Red Mandarin Dress

TWENTY-NINE

CHEN HADN’T DECIDED EXACTLY what he was going to do that evening.

Coming out of the photo studio, he walked to the restaurant, thinking in the dusk that was enveloping him.

But there was no choice left for him. He tried to reconvince himself. The best course of action would be to leave Jia untouched until after the trial. It wasn’t wise to arrest him before it for people would take it as dirty political retaliation by the government. But in the meantime, he had to trap Jia for the night, and the way to do that was so unorthodox that he didn’t know how to explain it to Yu. Perhaps it was just like the metaphor made by Comrade Deng Xiaoping about the reform in China: “to waddle across the river by stepping on one stone after another.”

There was no delaying the showdown, however, with or without help from the bureau.

Inspector Liao would distance himself from it-not just out of self-protection, but out of long distrust for the chief inspector too. They had had several head-on collisions. After the death of Hong, Liao hadn’t so much as made a single phone call to Chen.

As for Party Secretary Li, Chen didn’t want to think about him for the moment. That would be a headache for later.

And then there was Director Zhong in the background too, with all the plots and counterplots being worked out in the Forbidden City.

It was more than likely that Jia wouldn’t succumb to his story. An intelligent and experienced attorney, he knew no one could convincingly prove anything against him so long as he didn’t budge.

As Chen turned into West Jinling Road, he saw an old woman burning afterworld money in an aluminum basin out on the sidewalk. Shivering in her black cotton-padded clothes, she kept throwing the silver paper ingots into the fire, one by one, murmuring, in a desperate effort to communicate with the dead. It was the night of Dongzhi, he realized.

In the Chinese lunar calendar, Dongzhi comes on the longest night of the year, important in the dialectical movement of the yin and yang system. As yin moves to an extreme position, it turns into the opposite, to yang. So it was conventionally a night for the reunion of the living and the dead.

In Chen’s childhood, Dongzhi meant a wonderful meal, except that the dishes on the ancestral offering table had to remain untouched until the candles burned out, a sign that the dead had already enjoyed the meal. He thought again of his mother, who must be burning afterworld money, alone, in her attic room.

But it might not be a coincidence that he was going to meet Jia on Dongzhi night. A sign that things were going to change. The Way can be told, / but not in an ordinary way.

He came in sight of the Old Mansion.

A hostess held the door for him respectfully. It was a different girl, one who did not recognize him.

Both Overseas Chinese Lu and White Cloud were already in the lobby. Lu was in his black three-piece suit with a florid tie and a couple of large diamond rings on his fingers, and she, in the red mandarin dress bought at the Old City God’s Temple Market.

“The restaurant owner has agreed to cooperate in every way,” Lu said exultantly. “He’ll let me take care of your room. So I’ll stay here and prepare an unbelievable feast for you.”

“Thank you, Lu,” he said, turning to White Cloud, handing her an envelope. “Thank you so much, White Cloud. Change into a different outfit for now, just like one of the waitresses here. You’ll serve in the private room. Of course, you don’t have to stay there all the time. Bring in whatever Mr. Lu prepares for the evening. At my signal, come in dressed like the woman in the picture.”

“The red mandarin dress,” she said, opening the envelope and examining the pictures inside. “Barefoot, the bosom buttons unbuttoned, and the side slits torn?”

“Yes, exactly like that. Go ahead and tear the side slits.” Chen added, “I’ll buy you another one.”

“Old Heaven,” Lu exclaimed, stealing a glance at the picture in her hand.

Chen then left and moved on to the hotel, which was only a two-or three-minute walk away.

Standing under the hotel arch, he didn’t wait long. In less than five minutes, he saw a white Camry rolling into the driveway. Another car, possibly Yu’s, pulled up behind it, at a distance.

Chen strode out and extended his hand to Jia, who was getting out of the car. He was a tall man in his late thirties, wearing a black suit, his face pale and troubled under the dancing neon light.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice, Mr. Jia. My secretary has reserved a room for us at the Old Mansion. It’s very close. You have heard of the restaurant, haven’t you?”

“The Old Mansion! You’ve spent some time choosing this restaurant for tonight, Chief Inspector Chen.”

