Scratching the Head of Chairman Mao. Jonathan Tel

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      Qin sighs. Where did he go wrong? What else could he have done? Now if he’d had longer with Nie, taken him out for a drink, told him stories of other middle-ranking officials whom he’d helped with their financial worries. . . . He can only hope he’ll encounter him again; in his experience of business relationships, they are often like a series of seemingly independent stories that turns out in the end to make up one grand narrative.

      He checks his phone. Messages from his secretary and his lawyer and business contacts. . . . He dispatches a dozen carefully worded replies. He was a child during the Cultural Revolution; he remembers orations and anthems and chants, extravagant praise swerving into fiery denunciation. Stability is not the natural state of things, he has learned, we strive to maintain it. Also a voicemail from his wife; nothing from his daughter. He calls his daughter, and gets only the answering beep. “Xiaxia, this is Daddy. I’m at the airport, about to fly home. Where are you? I love you.”

      *

      Remember me? No, that won’t do. Or: I came all this way to see you. Definitely not. Qin puzzles how best to phrase it. It’s not quite the case that he came just for this—he arranged to do business in the provincial capital the previous day—but he’s here on the hunt. In honor of the Mid-Autumn Festival, a celebration is taking place in the main square in Nie’s city. A troupe of middle-aged women in orange uniform are banging cymbals and marching in a circle. A carrion crow on a lamppost rocks to the beat. The master of ceremonies barks into his microphone. On the stage, four sturdy girls stand in a row. Three smaller girls climb on top, balancing on the shoulders of those beneath. And now a pair of petite girls in tutus, identical twins, ascends to the very apex. The twins hoist a national flag between them. Their grin stands for determination overcoming fear. The crow flaps to a ginkgo tree, which sheds yellow leaves. The human pyramid presents itself as a perspective drawing: the twins might be full-size women, high up and far away. While the crowd is applauding Qin throws his cigarette on the ground. He glances from side to side. Their father must be here. On Nie’s homepage he was boasting about this performance for weeks. You look familiar. Haven’t I seen you before? No, that won’t do either.

      But in the end it is Nie who notices him first. “Ah, what a pleasure!” He turns to the woman next to him, the perky big-eyed type, “Mr. Qin is a businessman from Beijing. We met in Qingdao. Didn’t I tell you about him?”

      Qin shakes hands with Nie and with his wife. On his home turf Nie is more confident. He seems to have forgotten the disagreeable element of their last meeting; he has a selective memory, as we all do. He is proud to show off his connection with an important person from the capital. And he doesn’t seem surprised at Qin’s presence here either, as if taking it for granted that the whole world passes through this city, sooner or later.

      Qin sticks fairly close to the truth. “I was in the vicinity, and I noticed on the civic website that your lovely girls would be performing. How could I fail to view them?” He leans close to the wife and murmurs, “I understand you’re a direct descendant of Confucius.”

      She gazes past the visitor’s shoulder. “Our city is famous for its moon cakes.” She goes to make sure her daughters put on their coats.

      The sun peeks through the clouds, along with a touch of rain. Qin says, “Would you like a Zhongnanhai? They have such a rich aroma.” The men retreat under an awning to smoke. All around them, citizens are meeting up and gossiping in hearty voices. The microphone blurts intermittently. On the stage, men and women in quaint costumes are taking part in a traditional dance associated with the region, and musicians play, and here and there in the square young couples dance in their own various manners.

      The men face each other. “What an excellent performance! Your twins reached the sky!”

      “Indeed, they reached the sky. Does your daughter perform gymnastics too?”

      “My daughter has many talents.”

      Their smoke gathers between them.

      Nie takes off his glasses in order to rub his eyes.

      “Are your eyes sore?” Qin says.

      “My eyes are a little sore.”

      “Sometimes I suffer from allergies myself.”

      “I’m thinking of having the operation, where they cut your eyes with a laser, but a friend of mine had it done, and his eyesight actually got worse.”

      “I also am considering the operation.” A white lie—for the operation helps only with myopia. Qin is astigmatic in his right eye and slightly presbyopic in his left; without glasses, winking, he can see what’s going on in the distance. He rubs his better eye, to keep Nie company.

      The scene shimmers and distorts. Qin can see only Nie, Nie only Qin; there is nothing but the two of them, surrounded by chaos.

      The band plays on, and feet beat on the resonant earth, and there are stray words from many conversations and a roar that might be an airplane passing over.

      Nie puts his glasses on, and his complicated world snaps back. His wife returns with the excited twins.

      Qin makes an effort to focus. He holds himself with care, like an alcoholic taking pains to pass for sober. “I’m staying at the White Swan Hotel, Accountant Nie. Perhaps you could come round for a drink later? Waah you’re so pretty! And you too! You’re hardworking and talented! How you honor your parents!”

      The twins hug their mother’s hips; she pats their heads, and their father too crouches to congratulate them; the family is a callisthenic display in its own right. The outsider is like that giant whose legs were taken to be tree trunks, too massive to be visible.

      There is a long wait for the toilets. Qin flashes a document with an impressive-looking stamp, and jumps to the front of the line. The air freshener implies an evergreen forest, and Tchaikovsky is piped in. Afterward he admires himself in the mirror. He is not physically vain. He knows his face is sucked-in and not quite symmetrical, as if a drawstring were tugged too hard. He was born in the Year of the Tiger, and there is a tigerish pattern of wrinkles on his forehead like the character for “king”: . He can use his appearance to serve his interests: to cow an opponent, and to charm; a touch of hideousness adds piquancy, like vinegar in the soup.

      That evening, in the hotel bar, the men drink scotch. The bartender presses on them a brand with a purple and gold label, but Qin insists on Glenfiddich. He assures Nie he’s done similar deals before, with many clients in many provinces, and everything has always gone smoothly. (Not quite true. One of his clients was fired. Another was very nearly arrested, and Qin had to pay to hush it up. A third is in jail, but that was on account of a separate embezzlement, unrelated to Qin’s activities.)

      And consider the twins’ future! Nie owes it to them to broaden his horizons!

      The fundamental idea is straightforward. In any organization there is always cash that needs to be invested on a short-term basis. Naturally the interest paid would be low, let’s say 2%. And often it’s necessary to borrow money on a short-term basis too, at quite a high rate, let’s say 12%. Now, if Nie were to arrange for the municipal authorities to borrow a million yuan from an investment company controlled by Qin, and to deposit a million yuan into another investment company controlled by Qin, why that’s a profit of 100,000 yuan right there, to be split between them 70–30! Of course, that’s only illustrative: the actual deal would be much more complex, hard to audit; irregular СКАЧАТЬ