by Qiu Xiaolong
In front of Jiao’s door, he squatted down, pretending to tie his shoelace, his back to the staircase and his body covering the view of the doormat, under which he fumbled until he touched the key.
In his college years, he’d read a story about Sherlock Holmes breaking into a criminal’s room with the help of a maid working there. If Holmes could justify the means by the end, so could Chief Inspector Chen.
It was no longer just a matter of damage to Mao’s image – whatever the Mao material there might be. He was simply making one more effort, so he wouldn’t end up like Old Hunter, forever plagued by the thought of what he should have done.
Inserting the key into the lock, he let himself into a large, luxurious apartment. Thanks to the observations made by Peiqin, the basic layout was already familiar to him.
He didn’t start searching the place like a cop, though. There was no point in turning it upside down. Internal Security would already have done a thorough job – he had little doubt about who was behind the mysterious burglary here – and he wouldn’t have better luck. Nor did he have the time. So he tried to focus instead on the list of the “unusual” items Peiqin had faxed him.
The studiolike appearance of the living room was no surprise. Jiao was a hard-working girl, and she was free to use the room whatever way she liked. The first object that caught his attention there was a long scroll of poetry on the wall. He recognized the poem as one entitled “An Imperial Concubine Waiting at Night” by the Tang-dynasty poet Li Bai.
Waiting, she finds her silk stockings
soaked with the dewdrops
glistening on the marble palace steps.
Finally, she is moving
to let the crystal-woven curtain fall
when she casts one more glance
at the glamorous autumn moon.
Chen was confused. Diao had told him about a scroll of classical Chinese poetry in Shang’s room. Not by Li Bai, but by somebody else, though alike in that they were on the persona of a neglected imperial concubine. What he had discussed with Diao wasn’t top secret, and as Shang’s granddaughter, Jiao might have heard or read similar versions. Why she should have chosen to hang the scroll here, however, was another mystery. The poem would have made sense for Shang, but not for a young girl like Jiao.
Not far from the scroll, he saw several paintings, finished and unfinished, stacked against the wall. Among them, he picked out a sketch of the flying witch. Possibly a draft containing some details Xie hadn’t mentioned. The witch was flying on a short-shafted broom over the Forbidden City. There were also two lines written underneath the picture. Oh to sweep away all the bugs, / I’m invincible! Chen recognized them as by Mao. Was the painting meant to be a parody?
Moving into the bedroom, he noticed the large bed with one third of its space covered in books. It reminded him of his visit to Mao’s bedroom. Was it an elaborate imitation? He touched the bed. Sure enough, it was a wooden-board mattress.
So he opened the door to the bathroom. The sight of the double toilet seats – a normal toilet seat for one to sit on, and a lower, basin-like seat for one to crouch over – confirmed his suspicion. For Mao, it had been a habit carried over from his days as a farmer in the Hunan Province, but Jiao was a girl born and raised in Shanghai. While the orphanage wasn’t a fancy place, there was no way Jiao would have picked up such a habit in the city. Besides, it would have been expensive to have her place designed like that.
And Jiao hadn’t traveled to Beijing – not before she moved in here. How could she have gotten the ideas and then incorporated them into the interior design?
Once again he took out Peiqin’s list of the “unusual.” The next on the list was the nature of the books in the study. But what had baffled Peiqin didn’t baffle Chen, thanks again to his visit to Mao’s old home. He didn’t even have to check all the books. A quick look at a couple of titles convinced him that they were similar to the ones in Mao’s study.
He moved back to the bedroom. Standing by the window, he tried to empty his mind of all thoughts, closing his eyes and taking a long deep breath.
When he reopened his eyes, he let his gaze sweep around the room, effortlessly, as if still in meditation. And his eyes fell on the black-lacquered cinerary casket on the nightstand.
