A Case of Two Cities

17

THE CONFERENCE WENT ON as before, though not without a few skirmishes between the writers from the two countries. In spite of his earlier, pacifist intentions, Chen could not help getting into heated discussions.

One particular topic that came up upset the Chinese. In the contemporary Chinese literature sessions, the Americans kept talking about a handful of dissident writers, making it seem as if they were the only worthy ones. Bonnie Grant, a senior sinologist with an exclusive translation contract with Gong Ku, a leading Misty poet who had killed his wife and then committed suicide, praised him at the expense of other Chinese poets.

“Those Misty may not be bad,” Chen responded, “but that does not mean they are the only good poets. Their introduction to the Western world could have been done in a more objective way.”

Bonnie hastened to defend her choice, concluding with a sarcastic note, “Gong wrote under a lot of political pressure. For instance, the last two lines in his poem ‘After Rain,’ ‘A world of colorful poisonous mushrooms / after a sudden rain.’ Why poisonous? It’s not about mushrooms, but about new ideas. New ideas that are poisonous to the official ideology. As a member of the Chinese Writers’ Association, you were probably not aware of any political pressure.”

That rattled Chen. It was so ironically untrue. Some Chinese orthodox critics had condemned his own work as being “modernist decadent” too. Chen had intended to argue that the Misty poets had courted Western attention through their political gestures. Instead, he checked the notes and counterargued by pointing out her erroneous rendition, particularly with regard to the image of poisonous mushrooms.

“Your interpretation about ‘poisonous mushrooms,’ I have to say, is farfetched, though you are certainly entitled to your reading. After all, every reading is said to be a misreading in deconstruction. But I happened to be with Gong that day-at a conference in the Yellow Mountains. As always, Gong wore a self-made tall red hat, imagining himself to be a child lost in the woods. That was his adopted persona, and he played that role so completely that he could hardly distinguish between it and his real self. That day he talked about picking mushrooms. It was after a rainfall, the hillside was a riot of them. He declared that he would make mushroom soup that evening, and I told him that some mushrooms could be poisonous-”

“But we can judge only by the text, not by the real or imagined experience behind it,” Bonnie interrupted. “Writing is impersonal, Mr. Chen, haven’t you learned that?”

“You don’t have to use Eliot’s theory to show off to me,” Chen retorted. “In the fifties and sixties, we judged Chinese writers only by political criteria. That was wrong. But today, there seems to be another trend, the opposite political criteria. I liked Gong’s poetry because it was fresh from his deliberately childish perspective-fresh after the Cultural Revolution. How can such a child be so political?”

Chen’s speech nettled Bonnie, but she was at a disadvantage. Chen was far more familiar with the background of the lines she had quoted. The Americans did not make an immediate response. Zhong applauded, and the other Chinese followed. Afterward, Martin Beck, an American publisher, asked Chen to write an article for his magazine.

As they left the conference hall at the end of the morning session, Chen got an unexpected call from Tian. It would be unrealistic, Chen had believed, to expect any breakthrough from a bookish businessman who had had no experience in investigation, but Tian surprised him with new information.

“Xing’s mother will go to the Buddha Glory Temple this afternoon. She is a devoted believer. She goes every Thursday afternoon, her weekly routine, like other people going to church here. And Xing will be with her.”

“That’s something, Tian. What does she do there?”

“Burn tall incenses, I think, and draw bamboo sticks of divination.”

“I see,” Chen said. Buddhism remained popular among old Chinese. His mother, a passionate believer, kept burning tall incenses to a Buddhist shrine in her attic home, praying that Chen might settle down with a family of his own in the near future. Years earlier, she had taken him to an ivy-mantled temple in Hangzhou, he remembered, where she drew bamboo sticks of fortune shortly before the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, but that marvelous oracle did not prove true. Her husband passed away with the Red Guards’ slogans rattling the window over his deathbed. And her son later became a cop. “And what does Xing do there?”

“He keeps her company. He has made several donations on her behalf.”

“How have you learned all this, Tian?”

“I called local Chinese newspaper editors. Now don’t worry, Chen. I haven’t approached any of them directly. Xing’s going to make another statement exposing and condemning his persecution by the Beijing government. So they brought up the subject.”

“Thanks, Tian. That may be really important to my work.”

That afternoon there was a scheduled visit to Disneyland, Chen knew. During the lunch, he found himself finally embraced as “one of us,” as approval poured in from the delegation members.

“You have reasons, and you have principles, Chen,” Zhong said.

“You have said what we all would have said,” Peng nodded vigorously.

