The Mao Case

SEVENTEEN

MUCH TO HIS CONFUSION, Chen found himself sitting beside Yong in a black limousine, which was rolling down the once familiar Chang’an Avenue in the growing dusk.

He hadn’t expected such a grand ride upon his arrival in Beijing. On the Shanghai-Beijing express train he had decided that, rather than go through a travel agency and have his name registered, it would be better to call Yong, ask her to book a hotel for him, and have her purchase a prepaid cell phone for him to use while in Beijing. He was acquainted with some people in the Beijing Police Bureau, but he decided not to contact any of them.

Nor would he let them know he was taking his “vacation” in Beijing. With Yong, there was one disadvantage – her unbridled imagination regarding the purpose of his trip. On the other hand, she could tell him about Ling. There were questions he might not be able to ask Ling herself.

It didn’t take long for Yong to call back, saying that she had taken care of everything and that she would pick him up at the station.

What surprised him, however, was the sight of Yong waiting for him with a luxurious limousine at the exit of the Beijing train station.

As far as he knew, Yong was an ordinary librarian, riding an old bike to work, rain or shine.

More to his surprise, Yong didn’t immediately start talking about Ling, as he had anticipated. A slender-built woman in her late thirties with short hair, a slightly swarthy complexion, and clear features, Yong usually spoke fast and loud. There was something mysterious about her reticence.

After the car swerved around Dongdan and passed Lantern City Crossing, it made several more turns in quick succession before edging its way into a narrow, winding lane, which appeared to be in the Eastern City area. He couldn’t see clearly through the amber-colored windows.

The entrance of the lane looked familiar, yet strange, lined with indescribable stuffs stacked along both sides.

“The hotel is in a hutong?” he asked. In Beijing, a lane was called hutong, usually narrow and uneven. The limousine was literally crawling along.

“You’ve forgotten all about it, haven’t you?” Yong said with a knowing smile. “A distinguished man can’t help forgetting things. We are going to my place.”

“Oh. But why?”

“To receive the wind, like in our old tradition. Isn’t it proper and right for me to first welcome you at home? The hotel is really close, at the end of the lane. It’s easy, you can walk there in only three or four minutes.”

She could have told him on the phone. But why the limousine? Yong was of ordinary family background, not like Ling.

He had been here before years earlier – for a date with Ling, he recalled, as the car pulled up in front of a sihe quadrangle house. It was an architectural style popular in the old city of Beijing, and characterized by residential rooms on four sides and an inner courtyard in the center.

Stepping out, he saw an isolated house standing in a disappearing lane – most of the houses there were already gone or half gone, the ground littered with debris and ruins.

“The local government has a new housing project planned to be built here, but we aren’t moving. Not until we are properly compensated. It’s our property.”

“Are you still living here?”

“No, we have another apartment near New Street.”

So they were another “nail family,” hanging in until pulled out by force. There were stories about this type of problem in the development of the city.

In the courtyard, he noticed that all the rooms were dark except Yong’s.

As she led him into the room, he wasn’t too surprised to see Ling sitting there, leaning against the paper window. He looked over her with an overwhelming feeling of déjà vu.

In the limousine, he had suspected some sort of arrangement by Yong. Ling, however, appeared to be genuinely surprised, and she stood up. She could have come over from some business activity, wearing a purple satin mandarin dress, with a purse of the same color and material, apparently custom-made, like in a page torn from a high-class fashion magazine.

There was no “wind-receiving” banquet on the table, not as Yong had promised. There was only a cup of tea for Ling. Yong hastened to pour a cup for Chen and gestured both of them to sit down.

“My humble abode is brightened by two distinguished guests tonight,” Yong said. “Ling, CEO of several large companies in Beijing, and Chen, chief inspector of the Shanghai Police Bureau. So my ‘nail family’ has existed for a good reason.”

“You should have told me,” Ling said to her.

That was what he also wanted to say, but he said instead to Ling, “I’m so pleased to see you, Ling.”

