OUTSIDE, TWILIGHT HAD BEGUN to fall. It was the time when the city unwound its springs. Children had gone home following an afternoon of playing cards or football on street curbs. Dinner tables were being laid. From half-opened kitchen windows, one could smell the sweet summons of grandmothers’ cooking.
It was the best time to call someone.
“Oh, Mei!” exclaimed Auntie Chen when she picked up the phone. “My poor child.” She sighed. “I hope you’re not too worried. Your uncle Chen has just come back from the hospital. Your mother seems to be doing all right. Keep your heart open wide, okay?”
Uncle Chen came on the line. He gave Mei an update on her mother’s condition.
“Thank you for going to see her,” she said. “I hope to go there tomorrow.”
“Don’t worry. How was your meeting with Pu Yan?” Uncle Chen lowered his voice. “Have you found out anything?”
“That’s exactly why I’m calling,” Mei said. “I went to the Liulichang antiques market, since Pu Yan had heard that the bowl had been sold to a dealer there. I spoke to someone who remembered the man trying to sell it. He was from Luoyang, as you suspected. But all I could get was a description.
“The dealer is called Big Papa Wu, and he is particularly nasty. I trailed him to Lufthansa Center, where he met someone. Unfortunately, I couldn’t follow them. But I copied down the license plate of the car, and I’ve asked a friend at the Motor Vehicle Bureau to run it through their system. I suspect our man from Luoyang is still in Beijing. Pu Yan said the ceremonial bowl might have fetched forty thousand yuan. That’s a lot of money. Why leave Beijing without sampling the high life?”
“But how are you going to find him? There are ten million people in Beijing.” Uncle Chen sounded worried.
“I’ll go back to the beginning—the Beijing West train station. Can you find me a Guanxi into the station? The higher his position, the better.”
“When do you want to go?”
“Tonight. We’d better hurry. I think we have disturbed the grass. The snakes are scared.”
“Let me make a few phone calls,” said Uncle Chen. “Where are you?”
“In my office.”
“I’ll call you back.”
Half an hour later, the call came. Mei wrote down the information on a piece of paper that she then folded and tucked into her wallet. She put her wallet, a bottle of pepper spray, and a small flashlight in a black nylon handbag. She made sure her cell phone was sufficiently charged. Then she tossed the handbag over her shoulder and walked out.
The wind had died down. The clouds thickened, huddled together like a cozy blanket. Lights came on, illuminating the Beijing West train station, a new building in the shape of an ancient city gate with four pagoda towers. In front of it, people sat on their luggage and waited for buses. Food vendors walked through the crowd shouting, “Hungry? Eat hot meat buns!”
Inside the station, fresh faces and excited eyes marveled at the gleaming decor. There was a constant stream of announcements from loudspeakers, telling of departures, delays, lost children and adults. Migrant workers were running everywhere, sacks over their shoulders. Families huddled together in white waiting rooms, sharing paper-box dinners of stir-fry on rice. Others slept, stretched out like corpses on the long benches.
Mei stopped outside the stationmaster’s office. A sign on the door read: NO DRIFTERS. She pushed the door open. Inside, she counted eight people sitting on a couple of benches by the wall. Mei walked up to the young woman behind the desk and asked to see the stationmaster.
“Do you want to make a complaint?” The woman pushed a glossy magazine to one side and opened her thick eyelids wide. “Fill out a form and wait over there.”
“No, it’s a private matter,” said Mei.
The woman looked at Mei, rolling her eyes. “What kind of private matter?” Her voice was less curt.
Mei leaned over the desk. “Please tell him that I am a friend of Mr. Rong Felin of the Railway Bureau.”
The woman stood up and disappeared through the door behind her desk. Soon Mei heard a chair moving. The door reopened, and a stout man in a gray and red railway uniform stepped forward to greet her. His eager smile arrived before his hand. “Please come in,” he said. They shook hands.
“I’m Wang Mei,” she said.
“My name is Li Gou. I am the deputy stationmaster. The stationmaster has gone home. How can I help?” He had a mouthful of brown teeth. “Xiao Yang,” he said to the woman from the desk, “tea.”
Xiao Yang nodded and left.
“Please, do sit down. What a terrible day, suddenly cold again.” Mr. Li pulled up a chair to sit near Mei. “How is Comrade Rong these days? I used to work for him. Well, not directly. It was when he was the stationmaster at Beijing Station and I was one of his passenger managers. Then Comrade Rong was promoted to the Railway Bureau. I don’t know whether he would remember me. Before I came here, I ran the Beijing-to-Guangdong line.”