“I am glad that Beijing has chosen you.” Shasha patted his hand. “You are experienced in dealing with those Americans.”

“Those Misty poets are groveling dogs,” Bao said, “chewing a pathetic bone thrown out by the foreigners.”

Chen complained of a headache, making little response.

Shasha said that Chen looked pale, touching his forehead. Zhong claimed that the delegation head had worked too hard. That was probably true. Bao, not unpleased to assume his Party secretary responsibility for one afternoon, urged Chen to take a break in the hotel. Chen agreed reluctantly, like a responsible delegation head.

The moment the delegation left the hotel, Chen changed into a T-shirt and jeans, picked up a mini recorder, and sneaked out. There seemed to be no suspicious-looking people outside. He hailed a taxi.

“To the Buddha Glory Temple,” he told the driver.

It was a long drive. Sitting in the back of the car, he tried to think of a plan for the afternoon. It was out of the question for him to approach Xing. No point revealing his identity as a Chinese investigator. He wondered whether he would be able to talk to Xing at all. Perhaps, as in a proverb, he told himself, there will be a road with the car reaching the mountains.

The temple turned out to be a rather splendid one, made of red walls and yellow roofs and upturned black eaves decked with mythological figurines, like those seen in Suzhou and Hangzhou. There were not only Chinese monks and believers kowtowing and scripture-chanting in the courtyard, but also Americans, some in Asian costumes or with a large Chinese character Fo-Buddha-printed on their T-shirts. No one paid him any special attention.

He walked to the large main hall, in which towering clay images sat majestic in the front. There was a huge bronze incense burner before the gilded Buddha. He bought a bunch of incense, put it into the burner, and imitated others by clasping his palms piously. He then turned around, noticing an oblong mahogany table at one side of the hall. There were books and bamboo containers holding bamboo sticks on the table, behind which stood a middle-aged, deep-wrinkled, clean-shaven monk in a scarlet and yellow patchwork gown, apparently in charge of interpretation.

The monk reminded him of one he had seen in his mother’s company, years earlier. He suddenly remembered a Beijing Opera seen also in her company, perhaps even earlier, and it gave him an idea.

He moved over to the monk.

“What’s your honorable name, Master?”

“My monk name is Illusionless. What can I do for you, my most reverend benefactor?”

“My mundane surname is Chen. I am an ignorant scriber in the world of red dust,” Chen said. “I need to ask you a favor, Master. For a book project, I need to have the experience of serving as a fortune-teller in a monastery. So can I stand in your place for a couple of hours?”

“No, that’s impossible. A bamboo stick divination reader is no fortuneteller. It takes a lot of training to give accurate interpretation. We cannot misguide our benefactors.”

“I have read several books in the field. So I think I’m qualified to try. You don’t have to leave me alone here, my profound master. If I say anything wrong, you correct me. Please, let me be your student for one afternoon.” He took out an envelope containing three hundred dollars. “Here is my tuition for the afternoon.”

“Well, I cannot take it, but I’ll put it into the donation box, my benefactor.”

Chen wondered whether the money would eventually go into that particular box. As a student, it did not take him too long to acquire the basic technique from the master. There was a large xuan paper book spread out on a wooden stand next to the table. When a pilgrim picked out a bamboo strip bearing a certain number, Master Illusionless would open the book, turn to a page with the matching number, and interpret the poem on the page in a sort of fortune-telling way. The master could hardly justify the practice, however, in the light of Greater Vehicle, or of Lesser Vehicle, which Chen managed to quote for the occasion.

“Everything comes up in illusion,” Master Illusionless said solemnly, “and interpretation evokes illusions too, all of which make up our world.”

“So we are looking for the ox while we are riding on its very back,” Chen said, paraphrasing a Zen paradox he still remembered.

“You have something of a Buddha root, Chen. Try your hand here.” Master Illusionless nodded his approval and turned to a small monk. “Bring over a kasaya for him.”

The little monk returned and handed the kasaya to Chen with a bow. Master Illusionless said, “You may don the gown. I hope you won’t let me lose face.”

“No face is face, and face is no face.” Chen was getting warmed up with the practice of paradox. The kasaya was a patchwork gown worn by a Buddhist monk of enlightenment, which carried a halo of authenticity. And it really helped. Buddha needs his costume, and so did a monk or a would-be monk. Wrapped in the kasaya, Chen, too, felt like someone of sacred erudition. With so much unknowable in the world, a divine interpretation might be as good as any other help to a person. The chief inspector could use one himself.

