by Qiu Xiaolong
“She did, but in the fifties and early sixties, she was very popular. When Chairman Mao came to Shanghai, he danced with her at parties arranged by the local government.”
“Yes, Minister Huang?” Chen asked, wondering where this was going.
“She could have taken – or been given – something from him. There were many opportunities.”
“Something from Mao?” Chen was instantly alert, though hardly able to smother the sarcasm in his voice. “What could that possibly be?”
“We don’t know.”
“Perhaps pictures with captions saying ‘Our great leader encouraged a revolutionary artist to make a new contribution,’ or ‘Let hundreds of flowers bloom.’ Our newspapers and magazines were full of his pictures.”
“Shang could have left it to her daughter Qian,” Huang went on without responding, “who died in an accident toward the end of the Cultural Revolution, leaving behind a daughter of her own, named Jiao. So you are going to approach Jiao.”
“Why?”
“She may have it.”
“Something from Mao – the Mao material, you mean?”
“Yes, you could say that.”
“Did Shang, Qian, or Jiao ever show this material to anyone?”
“No. Not that we are aware of.”
“Then there may not even be any such material.”
“Why would you think that?”
“With someone like Shang, a popular movie actress, her home must have been thoroughly ransacked and searched by Red Guards. They never found anything, right? The Mao material – whatever it could be – wasn’t something like a life-saving imperial decree like in ancient time. Even if it existed, it didn’t save her; if anything, it probably only caused her trouble. How would she have been able to leave it to her daughter Qian? And how could Qian, dying in an accident, have given it to her daughter Jiao?”
“Comrade Chief Inspector Chen!” Huang obviously was not pleased with Chen’s response. “We cannot afford to overlook this possibility. There are some quite suspicious things about Jiao. About a year ago, for instance, she suddenly quit her job and moved into a luxurious apartment. Where did the money come from? Now she’s regularly attending parties with people from Hong Kong, Taiwan, or Western countries. What is she really up to? What’s more, the host of these parties, a certain Mr. Xie, is someone who bears a deep grudge against Mao. So she could be trying to sell the Mao material for a large advance.”
“An advance for a book? If she has the money already, I don’t think we can do anything about it. The publisher would now have the material – the Mao material.”
“Perhaps not yet, or not entirely. Something might have been arranged, out of consideration for her safety. If such a book were published while she was in China, she could get in trouble. She knows better -”
“Has she applied for a passport?”
“No, not yet. If she did anything too obvious, it wouldn’t do her any good.”
It sounded like a conspiracy scenario to Chen. The minister must have some reason to be concerned, but Chen had many questions.
“Why the sudden attention to this?” Chen resumed after a pause. “Shang died years ago.”
“It’s a long story but, in short, it’s because of two books. The first one is entitled Cloud and Rain in Shanghai. You must have heard of it.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“You are too busy, Chief Inspector Chen. It’s a best seller about Qian, and about Shang too.”
“Really? A best seller?”
“Yes. And then the other book is the memoir by Mao’s personal doctor.”
“That one I’ve heard of, but I haven’t read it.”
“With that book we learned our lesson the hard way. When the doctor applied for a passport so he could go to the States for health reasons, we let him go. His book was then published there. It’s full of fabrications about Mao’s private life. However, readers are so interested in those horrible details that they swallow them without a hiccup. The book is selling like hotcakes all over the world. In some languages, it has been reprinted ten times in one year.”
Chen had heard stories about Mao’s private life. In the years shortly after the Cultural Revolution, when Madam Mao was denounced as a white-bone devil, lurid details about her life as a third-rate movie actress started coming out, with some particulars having direct or indirect connection to Mao. The Beijing authorities soon put an end to the “hearsay.” Since, after all, there’s no separating Madam Mao from Mao.
“So these two books have led us to be concerned about the possibility that Jiao might have something left behind by Shang. Something that she could use against the interest of our Party.”
