The Mao Case

by Qiu Xiaolong

  The Harvest Garden looked deserted that morning. Chen walked in, started looking around here and there. Some of the rooms were locked. He pushed open the door of the bedroom.

  What first struck him as unusual in the room was the extraordinarily big bed. Larger than a king-size one, apparently custom-made, but apart from its size, it was simple and plain. About a quarter of the bed was practically covered with books. It appeared as if Mao had slept with books.

  Chen reached out and picked one up. Zizhi Tongjian, sometimes called the “Mirror of the History.” It was a history book written by Sima Guang, a renowned Confucian scholar in the Song dynasty, intended to mirror history in such a way that emperors could learn lessons by examining it. Mao was said to have read it seven or eight times. Most of the books on the bed turned out to be similar classics and histories.

  According to Mao, history is an ever-continuous process of one dynasty succeeding another. Those at the bottom rise in rebellion to overthrow the one at the top, though the successful rebel inevitably turns into the emperor, as corrupt and oppressive as was the predecessor. Being part of modern Chinese history, having actually shaped that part of history which shaped him as well, Mao declared, “All the theories of Marxism can be summed up in one sentence: it is justified to rebel.” As an ambitious and accomplished rebel, marching under the banners of Marxism and communism, Mao put to good use the knowledge he had learned from those history books, some of which Chen was holding in his hands.

  And Chen couldn’t help imagining Mao alone in the room, reading late into the night. According to the official publications, Madam Mao didn’t live with Mao. In his last ten years, Mao lived by himself – except for his personal secretaries, nurses, and orderly. Behind the communist-god mask, Mao must have been a solitary man seeing his dream of the grandest empire slipping away, not prepared to lead the country into the twentieth century, yet anxious to prove himself an emperor greater than all those before. So he wielded such terms as “class struggle” and “proletarian dictatorship,” launching one political movement after another, stifling all the opposition voices, until things came to a head during the Cultural Revolution. At night, however, surrounded by the ancient books, paranoid of “capitalist roaders” who would try to usurp his power and “restore capitalism,” Mao suffered from insomnia, hardly able to move because of his failing health…

  Chen leaned down, touching the bed. A wooden-board mattress, as he had read in those memoirs, which claimed that Mao, working for the welfare of the Chinese people, cared little about his personal comfort. Chen wondered whether Mao had ever thought of Shang while on this bed.

  Chen turned to look at the bathroom. In addition to the standard toilet, there was another one on the floor, shaped like a porcelain basin, over which one had to squat – specially designed for Mao, who must have carried with him to the Forbidden City his habit acquired as a farmer from a Hunan village.

  It was another puzzling detail, but not all details would be relevant to his investigation. He hadn’t been able to establish a connection, he thought, between himself as investigator and Mao as a suspect. Instead, he came to find himself in the presence of another man, long dead and mysterious, but not the god Chen remembered from his school years.

  Carrying the large envelope in his hand, Chen moved out into the garden. There seemed to be something sacrilegious about reading the book Ling sent him while in Mao’s room. But he wanted to read it here instead of back at the hotel, while looking up at the tilted eaves of the palace shimmering in the summer foliage, as if the location made a difference.

  He perched himself on a slab of rock, on which Mao might have sat many a time. A stone kylin that had once escorted the emperors here stared at him. Lighting a cigarette, he remembered Mao was a smoker too – a heavier one. Chen hadn’t the slightest desire to imitate Mao.

  Sure enough, as he had guessed, the large envelope contained the book written by Mao’s personal doctor. There was another envelope inside, smaller and sealed – probably the love poems written for Ling, long ago. He wasn’t going to read them at the moment. So he opened the book, turning to the introduction. The author claimed to have served as Mao’s personal physician for over twenty years, to know the intimate details of Mao’s life.

  Instead of reading from the beginning, Chen moved to the index at the end. To his disappointment, there was no listing for Shang. Leafing through the book, he tried to find anything relevant.