But Chen did not have much time for metaphysical speculation. Pilgrims came over to the table, and he started practicing. It turned out to be not too difficult. In his college years, he had made a special study of Empson’s book on ambiguities, learning how to give different interpretations to one poem. In the temple, he saw no difference except for making his own interpretation as convincing as possible. Master Illusionless kept nodding beside him.

Presently he saw an old woman in a satin dress shuffling into the hall. Following her was a short man wearing a gray wool suit, sporting a crew cut, beady eyes, and a nose like crushed garlic. He was followed in turn by a tall man in a dark martial costume. Chen recognized the short man as Xing, and the tall one, possibly the triad bodyguard he had seen in Roland Height.

After kowtowing to the Buddha image with the incense in her hand, the old woman moved toward the table, leaning on a dragon-headed bamboo stick. She appeared to know Master Illusionless well.

“Is there another master reading with you today, Master Illusionless?”

“Yes, madam. This is Master Chen, a man of profound learning. I told him what a great benefactor you have been to the temple, so he came all the way to help. He may relieve the unnecessary worries of your mind.”

“That would be great. I am worried about so many things.”

Chen noticed Xing standing at a respectful distance, showing no impatience or curiosity, and the tall man standing with arms crossed and a fierce expression on his face, barring others to move close to the table.

“Can we try something different today, Master?”

“What do you mean, madam?”

“Instead of the bamboo strip divination you’ve performed, can you practice the reading of a Chinese character for me?”

“Well…” The master sounded hesitant. It was another form of divination through analyzing the component parts of a Chinese character. A sort of glyphomancy, even less Buddhist in its possible origin. Master Illusionless might have not practiced it.

“Sure, I’ll read it for you,” Chen responded with an air of utter confidence. “When Chuangjie first created the system of Chinese written characters, every archetypal stroke of a character came out of the cosmos in miraculous correspondence to the omnipresent qi, and that in turn, in correspondence to the microcosmos of an individual human being. So that’s called tianren heyi-heaven and human in one. For a virtuous woman like you, whatever character you may write in a moment of faith, there will be elements recognizable from the mysterious correspondence.”

It was too fabulous an opportunity to miss, Chen thought excitedly.

He had never learned the technique properly, but he had seen its practice in Fifteen Strings of Coppers, the Beijing opera seen at his mother’s side. In the opera, a disguised judge tricked a confession out of a criminal by performing the character divination. A Chinese character has multifarious meanings in itself, as well as in its combination with other characters. And a character can also be broken down into radicals or component parts. So the possible interpretations were unlimited. What’s more, a written character reading would involve a lot of interactivity. He could try to interpret in a way that she was going to believe and respond to, and if at all possible, he would get her to reveal some information in the process.

“Really, Master Chen!” she said. “I have never heard of such a profound theory before.”

No one had ever heard of it before. It was a hodgepodge of the moment, invented to impress. He had scrambled together all he had heard and read into this improvised mumbo jumbo, since few knew anything about the theory of the practice. Still, he told himself, he based most of it upon classics rather than superstitions.

“Everything comes out of your heart, madam.” He lit a stick of incense, closed his eyes, and breathed deeply, as if in meditation. “Write a character on the paper, and I’ll tell from it.”

As the monk ground the ink stick on the ink stone, the old woman picked up a brush pen, took a deep breath, and wrote the character xing on the paper.

“Xing…” Chen studied the character in deep concentration, as if lost in communication with it. “Is it about yourself?”

“No, not about myself.”

“I see. For this character, xing by itself means travel or movement. Some trip must be involved, pleasant or not pleasant.”

“You are absolutely right, Master Chen,” she said eagerly. “Can you tell me if it will be a smooth trip?”

The question was made in the future tense, and his performance proved to be smoother than expected. She swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. His comment about travel was but a guess, though it would not have been too off the mark, with Xing’s flight out of China not too long ago. But apparently it hit home. The old woman’s response showed that she was concerned about a future trip. Since Xing was standing right there, she must be worried about somebody else, about Ming, her son left behind. That meant An’s assumption was correct-Ming was still in Shanghai.

“Let’s move further. Judging from the left radical of the character, double person radical, it involves two. The right part of the character is unusual. For the top section, the horizontal stroke is yi, meaning one, and for the bottom section, it makes a partial character ding, meaning a boy. So you may be worried about your sons, or at least one of them.”

“Master Chen, you are divine. Now you have to tell what will happen to my sons.”

“Let me be frank with you, Madam. Ding with a horizontal stroke weighing above does not look so good, for ding may be associated with death or other tragedies, as in dingyou.. .”