It wasn’t a direct answer, but it bespoke his awareness that Chen had made a thorough study of his background.

At the gate of the restaurant, the hostess bowed to them gracefully, like a flower blossoming out of the old painting behind her. “Welcome. You’ll be at home tonight.”

The arrival of several beer girls in the lobby, however, served to highlight the changed times.

“At home,” Jia said sarcastically, observing the sashlike streamers flung slantingly across their shoulders. “Tiger Girl, Qingdao Girl, Baiwei Girl, Sakura Girl.”

The hostess led them across the hall, into an elegant room-possibly a sunroom in its original design, now converted into a private room for special customers. It overlooked the back garden, which appeared enticingly well kept, even in the depths of winter. The table was set for two, the silverware shining under the crystal chandelier like a lost dream. There was also a dainty silver bell placed on the table. Eight miniature dishes were already set on the lazy susan.

White Cloud came in and poured each of them a cup of tea, opening a menu for them. She wore a sleeveless, backless black dress.

“For our most extraordinary story, Mr. Jia,” Chen said, raising the cup.

“A story,” Jia said. “Do you really believe it to be more meaningful than your police work?”

“Meaning exists in your thinking. In my college years, as you may not know, poetry was the only thing meaningful for me.”

“Well, I’m an attorney, one-track-minded.”

“An attorney serves as a good example of this point. What is so meaningful to you in a case may be totally meaningless to others. In our age, meaning depends on an individual perspective.”

“It sounds like a lecture, Chief Inspector Chen.”

“For me, the story has reached a critical point, a matter of life and death,” Chen said. “So I think that the view of the garden may provide a peaceful background.”

“You seem to have a reason for everything.” Jia’s expression didn’t show any change as he cast a sidelong glance out to the garden. “It’s an honor to be invited by you, whether as a writer or a chief inspector.”

“I’m not that hungry yet,” Chen said. “Perhaps we might talk a little first.”

“Fine with me.”

“Great.” Chen said, turning to White Cloud, “we’ll go with the house specials for two. You may leave now.”

“If you need me, ring the silver bell,” she said. “I’ll be standing outside.”

“Now for the story,” Chen said, looking at her retreating figure, her black hair streaming over her bare back. “Let me say this first: it is not finished. For several characters in the story, I haven’t decided their names yet. In the mysteries I have translated, an unidentified person is conveniently called John Doe. For the sake of convenience, I call my protagonist J.”

“Interesting! Like my name in Chinese Pinyin phonetics, it starts with a J too.”

Jia was keeping his composure well, even beginning to display a suggestion of defiant humor. It was not the time to push through the window paper, Chen calculated. As in tai chi, an experienced player does not have to push all the way. He took the magazine out and set it on the table.

“Well, the story began with the picture,” Chen said, opening the magazine with a leisurely movement, “at the moment when the picture was taken.”

“Really!” Jia said, raising his voice in spite of himself.

“A story can be told from different perspectives, but it is easier to proceed from a third person, and for us, also in a mixed sense, since part of the story is still going on. What do you think?”

“Whatever you like, you are the narrator. And you majored in literature, I’ve heard. I wonder how you became a cop.”

“Merely circumstance. In the early eighties, college graduates were assigned to their jobs by the state, which you know. Indeed, there was little we could choose for ourselves. In childhood, we all used to dream of a totally different future, didn’t we?” Chen said, pointing at the picture. “It was taken in the early sixties. I was probably a couple of years younger than J, the boy in the picture. Look at him, so happy and proud. And he had every reason to be so, in the company of a beautiful mother who cares so much for him, with the Red Scarf streaming in the sunlight, full of hope for his future in the socialist China.”

“You’re lyrical for a chief inspector. Please go on with your story.”

“It happened in a mansion much like this one, with a garden practically the same, except it’s spring in the picture. Incidentally, this restaurant used to be a residential house too.

“Now, in the early sixties, the political climate was already changing. Mao started talking about the class struggle and the proletarian dictatorship in preparation for the Cultural Revolution. Still, J had a sheltered childhood. His grandfather, a successful banker before 1949, continued to receive dividends that more than ensured an affluent life for the family. The boy’s parents worked at the Shanghai Music Institute, and he was their only child. He was attached to his mother, who was young, beautiful, talented, and equally devoted to him.