  The book didn’t focus exclusively on the personal life of Mao. The doctor also wrote about his own life, from an idealistic college student to a sophisticated survivor in those years of power struggle. For common readers, however, the appeal of the book lay in the description of Mao’s life – of an emperor both in and out of the Forbidden City. The chapter Chen was reading happened to be about Mao traveling around luxuriously in a special train. In the train, he actually took a young attendant named Jade Phoenix to bed. She was only sixteen or seventeen at the time. Afterward, he brought her back to the Central South Sea as his personal secretary. She eventually became more powerful than the politburo members, for she alone understood what he mumbled after his stroke, being one of few he could really trust. But she was only one of the many “favored” by Mao, who actually picked up women all over the country, in a variety of circumstances, including at those balls arranged for him in Shanghai and in other cities.

  Mao seemed to have a preference for young girls with little education, not intelligent or sophisticated – simply young, warm bodies in a cold night. Shang was different from Mao’s usual type. But then a celebrated actress would have her attractions. It was nothing for an emperor to have dozens of imperial concubines.

  The book confirmed what Chen had learned from other sources. Like an emperor, Mao set no store by his women, taking them as nothing but the means to satisfy his “divine” sexual needs.

  A blue jay flew by. Chen thought he caught a flash of the afternoon sunlight on its wings.

  whatever Mao might have done as the supreme Party leader, what he did to Shang was inexcusable, not to be easily written off, not even from a policeman’s perspective. Chief Inspector Chen was too depressed to think long along these lines.

  He took out the smaller envelope, in which Ling might have left a note for him.

  To his surprise, he found, instead of his poems, a manila folder marked, “Records of the Special Team from CCPC Cultural Revolution Group: Shang.”

  How could Ling have got hold of this crucial information? It must have been at great risk to herself, as in another case years ago.

  Only there was no stepping twice into the same river.

  He started reading what was in the folder. It consisted of reports submitted by the special group. Most of them were written in the “revolutionary language” of the time, so he had to guess at the meaning couched in the political slogans and jargon.

  According to Sima Yun, the head of the group, they were responsible to a “leading comrade” in Beijing, who was working in collaboration with the CCPC Cultural Revolution Group. They were instructed to deal with Shang in whatever way necessary to make her give up something important, possibly related to Mao, which had never been defined or explained to them. So they resorted to beating and torturing her. Shang said that Chairman Mao, had he known, wouldn’t have allowed them to do so. Sima told her that Madam Mao knew, and that was as good as from Mao himself. After that, Shang never said anything about Mao until her suicide. The team was summoned back to Beijing, bringing with them whatever they had found, including several albums.

  It confirmed a couple of points on the case that Chen had speculated about.

  First, the special team hadn’t been sent directly by Madam Mao, but by someone else. No name was given, but the “leading comrade” wasn’t she, who was only “in collaboration.”

  Second, the special team itself wasn’t clear about what to extort from Shang. Except that the Party’s interests were at stake – some Mao material. So they interrogat
ed Shang the hard way.

  Rubbing the ridge of his nose, Chen checked another report in the folder, written on a somewhat smaller paper, possibly by another member of the team. To his astonishment, it was written at a much later date – as late as the end of 1974.

  Apparently, Beijing remained concerned about the Mao material. In 1974, the year when Tan and Qian were caught in their attempt to flee across the border, some of the original special team members were summoned back to find more information. So the young lovers were brutally interrogated. It was suspected that they intended to smuggle something out, which also was not defined.

  According to the statement made by Tan, the pair tried to go to Hong Kong because they saw no future in the mainland. He took all the responsibility. Because of his death, the investigation came to an abrupt end, even though an interview list had been made by the local committee concerning the close contacts of Tan and Qian.

