by Unknown
“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.
EIGHTEEN
CHIEF INSPECTOR CHEN STARTED his second day in Beijing by making a phone call to Diao. It was quite early in the morning.
“My name is Chen,” he introduced himself. “I used to be a businessman, but I’m trying my hand at writing. I talked with Chairman Wang of the Chinese Writers’ Association. He recommended you to me. So I would like very much to invite you to lunch today.”
“What a surprise, Mr. Chen! Thank you so much for your kind invitation, I have to say that first. But we’ve never met before, have we? Nor have I met Wang before. How can I let you buy lunch for me?”
“I haven’t read much, Mr. Diao, but I know the story of Cao Xueqin’s friends treating him to Beijing roast duck in exchange for a chapter of the Dream of the Red Chamber. That’s how I got the idea.”
“I don’t have any exciting stories for you, I’m afraid, but if you really insist, we may meet for a late lunch today.”
“Great. One o’clock then. See you at Fangshan Restaurant.”
Putting down the phone, Chen realized that he had the morning to himself. So he started making plans.
As he walked out of the hotel, he hailed a taxi, telling the driver to go to the Memorial Hall of Chairman Mao in Tiananmen Square. Afterward, he thought, he could take a short cut through the Forbidden City Museum, to the Fangshan Restaurant in North Sea Park.
“You’re lucky. The memorial hall is open this week,” the taxi driver said without looking back. “I took someone there just yesterday.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s at the center of the Tiananmen Square,” the driver said, taking him for a first-time visitor to Beijing. “The feng shui of the memorial hall is absolutely rotten.”
“What do you mean?”
“Rotten for the dead, wasn’t it? Hardly a month after Mao’s death, his body not even properly placed in the crystal coffin yet, Madam Mao was thrown into jail as the head of the Gang of Four. And inauspicious for the square too. You know what happened in the square in 1989. There was bloodshed all over it. Sooner or later his body will have to be removed, or it will cause trouble again.”
“You really believe that?”
“Believe it or not, there’s no escaping retribution! Not even for Mao. He died sonless. One of his sons was killed in the Korean War, another suffers from schizophrenia, and still another went missing during the Civil War. It was Mao himself who said that, while he was in the Lu Mountains.” The driver added with a sardonic chuckle, “But you never know how many bastards he might have left behind.”
Chen made no comment, trying to look out at the much-changed Chang’an Avenue. They had already passed the Beijing Hotel near Dongdan.
When the taxi came to a stop close to the memorial hall, Chen handed some bills to the driver and said, “Keep the change. But tell your feng shui theory to every customer. One of them may turn out to be a cop.”
“Oh, if that happens, I’ll have a question for that cop. My father — labeled a Rightist simply so his school could meet the quota demand — died during the Cultural Revolution, leaving me an orphan without an education or skills. That’s why I am a taxi driver. So what compensation does the government owe me?”
In the anti-Rightist movement launched by Mao in mid-fifties, there was a sort of quota — each work unit had to report a given number of rightists to the authorities. The driver’s father must have been labeled a Rightist because of that. Whatever the personal grudge against Mao, however, people shouldn’t talk that way about the dead.
“The times have changed,” the taxi driver said, poking his head out of the window, as he drove off. “A cop can’t lock me up for talking about a feng shui theory.”
And whatever its feng shui, the front of the splendid mausoleum, surrounded by tall green trees, had drawn a large group of visitors, standing in a line longer than he had expected. People seemed to be quite patient, some taking pictures, some reading guidebooks, some cracking watermelon seeds.
He joined the end of the line, moving up with others. Looking at a body sometimes helps, if only psychologically, he told himself again. He had to zero in, so to speak, to get a better understanding of someone who was possibly involved.
Peddlers swarmed, hawking watches, lighters, and all sorts of small decorations and gadgets bearing the name of Mao. Chen picked up a watch with an ingeniously designed dial — it showed Mao in a green army uniform with the armband of the Red Guard. The pendulum consisted of Mao’s hand waving majestically on top of Tiananmen Gate, endless like time itself.
A security guard hurried over, shooing away the peddlers like insistent flies. Raising a green-painted loudspeaker, he urged the visitors to purchase flowers in homage to the great leader. Several people paid for the yellow chrysanthemums wrapped in plastic as the line swerved into the large courtyard. Chen did as well. There was also a mandatory boo
klet on all the great contributions Mao made to China, and he bought a copy, but didn’t open it.
Scarcely had the line of people turned into the north hall, however, when they were ordered to lay the flowers beneath a white marble statue of Mao standing in relief against an immense tapestry of China’s mountains and rivers in the brilliantly lit background.
“Shameless,” a square-faced man in the line cursed. “Only a minute after you’ve paid for the chrysanthemums. They cash in on the dead by reselling the flowers.”
“But at least they are not charging an entrance fee,” a long-faced man said. “At all the other parks in Beijing, you now have to buy tickets.”
“Do you think I would come here if I had to buy a ticket?” the square-faced man retorted. “They just want to keep up the long lines by promising no charge.”
Chen wasn’t so sure about that, but it took no less than half an hour for the line to edge into the Hall of Last Respects, and then to move up, finally, to the crystal coffin, in which Mao lay in a gray Mao suit, draped with a large red flag of the Chinese Communist Party, with honor gaurds solemnly standing around, motionless like toy soldiers.
In spite of his anticipation, Chen was stunned at the sight of Mao. So majestic on the screen of Chen’s memory, Mao now appeared shrunken, shriveled out of proportion, his cheeks hollow like dried oranges, his lips waxy, heavily painted. The little hair he had left looked somehow pasted or painted.
Chen had stood close to Mao in the crystal coffin for less than a minute before he was compelled to move on. Visitors behind him were edging up and pushing.
Instead of turning into the Memorial Chamber with pictures and documents about Mao on display, Chen headed straight to the exit.
Once out of the Memorial Hall, he inhaled a deep breath of fresh air. Peddlers again came rushing over. It was close to twelve, so he decided to start moving in the direction of his appointment.
Passing under the arch of the towering Tiananmen Gate, he purchased a ticket to the Forbidden City Museum, mainly for the short cut. With the traffic snarl along Chang’an Avenue, it could take much longer for him to get to the park by taxi.