Scratching the Head of Chairman Mao. Jonathan Tel

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 amounts would be borrowed and lent at various rates for various periods. As Mao said—or was it Confucius?—We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well.

      Nie sips. “You make it sound so easy!”

      “It is easy.”

      “Why doesn’t everybody do it?”

      “Oh, but everybody does it, all the successful people, I mean. Not exactly this method, but something like this. Tell me about your boss. How does he afford his limousine? Who pays for his beach vacation in Hainan, his gambling trip to Macau, his wife’s jewelry? How come he has such a luscious young mistress?”

      “I really don’t think—”

      “Ah, maybe your boss is an exception. I wasn’t speaking personally. But look around you. The people who enjoy a good life, they didn’t get where they are by sitting on their ass and obeying every petty regulation!”

      As Qin inveighs, he considers that he sounds like his own daughter. She’s a great believer in breaking rules. Ever since she was fifteen she’s been going to nightclubs using a fake ID. Her school report is awful. If she were in a Chinese school, she’d be in serious trouble. But they live in a gated community in the north of Beijing, near the airport, and she attends an international school. The school has a strict policy of not accepting Chinese students, but an exception was made, in return for a generous donation. His own teachers used to recite, “Study hard and improve daily” (he came from a modest background and struggled to get an education), but as far as she’s concerned school is an opportunity for fun and networking—a favorite English word of hers that seems Chinese in as much as it’s composed of two characters. She’s a junior in high school. She’s got it all figured out. She plans to go to the University of Southern California and become a movie producer. “America’s got talent and China’s got money,” she likes to say. She’s going to persuade Chinese billionaires to invest in Hollywood. She’ll take her cut.

      The fact is, Qin has had several close shaves. He’s been