by Qiu Xiaolong
If he tried to slip out now, he might succeed in getting away unnoticed. Lost in sexual rapture, the lovers might hardly pay attention to anything else, and there was only a faint night light flickering in the bedroom.
But he decided to stay. The two might soon fall asleep, and it would be less risky to sneak out then. Besides, he was intrigued by their talk in the midst of the grunting and grinding on the wooden-board mattress.
“Oh, oh, against the gathering dusk stands a pine,” the man burst out in a loud falsetto, “sturdy, erect -”
It befuddled Chen. At the dinner table, the man’s comment about the fish might have been a witty joke. In the midst of sexual passion, however, he was quoting Mao again, and that was bizarre -
Chen finally recognized the Hunan-accented voice as an imitation of Mao.
Could he be playing a role – that of “Mao?”
From the moment of his entry into the apartment, the man had been talking and acting like Mao, including his remarks at the dinner table about fatty pork being beneficial for the brain, about hot pepper being revolutionary. Those were details from the memoirs about Mao. Not to mention all the quotes from Mao, and now the very poem he wrote to Madam Mao, “On the Picture of the Fairy Cave in Lu Mountains.” “Mao” must have heard the erotic interpretation and was applying it to that very context.
The chief inspector had read about sexual fantasies, but what was being staged in the bedroom was far more than that – it was elaborate, perverted, absurd.
Abruptly, something seemed to be going wrong on the bed in the dark.
“What a fairy cave it is, born out of the nature! / Ineffable – ineffable -”
“Mao” failed to complete the last line. Could he have forgotten the remaining words in his climb up to the height of sexual ecstasy?
In the ensuing silence, Chen heard Jiao making a muffled sound which went on for two or three minutes before she burst out in frustration.
“What a great pine! A broken one, sapless, lifeless.”
“Come on,” “Mao” said, “I’ve just overworked myself of late. There are so many things on my hands, you know.”
“So many things on your mind, I know. You’ve been acting differently.”
“Don’t worry. No matter how winds blow and waves beat, / I’m at leisure, like strolling at a courtyard.”
“Don’t quote him all the time. I’m so sick and tired of it. Tonight, you’re not even as good as the old man!”
“What old man are you talking about?”
“Aren’t you talking about him, acting like him, and being him all the time?”
It dawned on Chen that a fiasco had been playing out in the bedroom. “Mao” kept reciting the poem as sexual stimulation so that he could come in cloud and rain with Jiao, but he failed.
“Let’s take a short break,” “Mao” said. “I need to close my eyes for a minute.”
“I told you not to hurry,” she said.
Another short spell of silence engulfed the room.
“Oh, have you met with Chen of late?” “Mao” said abruptly.
“I heard that he’s just come back to Shanghai. Where he’s been, I have no idea. Why?”
“This afternoon he sort of approached me at the cocktail party.”
“He has business connections. Don’t worry about him. I’ve told you that he’s a nice man.”
“He’s very nice to you, of course.”
“He has a book project on the thirties, so he asked me some questions.”
“So you had a candlelight dinner with him the other night.”
“What? How do you know about that?”
“And you’re nice to him too.”
“Mao” said sarcastically, “He’s so different, as you’ve said, talented, and capable of buying you an expensive dinner too.”
“No, that’s not true. He’s nothing but a would-be writer, I assure you.”
“He is anything but what he claims to be. He is one who might have high connections. I just got a tip about him, and his appearance at the cocktail party was no coincidence. I’ll find out. The damned monkey won’t get away from the palm of Buddha.”
The “monkey” he referred to was the one in the Journey to the West. In the classic novel, Monkey tried to challenge the power of Buddha, who turned his palm into the five-peaked mountains and crushed the monkey underneath. Chen hadn’t “approached” a Hunan-accented man, however, at the cocktail party that afternoon.
“What are you going to do about him?”
“See, you are concerned about him even when lying naked in my arms.”
“You’re being so unreasonably jealous. If that’s what you want, I’ll stop seeing him. I accepted his invitation because he was helping Xie. There’s nothing going on between us.”
“Well, let’s not talk about him now.”
“Mao” didn’t seem to want to pursue the subject too far. Whoever “Mao” could possibly be, he was possessive, taking Chen as a threat.
Again, the old familiar sound surfaced, bubbling up from the stillness of the room. This time, “Mao” didn’t recite any lines. Chen heard only his labored breathing and the screeching of the wooden-board mattress.
But “Mao” failed again. “I’m too tired today,” he mumbled.
Sliding open the closet door a bit, in the semi-darkness Chen could make out only the silhouettes of two white bodies on the bed, both partially sitting up, propped up against pillows.
“You’re beat today,” she said, “what with your worries about Chen, what with -”
“What are you talking about?” “Mao” snarled in exasperation. “You think Chen could beat me? Tell you what! He won’t get away so easily the next time.”
“I have nothing to do with him. Really. I swear by my grandma’s soul.” Jiao took it seriously, whatever he meant by “the next time.” “He goes to Xie’s place only for his book project.”
“Why the hell can’t you stop going there? Neither Chen nor Xie is your damned business.”
