The old man, surnamed Rong, turned out to be a retired English teacher. The outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966 had cut short his teaching career, so he ended up coming to the park instead, and quietly offering help to the young people there who wanted to learn English. Mr. Rong readily took me on as another student.

  Mr. Rong made a point of talking with only one of his students at a time, wary of being caught teaching students in the park. His caution, as it seemed to me, was more than necessary and understandable.

  Back then, I thought I was in no hurry to share the bench with the girl. I knew the day would come, sooner or later, for me to speak to her in English. Still, it took me less than two months to finish the first volume of the College English textbook. Mr. Rong was impressed, coming to spend even more time with me than he did with her.

  The knowledge that she was sitting there nearby, learning from the same teacher, with an English textbook open on her lap, made it possible for me to progress in leaps and bounds. At times, I could not help casting a glance in her direction, marveling at the subtle changes in her under the morning light. In one moment, she appeared to be a bluestocking—I had just learned that English expression in the dictionary—nibbling thoughtfully at the top of a black pen, and the next moment a vivacious young Shanghai girl, curving her sandaled feet under her on the bench, occasionally blowing a bubble from the pink gum in her mouth, a light green jade charm dangling on a thin red string against her youthful bosom. Behind her bench, a European-style pavilion with a white verandah stood out in delightful relief.

  I thought she was probably like me, just another “waiting-for-recovery” educated youth, who could afford the time to come to the park practically every morning. And I believed that one day, in the near future, I would come to learn more and more about her—and to sit beside her on the same green bench.

  To my surprise, one morning at the beginning of September, she did not come to sit on the green bench as she usually did. I had been so used to the familiar scene of her sitting there. I did not think much of it—at least, not for the first two or three days. After all, it was not like being in school, where people had to appear every morning. Then a week passed without me seeing her step across the winding cobbled trail to the green bench. What could have happened to her? There was no way, however, for me to find out anything about her. I did not even know her name.

  I approached Mr. Rong for help, but he knew nothing about her disappearance, and he didn’t even know her address. Mr. Rong thought her home might be somewhere close to the park in Hongkou District, but that was about all he could tell me.

  Once again, the tai chi group from my neighborhood was eager to offer all sorts of interpretations about her mysterious evaporation into the thin morning air. Waving a cigarette like a magician’s wand, Yingchang predicted that I would now return to the tai chi group, crestfallen.

  But I was determined to carry on with my English studies as before, though I found myself glancing up from my second volume of the College English textbook from time to time, to look over at the unoccupied green bench.

  Days, weeks, and months passed. I still failed to catch any signs of her. The river kept flowing on, white gulls hovering above the somber waves, their wings flashing against the gray light, as if struggling to soar out of a half-fading dream.

  More than once, I did not leave the park until the dividing line between the Huangpu and the Suzhou Rivers grew invisible in the enveloping dusk. I threw myself even more energetically than before into the world of English.

  I believed that one day she would come back, to find me still sitting there in the park, on the green bench close to hers. And we would speak to each other, first in English, and then in Chinese. And I would finally find out her name, both in English and in Chinese.

  In the meantime, the members of the tai chi group led by Yingchang began to drop out, one by one, like yellow leaves twirling, falling with the arrival of the autumn wind. Yingchang himself quit too, without giving a reason. None of them had turned into a martial arts master.

  I was the only one left behind, alone, in the park, where I started studying the third volume of the College English. Mr. Rong, too, appeared less and less frequently there because of his high blood pressure. This didn’t pose a problem to me, though. By this point, I was able to continue studying English by myself.

  Soon, I started reading English novels, with a Chinese–English dictionary lying beside me on the bench. Those romantic stories reminded me of a scene I had repeatedly imagined in my mind’s eye—sitting with her on a green bench under the still-verdant willow shoots.

  American President Nixon’s visit to China in 1972 made a dramatic difference to me. After his visit, I did not have to cover my book gingerly with a red plastic cover as I had before. Radio Shanghai even launched a new English study program, though at the beginning of the program, it made a point of broadcasting a red song: “The east wind blowing, the battle drum beating, in today’s world, who’s afraid of who? It’s not the Chinese people afraid of the American imperialists, but the American imperialists afraid of the Chinese people.”

  One afternoon, carrying a copy of an English novel in my hand, I mounted a flight of concrete steps up to the newly built River Watching Pavilion. Underneath the pavilion, I noticed a white-haired-and-bearded man wearing a white silk martial arts costume with loose sleeves and red silk buttons, leisurely practicing tai chi on the bank. He moved in perfect harmony with the qi of the universe, striking a series of poses, the names of which I still remembered: grasping a bird’s tail, spreading a white crane’s wings, parting a wild horse’s mane on both sides …

  Would I have ever turned into such a master had I persisted in practicing tai chi? I wondered, breathing in the familiar tangy air from the waterfront, shaking my head.

  Things that could have been and things that have been,

  invariably point to the present reality.