It wasn’t something marked as “unusual” in Peiqin’s list. It wasn’t something that was commonly kept in a bedroom, but it wasn’t unimaginable for a filial daughter to keep her mother’s casket there. But how could Jiao have had the casket? When Qian died, Jiao was hardly two years old.
There was an ancient convention, he remembered, about people putting the deceased’s clothes and hats into a coffin when the body was missing. He wondered if Jiao had done that for Qian, but it was out of the question that her clothes or hats would fit into such a small casket.
Was it possible that Jiao had hidden something else inside?
It was considered exceedingly unlucky and sacrilegious to disturb the dead by opening a coffin or a container with the ashes of a cremated person. But he succumbed to the temptation. Taking off the lid, he saw only a time-yellowed picture inside, of Shang wrapped in a white robe that revealed her snowy cleavage, standing barefoot by a French window.
He was shocked. It was imaginable for people to put a picture in a casket, but not such a picture of one’s grandmother. Looking up, as if under a spell, he stared at another picture, hanging above the headboard – that of Chairman Mao in his robe, waving his hands.
He shivered with the realization of the eerie correspondence between the two pictures.
Jiao must be so obsessed with Mao. But she should know better. Mao was responsible for Shang’s tragedy, and for Qian’s too, though not directly. A more justifiable reaction from Jiao would be hatred. Instead, it was a fixation on Mao, particularly on a fantasy of Shang’s sexual relationship with Mao.
But the discovery in her apartment hardly helped. If anything, it made Internal Security’s interest more justifiable. There must be something suspicious going on in secret with Jiao.
He glanced again at his watch. It was almost six thirty. Still more than an hour before her return. He decided to stay and check the bedroom closets. A large one and a small one. Peiqin had mentioned something about the closets on her list.
He pulled open the door of the larger closet and saw an impressive array of designer clothing. Some of the outfits were still wrapped in plastic. A receipt peeped out of one; it was dated about six months ago. The garment was a costly mandarin dress. Because of a recent case, Chen was able to recognize the dress as being in the style of the thirties or forties. Some other dresses in the closet, though slightly different in detail, were in the style of the same period.
Again, Chen didn’t remember seeing such a partiality in Jiao. At Xie Mansion she dressed casually. Jeans, blouse, overalls, T-shirts. Except for the last time he met her there, when she was wearing an apron over her pink and white mandarin dress.
He wondered whether these fancy clothes were in Shang’s style and whether Jiao, when at home, turned into a reflection of Shang. But then why should she have bought so many clothes without wearing them?
Possibly, somebody else bought them for her, whether she liked them or not.
He was startled by the blaring of his cell phone, echoing loudly in the closet. The number indicated it was Yong in Beijing. He turned it off, not knowing what to say at the moment. Nor could he afford the time.
He then shifted his attention to the smaller closet, which was used to store her painting supplies. Posted on the back of the door was a small note: “Leave things in the closet alone.” For the benefit of the maid, presumably. There were tubes of paint, brushes, canvas stretchers, palettes, easels, dippers, and other painting materials he couldn’t exactly name. Also there was a paint-smeared robe that had once been white. Several unfinished pieces were stacked against the wall. Apparently, when Jiao woke up at night, she would sometimes start painting in the bedroom. So the small closet served
that purpose.
He had no idea how painters worked at home. As a poet, he occasionally woke at night, feeling excited about the possibilities of a fantastic poem, but usually he was too lazy to get up. So he fell asleep again, letting the nocturnal fantasies fade back into the darkness of night. Only on rare occasions did he try to scribble a few words on a scrap of paper he happened to find nearby. He was hardly able to make out the meaning in the morning.
Inspiration might come to Jiao at night, and being more diligent, she may have attempted to capture the fleeting idea there and then. Painting was different from writing. She had to get out of bed, spread out her material, work for hours, and then clean up. It was “unusual,” as Peiqin had put it, but it wasn’t his business. An eccentric artist, Jiao could live and work the way she pleased.