“Indeed, she was extraordinary. It was said that a lot of people went to a concert just for a glimpse of her. She kept a sensibly low profile. Still, a photographer discovered her. Not keen on publicity, she agreed to have the picture taken together with her son in the garden. That morning proved to be blissful for J, with her holding his hand affectionately, posing together, and with the photographer raving about the two of them making such a perfect picture. That was the happiest moment in his life. Woven with her radiant smile shining in the sunlight, the moment seemed framed in a golden frame.

“Shortly after the photo session, the Cultural Revolution broke out. J’s family suffered disastrous blows-”

His narration was interrupted by the appearance of White Cloud carrying four cold dishes of the house specials on a silver tray.

“Fried sparrow tongues, wine-immersed goose feet, stewed ox eyes, ginger-steamed fish lips,” she said. “They are made in accordance to a special menu left in the original mansion.”

Lu must have gone out of his way to prepare these “cruel dishes,” and he spared no cost. A small dish of sparrow tongues could have cost the lives of hundreds of birds. The fish lips remained slightly red, transparent, as if still alive, gasping for air.

“Incidentally, these dishes remind me of something about the story, something so cruel,” Chen said. “Confucius says, ‘A gentleman should stay away from killing and cooking in the kitchen.’ No wonder.”

Jia appeared disturbed, which was the effect expected.

“So the picture represents the happiest moment in J’s life, now forever lost,” Chen resumed, a crisp sparrow tongue rolling on his tongue. “His grandfather died, his father committed suicide, his mother suffered mortifying mass-criticisms, and he himself turned in a ‘black puppy.’ They were driven out of the mansion, into an attic room above the garage. Then something happened.”

“What?” Jia said, his chopsticks trembling slightly above the ox eye.

“Now I’m coming to a crucial part of the story,” Chen said, “for which your opinions will be invaluable. So I’d better read from my draft instead-it’ll be more detailed, more vivid.”

Chen took out his notebook, in which he had scribbled some words the previous night in the nightclub, and then again early this morning in the small eatery. Sitting across the table, however, Jia wouldn’t be able to read the contents. Chen began to improvise, clearing his throat.

“It was because of a counterrevolutionary slogan found on the garden wall of the mansion. J didn’t write it, nor did he know anything about it, but ‘revolutionary people’ suspected him. He was put into so-called isolation interrogation in a back room of the neighborhood committee. All by himself, all day long, he was denied all contact with the outside world, except for interrogations by the neighborhood committee and a stranger surnamed Tian, who came from the Mao Team stationed at the music institute. J had to stay there until he admitted his crime. What supported him through those days was the thought of his mother. He was determined that he would not get her into trouble, that he could not leave her alone. So he would not confess, nor do something in the footsteps of his father. As long as she was outside, waiting for him, the world was still theirs, as in that picture in the garden.

“But it wasn’t easy for a little boy. He fell sick. One afternoon, unexpectedly, a neighborhood cadre came into the room and, without any explanation, told him that he could go home.

“He hurried back, anxious to surprise her. He climbed up the staircase soundlessly. Opening the door with his key, he was anticipating a scene of reunion, of rushing into her arms, a scene he had dreamed of hundreds of times in the dark back room.

“To his horror, he saw her kneeling on the bed, stark naked, and a naked man-none other than Tian-entering her from behind, her bare hips rising to meet each of his thrusts, groaning and grunting like animals-

“He shrieked in horror, whirling back down the staircase, lost in a nightmare. For the boy, who had worshipped his mother like the sunshine of his existence, the scene delivered a shattering blow, as if the whole earth had been snatched out from under his feet.

“She jumped up from the bed, unclothed, and ran out after him. He quickened his steps frantically. In his confusion, he might not have heard her stumbling down the staircase, or he might have mistaken it for the sound of the world tumbling behind him. He tore down the stairs, across the garden, and out of the mansion. His instinctive reaction was to run, his mind still full of the bedroom scene, so vivid with her flushed face, her hanging breasts, her body reeking of violent sex, her raven-black pubic hair still dripping wet…

“He didn’t look over his shoulder once, as the image of the moment had fixed and transfixed him-of a naked woman, distraught, disheveled, rushing like a demon after him-”

“You don’t have to go into all these details,” Jia said in a suddenly husky voice, as if reeling under the blows.