  I had started reading poems in English too, and two philosophical lines written by T.S. Eliot came to mind. For me, they pointed to the present moment. I could not afford to let it escape from my grasp. I might not have memorized the lines too accurately, though.

  Standing on the pavilion, I reopened the book in my hand. It was an English novel titled Random Harvest, a romantic story set in a period of absurdities, cruelties, and uncertainties between the two world wars. The book contained a number of words I did not quite understand. Still, I was managing to follow the storyline with the help of the dictionary. Yingchang had told me that Random Harvest had been made into a movie. The Chinese version was called The Dream of Reunited Mandarin Ducks. The water birds are symbolic of inseparable lovers in classical Chinese literature.

  By the time I’d reached the end of the novel, a fitful wind began quickly turning the pages for me. The pavilion had turned out to be too windy; it was not an ideal place for me to read. I closed the book and moved to the concrete staircase. Glancing over my shoulder, I suddenly saw her again—still in her pink sweater, sitting on the same bench, the evergreen bush behind her trembling in a breeze …

  The morning comes in the arms

  of the Bund, her hair dew-sparkled—

  But it proved to be another young girl sitting on another green bench under a weeping willow tree. She was carrying a genuine Chinese Little Red Book in her hand and holding a pen between her lips. More likely than not, she was in serious preparation for a political speech.

  Stepping down from the concrete pavilion, I thought of the ending of Random Harvest, in which the lovers finally have their reunion. Paula runs down the hill toward Smithy, shouting his name and hoping that it’s not too late for them.

  At that moment, I prayed that I, too, would one day find myself running down a hill, reaching my arms toward the girl, as in that sentimental fiction.

  After he’d finished reading the first part of The Same River, Chen tried to guess why X had become embroiled in his present political trouble.

  Chen supposed it was related to the story X had told at the last Red Dust Evening Talk, but as soon as he’d thought of that, a problem immediately popped up in his mind. The story of the romantic affair between General Cai and a courtesan had already been a heated topic online for a while now. If the net cops, for some unclear reason, had wanted to punish the people who’d started spreading the story, they would not have targeted X.

  A number of other possible scenarios tumbled into Chen’s mind.

  One possibility was that an audience member could have made a “secret report” to the government authorities about the contents of X’s narration. In the past, secret reporters were generally looked down upon, but in the current CCP discourse, they were actually encouraged. After all, they had to prove their absolute loyalty to the CCP or the current emperor in the Forbidden City.

  Another possibility was because of X’s past with his “anti-Party activities” in 1989. X must have been put under special surveillance over the years, and perhaps in today’s China he had turned into someone far more suspect.

  Again, an unexpected feeling of déjà vu gripped him. It reminded former Chief Inspector Chen of a lot of things that might have happened to him over those years too.

  Staring up at the shifting patterns on the ceiling, trying not to fall asleep, Chen wondered whether he had turned into X or if X had turned into him, his imagination wandering between the world of Bund Park with X in the background, and then seeing himself with a similar background. It was probably because he had been reading the memoir Mei had given him in the café.

  Before he went to bed, the former chief inspector finally made a late-night phone call to Four-eyed Zhang in Red Dust Lane.

  DAY 3

  “Reminiscences of the Red Cliff”

  Su Shi (1037–1101)

  East flows the long, great river,

  all the celebrated names rising and falling

  through waves upon waves for thousands

  of years. West of the ancient rampart,

  is the fabled Red Cliff,

  known for General Zhou’s battle there

  during the Three Kingdom period.

  Jagged rocks piercing the skies,

  furious breaking waves banging the banks

  as if thousands of snow drifts are piling up.

  The scene appears so spectacular,

  that it brings numerous heroes

  to the fore at that moment.

  I imagine how, long, long ago,

  General Zhou in his days, newly wed with Little Qiao,

  looked so handsome and valiant,

  wearing a silk hood, waving a feather fan.

  In the midst of his laughter and conversation,

  the mighty enemy fleet vanished,

  in the smoke and ash.

  Lost in my reminiscences

  about this ancient land,

  ridiculously sentimental, I

  find my temples turning gray too early.

  Oh, life is just like a dream.

  I pour a goblet of wine

  “The Open Country and the Sea”

  Chen Cao

  I would not be the exquisite ring on your finger,

  nor the fantastic seaweed-mantled obsidian you’d lean on.

  So I shaped you into a delicate vase with my eyes,

  and in your mouth placed fresh carnations.

  Simply because of your white graceful neck,

  I’d captured the color of dreams, the shape of wakefulness.

  One morning, I found that I had turned to water,

  with neither motion nor gesture nor expression.

  “Now that it smells,” you asked me, “shouldn’t we change it?”

  In the night you dreamed of open country, I of the sea.

  Awake in the first rays of the morning light, Chen could hardly resist the temptation of reading the next installment of the memoir X had sent to Mei. What had happened to Mei and X?

  Still sleepy-eyed, Chen glanced at the clock on his phone and found that it was only seven thirty. He thought about picking up the second memoir from the night stand when the phone started ringing.

