by Qiu Xiaolong
“Be careful,” she said with a giggle, hastily wiping his chin with a pink paper napkin.
Her fingers wiping the soup from his chin embarrassed him, and he felt obliged to say something. “According to a recipe book I read, the soup bun is special because its stuffing is mixed with pork skin jelly. When steamed, the jelly turns into hot liquid. You have to bite into it very carefully, or the soup will splash out, or even scald your tongue.”
In spite of his book knowledge, he had made a small soup mess on the desk, and she brought a towel to clean it up with.
He changed the subject. “You are really helping a lot. But you are a college student, White Cloud. I do not think—”
“I have to earn my college tuition. Both my parents have been laid off. I have to work, if not as a little secretary for you, then as a K girl at the Dynasty Club, or somewhere else.”
“It takes somebody like Gu to invent such a position,” he said as he put a chunk of smoked eel into his mouth. The eel was at once crisp and juicy.
“He can’t get credit for this invention,” she said, as she sucked the soup out of a dainty bun. “Little secretary or xiaomi. Surely you’ve heard the term? Those Mr. Big Bucks must have little secretaries; we are symbols, just like a Mercedes.”
He was surprised that she spoke so casually, as if the words had no relevance to herself.
“There’s another new job invention: ‘passion companion.’ A full-page advertisement for this work appeared in Wenhui Daily. I don’t need to explain what it means. Believe it or not, there are high qualifications required for the position. At least a university degree. Able to talk intelligently. Presentable for social occasions, and, of course, for private occasions, too.”
“I’m too old-fashioned, I’m afraid.”
“You are special.” She stood up and began to put the leftovers into the refrigerator. “Well, I’d better do something to make sure Mr. Gu gets his money’s worth.”
“I do have something for you to do: Can you check the definitions of these words for me? It will save me a lot of time. You don’t have to do it right now. In the evening, if you have time, after your class, will be fine. “
“Sure. I can learn quite a few new words for myself.”
The telephone started ringing. She picked it up instantly like a secretary. “Chen Residence.”
“Oh.” There was a pause. “I’m Detective Yu. I want to speak to Chief Inspector Chen.”
“Hold on.” She turned toward Chen, the receiver covered by her hand, whispering in his ear, “Detective Yu. Do you want to speak to him?”
“Of course,” he said.
“Sorry to bother you, boss,” Yu said in a hesitant voice.
“Come on, Yu. What can I do for you?” He said to White Cloud in a low voice, “You may leave now. I will call you tomorrow.”
“You don’t have to. I’ll be here to make breakfast for you,” she said. “See you.”
“See you. Don’t worry about breakfast.”
“You’ve got company?” Yu asked, delicately.
“A little secretary.” Chen added, “I’m working on a difficult translation. She will help me.”
“A xiaomi!” Yu did not try to disguise the surprise in his voice.
“Gu insisted on sending her over to help,” he said. Yu might be the only one for whom he did not have to go into detail. “Have you examined the murder scene?”
“Yes, I did. But there was not much I could see, as I told you. Judging from the time of the murder and the fact that no stranger was seen entering or leaving the building around that time, it looks like the murderer might be one of the shikumen residents. That’s Old Liang’s opinion too.”
“Have you ruled out every other possibility?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, regarding the residents of the building, what possible motives are there?”
“I’ve been thinking about that too,” Yu said. “I have checked with Shanghai Literature Publishing House. She did not earn much from her novel. I found a little money in her desk drawers, but also some correspondence with people abroad. I’m not sure whether she was working on another project. Perhaps another controversial book.”
That would really make this a political case. Was she working on something the government—or someone in the government— might have tried to keep from coming out?
“As for her contacts abroad, Internal Security must have a file. They can be quite effective in their own way.” Chen would not say more over the phone.
“They surely can. They beat me to the crime scene and searched her room, but they haven’t told us what they were looking for.”
“It could be just routine practice for Internal Security if a dissident has been killed. If they left those letters in the drawer, there probably was nothing in them to worry about.”
“Another thing. I did not find a checkbook in her room,” Yu said. “If the murderer took it, he would have withdrawn the money from her account immediately. So far, there’s no report of an account in her name from which there have been withdrawals.”
“The murderer might have been too scared to go to the bank, or Yin may have kept all her valuables in a safe deposit box.”
“Safe deposit?” Yu said. “I’ve only read about them in one of the English mysteries you translated.”
“Well, you can find everything in Shanghai now. Pay a certain amount, and the bank will keep valuables in a small safe for you.”
“I’ll check into it. But first I will go to her college this afternoon; there is nothing unusual in her college file though.” Yu added, “I’ll let you know as soon as I find out anything. Thanks, Chief.”
The rest of Chen’s afternoon was uneventful except for several more phone calls. The first was from Gu.