He was beginning to have second thoughts about his decision to come here, while remaining and rummaging in the closet.
Then his glance fell on a scroll box, which seemed to have been carelessly thrown in there. It caught his attention because he had never seen Jiao scroll-painting in the traditional Chinese style. She studied oil painting and water colors with Xie. He opened the box and pulled out a piece of paper on top. It turned out to be a valuation certificate that declared the scroll to be authentic – and worth a staggering price of more than two million yuan. The valuation was performed three days ago. How could she have left such a valuable possession in the closet like that after the recent burglary? He pulled out the scroll, which was one of Mao’s poems done in his brush calligraphy: “Ode to the Plum Blossom.” There was also a dedication on the upper right corner: “For Phoenix, in response to hers.”
Chen supposed it was possible Jiao had purchased the scroll because of its association with Shang – to be more exact, because of its association with Shang’s affair with Mao: Shang was nicknamed “Phoenix.” Alternatively, Jiao might have inherited the scroll, but he wasn’t sure how.
Could that be the very Mao material the Beijing government was so concerned about?
The dedication on a scroll didn’t necessarily mean anything, however. It was conventional for a calligrapher to copy out his work and add a line of a dedication for someone. As it was, the scroll might lead to unbridled speculation, but not to such a disaster as to throw the Beijing government into a panic. After all, someone’s nickname was not a conclusive piece of evidence.
Placing the box back into the corner, he saw a broom lying beside it. The broom had a coir head, soft, suitable for the hardwood floor. After Jiao finished painting, she probably had to clean up the mess with the broom.
As he closed the closet door, his mind was in a turmoil. But it was about the time for him to leave. He headed for the front door. On the way, the sight of the surrealistic painting in the living room reminded him of another possibility. She could have used the broom for the painting -
His train of thought was interrupted by the sound of footsteps in the corridor outside, which came to a stop in front of the door. He froze at the sound of a key ring clinking.
TWENTY-EIGHT
AND AT THE SOUND of a key in the lock, he backed up several steps.
When the front door started creaking open, he retreated in haste into the smaller closet, pulling the door closed behind him.
He heard footsteps in the living room, and then the bedroom. The situation was desperate. The first thing a young girl like Jiao would probably do now that she was back home was change her clothes. That meant a visit to the big closet. And as an industrious art student, she would then start to work. That meant the small closet.
Behind the closet door, Chen couldn’t see into the room, but he seemed to catch a whiff of perfume wafting near. He listened, holding his breath. She was stepping toward the large closet, as he had anticipated.
He prayed that after taking off her clothes, she would go to the shower. If so, he might be able to sneak out.
But then there came another sound, indistinctly, from the living room area -
“Jiao, I’m back.”
It was a man’s voice, with a strong provincial accent, though which province Chen couldn’t immediately tell. He was confounded, not having heard someone come in with Jiao, nor hearing the door reopen later. What’s more, the voice seemed to come from the other end of the living room, not close to the door -
Could there be another door – a secret one in the living room? Though it was hard to imagine, it would explain Internal Security’s failure to detect a man coming in and out of her apartment.
If so, the mysterious man behind Jiao must be rich and resourceful, having bought this apartment along with the one adjacent, and having a secret door installed between the two. But why all the elaborate secrecy?
He could hear Jiao hurrying out, saying, “Why did you want me to hurry back?”
“What a nice meal,” the man said with a chuckle. “Fatty pork is good for the brain. I’ve been fighting so many battles. An emperor, too, has to eat.”
The two met up in the kitchen area. Chen hadn’t paid much attention to the dishes on the table there. The fatty pork, which Peiqin had mentioned as one of Jiao’s favorites, turned out to be one of the mystery man’s favorites, for an uncommon reason.
“It’s hot, it’s revolutionary,” the man said, clanking his chopsticks on a bowl. “You should learn to eat pepper.”