  The call was from Jin, his secretary in the Shanghai Judicial System Reform Office.

  He answered, and her voice wafted softly out of the phone.

  “I need to report to you about our office work, Director Chen. And I also have to bring you some important documents from the city government and other higher authorities. They’re marked urgent.”

  With Chen still on convalescent leave, it sounded like a fairly acceptable reason for her to visit him at his home.

  “I’m so sorry to say, Jin, that this morning I may have to go out somewhere,” Chen said, though, worrying about her frequent visits to his home. It could land her in political trouble. “How about tomorrow morning?”

  “Where are you going this morning, Director Chen? I’m not far from your home right now.”

  Jin could be stubborn. He knew that only too well. She was just using the office work as an excuse to see him. They both knew it.

  “Well—” Chen said, getting a new idea. “If that’s the case, I think I have time to talk to you about our office work first.”

  He got up in a hurry, straightened up the room, and poured water into a kettle.

  Less than five minutes later, a light knock was heard on his door.

  He opened the door to see Jin standing there, a radiant smile breaking out on her face, as if holding a bunch of peach blossoms in her arms. She also carried a plastic bag containing two small plastic carry-out boxes.

  “Your favorite fried mini pork buns, Director Chen.”

  He could not help recalling the day when he had first learned about a serial murder case he’d been asked to investigate. In the midst of the Covid pandemic, with the whole city locked down under the government’s zero-Covid policy, with millions of people dying with the virus or perishing miserably as collateral damage, she had come to him just like this, carrying the fried mini pork buns she had bought from a street corner peddler, still sizzling hot.

  She changed into slippers on the doormat and then, leaving the fried mini pork buns on the table, she wrapped a hyacinth-embroidered apron around her slender waist. She appeared just like a virtuous Shanghai wife returning home.

  Jin was going to do the housework for him. The embroidery design on the apron, however, reminded him of something he had recently seen. But where, he kept wondering.

  As an office secretary officially assigned to Chen, Jin did not have to do all this for him—whether he was on convalescent leave or not. Still, there was nothing too suspicious about the way she visited his apartment, helping to wash the vegetables piled up in the sink, to clean up the room, and even to cook in the kitchen.

  It could have been all expected of a little “sextary”—which she was not.

  “You don’t have to come all the way over here to help me with these chores, Jin.”

  “You don’t have to say that to me. Whatever I can do to help, Director Chen, let me know,” she said, looking over her shoulder, pouring a tiny cup of blue detergent over the dirty dishes in the sink.

  “Well, as it happens, there’s one thing I may need your help with. It’s not related to our office work, though.”

  “Go ahead and tell me.”

  “I may have told you something about a lane I often visited in my childhood. Red Dust Lane.”

  “Red Dust Lane? Right. Of course I remember it. Isn’t the lane being demolished in the waves of urban development?”

  “Yes, that’s the very lane.”

  “It’s also the same lane where you did the investigation during the Covid pandemic?”

  “You’re right about that. Have you heard anything new or out of the ordinary about the lane of late, Jin?”

  “Any new developments regarding the serial murder case there, you mean? But that happened two years ago.”

  “No, it’s nothing to do with that case. I’ve just heard that there are some improvements in the relocation compensation policy. It’s the government now, instead of the developers, that calculates the compensation amount. They claim that the new way is fairer, and also more transparent. It’s possibly related to the reform of the judicial system.”

  Jin was a clever girl who would be able to catch the suggestion of sarcasm in his comment.

  “So I want you to do a blanket search online for the latest developments in the lane. Not just about the relocation compensation policy, but anything—everything you think you need to report to me. Especially anything that’s happened in the last two or three weeks. Things like the ‘evening talk’ of the lane, and questions regarding whether that time-honored tradition should continue.”

  “Got it, my boss. I’m going to search for information about the lane right now.” Jin then added in haste, “Oh, I bought a new SIM card for you. It’s under my father’s name.”

  Jin’s youthful figure retreated out of his apartment. After he’d closed the door behind her, Chen immediately placed the SIM card she had brought him into his phone. In China, people had to buy the cards through the real-name registration system—with two cards maximum per person—so that the government could more effectively keep people under surveillance.

  Shaking his head, he tried dialing Old Hunter’s confidential number, but the private investigator did not pick up the call.

  Chen looked up at the clock on the wall. It was nine forty-five. He was thinking about reading the second memoir Mei had given him when the phone started ringing again. It was Old Hunter calling back.

  “Oh, Old Hunter, it’s Chen here. This is my new number. I was just missing your way of singing the Suzhou opera. Anything new from your side?”

  “I have been in touch with a retired old cop surnamed Wang, Director Chen. He has worked for seven or eight years as a neighborhood cop in Huangpu District, which covers Red Dust Lane. From time to time, Wang goes back to the lane. The neighborhood committee continues to respect him highly because of his connections. According to Wang, the local neighborhood cops are too busy with a new tax campaign right now to—”