“I’m still lost, Minister Huang.”
“I don’t think we need to go into details on the phone. You’ll learn more from the case file compiled by Internal Security.”
“Internal Security is already investigating?” Chen said, frowning. Internal Security was usually assigned the most sensitive political cases. “If so, why call me in?”
“They’ve been following Jiao for weeks, but without success. So their plan is to take tougher measures, but some leading comrades in Beijing don’t think that’s a good idea. Comrade Zhao, the ex-secretary of the Central Party Discipline Committee, is one of them. Indeed, we have to think about repercussions. Both Xie and Jiao are known in their circles and have connections to Western media. Besides, if we push too hard, Jiao might act rashly, out of desperation.”
“What can I do?”
“You are going to approach Jiao from a different angle. Check her out, as well as the people associated with her, and more importantly, discover what was left by Shang and retrieve it -”
“Hold on. What different angle?”
“Well, whatever approach you think will work. Soft rather than tough, you know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t. I’m no 007, Minister Huang.”
“This is an assignment you can’t say no to, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen. Any slander against Mao, the founder of the Chinese Communist Party, will affect the legitimacy of our Party. This is a special task and, Comrade Zhao recommended you to me. Based on what Internal Security has learned, one possible approach would be through the parties she frequents. You can blend in, speaking your English or quoting your poetry.”
“So I am to approach Jiao as anything but a cop -”
“It’s in the interest of the Party.”
“Comrade Zhao said that to me in another case,” Chen said, realizing that it was pointless for him to argue. “But there’s still no guarantee that Shang left anything behind.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. You go ahead in whatever manner you choose, and we trust you. I’ve already talked to your Party Secretary Li. He’s going to retire soon, you know. When this job is accomplished, you’ll advance to a position of greater responsibility.”
It was an unmistakable hint, but was Chen looking forward to such a position of greater responsibility? Still, he knew he had no choice.
Minister Huang said farewell and hung up. Chen closed the phone. When he moved back into the eatery, the noodles on the table were quite cold, the house special, greasy and gray on the surface of the urn, and the beer, stale and bubbleless. He had no appetite left.
Auntie Yao hurried over, offering to warm up the noodles, which, having soaked so long in the soup, would taste like paste anyway.
“No, thank you,” he said, shaking his head as he took out his wallet. Gang came limping over to Chen again.
“Now I recognize you,” Gang said. “You used to live in the neighborhood, calling me Uncle Gang. Don’t you remember that?”
“You are…?” Chen said, unwilling to admit he had long recognized him.
“A successful man may not have a good memory,” Gang said with a fleeting gleam in his eyes. “I’ll take care of the leftovers for you.”
“I’ve not touched anything – except the fish head,” Chen said.
“I trust you,” Gang patted on his shoulder. “Now you’re somebody.” The smoked carp head stared at the two of them with its ghastly eyes.
TWO
WHEN CHEN GOT BACK to his apartment, it was past eight.
The room was a scene of desolation, as if corresponding to his state of mind: the bed unmade, the cup on the nightstand half empty, a mildew-covered orange pit in the ashtray looking like a mole – the mole on Mao’s chin.
He pressed hard on the lid of the thermos bottle. Not a single drop of water came out. Putting the kettle on the stove, he hoped that a cup of good tea might help to clear his head.
But what first came to mind was, unexpectedly, a fragmented image of Ling serving tea in a Beijing quadrangle house, her fingers breaking and strewing petals into his teacup, standing by the paper window in a white summer dress, silhouetted against the night like a flowering pear tree…
The news of her marriage wasn’t entirely unexpected. She wasn’t to blame, he told himself again; she couldn’t help being the daughter of a Politburo member.
No more than he could help being a cop at heart.
He willed himself to focus on the waiting work, pressing a fist against his left cheek, as if battling a toothache. He didn’t want to conduct an investigation concerning Mao, even indirectly. Mao’s portrait still hung high on the gate of Tiananmen Square, and it could be a political suicide for a Party member cop to be even tangentially associated with the skeleton of Mao’s private life.