Jiao murmured something in response. “Having just enjoyed the Yangtze River water,” the man went on in high spirits, “I am relishing the Wuchang fish.”
Chen finally recognized the man’s accent as Hunan, possibly affected, as he spoke slowly, almost deliberately. But there was something else mystifying about his comment. It sounded like a paraphrase of the two lines Mao wrote after swimming in the Yangtze River. “I’ve just tasted the Yangtze River water, / and I’m now enjoying the Wuchang fish.” The original carried an allusion to the ambitious King of Wu during the Three Kingdom period. The king had wanted to move the capital from Nanjing to Wuchang, but the people were unwilling, saying that they would rather drink the Yangtze River water than eat the Wuchang fish. Mao dashed off the poem, comparing himself favorably to the Wu emperor, having both the water and the fish to his heart’s content.
There might be a fish on the table, presumably a real Wuchang fish too.
“No, the Huangpu River water,” Jiao responded debunkingly.
Chen slid the closet door open an inch, trying to peep out. From where he stood, however, he couldn’t see into the kitchen area. He fought down the temptation venture out farther.
Jiao and her company continued eating in silence.
But Chen saw a mini recorder on the corner table, which reminded him of the one in his briefcase. He took it out and rewound the tape to the beginning.
“Leave the dishes alone,” the man said to Jiao. “Let’s go to bed.”
The two of them were already moving into the bedroom, his footsteps heavier than hers.
“Haven’t you put up the scroll I bought you?” he asked.
“No, not yet.”
“I wrote the poem for you years ago. Now I finally got it back. I paid a high price for it.”
Chen was totally lost. The man was presumably talking about the scroll in the closet, which had a huge price tag. But Mao had composed the poem for Shang, so how could the man outside claim it as his for Jiao?
And what was the relationship between the two? Obviously, he was the “keeper.” Judging from her response, Jiao didn’t feel strongly about the scroll. At least, she didn’t put it up quickly. Having rewound the tape, Chen pressed the button to start recording. It had become hot, almost suffocating, in the closet. He remained still, worried that the man might insist she hang the scroll up right now.
Instead of pushing her, the man started yawning and slumped across the bed, which then creaked under his weight. Jiao kicked off her shoes, her heels falling on the floor, one after another.
It was still early, but the two on the bed sounded tired. Before too long, ho
pefully, they would stop talking and fall asleep. Then Chen would be able to get out.
“You’ve got something on your mind,” Jiao said. “Talk to me.”
“Well, I have overcome so much, sweeping away all my enemies like rolling up a mat. How can I have anything on my mind? Let’s forget our worries in the cloud and rain.”
“No, it’s useless. And it’s too early.”
“A plum blossom can always come out a second time.”
The conversation in the bedroom struck Chen as inexplicably stilted. The metaphor of “rolling up a mat” sounded like another line by Mao, though Chen wasn’t sure. But he was certain that in erotic literature, a plum flower blossoming a second time could refer to a second climax during sexual intercourse.
Their talk was becoming quiet, indistinct, intelligible only to themselves. Chen had a hard time hearing their murmuring to each other, except for occasional exclamations interspersed with moaning and groaning.
“You are really big, Chairman, big in everything,” she said breathlessly.
Chen was thunderstruck. She called her bed partner “Chairman.” Nowadays, “Chairman” wasn’t exclusively reserved for Mao, but “CEO” or “President” would be far more common for Big Bucks in contemporary China. Chen was able to puzzle out the sentence because it was something he had read in the file about Shang – what she had said about Mao after their first night together: “Chairman Mao is big – in everything.” It could mean a lot of things. But in the present context, it meant only one thing.
Was Jiao imitating Shang?
The groaning and moaning intensified, rising to a crescendo. Chen had never imagined he would ever investigate a case like a peeping Tom in a closet, or to be exact, an eavesdropping Tom. The sound kept breaking in, wave upon wave, whether he liked it or not.