“I’ve been studying painting there because of you. You wanted me to be educated and cultured – to be worthy of you.”
“I wanted you to dabble a little, like Shang – to be like her in every way.”
“But I have been learning a lot of things there. Xie’s really knowledgeable.”
“So you really care for Xie, I see…”
“Oh, how can you say that?” she exclaimed. Then something fell to the floor, like a glass, breaking and splintering.
She might have knocked a cup from the nightstand with a sudden motion. In the Romance of Three Kingdoms, Liu Bei, too, dropped his cup when Cao Cao made an unexpected comment about Liu’s secret ambition.
“Don’t move,” she said, springing up from the bed. “I’ll get the broom and clean it up.”
In the closet, hiding behind the door, Chen caught a partial glimpse of her naked body padding over. He might be able to break away, he calculated, at the instant she pulled open the door. She would be too shocked to react or recognize him, considering the poor light. “Mao,” still sprawling on the bed, wouldn’t be able to catch him in time to detain him.
He put his hands on the groove of the door, listening closely to her steps, which approached softly on the floor…
TWENTY-NINE
A NIGHT-LIGHT POPPED ON in the closet, as if in response to her bare feet moving closer.
It was a tiny light that shed only a faint ring on the floor. Possibly it was on an automatic timer.
Holding his breath, Chen tensed his muscles, and prepared to spring out.
But the closet door didn’t slide open.
To his surprise, the footsteps actually started fading away.
She must be heading toward the kitchen, from what he was able to make out, sweating in shock and relief.
A minute or so later, he heard her coming back, most likely with the broom from the kitchen.
It was nothing short of a miracle that she chose to get the broom from t
he kitchen instead -
“Mao” turned the lamp on the nightstand on upon her return.
Chen was finally able to catch a glimpse of her dazzling white body – the delicate tension of her curved back and buttocks as she bent over to clean up the mess on the floor, carrying a broom and a dustpan.
It was but a fleeting peek. She cleaned up the splintered glass and walked back to the kitchen with the broom and dustpan.
When she returned, she turned off the light the moment she slid back into bed.
But why should she have taken the trouble to walk, naked, all the way to the kitchen for a broom when there was one in the bedroom closet? Maybe she didn’t want to use the soft broom for the spilled tea. In Shanghai, a broom of bamboo slices would be common for a shikumen courtyard or concrete-floored kitchen. For a bedroom, however, a broom made of Luhua reed, or better quality, made of coir -
“At first you said you went there for the painting lessons,” “Mao” resumed his interrupted speech. “It might be good for you, I thought, but you spend more and more time there. Lessons, parties, and sometimes with no excuse at all. Why?”
“What am I supposed to do here? You’re always busy. You only come in for your cloud and rain.”
“And that’s not all. You have been taking such good care of Xie, cooking and cleaning and washing for him, while you have a maid helping at home. When he was sick at the hospital, you stayed by his bedside for hours.”
“Xie has suffered a lot. Now he’s an old man, living by himself, and I try to do something to help, just like his other students.”
“Like his other students? Don’t try to pull my leg anymore. You went so far as to provide a false alibi for him. That night you came home quite early as I recall. Why?”
“He is incapable of harming people – incapable of killing a fly. He was being set up. I had to help.”
“Help? Help by posing naked for him and risking perjury for him?” “Mao” raised his voice. “You told me you never knew him before going to him as a student. That’s another lie. He went out of his way to help you – as early as back in your orphanage days.”
“I didn’t really know.”
“Now he’s a legend in Shanghai, with a mansion worth a fortune, and a fabulous collection too.”
“What do you take me for?”
“How can you care for such a pathetic guy?”
Was that possible? While Chen had observed something between Xie and Jiao, he had never really contemplated that possibility?
Still, Jiao could have been drawn to Xie. Not necessarily because of anything material, but because of something spiritual in her mind. An imagined continuation of Shang’s world, which was shattered by Mao. It might also have lent meaning to the tragic life of the young girl, symbolically, for her world, too, was being shattered by Mao’s shadow.
“Do you care for me as a human being? No, I’m nothing but an object of your fantasy – like a vase, a decoration, a Mercedes, a piece of property.”
“Are you out of your mind? It’s for your sake that I purchased that scroll. It cost enough for five Mercedes.”
“No, you bought it for your sake. For your fantasy of being Mao.”
“I proposed that buyout to Xie for your sake as well. He would be nothing without that damned house of his.”
“You’re the one behind the offer made by the real estate company! I should have guessed – you with your connections to both the black and white ways.”
“But for Chen’s interference, Xie would have been homeless today. Now listen to me. Whoever stands in my way will be punished. Not even your Mr. Chen with all his connections. Next time he won’t get away with only a warning from my little brothers.”
“So that’s why he suddenly left the city? You’re capable of anything!”
“Yes, I’m capable of getting rid of anybody that’s in my way. And don’t dream that anybody will help you get away from me. No one under the sun can ever do that. Not Chen, not Xie, not Yang -”
“Yang? Why are you talking about Yang?”
“That bitch tried to take you to other parties – to other men.”