“How is everything, Chief Inspector Chen?”
“It’s going slowly, but steadily. I mean the progress of the translation, if that’s what you are asking about.”
“Oh, I’m not worried about that. The project is in good hands, I know.” Gu said with a chuckle, “What about White Cloud?”
“Quite helpful,” Chen said, “but she should concentrate on her studies. I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to come here every day.”
“If you don’t need her, send her back. I just thought it might be a good idea for her to help you. As for her, she should consider herself lucky to have the opportunity to work with you. There’s a lot she can learn.”
It was not such a bad idea to have a temporary assistant, Chen thought, in spite of his protestations. A young pretty one too. There was no point in his being too prudish about it. If the water is too clear, there will he no fish left in the pond.
“By the way, what about having dinner with me at the Dynasty this weekend?” Gu asked. “You may have heard of our sauna room. Now we have a new dish—sauna shrimp. Live river shrimp, of course.”
“Sauna shrimp! My food finger is already throbbing, but let’s wait until I’ve finished the translation.” For some minutes after Gu’s phone call, Chen tried but failed to figure out what kind of dish sauna shrimp might be.
The next caller was a surprise. It was Peiqin, Yu’s wife, a wonderful hostess with excellent cooking skills, and equally good taste in classical Chinese literature. Chen had not spoken to her since the apartment had been denied to them. He felt he had let the couple down terribly.
“Yu is working on the Yin case, as you know. He does not have much time for reading. So I am going to read Death of a Chinese Professor on his behalf. Not just the novel, but other material related to it as well, like interviews or reviews. It may take time to find these things in libraries. I’m wondering whether you know of a shortcut to getting that material.”
“I have not read Death of a Chinese Professor.” He had heard of it, but, after reading a review, he had not bothered to obtain the book. Those stories of persecuted intellectuals were nothing new. Chen’s father, a Neo-Confucian scholar, had also died a miserable death
during the Cultural Revolution. “I’m afraid I cannot help.”
“Yin, too, belonged to the Chinese Writers’ Association, Shanghai Branch. Were you ever introduced to her at one of those meetings?”
“I don’t remember having met her there.” He said, after considering further, “There’s a small library at the Shanghai Writers’ Association. It’s on Julu Road. Members are supposed to bring their works and related reviews to the library. Sometimes the writers forget to do so, and the librarian has to collect them. At the least, there should be a catalog of her publications. The librarian’s name is Kuang Ming. I’ll give him a call. He should be able to help.”
There was one thing Chief Inspector Chen did not say on the phone. A secret archive would certainly have been kept there with respect to a dissident writer. Peiqin should have no problems finding what she needed.
“Thank you, Chief Inspector Chen. Come to our restaurant when you have time. Now we have a new chef, Sichuan style. He is quite good.”
“Thank you, Peiqin, for helping with our work,” he said.
Afterwards, he thought about the fact that Peiqin had invited him to the restaurant, but not to their home. He had done his best as a member of the bureau housing committee, he thought, but those who had failed to get an apartment would never believe he had done enough, perhaps including Peiqin.
The third phone call he received was from Overseas Chinese Lu, who had earned his nickname in high school from his enthusiasm for foreign things. He was an old friend who called regularly from his restaurant, Moscow Suburb. Not for the first time, Chen received a passionate invitation to have dinner at the newly expanded restaurant.
“I phoned your office. They told me you are on vacation. Now you surely have time to dine at our restaurant.”
“Not this week, Lu. I have to finish a rush translation project for Mr. Gu, of the Dynasty Club, now also the founder of the New World Group. You know him, I think.”
“Oh, Mr. Gu. He asked you to do a translation for him?”
“Yes, for a business project of his,” Chen said. “How is your business?”
“Great. We have unearthed a number of old pictures and posters of Russian girls in old Shanghai. Now they are all over the walls. Impressive pictures. Crowded nightclubs with half-naked Russian girls performing on the stage. It’s like walking back in time into old Shanghai.”
“That’s exciting.”
“I’m thinking of putting a stage in our restaurant, too. Peace Hotel has a band. Old men playing jazz, you know. We’ll do much better. A young men’s band, and Russian girls on stage,” Lu added proudly. “Girls both in old pictures, and in real life.”
“So Moscow Suburb is no longer merely a restaurant, just for gourmets like you.”
“It still is. But people have money now. They want something more than food. Atmosphere. Culture. History. Added value, whatever it may mean. And only in the middle of all this do they think they are really enjoying their money’s worth.”
“It must be quite expensive, then.”
“Well, people are willing to pay the price. There’s a new term— conspicuous consumption. And there’s a new group of people— the middle class. Moscow Suburb has become a status-conscious restaurant. Some come here for that very reason.”