Mei smiled and said nothing.
“Well, well.” He showed his teeth to Mei again, smoothing down his uniform. “Let’s talk about what it is you need.”
“I am looking for a man who came to Beijing from Luoyang two weeks ago. He might have stored something of worth in your Valuable Item Deposit. I’d like to see the records.”
“Of course,” said Mr. Li. He got up and went behind his desk to consult his records.
Xiao Yang brought in tea. She poured a cup for Mr. Li and another for Mei, then left.
Mr. Li opened a large notebook and ran his finger across and down the pages. Finding the page he wanted, he said, “The duty supervisor at luggage deposit tonight is…eh…Tang Yi. I’ll ask Xiao Yang to take you there.”
He picked up his teacup and came back to sit by Mei. “I am afraid the person who did the check-in might not be there tonight. There are usually two shifts, one in the morning and one in the evening. I am not sure exactly how they run the shifts over there. Sometimes they switch people around. Tang Yi can give you the details.”
“Could I go there now?” asked Mei, leaving her tea untouched.
“Of course, as you wish,” said Mr. Li, standing up.
“I will tell Comrade Rong that you have been helpful,” Mei said.
“Thank you. If I can be of any further assistance, just let me know.” The brown teeth were exposed in a grin.
Mei followed Xiao Yang to the luggage deposit. A small crowd had formed in front of the counter; it was hard to judge where the end of the line was or whether there had even been one. Two identical-looking women wearing carelessly buttoned uniforms steered the mob with as little talking or eye contact as possible. They snapped at their customers like anxious cats. They were at the end of their shifts.
“Didn’t I tell you to go to the side? I don’t need your identity card now. First fill out the form!” yelled the older of the twins.
Xiao Yang went up to the woman, asked for the supervisor, and was told that he was in the back.
Mr. Tang jumped up when Xiao Yang and Mei entered. He tried to extinguish his cigarette with one hand and put on his cap with the other. “Xiao Yang, what wind has blown you over my way?” His smile was wide.
“Miss Wang is from the Railway Bureau,” Xiao Yang said frostily. “She needs to see your records. Stationmaster Li asks you to assist her as best you can, and he wants to know how it works out.”
She then said a friendly goodbye to Mei.
Mr. Tang’s eyes rolled as they followed Xiao Yang out of the door. He tossed his railway cap back on the desk and lit another cigarette. He wasn’t keen to help Mei or anyone. He was obviously cross that his boss had burdened him with such a tiresome task. His face was pale, and he looked as if he needed a drink. He leaned back on the edge of the desk, blowing smoke through his yellow fingers. “What are you looking for?”
“I’d like to see the records for your Valuable Item Deposit going back two weeks,” said Mei. “And then I’d like to speak with your workers.”
Mr. Tang sucked on his cigarette. He walked over to a cabinet and started pulling out files. “I keep only the last four weeks in this office,” he murmured, the cigarette dangling at the corner of his mouth. Thin smoke hung around him like a jealous lover. “The rest gets shipped out to the records department. You’d think these days few people have real valuables that they’d want to pay extra to leave with us. You’d be surprised. All kinds of junk gets stashed in here.”
Mr. Tang dumped a pile of paper on the desk in front of Mei. He then went back to his leaning, a new cigarette in his mouth.
Mei started to go through the records. People left all types of things in the Valuable Item Deposit—an urn, a sealed envelope, a small bundle wrapped in rough cloth, a live bird in a cage. They came from all over the country to leave a piece of their lives here: the paddy fields of the south, the icicle-covered forests of the northeast, the grassland and horses and mountains of the west. Some were from Luoyang, where the Silk Road began. Mei took those records out.
One of the halogen lights flickered. Mr. Tang picked up a broom from the corner and hit the bulb to no effect.
“Which department of the Bureau did you say you were from?” he asked.
“I didn’t,” said Mei.
Mr. Tang fell silent and stayed so for the next twenty minutes. Finally, Mei looked up and said, “Could you please ask one of your lady comrades to come and see me?”
Mr. Tang squeezed a little space in the ashtray and stubbed out his cigarette. He put on his cap and, with a loud bang of the door, went out.
Mei waited. After a long while, Mr. Tang returned with the younger of the twins. She was in her mid-twenties, not pretty but with lively eyes. Her cheeks were red after hours behind the counter and dry from the stale air of the station. She walked in briskly.
“How are you, Comrade Wang Mei?” Her voice was sharp. She held out her hand. “Old Tang told me that you are from the Bureau. I look after the Valuable Item Deposit. May I sit down?” She pulled a chair over and waited.