“No, those details are important for his psychological development, and for our understanding of it,” Chen said. “Now, back to the story. J ran back to the back room of the neighborhood committee, where he broke down and fainted. People were puzzled at his return. In his subconscious, the room was the place where he could still believe in a wonderful world with her waiting for him there. An act of psychological significance, like trying to turn back the clock. And in that back room he wasn’t aware of her death that same afternoon.

“When he finally woke up, it was to a changed world. Back in the empty attic, alone, in the company of her picture in a black frame. It was too much for him to stay there. He moved out,” Chen said, putting down the notebook. “No need dwelling on that period. I don’t have to read sentence by sentence. Suffice it to say that now an orphan, he went through the stages of shock, denial, depression, and anger, struggling with all the emotions twisted and embedded deep inside him. As a Chinese proverb goes, a jade is made out of all the hardships. After the Cultural Revolution, J entered a college and obtained a law degree. At that time, few were interested in such a career, but his choice was motivated by a desire to bring justice for his family, particularly for her. He managed to track down Tian, the Mao Team member.

“But there was no possibility of punishing all of Mao’s followers. The government didn’t encourage people to rake up their old grievances. Besides, even if he succeeded in bringing Tian to court, it wouldn’t be on a homicide charge, and it would probably come at the expense of dragging her memory through the mire again. So J decided to take justice into his own hands. From his perspective, he was justified, because there was no other way. He had Tian punished in what seemed to be a series of misfortunes. He extended the revenge to people related to Tian. To his former wife and to his daughter as well. And like a cat watching a mouse making pathetic efforts to escape, he prolonged the process of their suffering, as resourcefully as the Count of Monte Cristo.”

“It reads like the story of Monte Cristo,” Jia cut in, “but who would take the story seriously?”

“Well, I actually read it during the Cultural Revolution. The book enjoyed an extraordinary lucky reprint at a time when all other Western novels were banned. Do you know why? Madam Mao made a positive comment about it. In fact, she herself wreaked her revenge on the people who had looked down on her. She took it seriously.”

“A white-bone devil,” Jia commented, like a responsive audience. “Before she married Mao, she was only a B-movie actress.”

“She must have seen her actions as justified too, but let’s leave Mao and Madam Mao alone,” Chen said, moving his chopsticks to the ox eyes, which appeared to be staring back. “But there is one difference. For Monte Cristo still has his own life, but for J, his life was, and still is, devoid of any other meaning except revenge.”

“I would like to make a comment here,” Jia said, tearing the fish lips with his chopsticks, though he didn’t pick them up. “In your story, he’s a successful attorney, and quite well-to-do too. How could there be no life for him?”

“A couple of reasons. The first one came out of his disillusionment with his profession. Working as an attorney, he soon found himself not exactly in a position to fight for justice. As before, major cases were predetermined in the interests of the Party authorities, and then later, in the nineties, they were rigged in the interest of money as well, in a society lost in uncontrollable corruption. While his career as an attorney became a lucrative one, his idealistic passion had long ago proved impractical and irrelevant.”

“How can you say that, Chief Inspector Chen? A successful cop, you must have been fighting for justice all these years. Don’t tell me you, too, are so disillusioned.”

“To be honest, that’s the reason I am taking a literature course. The story is part of the effort.”

“No wonder I haven’t seen your name in the newspapers for a while.”

“Oh, you have been following me, Mr. Jia?”

“Well, the newspapers have been full of the serial murder case, and full of cops too. You’re a star among them,” Jia said, raising his cup in mock admiration, “so I have sort of missed you of late.”