Now he was stretching it way out of proportion, especially the connotations of ding. But the practice was not without its ironic precedent, he realized. Ezra Pound, an imagist poet, had played the same trick by deconstructing a Chinese character into component ideograms-except that Pound had done so for poetry.

“You have to help me, Master Chen. I will be grateful to you all my life.”

“What I can tell you, madam, is from the character alone. Fortune or misfortune is self-sought. Human proposes, heaven disposes.” He paused significantly before going on. “But I may be able to read a little more out of it if you can tell me what you really want to know. For instance, the time and the direction of the movement you are concerned with.”

“Yes, my little son has not come out yet,” she said hesitantly. Xing might have warned her about talking to strangers. “I don’t know when he can make it. Or whether he can make it.”

“Now excuse me for saying so, but the horizontal stroke looks like a sword weighing over his head,” Chen said, pushing it as much as he could. “I am afraid he may be in some sort of danger.”

“Oh you almighty Buddha, protect him. I know he’s in danger, Master Chen,” she said in a tearful voice. “Xing, come over here. I have met with a great master today. You have to write a character too.”

“You have done an interesting job!” Xing said to Chen, moving up, producing a hundred-dollar bill, and tossing it on the table. “For candles and incenses.”

“Illusion rises from your heart, sir. What is interesting to one may not be so to another. There is no door for fortune or misfortune. The world depends on your thought to be good or bad,” Chen said, switching on the mini recorder in his pants pocket as he dipped the brush pen lightly in the ink. Thanks to his voracious reading in his college years, those old phrases came to him naturally. “But if we can see something from a character you choose in correspondence to Way of the Heaven, it may help.”

“Can you read such a lot from one single character, Master Chen?”

“I do not claim that a character can tell you everything, but it can reveal a possible direction in which things might be going. Go ahead and write the character with the question in your mind. If you think my interpretation is neither here nor there, you can take back the candle and incense money.”

“You may have something,” Xing said, looking him in the eyes. “You do not sound like a local Chinese?”

“Who is a local Chinese in Los Angeles? But for the request by Master Illusionless, I would not have come over today.” Chen then added, improvising on a Tang poem, “The Buddha Glory Temple / stands amidst the deep green, / the temple bell carrying / the evening far in a breeze. // A straw hat fastening / the setting sun, / I retreat alone into the blue, / distant mountains.”

Xing might not necessarily be a man of high intelligence, but he was definitely not a gullible one. Chen had to risk being seen as a quack-or worse, as a disguised cop. It would then no longer be a matter of facing the possibly armed bodyguard standing in the background. The exposure of Chen’s secret police activity here-under the cover of the government delegation-could lead to diplomatic troubles. But so far he had succeeded in tricking the old woman, and he might be able to do so with Xing. He could always try to give Xing’s reading in metaphysically ambiguous sentences. A fortune-teller didn’t have to be responsible for his superstitious claptrap. What really mattered was fishing something crucial out of Xing. For this to work, he had to include the old woman in the talk too.

“As madam has demonstrated, a character arising from the heart of her hearts will tell. The choice of the character is simply made by you, but more by the divine power of the universe, so it contains the qi from you, as well as from everything else, including this great temple, including your great mother.”

“That’s right. The temple makes a difference too,” the old woman said, nodding vigorously. “Write your character. It’s too good an opportunity for you to miss.”

“Well, the same character then.” Xing wrote it on the paper. “Xing.”

“Now, is it about yourself?” Chen said, studying the character anew.

“Yes, it’s about myself.”

“The same character, but with all the different qi from your heart,” Chen said. “Let me say one thing first. Your handwriting is bold and powerful. The shape of the character bears a certain resemblance to dragon. Very impressive, like in a proverb often used to describe Chinese calligraphy, ‘like a dragon moving and like a tiger walking.’ It’s in line with the meaning of the character xing too. So I would say there is something of a dragon in you.”

Chen knew Xing had been born in the dragon year. A dragon was generally considered a lucky, masculine symbol in traditional Chinese culture, with the connotation of great power. It was a compliment Xing would snatch up, Chen supposed, and Xing nodded approvingly.

“You are no ordinary man,” Chen pushed on. “In your case, the double person radical may not be just about two. Your movement concerns a lot more. It’s difficult to see the direction for the moment. Also, the character xing for you means, among other things, a sort of a business center, possibly with a great deal of money at your disposal, as inyinghang.”