  Chen was about to read the last page in the folder when he was startled by an apparition, a grizzled man shuffling over from the far end of the garden, green canvas satchel slung across his shoulder. He checked around, picking up a fallen leaf with his free hand, and putting it into the satchel. He didn’t appear to be a gardener, nor did the satchel look like a proper tool. Chen hastened to put the book and the folder back into the large envelope.

  “Who are you?” the gray-haired man demanded with an air of authority. “How did you get in here today?”

  “I’m Chen. I’ve always dreamed of coming here – ever since childhood,” Chen said. “A friend of mine works here, so she let me in.”

  “So you’ve come to pay homage to Mao? That’s the spirit, young man. People still worship him today, I know. Oh, I’m Bi. I served as Chairman Mao’s bodyguard for twenty years.”

  “Oh, it’s a great honor to meet you, Comrade Bi.”

  “I’m retired, but I still come here from time to time. Oh, those un-forgettable years by the side of our great leader! He built a socialist new China out of a poor, backward country. Without Chairman Mao, without China.”

  Without Chairman Mao, without China? Chen didn’t ask. It sounded like a much-chanted line from a popular song in the sixties, except that it was a statement then, not a question.

  “What a great man!” Bi went on in an emotional voice. “During three years of natural disasters, Mao refused to eat any meat.”

  “Yes, millions of people died of starvation under the Three Red Flags those years,” Chen blurted out. The so-called “three years of natural disasters” was but a way to shift the blame for the disaster caused by Mao’s political campaign. In a different version of events, Chen had been told that Mao made a public show of eating no meat while still enjoying fish and wild game, some of them live, directly from the Central South Sea. At least Mao never starved in the Forbidden City.

  “No, you can’t talk about history like that, young man. China was surrounded and sabotaged by imperialists and revisionists then. It was Chairman Mao that led us out of the woods.”

  That was the official version. Chen knew it would be pointless to argue with Bi, an old man who had spent years by the side of Mao. Chen decided to sing a different tune.

  “You’re right, Comrade Bi. I’ve just visited Mao’s bedroom. So simple, not even a soft mattress on the bed. It embodies our Party’s fine tradition of hard work, simple living. Indeed, few had the privilege of working with Mao. You, too, have made a contribution to China.”

  “Working under Mao, I should say,” Bi said with a toothless grin. “Now, I’m just curious. In his bedroom, there’s such a large bed, covered with books. But almost nothing else. Did Madam Mao live here?”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  Chen didn’t push. Instead, he produced a cigarette, lit it respectfully for Bi, and waited.

  “Madam Mao’s a curse,” Bi said, exhaling loudly.

  Another officially approved statement. In the Party newspapers, the Cultural Revolution had been attributed to the Gang of Four, headed by Madam Mao.

  “So Mao lived here all by himself?” Chen probed cautiously. “You know what? Mao had long been estranged from her. If she wanted to see him, she had to make an appointment, speaking to me first.”

  “Oh, Mao must have trusted you so much.”

  “Yes, we stopped her several times. She tried to break in, but Mao gave us instructions that no one could barge in without reporting to us first.”

  That was unusual between a husband and wife. Bi didn’t say why, but it echoed what Chen had just read in the memoir. A guard wouldn’t have had the guts to stop Madam Mao, unless specifically instructed by Mao for a reason.

  Instead of moving on to an elaboration of the unspoken reason, Bi leaned down, grinding out the cigarette on a slab of rock and putting the butt into the satchel.

  “I have to make my rounds. It’s not easy for you to be let in. Stay here as long as you want. You’ll be able to bathe in the greatness of Chairman Mao.”

  Bi shuffled away, humming a song to himself. “Red is the east, and rises the sun. China produces Mao Zedong, a great savior who works for happiness of the people.”

  It was a tune that Chinese people would sing every day during the Cultural Revolution. And that the big clock atop the Custom House on the Bund played every hour. Watching Bi’s retreating figure against the deserted garden, Chen thought of a Tang-dynasty poem titled “The Outside Palace.”