“For J, the second reason may be the more important,” Chen went on without responding to Jia, who, having recovered from the initial shock, seemed capable of teasing his host. “He is incapable of having sex with women-an aggravated Oedipus complex. Which is the identification of his mother as his sexual object in his unconscious, as you know. In every other aspect, he appears a healthy man, but the memory of the naked, soiled body of his mother falls like a shadow, inevitably, between the present desire and the past disaster. Whatever professional success he achieves, he can’t live a normal life. Normal life was forever fixed at that moment of his grasping her hand in the picture. And it’s a picture that was broken to pieces at the moment she fell down the stairs. He’s worn out from all the endless effort of keeping all this secret and fighting the demon-”

“You sound like a pro, Chief Inspector Chen,” Jia said sarcastically. “I didn’t know that you studied psychology too.”

“I have read one or two books on the subject. You surely know much more, so that’s why I would really appreciate your opinion.”

There was a light knock on the door again. White Cloud came in carrying a large tray that held a glass pot, a glass bowl of shrimps, and a miniature stove. The shrimps were immersed in a mixed sauce, but under the bowl lid, they still squirmed energetically. Within the stove there was a layer of pebbles, burning red above the charcoal at the bottom. She first poured the pebbles into the pot, and then the shrimps. In a hissing steam, the shrimps were jumping and turning red.

“Like his victims,” Chen said, “without understanding their doom, still trying to escape.”

“You’ve spared no pains in preparing this feast, Chief Inspector Chen.”

“Now I’m coming to the climax of the story. For this part, I still need to fill in some details here and there, so the story may not read that polished yet.

“Turning, turning, turning, like a caged animal, he found himself dazed against thousands of bars. So he decided to take a most controversial case, at the possible cost of his professional career. In China, an attorney has to stay on good terms with the government; this was a case that could damage the government’s image, exposing a number of Party officials who were involved in a housing development scandal, though also a case that could bring justice to a group of poor, helpless people. Whether it was a desperate effort to find some meaning in his life or an attempt at self-destruction, an end-possibly any end-to his straw-man-like existence might not be an unacceptable alternative to his subconscious. Unfortunately, the difficulties of the case added to his tension too.

“Prior to the case, he was already on the verge of breaking down. Despite how he appeared to the outside world, he was torn and tormented by a split personality-an advocator for the new legal system and a lawbreaker in the most devilish way. Not to mention the helpless mess of his personal life.

“And of all a sudden, Jasmine was killed.”

“So are you saying, Chief Inspector Chen, that he turns into a killer because of his breakdown under too much stress?”

“The crisis had existed long before the breaking point. But in spite of all the abovementioned factors, there must have been something else that set him off.”

“What set him off?” Jia echoed in a show of nonchalance. “Beats me.”

“It was panic that his plan for revenge was falling through. He had intended to see Jasmine into depravity, supposing that her complete downfall was just a matter of time. But she then met a man who was going to marry her and take her away to the United States-out of his reach. J had reduced her to a dead-end job in the hotel, where she met the love of her life. What an irony! The prospect of her living happily with a man in the States was more than he could stand. That pushed him over the edge. So he took her out one night.

“It’s difficult to say what exactly he did to her-sexually, there was no real penetration or ejaculation. But he strangled her, put her into a dress similar to the one his mother wore in the picture, and dumped her body in front of the music institute-a location symbolically important to him. It was like a sacrifice, a statement, a message to his mother, in revenge for those wronged years, but also a message he could hardly analyze for himself. So many were entangled together in his mind.

“But the story doesn’t end there. As the girl breathed her last, he experienced something new and unexpected, something like total freedom. It was all he could do to hold on to the appearance of his old self. Once the demon was out, like the genie out of the bottle, it was beyond his control. Considering the repression or suppression he had suffered all those years, it’s understandable to an extent why the murder provided him a release. A satisfaction previously unknown to him. A sort of mental orgasm-I doubt he attacked her sexually in an exact sense. It was a sensation so liberating that it worked like a drug, and he craved the experience.”

“Now that reads like something from one of your mystery translations, Chief Inspector Chen,” Jia commented. “In those books, a madman kills for the thrill of it, like a drug addiction. It’s easy to write him off as a psycho. You don’t really buy such crap, do you?”

The mahogany clock started striking, as if in echo of his question. Chen looked up. It was eleven. Jia didn’t appear so eager to leave. Rather, he was talking in earnest. That didn’t bode too badly for Chen.

