A Map for the Missing(35)
After that, there’d been weeks of a silent holding pattern. She’d thought that perhaps Guifan was right, that hope was enough to make the men disappear. But then, on the eve of Yitian’s arrival, Guifan had announced wearily to her one morning, “The CEO of the Li Corporation is coming to town next week, and he wants to invite us to dinner.”
Twelve
She could tell that Guifan was already drunk by the time a demure waitress led her to the private dining room. To anyone else, he would have looked exactly the same as always. He had the type of unremarkable features that inspired confidence in others and in Hanwen, which she thought was the reason for his quick ascent within the Party. You looked at that angular face, the suggestion of economy and concern in the wrinkles that had slowly formed on his broad forehead, and thought immediately that he was a practical person you could trust, who wouldn’t reveal your secrets. And in fact, he never did. Even when she’d first met him thirteen years ago, he gave off the considered expression of a person much older than he was. But tonight, when she entered the room, his jaw was already slightly slack, his gaze occasionally blurring out of focus before snapping into the room again, resisting the alcohol’s pull upon his attention. At moments, his eyes seemed to catch on the glittering chandelier that loomed above the room.
She wished that, for once, he didn’t have to be so stoic and composed. She could see her husband through others’ eyes, as someone trying to prove his drinking abilities to the table. If he could just pretend to be a more outlandish drunk, they’d stop forcing shots upon him. But such guile was not in his personality.
“Welcome, welcome!” Li Tuan bellowed at her from across the wide circumference of the table. “We’ve been waiting for you all night.” She recognized him from the newspapers as the president of the Li Corporation. She’d seen his face in the tabloid section, when there’d been a recent rumor that he was having an affair with a young European movie star.
A single open seat to the right of Li Tuan had clearly been left for her. Guifan was seated closer to the door, at a position of lower honor. The dining room was beautiful, she had to admit. Behind Li Tuan, a misty watercolor of mountains and lakes spanned an entire wall. The table and cabinets appeared to be of delicately carved rosewood.
Li Tuan introduced the other members of the table, skipping over Mr. Qian. She nodded at the introductions and said, “Very pleased to make your acquaintance,” though she already recognized them all. For the past month, she’d read all she could find about the corporation in old newspapers, hoping that somewhere she would stumble upon some detail of the company’s imminent collapse. Instead, all the articles described its developments in cities all around China and speculated that it was certainly poised for even greater growth in the years to come, one of the country’s prime jewels.
Li Tuan addressed the table. “I’ve only been to Hefei once before, when I was a very young child. It felt like some country backwater back then. I wasn’t sure why they wanted to build in this city at first, but now that I’m here, I can understand. There’s so much open land around here. So much potential for development.”
Hanwen began, “Yes, it’s already different from when we first—”
“That’s what you need to do, if you’re smart. Identify the places that are up and coming, not play catch-up with places that are already prosperous. . . .” He began pontificating on the particularities of the Li Corporation’s strategy.
Hanwen sat back in her seat. She bristled at how he’d interrupted her without even a gaze in her direction. She should have expected it, she knew, but it had been years since she’d been given the seat next to the host, not since before she’d been pregnant with Yuanyuan. It was considered the placement of third-highest respect at the table, but the position was false. The young women picked to sit here were expected to entertain and listen to the host’s comments throughout the night. They couldn’t speak unless directly asked by the host. The person in the lowest position, opposite the host, could at least jump up to refill water. At least there was some choice in that.
“Vice Mayor Wang’s wife knows this place well, actually. She was sent down to a village near here,” Mr. Qian said.
“Oh, is that right?” Li Tuan said. Still, he did not look at her.
“Yes, that’s true. It was a small place—”
“The sent-down campaigns!” Li Tuan interrupted. “What a time that was. Can you believe we all lived through it? Myself, I was sent down to a state-run farm in Heilongjiang. I still have nightmares about the cold there. . . .”
“Actually, it was very different where I was sent down,” she found herself saying, to Li Tuan’s description of the farm. How had she used to stand it, sitting here for hours, watching men drink and speak? “We only had a few of us together in our village, not like you up north, with hundreds of sent-down youth. We had to befriend the villagers, and I became close with some of them. We couldn’t just stay amongst ourselves. Not like you all.”
A few of the others around the table glanced at her and nodded, as if to acknowledge a child of whom they were proud. Guifan was the only person who looked at her sharply. She knew she’d violated the expectations of her position, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Yitian’s visit had sharpened some long dormant edge inside her into an insistent point.