“Now, I have to hurry back to my new place,” Yong said. “My man works the night shift and I have to take care of my little daughter.”

It was too obvious an excuse. Yong had played a similar trick once before. The memories of a similar occasion were all coming back to him.

Yong left promptly, as years earlier, closing the door after her, leaving the two of them alone in the room.

But things were not as before, not anymore for the two of them. He found himself at a loss for words. The silence seemed to wrap them up in a silk cocoon.

“Yong is a busybody,” Ling said finally. “She dragged me over without telling me why, and insisted on my waiting here.”

“A well-meant busybody,” he said, his glance sweeping over the room, which appeared little changed. There was still a basin of water in the steel-wire basin holder near the door. The large bed at the other side of the room was covered with a dragon-and-phoenix-embroidered sheet, identical to the one in his memory. And they were sitting at the same red-painted wooden table by the paper windows, against which the old lamp cast a lambent light.

That might be the very effect Yong had intended. The past in the present. Like the last time they were here – Ling, a librarian, and he, a college student. In those days, she still lived with her parents, and he, in a crowded dorm room with five other students. It was difficult for them to find a quiet place to themselves. So Yong invited them to her place, and as soon as they were here, she left them alone with an excuse.

That evening was like this evening. But to night, as in a couplet by Li Shangyin, “Oh the feeling, to be collected later / in memories, was already confused.”

“I received the book you sent from London,” he said. “Thank you so much, Ling.”

“Oh, I happened to see it in a bookstore there.”

“So you are back from the trip.” It was idiotic to say that, he knew. She thought of him on her honeymoon trip, but what else could he say to her? “When?”

“Last week.”

“You could have told me earlier.”

“Why?”

“I would have been able -” He left the sentence unfinished – to buy a wedding present for you.

There ensued another short spell of silence, like in a scroll of traditional Chinese painting, in which the blank space contains more than what was painted. There is always a loss of meaning / in what we say or do not say, / but also a meaning / in the loss of the meaning.

“Oh, did you visit the Sherlock Holmes Museum?” he said, trying to change the topic.

“Now you are really a chief inspector,” she said, eyeing the cold tea. “A cop above everything.”

That was another blunder on his part. She had a point. He was tongue-tied, as a cop or not, thinking that her response might have also referred to his role in another case, one that had exasperated her father because of its political repercussions. A case Chen didn’t have to take, yet he did. The outcome of it had strained their relationship.

“You must have done well on the force,” she went on. “My father, too, mentioned you the other day.”

“As a monk, you have to strike the bell in the temple, day after day.” He was deeply perturbed by the comment about her father, a powerful politburo member in the Forbidden City.

“So it has become your lifelong career?”

“Perhaps it’s too late for me to try anything new,” he said, not wanting to continue like this, but not knowing how to shift the topic.

“I tried to write you,” she said, taking the initiative, her head slightly tilted in the faltering lamplight, “but there’s not much to be said. After all, the tide does not wait.”

He wondered at her choice of the words – “the tide does not wait.” Did it mean she couldn’t wait any longer? He wondered whether it was about her marriage choice or career choice. To start a business was nowadays described as “to jump into the sea” – tides of money-making opportunities. She was a successful businesswoman, and her husband, for that matter, was another tide-riding businessman.

Or were they a reference to the Spring Tide? That was the title of a Russian novel that they had read together in North Sea Park.

But he was supposed to say something more relevant to the occasion. It was an opportunity not to be missed, as Yong would have urged, a chance for the “salvation mission.” Ling was staying with her parents at the moment.

He took a sip of his tea. Jasmine flower tea. Another surprising strike of déjà vu. That evening, so many years ago, she brewed a pot of hot tea for him, putting the jasmine petal from her hair into his teacup – “The transparently white unfolding in the black.”

“So are you here in Beijing on another case?” she said.

“No, not exactly. It’s more of a vacation. I haven’t been to Beijing for a long time.”