“What?” Jiao jumped up from the bed, which squeaked and squealed. “How could you -”
“Use your fucking brain!” “Mao” snarled. “Who else cares for you?”
“You care only for yourself. You fuck me just because Mao fucked my grandmother.”
“Only I’m Mao, the son of the Heaven, and you can be nobody else’s – nobody else.”
Chen was sure that the man on the bed was insane. He wasn’t merely imitating Mao, he believed he was Mao.
“But Yang -” Jiao couldn’t finish the sentence, wracked by an outburst of sobbing.
“I would let down all the people in the world rather than have any of them let me down. To make revolution is not to invite people to dinner, you stupid woman.”
Chen recognized the first sentence as a quote from Cao Cao, a Han-dynasty statesman Mao admired. And the second was a familiar quote from the Little Red Book, a favorite line the Red Guards would quote while beating and smashing people and things at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.
But the man’s comment also implied that he had killed Yang – that he’d done so since, in his logic, she had become a threat. Killing her and leaving her body in the garden could have taken care of Xie, another threat, had Jiao not unexpectedly provided an alibi for the old man.
“You are a crazy monster, killing people like weeds,” Jiao shrieked hysterically.
“You ungrateful bitch!” He slapped her face hard.
“You bastard of Mao -”
Her protest was replaced by a muffled sound. “Mao” must be stopping her from shouting. A disturbance in the room of a young single woman at night could draw attention from the neighbors.
Chen sprang up, placing his hand on the door, though not sure what exactly to do. Domestic violence wasn’t a priority for him at the moment, and he might be able to learn a lot more from their fight.
He tripped over something in the closet, and nearly stumbled. It was the broom. He was transfixed by the bulging sensation under his foot – something tangibly hard inside the coir fiber of the broom head. He bent over and examined it in the glow from the night-light. A worn-out broom head, but with a relatively new binding thread.
Jiao could have unraveled the coir, inserted something inside, and rebound the fiber.
What could be hidden inside?
He touched the broom head again. whatever was inside appeared to be square in shape. Something like paper. Not just one or two pieces, but a stack of them. The size was smaller than legal-size paper, possibly a notebook, except that it did not feel like a notebook with a hard cover.
What he had learned from Diao came back to him. About Shang’s passion for pictures and her photography equipment. Inside could be the pictures of Shang and Mao – possibly in their most intimate moments, in the midst of the rolling cloud and rain.
The presence of the broom in the bedroom closet now made sense. She didn’t want to leave the broom in the kitchen, where a maid could use it just like any broom. But in the closet here it was safe and acceptable to her, psychologically. That would explain her choosing not to use this broom a short while ago.
Also, it provided an insight to that surrealistic painting. Her unconscious might have produced a revenge fantasy, in which broom swept over the Forbidden City. The lines by Mao appeared, ironically, so proper and right in context. The concern of the Beijing government was not unfounded.
He took out his pocketknife, ready to cut open the broom head in the faintly-lit closet.
It was really a Mao case after all.
“Chen, that bastard, strikes from the dark -”
Chen was stunned by the mention of his name, as his knife was poised just inches above the broom head. He hadn’t made a move against anyone through his connections in the city government, except for lobbying for Xie Mansion to be given the status of a historical
site. But somebody else might be paying attention to “Mao.”
“His disappearance wasn’t the result of the warning from my little brothers. What he’s really up to, I don’t know.”
“Mao” was Mao, who, paranoid that everybody was plotting against him, killed his hand-picked successor Liu Shaoqi, and then the next one, Ling Biao, not to mention thousands of high ranking Party officials who had been loyal to him.
“And he’s connected with that bastard cop who came to my office for information about you. I got rid of him, though.”
Song – the lieutenant could have uncovered Jiao’s connection to “Mao,” approached him, and, to “Mao,” posed a threat.
“Yes, you have to say yes to me, say yes!” “Mao” shouted. Yes echoed in the bedroom.
Jiao didn’t respond.
The silence thundered over Chen. When “Mao” stopped his monologue, the bedroom was shrouded in stillness, except for his labored breathing.
Chen opened the door further to see before him an astonishing tableau. “Mao” sat naked on top of Jiao, straddling her abdomen, his back toward the closet door, his muscles stretched taut, tremulous, his hand rising up from her mouth, as if having just given up the effort to stop her shouting. She lay motionless, her white legs spread wide, her pubic hair darkly visible.
Only a tenth of a second, but long enough for all the details to start etching themselves onto Chen’s consciousness.
“You -” “Mao” abruptly dropped his Hunan accent. “I did all that for you. Without you, without -”
Wrenching open the door completely, Chen whirled headlong, flinging himself forward, but stumbled over the broom that was falling out of the closet.
“Mao” jerked up and jumped off Jiao. Swinging, he snatched up something from the nightstand and hurled it at Chen. But for Chen’s lurch, it might have hit its target. Instead, it missed and smashed against the window, breaking through the glass with a loud crash.
Chen was shocked at the sight of “Mao” – it was none other than Hua, the real estate tycoon he had seen earlier that afternoon at the cocktail party. There Hua had spoken with a strong Beijing accent.