Chen watched Xing’s reaction. He had to convince Xing of his authenticity by throwing out information unavailable to an ordinary quack, but at the same time he should not go so far as to arouse Xing’s suspicions. His interpretation had to remain open, ambiguous, yet specific enough for Xing to think in the way Chen had planned. Only through that could Xing let out some information, unwittingly, in his anxiousness to obtain “divine” advice.

“More and more interesting!” Xing said composedly. “What else can you read in the same character?”

“What time period do you want to know about?”

“The near future, I think.”

“If it’s about traveling, the people with water element in them may not be good for you.”

“What do you mean by water element?”

“Wuxing-five elements, as you know. For instance, those with their names containing water radical in them, like Jiang.”

“Names containing water radical, like Jiang,” Xing repeated without making an immediate response.

“Yes. Don’t you remember the man in charge of land development in Shanghai, Xing?” the old woman said, growing pale. “His name is Jiang- river, water radical, no mistake. Both you and Ming have met him a number of times. He’s in trouble now, you have told me.”

“Mom, you don’t have to believe too much in those things,” Xing said, frowning. “What else, Master Chen?”

Chen restudied the character for another two or three minutes, resting his forehead on his hand, with his eyes half closed, before he resumed, “There’s something strange. It is a very complicated situation.”

“A man asks about misfortune, not about fortune,” Xing said. “Don’t worry. Go on with your interpretation.”

“I’ll be frank. There’s another character: xing plus the plant radical. Also pronounced xing, but it means floating without a root. Now it’s unusual for somebody of your weight. In a flight of association, with the plant radical plus the character zhong, or weight, it brings in somebody surnamed Dong into the picture. He may not be helpful to your movement.”

“Dong, anybody surnamed Dong, Xing?” the old woman asked anxiously. “Dong?”

“That’s weird,” Xing said, visibly shaken. “Dong Deping. He’s in charge of the State Industry Reform Committee in Shanghai. He also helped with that land deal for our little brother.”

“Is he also in trouble?” The old woman was growing hysterical, grasping at Xing’s sleeve.

“I don’t know, but he took a big red envelope from us,” Xing said to her. “So did Jiang. The amount was large enough to lock them up for life. Their days may not be easy with the investigation going on.”

“Then my little son is really in trouble. Master Chen knows everything,” she said, sobbing. “If anything happened to him, how could I live?”

“Don’t worry too much, Mother. I don’t think they know anything about our little brother’s whereabouts.”

“Oh Buddha, protect my little son, and I’ll gild all the images in the hall.” She turned to Chen with the string of beads trembling in her hands. “Master Chen, you know everything. Please tell us what to do.”

“Again, we are talking about movement,” Chen said, facing Xing. “For a mighty man like you, your movement means something. As in the proverb, it’s like the movement of a dragon and a tiger. However, I wonder if you are associated with someone named ‘tiger.’ Someone close or staying close to you. A neighbor or something like that. Now be careful. A dragon and a tiger may eventually not go together. Needless to say, the tiger in question could come from the top.”

“Now what are you talking about?” Xing took a step back, glaring at Chen in spite of himself.

“I am talking about what I read from the character, sir. Still, things might have a turn in the near future. Both good and bad involved.”

“Can you be more specific?” the old woman cut in again.

“You may believe you have someone powerful behind you.” He paused significantly before looking at Xing. “Believe it or not, what will help you comes from your heart.”

“How? I’m totally confused.”

“The fact that both you and your mother have chosen the same character speaks for itself. The Way of Heaven is mysterious, but filial piety always comes first. Who says that the splendor / of a grass blade can prove / enough to return / the generous warmth / of the ever-returning spring sunlight?’

It was not really advice, but he’d better not push things too far. All this might sound compelling to the old woman, but after the initial shock, Xing would come back to himself. As in those stories he had read, a mediocre fortune-teller usually ended up by giving some sort of “do good things” advice.

But Xing decided it was time to leave. Perhaps he was too shaken to stay on. It was just as well. Xing would probably not reveal any more.

“You have spent a long while with us. Here is your fee,” Xing said, putting another hundred-dollar bill on the table. “Don’t say to anybody what you have said to us today.”

“Of course not.”

As the Xings walked quickly out of sight, Chen turned to Master Illusionless with a smile.

“I don’t know who you are,” Master Illusionless said, scratching his clean-shaven scalp, “but you are no ordinary man.”

“I don’t know who I am. As the scriptures say, identity is an illusion too,” Chen said. “At this moment, I am your apprentice. Now I have to go, like a tumbleweed turning and turning around the distraction of humdrum vanities.”