“Our chief inspector is enjoying a vacation!”

He was upset by the sarcasm in her voice. It was she who had married somebody else, not the other way round.

“Any sight of specific interest on your vacation?” she went on without looking up at him.

Actually, there was one, he suddenly realized. Mao’s former residence in the Central South Sea, the Forbidden City. He had just read about it on the train. The residence was closed, and it didn’t have a direct bearing on the investigation, but he had taken to visiting the people involved in an investigation or, failing that, their residence, as a way of closing the distance between cop and criminal. For this case, Chen didn’t set out to judge Mao. Still, a visit to his residence might help the chief inspector, if only psychologically, gain insight into the personal side of Mao.

Ling should be able to get him into the Central South Sea through her connections in Beijing. “Mao’s old home in the Central South Sea,” he blurted out, “but it is closed.”

“Mao’s old home!” she echoed in surprise. “Since when have you become a Maoist?”

“No, I’m not that fashionable.”

“Then why?” She gave him an alert look.

He didn’t respond at once, trying to recall whether he had ever talked to her about Mao.

“You remember that evening in Jingshan Park? With the evening spread out against the tilted eaves of the ancient, splendid palace, we sat together, and you murmured a poem to me.”

And it came back, the memories of her sitting on a gray slab of rock, holding his hand, and of his catching sight of a tree hung with a white board saying, “The tree on which Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming dynasty hung himself,” and of his shivering with the memory of the blackboard hung around his father’s neck during the Cultural Revolution…

“I still have that poem,” she said, producing from her purse something like a cell phone but larger, palmlike, which he had never seen before. She pressed several keys on the gadget.

“Here it is,” she said, beginning to read aloud from the LCD screen.

It was on a hillside, Jingshan Park, Forbidden City / where the Qing Emperor had succeeded / the Ming Emperor, we sat / on a slab of rock there, watching / the evening spreading out against the tilted eaves / of the ancient, splendid palace. / Below us, waves of buses flowed / along Huangchen Road – a moat, hundreds of years ago. We murmured / words in Chinese, then in English / we were learning. The bronze stork / which had once escorted the Qing Dowager / stared at us. You dream of us becoming / two gargoyles, you told me / at Yangxing imperial hall, gurgling/ all night long, in a language comprehensible / only to ourselves. A mist / enveloped the hill. We saw a tree / hung with a white board saying / “It’s on this tree that Emperor Chongzhen / committed suicide.” The board reminded me / of the blackboard hung my father’s neck / during the Cultural Revolution. The evening / struck me as suddenly cold. / We left the park.

“Yes, the poem. I really appreciate it that you kept it for me -”

“I did it on the airplane. Nothing to do during those business flights.”

But he was vexed, almost irrationally, imagining her traveling with her businessman husband, sitting side by side, and reading his poems to him. Chen had given her a number of his poems. He started wondering whether she had kept them, and where.

“Oh, about the poems I wrote – I meant the poems for you, Ling. I haven’t kept the manuscripts properly, only some pieces here, some pieces there. If you still have them, can you give them back to me?”

“You want them back?”

He regretted the way he had made the request. So impulsive and abrupt. How was she going to interpret it?

But she changed the subject. “I have a friend working in the Central South Sea. A visit to his old home can be arranged, I guess.”

Since they were back to talking about Mao, he decided to push his luck further. “Oh, there’s a book written by Mao’s personal doctor, do you know anything about it?”

“This is about an investigation concerning Mao, isn’t it?” she said, looking him in the eye. “You have to tell me more about your work.”

So he told her what information he was looking for, though without going into detail. He knew that honesty would be the best way to enlist her help.

“You’re somebody in your field, Chief Inspector Chen -”

But her cell phone rang. She snatched it up in frustration. In spite of her initial reluctance, she began speaking in earnest. Possibly an important business call.