“Let me go on with my story first, Mr. Jia,” Chen said. “So he started his serial murders. It was no longer revenge, but an uncontrollable killing urge. He knew the police were on high alert, so he focused on three-accompanying girls, who were easy to pick up, and also suggestive of depravation. He was totally possessed, not caring that the women weren’t related to his revenge, that they were innocent victims.”

“Innocent victims,” Jia echoed. “Few would so describe them. Of course, a narrator has his own perspective.”

“Psychologically, it was also crucial,” Chen went on without directly responding to him. “He’s not delusional. Most of the time, he may be just like you and me, like ordinary people. So he still has to justify what he does, consciously or subconsciously. In his twisted mind, these girls, because of their possible sex service, deserved such a disgraceful ending.”

“You don’t have to launch into a lecture in the middle of a narrative. As you have said, it’s an age of the individual’s perspective.”

“From whatever perspective, serial murder is inexcusable. And he knows that too. He’s not so willing to see himself as a murderer.”

“You are full of brilliantly creative imagination, Chief Inspector Chen,” Jia said. “Let us say that you are going to publish the story, but what then? It’s not a work of high taste, not becoming a well-known poet like you.”

“A story is told for an implied audience, the audience that will be most affected by it. In the present case, that is, of course, J.”

“So it’s like a message to him? I know you did it, so you’d better confess. But what would be J’s reaction?” Jia said deliberately. “I can’t speak for him, but for me, as a common reader, I will say that the story doesn’t hold up. It’s conjecture about things that happened over twenty years ago, and all based on a psychological theory totally foreign to Chinese culture. So do you think J will turn himself in? There is no evidence or witness. It’s no longer the age of proletarian dictatorship, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen.”

“With four victims in the city, evidence will be found. I’m working on it.”

“As a cop?”

“I am a cop, but I’m telling a story here-at the moment. Let me ask you a question. What makes a story good?”

“Credibility.”

“Credibility comes from vivid and realistic details. Here, except for a couple of paragraphs, I’m only giving you something like an outline. For the final version, I’ll include all the details. I don’t have to use abstract terms like Oedipus complex. I’ll simply elaborate on the boy’s sexual desire for his mother.”

Jia rose abruptly, poured another cup for himself, and drained it in one gulp.

“Well, if you believe your story can sell, that’s great. It’s none of my business. You’ve finished, and I think I’d better leave-to prepare for the trial tomorrow.”

“No, don’t leave in such a hurry, Mr. Jia. Several courses are not served yet. And I need more of your specific opinions.”

“I think you are trying to tell a sensational story,” Jia said, still standing there, “but people will take it as a sordid fantasy embraced by a cop without a shred of evidence. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have resorted to storytelling.”

“When they learn that the story is written by a cop, they will pay more attention to it.”

“In China, a story from official channels would more likely than not be discredited.” Jia added, “In the last analysis, your story has too many holes. No one would take it seriously.”

Their talk was once again interrupted by the arrival of White Cloud. This time she was dressed like a country girl, wearing an indigo homespun top, shorts, and a white apron. Her feet were bare. She was serving them a live snake in a glass cage.

At their first meeting in the Dynasty karaoke club, Chen recalled, she had also served a snake platter, but now she was preparing the snake before their eyes.

She proved to be up to the task, swooping the snake out in a quick motion, striking it like a whip on the ground, and slicing open its belly with a sharp knife. With one pull, she took the snake’s gall bladder in her hand and put it in a cup of spirits. She must have received professional training.

Still, her bare arms and feet were splashed with snake blood, and the blood spatters looked like peach blossom petals falling on her fan-shaped apron.

“This is for our honored guest,” she said, handing Jia a cup that contained the greenish gall in the strong liquor.

The scene produced little effect on Jia, who swallowed the gall in the liquor in one gulp, producing a hundred Yuan bill for her.

“For your service.” Jia reseated himself at the table. “He must have gone to great lengths to find you.”

“Thank you.” She turned to Chen. “How do you want the snake cooked?”

“Whatever way you recommend.”

“In Chef Lu’s usual style then. Half to fry, half to steam.”

