EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, Chen woke up with a terrible headache.
He made a pot of strong coffee and gulped down two cups for breakfast-nothing else. His headache did not improve.
No ideas came to him for the paper or for the case.
But another special delivery came from the police bureau, including a report from Hong about her decoy activities as a dancing girl.
So he brewed a second pot. He also devoured a handful of Korean ginseng pills with the coffee and smoked a cigarette.
Shortly afterward, he felt sick and shaky and broke into a cold sweat.
He was seized by an overwhelming impulse to do irrational things-to kick the wall, to howl like an owl, to smash, to shout the politically blasphemous.
Sweating, stuffing a fist into his mouth like battling a toothache, he hurried to lock the door before swallowing a couple of sleeping pills and slumping across the bed.
He awoke later to find himself a scared scarecrow. A nervous breakdown, he thought, recalling T. S. Eliot’s collapse in Switzerland. He was shaken by the realization.
What if an irrational compulsion gripped him again? Fortunately he was at home now, but there was no telling where he’d be the next time. It would be a disaster if he were caught going crazy like that in public.
He searched through the medicine cabinet without finding anything else, imagining himself the hollow man in Eliot’s poem.
Around nine, when White Cloud called, making a routine report about her computer search, he had hardly the strength to talk.
“Don’t move,” she said with genuine worry in her voice. “I’m on my way.”
Half an hour later, she arrived and, to his surprise, she came with Gu, her former employer, the chairman of the New World Corporation. Gu carried a large plastic bag of Chinese herbal supplements.
Ever since they had met in another homicide case, the resourceful entrepreneur had proclaimed himself a friend of the chief inspector. A connection like Chen could be valuable to his business, but Gu had also helped Chen in his way.
“You need a vacation, Chief Inspector Chen,” Gu declared. “A vacation at the Ting Mount and Lake Vacation Village. You are going there today. I’ll make the arrangements.”
Gu had invested in a number of properties, including the well-known vacation village along the border between Shanghai and Zhejiang Province.
It was a tempting suggestion. For the last few days, Chen had been worn out by the pressure from the housing development case, from the mandarin dress case, from the politics inside and outside the bureau, and in addition to all that, from the paper deconstructing classical love stories. A short vacation might help.
“Thank you, Mr. Gu,” he said. “I owe you one.”
“What is a friend for, Chief?” Gu said, “I’ll send a car for you.”
“I could also serve as your health secretary there,” White Cloud said with a knowing smile. “You definitely need a break.”
“Thank you for everything, White Cloud. I think I just need a couple of days for myself. But if there is anything you can do for me, I’ll contact you.”
“Make yourself available for him whenever he needs, White Cloud,” Gu said. “Let me know.”
White Cloud had previously worked as a singing girl for Gu, and then later for Chen as a “little secretary” paid by Gu. That was probably all there was to it-Gu wasn’t suggesting anything improper.
After the arrangements were made, Gu and White Cloud left. Chen started packing. For a quick recovery, he knew he’d better forget about all his worries and responsibilities while on vacation. Still, if he felt better there, he might try to finish his paper. So he decided to carry with him a couple of Confucian classics for the conclusion of the paper. This was probably his last chance, he thought, to strive for a different “self-realization.” It would be too easy for him to turn back into Chief Inspector Chen.
He put a packet of sleeping pills in his wallet, hiding them beneath the picture of White Cloud wearing that mandarin dress in the Old City God’s Temple Market. It would look natural for him to check a girl’s picture occasionally. But he needed to reassure himself that the tranquilizers were there, available through her smile.
He was not going to carry the cell phone with him, or his vacation would come to nothing. He should be able not to be a chief inspector for a couple of days. Besides, he couldn’t do anything as a cop right now. His psychological approach was going nowhere.
When the car Gu had sent for him honked its horn under his window, however, he stuffed in his bags the folders containing the case files, almost mechanically.
In the Mercedes, Chen borrowed a phone from the driver to call his mother, saying that he would be out of the city for a few days. She must have taken it for one of those mysterious assignments, and she did not even ask him where he was going.
Afterward, he contacted White Cloud, asking her to call his mother from time to time, insisting that she reveal his whereabouts to no one.
Ahead, the fleeing clouds revealed the lines of the distant hills.