“Quota is no problem…”

He stood up, pulled out a packet of cigarettes, and made a gesture with it. Pushing open the door, he headed into the courtyard.

The courtyard was even more deserted than he had first thought. The quadrangle house was holding out in desperation against the development. He watched her profile silhouetted against the window paper, the phone pressed to her cheek. Almost like an ancient shadow play. At that instant, she seemed to have moved far away.

She was capable. No question about it. There was no forgetting, however, that she had succeeded in the business world not because of her capability, but because of her family connections. It was part of the system – the way of the system. The quota she was talking about, presumably for export business, was an example: she could get the quota easily with a phone call to her “uncle” or “aunt,” yet it was way beyond ordinary people.

He wasn’t able to identify with the system, not yet, not totally, in spite of his “success” in the system. In his heart of hearts, he still yearned for something different, something with a sort of independence, albeit a limited one, from the system.

He saw she was finishing the call, putting the phone down on the table. Grinding out the cigarette, he hastened back into the room.

“You’re a busy CEO,” he said in spite of himself.

“You don’t have to say that. As a chief inspector, you’re busier.”

“It’s a job you have to put more and more of yourself into. Then it becomes part of you, whether you like it or not,” he said wistfully. “I’m talking about myself, of course. So I may redeem myself, ironically, only by being a conscientious cop.”

“Will the visit to Mao’s residence make such a difference to your police work?”

She was right to ask the question. The visit alone would make no difference. In fact, the very trip to Beijing could be a pathetic attempt to treat a dead horse as if it were still alive. “A special team was sent to Shang’s home,” he said, taking her question as a subtle hint. “After so many years, no one could know anything about what they did. The archive may still be listed as confidential -”

But her phone rang again. She took a look at the number and turned it off. “Those businesspeople will never let you alone,” she said, her fingers brushing against the paper window, like against the long-ago memories. “That night, I remember, there was an orange pinwheel spinning in the window. You were drunk, saying it was like an image in your poem. Have you totally given up your poetry?”

“Can I support myself as a poet?” He had a hard time following her as she jumped to the topic of poetry. She might be as self-conscious as he was at the unexpected reunion. “I published a collection of poems, but I found out that it was actually funded by a business associate of mine without my knowledge.”

“When I first started my business, I, too, had the naïve idea, that among other things, you might be able to write your poems without worrying about anything else.”

He was touched by a faraway look in her eyes, but she was intensely present too. She had never given up on the poet in him. Was it possible, however, for him to let her support him like that?

“When I first met you, I never imagined I would be a cop.” And I never thought you would be a businesswoman – “In those days, we still had dreams, but we have to live in the present moment.”

“I don’t know when Yong will come back,” she said, glancing up at the clock on the wall.

“It’s late,” he responded, almost mechanically. “It may be difficult for you to find a taxi.”

“I’ll leave a note for her. She will understand.”

So it ended in a whimper, this evening of theirs, but whether Yong would understand it, he didn’t know.

As they walked out of the courtyard, he was surprised to see the limousine still waiting there, like a modern monster crouching against the ruins of the old Beijing lane. A wooden pillar still stood out, like an angry finger pointing to the summer night sky.

“Is it your father’s car?”

“No, it’s mine.” She added, “For business.”

HCC were no longer something simply because of their parents. With their family connections, they themselves had turned into high cadres, or into successful entrepreneurs like her, or into both, like her husband.

He followed her over to the limousine, her high heels clicking on the stone-covered lane, a sliver of the moonlight illuminating her fine profile.

Holding the door for her, the chauffeur bowed obsequiously, white-haired like an owl in the night.

“Let me take you to your hotel,” she said.

“No, thanks. It’s just across the lane. I’ll walk there.”

“Then good night.”

Watching the car roll out of sight, he recalled that her earlier reference to the “tide” could have come out of a Tang-dynasty poem. The tide always keeps its word / to come. Had I known that, / I would have married a young tide-rider.

He was no longer a young tide-rider on the materialistic waves today.