Chen took out a piece of paper and was trying to scribble something down to help him think, when Party Secretary Li called.
“Minister Huang told me about your special assignment. Don’t worry about your work at the bureau,” Li said. “And you don’t have to tell me anything about it.”
“I don’t know what to say, Party Secretary Li.” The water began boiling and the kettle hissing. Li, at one time a mentor for Chen in bureau politics, had come to regard him as a rival. “I hardly know anything about it, not yet. It’s just that I cannot refuse the assignment.”
“The minister told me that you are to have access to all the available resources of the bureau. So simply tell me what you need.”
“Well, first, don’t tell anyone about the assignment. Instead, say I’m taking a leave for personal reasons.” He added, “Detective Yu should take over the work of the Special Case Squad.”
“I’ll announce his temporary appointment tomorrow. I know that you trust Detective Yu. Are you going to tell him anything?”
“No, not about the assignment.”
“I’ll take care of everything at the bureau. Call me whenever you need anything.”
“I will, Party Secretary Li.”
Putting down the phone, Chen paced about the room for a minute or two before he went over to the boiling kettle, only to discover that the tea box was empty. Rummaging through the drawer, he failed to find any tea. No coffee either, which didn’t matter, as the coffee maker had been broken for weeks.
He leaned back, stroking his chin. He had cut himself shaving this morning. It had been a rotten day from the beginning.
Suddenly there was a knock at the door. To his surprise, it turned out to be a special delivery package containing the Jiao files from Internal Security. He wasn’t expecting to get it so quickly.
He sat down at the table with a cup of hot water, and an impressive file spread over several manila folders. Internal Security had done a comprehensive job. The file contained not only information about Jiao, but about Qian and Shang as well, covering all three generations.
Chen decided to start with Shang. He lit a cigarette and took a sip of water. The water quality was terrible, and it tasted strange without tea leaves.
Shang had come from a “good family” in the thirties. While still in college, she was named the college “queen,” nicknamed a “phoenix,” before being discovered by a movie director. Soon she came to prominence as a young, graceful actress. After 1949, because of her family background and her husband’s political trouble, her career suffered. It was said that her career’s decline also had something to do with her pre-1949 image. She was known mostly for playing upper-class ladies, elegant in their magnificent houses and stylish dresses, and those roles had practically disappeared from the movie screens of socialist China. Mao had declared that literature and art should serve workers, farmers, and soldiers through representation of them on stages and screens. Suddenly, however, her photos began to reappear in the newspapers, in articles that said Chairman Mao was encouraging Shang and her colleagues to make new, revolutionary films. She then starred in several movies, playing workers or farmers, and she won major awards for the roles. Her resurgent career was cut short by the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution. Like other well-known artists, she was subjected to mass criticism and persecution. What’s more, a special team was sent by the Cultural Revolution Group of the Central Committee of the Communist Party to interrogate her. Shortly afterward, Shang committed suicide, leaving her daughter Qian alone.
A sad story, but not uncommon in those years, Chen reflected, rising and rummaging through the drawer again. This time he uncovered a tiny ginseng tea bag. How long it had been lying there, he had no idea. He tossed it into the cup, hoping it could somehow boost up his energy. He had practically skipped his dinner, thanks to the phone call from Beijing.
Sipping at the ginseng tea, he settled back down to the file and began reading the part about the second generation, Qian, the heroine of the best seller Cloud and Rain in Shanghai.