  In the deserted ancient outside palace,

  the flowers bloom

  into a blaze

  of solitary, scarlet splendor.

  Those palace ladies long left behind

  there, white-haired,

  sit and talk in idleness

  about Emperor Xuan.

  For a moment, Chen found himself confounded. He was no politician. Nor a historian. Nor a poet any longer, according to Ling, but a cop who did not even know what to do here.

  The blue jay flapped by again, its wings still shiny like in a lost dream. The sudden ringing of his cell phone broke into his confusion. It was Detective Yu from Shanghai.

  “I had to call you, Chief. Old Hunter gave me your temporary cell number – wherever you are. Song was killed.”

  “What?” Chen stood up.

  “I don’t know the details of his death except that he was attacked on a side street.”

  “Attacked on a side street – by whom?”

  “Internal Security will say nothing. But from what I’ve heard, it is possible he was mugged by gangsters. The fatal blow against his skull was made by something like a heavy metal bar.”

  “A heavy metal bar -” A tell-tale weapon for Chen. “Now, who’s in charge of the investigation?”

  “Another person from Internal Security. They called the bureau, demanding to be told your whereabouts. Party Secretary Li came to me, his face pulled as long as that of a horse.”

  “I’m coming back today, Yu,” he said. “Find the name of the Internal Security officer for me. And his phone number too.”

  “I’ll do that. What else, Chief?”

  “You have done some asking around about Qian’s lovers, both the first and the second, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, Old Hunter must have told you about Peng, the second one.”

  “Now about Tan, the first one. A group of people from Beijing conducted a special investigation into him before his death.”

  “Do you have anything about the investigation?”

  “No, I don’t. Contact his neighborhood committee again. The neighborhood cop, I mean, since you know him well. At the time, the neighborhood committee provided something like an interview list for the Beijing group. A list of the people close to Tan and Qian.”

  “I’ll go there,” Yu said, “and get the list. Anything else?”

  “Call me immediately if there’s anything new.”

  Closing the phone, Chen knew he had to leave the Central South Sea.

  He was in no mood to go back into Mao’s rooms, though he had conveniently calle
d this the Mao Case.

  TWENTY-THREE

  THE TRAIN WAS RUMBLING along in the dusk.

  Chen had obtained the train ticket through a scalper, paying a much higher price for it. He didn’t try to bargain. There was no possibility of purchasing an airline ticket without showing official documents, which he didn’t have. It was a hard seat in a third-class car, but he considered himself lucky to have gotten on the train at the last minute.

  During his college years, he had frequently traveled between Beijing and Shanghai, sitting on the hard seats, reading, dozing through the night. Now he was finding it very uncomfortable – his legs were stiff, and his back strained. He was unable to doze, let alone sleep. He didn’t have a book with him except for Cloud and Rain in Shanghai, which he was in no mood to take out, and the memoir by Mao’s doctor, which he couldn’t read openly.

  He must have been spoiled by his chief inspector-ship, he mused with a touch of self-irony. In the last several years, his trips had been by airplane or in the soft sleeping cars, and he had forgotten about the discomfort of traveling on the hard seat.

  Sitting opposite him, across a small table, was a young couple, possibly on their honeymoon trip. Both were dressed too formally for the overpacked train: the man was wearing a new shirt and well-ironed dress pants, the woman, a pink dress with thin straps. Initially, she sat leaning against the window, but soon she shifted in her seat and was nestled against him. For them, the discomfort was nothing, as long as they had the world in each others’ eyes.

  Beside Chen was a young girl, apparently a college student, who wore a white blouse, a grass-green skirt imprinted with vines and trails, and light-green plastic slippers. There was a book on her lap – a Chinese translation of The Lover by Marguerite Duras. He had read the book, still remembering that the beginning of the novel echoed the lines by W. B. Yeats, “When you are old and gray and full of sleep… ”

  He wondered whether he was able to write – or even to say anything like that.