know, what makes a cop makes me. / And I investigate through the small lanes / and side streets, the scenes once familiar / in my memories: a couple snuggling like / paper-cutouts on the door, a loner connecting / cigarettes into an antenna for the future, a granny / bending over a chamber pot in her bound feet / like a broken twig, a peddler hawking out of debris, / almost like a suspect… A sign DEMOLITION / deconstructs me. Nothing can avert the coming / of a bulldozer. It is not an easy task to push, / amidst the disappearing scene, the round to an end.