An orphan after Shang’s death, Qian had a hard time adjusting to her drastically changed life. Shang’s problem shadowed her – Qian was forcibly exposed to what the file referred to as Shang’s “shameless sex saga” – and the daughter grew up to be a “shameless slut.” In those years, a girl of black – politically questionable – family background was supposed to behave with extra care, but Qian abandoned herself to youthful passion. She fell in love with a young man named Tan, also of black family background. Despairing of their future in China, they made a desperate attempt to sneak into Hong Kong. They were caught and marched back to Shanghai, where Tan committed suicide. Qian survived because she was pregnant. She gave birth to a daughter, but soon after fell for a boy named Peng, about ten years younger than she, who was said to look like Tan. Peng was thrown into jail for sexual perversity. Not long afterward, toward the end of the Cultural Revolution, she died in an accident.
Chen set down the file and finished the bitter ginseng tea. It was a Cultural Revolution tragedy that involved two generations. What had happened during those years now appeared absurd, cruel, and was almost unbelievable. Understandably, the Beijing government wanted people to look ahead and not back.
Finally, Chen spread out the investigation report on Jiao, focusing on what was suspicious about her. Jiao was born after Tan’s death. Qian’s fatal accident had happened while Jiao was still an infant. The girl grew up in an orphanage. Like “a tramped and trodden weed” from a sentimental popular song, Jiao failed to get into a high school. Nor could she find a decent job. Unlike other girls her age, she had no friends or fun but instead was prey to the tragic memories of her family, even though others had mostly forgotten that part of the history. After two or three years struggling along, with one odd job after another, she began working as a receptionist at a private company. Then, with the publication of Cloud and Rain in Shanghai, Jiao suddenly quit her job, bought a luxurious apartment, and started a totally different life.
She was suspected of getting a lot of money from the book, but the publisher denied having paid any to her. Then people supposed there was a man behind her metamorphosis. Usually, a Big Buck “keeper” would show off his kept girl like a piece of valuable property, and his identity would come out in time. However, with Jiao, Internal Security had drawn a blank. In spite of their vigilant surveillance, they didn’t see a single man entering her apartment or walking in her company. In yet another scenario, she ha
d inherited a lot of money. But Shang left nothing to the family – all her valuable property had been swept away by the Red Guards in the early days of the Cultural Revolution. Internal Security checked out Jiao’s bank account and found she had very little. She had bought the apartment outright – “a briefcase full of cash” – without having to apply for a mortgage.
For a young girl, she seemed to be wrapped in mysteries, but according to Internal Security, she wasn’t the only suspicious one.
Xie, to whose mansion Jiao had become a regular visitor of late, was another one. Xie’s grandfather had owned a large company in the thirties and had built a huge house for the family – Xie Mansion, which was then considered one of the most magnificent buildings in Shanghai. Xie’s father took over the business in the forties, only to become a “black capitalist” in the fifties. Xie grew up listening to stories about the old glories, holding parties and salons while keeping the doors and windows firmly shut. Sheltered by the resplendent mansion and the family’s remaining fortune, he dallied in painting instead of working a regular job. It was nothing short of a miracle that he managed to keep the house intact through the Cultural Revolution. In the mid-eighties, he began to throw parties at his home again. But most of the partygoers were more or less like him – no longer young, and impoverished in every way except in their memories of their once illustrious family. For them, the parties were their dreams coming true, albeit for only one night. Soon, a collective fashionable nostalgia took hold of the city itself, and the parties became well known. Some took great pride in going to Xie Mansion, as if it was symbolic of their social status. Taiwanese and foreigners began to join in. One Western newspaper wrote that the parties were “the last landscape of the disappearing old city.”
The last landscape or not, the situation for the person hosting the parties was not idyllic after all. Without a regular job, Xie had a hard time maintaining the house and paying for the parties. His wife had divorced him and emigrated to the United States several years ago, leaving Xie alone in the empty house. He consoled himself by collecting the odds and ends left over from the thirties, like an Underwood typewriter, silver-plated dinnerware, a pair of trumpet-shaped speakers, several antique phones, a brass foot warmer, and the like. After all, these were the things his grandparents and parents had told him about, things pictured in the time-yellowed family albums in which he now buried his solitude. And his collection contributed to the legend of the mansion.