“Fine.”

She withdrew, treading high-footed on the carpet.

“It’s not so convenient to talk in a restaurant,” Chen said to Jia. “But you were talking about holes in the story.”

“Well, here is one hole,” Jia said. “In your story, Jasmine must have had opportunities of getting out from under of his control, yet he managed to keep control of the situation all those years. Why not this time? He’s a resourceful attorney; instead of resorting to killing, he could have thwarted her plans some other way.”

“He might have tried, but for one reason or another, it didn’t work out. But you have a point, Mr. Jia. A good point.”

It was obvious that Jia was trying to undermine the whole basis of the story, and Chen welcomed his engagement in the exercise.

“And here is another such hole. If he were so passionately attached to his mother, then why would he strip his victims and dress them in such a way? That kind of attachment is a skeleton in the family closet, to say the least-one he would be anxious to keep hidden.”

“A short, simple explanation is that things are twisted in his mind. He loves her, but he can’t forgive her for what he considers to be her betrayal. But I have a more elaborate explanation for this psychological peculiarity,” Chen said. “I’ve mentioned the Oedipus complex, in which two aspects are mixed. Secret guilt and sexual desire. For a boy in China during the sixties, the desire part could be more deeply embedded.

“Now, the memory of her most desirable moment, the afternoon when she was wearing that mandarin dress, was juxtaposed with that of another moment, the most horrible memory, that of her having sex with another man. Unforgettable and unforgivable because in his subconscious, he substitutes himself as the one and only lover. So those two moments are fused together like two sides of a coin. That’s why he treated his victims as he did-the message was contradictory even to himself.”

“I am no expert or critic,” Jia said, “but I don’t think you can apply a Western theory to China without causing confusion. For me-as a reader-the connection between his mother’s death and him subsequently killing appears groundless.”

“About the difficulty of applying a Western theory to China, I think you’re right. In the original Oedipus story, the woman is no devil. She doesn’t know, she’s just doing what’s commonly expected in her position. It’s a tragedy of fate. J’s story is different. And it happens to involve something I’ve been exploring in a literature paper. I’ve been analyzing several classical love stories in which beautiful and desirable women suddenly turn into monsters, like ‘The Story of Yingying’ or ‘Artisan Cui and His Ghost Wife.’ No matter how desirable the woman is in the romantic sense, there’s always the other side-which is disastrous to the man with her. Is it something deep in Chinese culture or in the Chinese collective unconscious? It’s possible, especially when we take into consideration the institution of arranged marriage. Demonization of women, especially of women involved in sexual love, is therefore understandable. So it’s like a twisted Oedipus message with Chinese characteristics.”

“Your lecture is profound but beyond me,” Jia said. “You should write a book about it.”

Chen, too, wondered at his sudden exuberance here, in the company of Jia. Perhaps that was what he had been struggling with in his paper, and it took an unexpected parallel to the case to make him see the light.

“So for J, his peculiar way of killing proved overwhelming, with the force coming not just out of his personal unconscious, but out of the collective one as well.”

“I’m not interested in the theory, Chief Inspector Chen. Nor do I think your readers will ever be interested. As long as your story is full of holes, you can’t make a case.”

Jia evidently believed that Chen had played all his cards and was unable to touch him. In return, Jia was picking up the holes in the story to let Chen know that he thought the cop was merely bluffing in a game at psychological warfare.

Indeed, there were holes that Jia alone could fill, Chen thought, when he was struck by a new idea. Why not let Jia do the job?

Unworkable as the idea seemed, Chen instantly decided to give it a try. After all, Jia might be tempted to tell the story from his perspective-with different emphases and justifications, as long as he could maintain, psychologically, that it was nothing but a story.

“You are a good critic, Mr. Jia. Now, supposing you were the narrator, how could you improve the tale?”

“What do you mean?”

“About the holes in the narrative. Some of my explanations may not be enough to convince you. As the author, I wonder what kind of explanations you as a reader might expect, or might try to provide.”

The look he gave Chen made it clear Jia knew it was a trap, and he didn’t respond immediately.