Mei turned to Mr. Tang. “Could you excuse us?”
He looked away. With thumb and index finger, he picked tobacco from his teeth.
“Please!” Mei ordered.
After a last puff on another cigarette, Mr. Tang threw the butt on the floor and ground it under his foot. He then took his hat and left the room.
“Do you remember this man—Zhang Hong?” Mei handed the other woman a sheet of paper. “It says here that he deposited a large wooden box on the first of April and collected it five days later. The box would have been at least this big.” Mei drew a rectangle with her hands. “I believe he was of strong build and medium height, and he had a scar above his left eye. He had a Henan accent.”
The young woman nodded and held Mei’s gaze. As she listened, she assumed the expression of someone searching through a long, winding tunnel of memory.
“He had something very valuable in that box. He may have been nervous or overexcited, acting out of the ordinary,” said Mei. “I think he would have come here around six in the evening to pick up the box. You run two trains to Hong Kong and Shenzhen every evening at about eight o’clock, don’t you?”
According to Mei’s calculation, that would have given him just enough time to complete the transaction and send the ceremonial bowl on the next train to Hong Kong region.
The woman frowned in thought, tilting her head to the side and closing her eyes. Mei imagined her silently remembering each day, combing through faces that had no meaning until now.
Mei went on, hoping something she had said or was about to say might stir the woman’s memory. “He had come to Beijing for the first time. He had a big plan. He had come to get rich. I’d guess he had a new wardrobe for the occasion—new shoes, new clothes, new haircut, new bags, the whole works.”
The woman opened her eyes. They were unfocused. They closed and opened again. Then she spoke. “I think I remember now. He had a big scar, like it was done by a machine.” She squinted. “Yes, he had on a new suit, but it looked cheap. He carried a leather toiletry bag, the way people from the provinces do.” She gave Mei a knowing smile. “I’ve worked on the railways for many years. It’s always the same.” Her thoughts had reached the end of the tunnel; lights were coming on. Her memory began to speed up. “They all try to look smart when they come to a big city like Beijing, with new hairdos and new clothes that are fashionable in their own cities. But they all end up looking like animals from the zoo. I can smell the dirt in them from a li away. So at first I didn’t pay attention to what’s his name—Zhang Hong.”
“But you did notice him.”
“Eventually, I did. Why? Yes, I remember it now. It was quite busy that evening. I told him that everybody was in a hurry and that he would have to wait in the back. He fidgeted and complained, sometimes about the service, sometimes about something else. I hate such people. Who are they to tell us that we don’t offer good service?
“I remember it now as clearly as if it happened yesterday. When I got the box out for him, he shouted at me with a heavy accent—possibly Henan, I don’t know—‘Careful, careful, terribly valuable.’
“They all think they’ve got this gold or that treasure, when in fact it’s not worth a dime. We get a lot of people like that coming through here. Do you know that our West Station is the largest in Asia? Sometimes there are three of us; sometimes, like today, just two. People don’t know what’s going on, they don’t understand or are too stupid, they are late and want their things. They curse and try to give us orders. We serve the people, but we are not servants.”
Her eyes glowed as she became more and more animated. “As I was saying, I got pretty angry. I put the box on the counter and asked him to sign the release. He went crazy, screaming, ‘Heavens, don’t slam it!’ I didn’t even put it down with a heavy hand. I’d had it up to here.” She lifted her right arm and hit her chin with the back of her hand. “So I told him to read the notice on the wall: DEPOSIT AT YOUR OWN RISK. THE WEST STATION IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGES.”
“What happened then?”
“Well, nothing. The person who was with him told him they had to go. So they took the box and left.”
Mei looked up. “He had a friend with him? Was he someone quite muscular with a crew cut?”
“No.” The woman shook her head. “It was a young girl.”
“A young girl?” Mei had not expected this. “What kind of girl? How old was she?”
“Maybe eighteen. You know, the kind with permed hair and a lot of makeup; a slut.”
“Was she a Beijinger?”
“If she had an accent, I didn’t notice it.”
Mei breathed deeply. She’d heard all she wanted to hear. “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful,” she said. “Keep what we’ve talked about to yourself, understand?”
“No sweat. It’s our duty to help comrades from the Bureau.” The woman got up and shook hands. Mei noticed that the woman’s hand was trembling with excitement.
After she left, Mr. Tang came back in. A cigarette was attached to his fingers like an additional limb. He studied Mei thoughtfully.
She said, “Thank you, Mr. Tang. I won’t trouble you any longer.” As she touched his bony yellow hand, Mei felt a chill in her spine.