“Good for you, Overseas Chinese Lu.”
“So come, my Chief Inspector. I’ve just got some caviar, genuine Russian caviar. An acquired taste, I’m beginning to like it. You remember, I read about it for the first time in a Russian novel. My mouth literally watered. Black pearls indeed. Oh, vodka too. We’ll eat and drink to our hearts’ content.”
“I have to get back to my work, Overseas Chinese Lu.” Chen had to cut him short. Lu could gush on for hours whenever he spoke on the topic of food. “I will try to make it to your restaurant next week.”
These phone calls had some things in common, Chen thought afterward. Culinary delight was one. Not just that, either. Lu had also spoken about a nostalgic cultural ambiance for his restaurant. As a result of this conversation, Chen felt hungry but he decided to work on, doggedly, for two or three hours more. It seemed as if he had to prove the truth of what he had told Lu on the phone.
After a while, he looked once more at the pictures White Cloud had taken for him. He failed to see the glitter and glamour of the thirties. Perhaps that was due to the dirt and dust accumulated through the years of the construction of socialism. It might be too cynical of him, as a Party cadre, to think so, but that’s what he thought.
Finally, he took the remaining food, put it into the microwave, and finished it without really tasting it.
Perhaps he ought to consult some books about old Shanghai. Not books written in the sixties, which he had read as a child, but those from an earlier time. He took out a piece of paper and wrote something down before he brewed himself a pot of coffee. Not a good idea at this hour, he knew. Inhaling the fragrance, he realized that he had been becoming more dependent on caffeine. For the moment, however, he did not want to worry about it. He had to pull himself together.
He worked late that night.
He felt tired, yet all of a sudden, more than anything else, lonely.
Several lines a friend had once quoted to him came to mind. Trying each of the chilly boughs, / the wild goose chooses not to perch, / with the maple leaves falling, freezing, / over the Wu River. These were lines from a poem by Su Dongpo. It was said to be a political commentary, but it was often read as a metaphor about the difficulty of choosing a bough to perch upon, whatever the reason might be. In fact, the friend had quoted it in defense of her personal life.
And then his thought jumped to a familiar sound, like the wild goose amidst falling maple leaves. A cricket was screeching outside the window.
There was no accounting for a cricket scraping its wings so energetically, unless, as he had learned as a boy, the cricket was singing in triumph over a beaten opponent.
But what was the good of being a cricket, victorious or not, if you were always goaded by a golden rush in a boy’s hand, circling round and round the world of a small earthen pot?
* * * *
Chapter 6
A
fter consulting Old Liang’s list of the suspects who lived in the shikumen building, Yu started his investigation early the next morning at the neighborhood committee office. On the desk was a new folder that contained information about each suspect, probably derived from the records maintained by the veteran residence cop.
The first person on the list was Lanlan, the discoverer of the murder. Technically, she had had the opportunity and means to commit the crime and it appeared to Old Liang that she had a motive too.
Lanlan was a woman who liked nothing better than to mix with her neighbors; she was capable of becoming intimate with people she had known for only three minutes. She had suffered a terrible loss of face with Yin, who rejected her repeated attempts at friendship. Lanlan finally gave up with a bitter statement to the neighbors: “It was like pressing your hot face to her cold ass. What’s the point?”
But this would not have been sufficient to cause an explosion unless a fuse had been lit, which, in a shikumen house, more often than not came from the constant squabbles about the common space. Because of overcrowded living conditions, each of the families tried hard to occupy as much space as possible—”in a fair way.” Old Liang provided an example. Yin had a coal briquette stove as well as a small table in the common kitchen area. It was her space, inherited from the previous tingzijian occupant; she took it even though she hardly cooked. Like her predecessor, she also kept a smaller gasoline stove outside her door on the staircase landing. Like all the others, she would not give up an inch she could claim as hers. This must have vexed some of her neighbors.
One night, Lanlan came home in a hurry and stumbled over the gasoline stove. There was a kettle of hot water on the stove; the hot water spilled and scalded her ankle. It was not exactly Yin’s fault. The stove had been there for years. Lanlan sh
ould have turned on the light, or moved less rapidly. Anyway, accidents happen, but she cursed like a fury outside Yin’s door.
“What a white tiger star you are! You bring misfortune to everyone close to you. Heaven has eyes, and you will bring bad luck down upon yourself, too.”
Yin must have been aware of the reference—white tiger star— but she knew better than to emerge from her room to shout back.
Lanlan, however, was even more enraged to be ignored like that. She voiced her complaints in neighborhood resident meetings. A lot of people heard them, and some were astonished by the animosity she had displayed toward Yin. But that was still far from being a murder motive, in Yu’s estimation. Besides, the incident had happened a couple of years earlier.