“You are one of the best attorneys in the city, Mr. Jia,” Chen went on. “Your legal expertise surely makes the difference.”

“Which particular holes are you talking about, Chief Inspector Chen?” Jia said, still cautious.

“The red mandarin dress, to begin with. Based on the research done about the material and style, he had the dresses made in the eighties, about ten years before he started killing. Was he already planning it? No, I don’t think so. Then why such a large supply of them, and in different sizes too, as if he had anticipated the need to choose for his victims?”

“That defies explanation, doesn’t it? But as an audience, I think there may be a scenario more acceptable to me, and also consistent with the rest of the story.” Jia paused to take a sip at the wine, as if deep in thought. “Missing his mother, he tried to have the dress in the picture reproduced. It took him quite a while to find the original material-it was long out of production-and to locate the old tailor who had made the original dress. So he decided to use up the material, having several dresses made instead of just one. One of them must be close to the original. He didn’t foresee that they would be used years later.”

“Excellent, Mr. Jia. He still lives in the moment of having his picture taken with her. It isn’t surprising that he tried to hang on to something of it. Something tangible, so he could tell himself that the moment had existed,” Chen said, nodding. “Now, about the other hole you pointed out. You were right about his capability of thwarting Jasmine’s plans in some other way. Besides, Jasmine wasn’t like the other victims. How could she have been willing to go out with a stranger?”

“Well,” Jia said. “How can you be so sure that he had planned to kill her? Instead, he might have tried to talk her out of her passion. Then something just happened.”

“How, Mr. Jia? How could he try to talk her out of love?”

“I’m not the writer, but he might have found out something about her lover-something suspicious in his business or in his marital status. So he arranged to meet her to discuss it.”

“Oh yes, that explains why she would go out with him. Fantastic.”

“He wanted her to stop seeing the man. She wouldn’t listen. So he threatened her with the possible consequences, like disclosing their secret affair, or accusing her lover of bigamy. During their heated argument, she started shouting and screaming. He put his hand on her mouth to silence her. In a trance, all of a sudden, he saw himself turning into Tian, and doing to her what Tian had done to his mother. An uncanny experience like reincarnation. It was Tian who was attacking her-”

“Except that in the last minute,” Chen cut in, “the memory of his mother still unmanned him. He strangled her instead of raping her. That explains the bruises on her legs and arms, and his washing her body afterward. He was a cautious man, worried about evidence left behind in the failed attempt.”

“Well, that’s your account, Chief Inspector Chen.”

“Thank you, Mr. Jia, you have fixed the problem,” Chen said, draining his cup. “Just one more hole. He dumped the bodies at public locations. A defiant message, I understand. But the last victim was left in the cemetery. Why? If the grave robber hadn’t stumbled upon the body, it could have been left undiscovered for days.”

“You aren’t familiar with the cemetery, are you?”

“No, I’m not.”

“In the fifties, it was the cemetery for the rich. So there is a simple explanation. His family members were buried there.”

“But both his parents were cremated, with their ashes disposed of. The cemetery, too, was turned upside down. No immediate members of his family were buried there.”

“Well, some families used to buy their cemetery plots far in advance. His grandfather and parents could have purchased their plots like that. So in his imagination, it was still the place where his mother lay in rest-”

Chen’s cell phone started ringing at this unlikely hour. Chen picked it up in haste. The call was from Director Zhong.

“Thank God. I’ve finally found you, Chief Inspector Chen,” Zhong said. “The Central Party Committee in Beijing has made a decision about the housing development case.”

“Yes?” Chen said, turning to one side. “You mean the outcome of the trial?”

“It’s a difficult case, but it’s also an opportunity to show our Party’s determination to fight corruption. The people see Peng as representative of it. So let’s make an example of him.”

“I haven’t been helpful with the case. I am sorry. But I will be there tomorrow. Those corrupt officials should be punished.”

Zhong had no idea that the phone conversation was going on in the presence of Jia.

“Then I’ll see you in the courtroom tomorrow,” Zhong said.

Turning back at the end of the phone call, Chen said, “Sorry about the interruption, Mr. Jia.”

It was then that the mahogany clock started striking, sounding like the bell in the temple.

Twelve o’clock.