When Red is Black

by Qiu Xiaolong

  He sometimes wondered whether she should have lived a different life. Pretty, talented, she might not have crossed his path but for the Cultural Revolution, to which Yu actually had a reason to be grateful. So many years after the national disaster, she was still with him, even joining him now in an investigation.

  Despite all his disappointments, Yu considered himself a lucky guy. But all of a sudden, he also felt disturbed. It was not just about Yin and Yang; it was something more vague, yet personal. He realized that there was no telling whether another Cultural Revolution might befall China.

  In the moment before he went to sleep, strange ideas came crowding into his mind. Fortunately, Peiqin is not a writer-that was one of his half-formed thoughts as he finally fell asleep that night.

  Chapter 9

  Chief Inspector Chen woke up with an unpleasant thought, as annoying as the shrill ringing of the alarm o’clock on the night-stand. He was going to give in, although he was still too disoriented to tell what he was conceding.

  He got up, rubbing his eyes. It still appeared gray outside the window.

  It was not his case, he told himself one more time. Yu had been doing all that could be done. Any interference by him would not make a difference, not at this stage. His priority must be the translation of the New World proposal sitting on his desk.

  Gu had not pressed him for the translation the way Party Secretary Li had urged him to head the investigation, at least not as directly, although it occurred to him that White Cloud might have been assigned to him not just as a helper but also as a subtle reminder that he was to concentrate on the translation.

  Still, Chen felt that he had to do something with respect to the investigation. There were a number of reasons for him to do so. He ought to pitch in for the sake of Yang, if for nothing else, a writer whose career had been tragically cut short, and whose works Chen should have read earlier.

  In his middle school years, Chen had read Martin Eden, a novel translated by Yang, and knew Yang was one of the best-regarded translators of English fiction, but then Chen started studying English and reading books in their original language. When he himself started writing poetry, Chen did not read any of Yang’s poems-they were not easily available at that time. By the time Yang’s poetry collection came out, Chen was already busy as an emerging Party cadre, too busy to do as much reading as he wanted.

  In fact, his own writing career had now reached a critical stage, Chen knew. There were too many books waiting to be read. In the middle of one homicide investigation after another, however, he did not know how he could ever manage to keep up.

  He felt an affinity to Yang, a poet as well as a translator. But for the dramatic reversal of politics, what had happened to Yang could have happened to Chen.

  Chen did not know that Yang had translated from Chinese into English, an attempt Chen had never made before, except for a few fragmented lines for a friend from the United States. He started to brew a pot of coffee, a Brazilian brand, a gift from her, that faraway friend.

  He took out Yang’s poetry translation manuscripts that Yu had given him. Instead of studying the computer printout, he focused on the handwritten manuscript. The two were practically identical. In his research for a paper he had written years earlier about The Waste Land, he had learned that a handwritten manuscript might be a useful entree into the mind of a creative writer.

  A general impression he had gotten of Yang’s manuscript was that he had made a conscientious effort to make the text readable to contemporary English readers, but what caught Chen’s attention were some abbreviated notes left in the margins.

  “Chapter 3,” “C 11,” “C 8 or C26,” “C 12 if not C 15,” “For the conclusion.”

  Apparently, these references had meaning for Yang alone.

  Perhaps they indicated the books consulted for the purpose of the translation, Chen speculated. Classical Chinese poems could be open to endless interpretations. As a renowned scholar, Yang might have done a lot of research before settling upon one particular rendition.

  But that did not make much sense. For that purpose, Yang should have jotted down page numbers, not chapters. It would have been much easier for him to check his citations afterward.

  The collection included a number of poems Chen recognized immediately, even in English, but a few of them offered no clue as to what the original might have been. It was possible that Yang had selected these poems from earlier or less-known collections. That might be an explanation for the abbreviated references. But then, why all the “Cs” instead of editors’ names?

  The lack of an introduction or conclusion gave Chen a different idea. He, too, had written conclusions for different projects, in which he sometimes quoted a line or two. Yang might have been in the process of writing a conclusion for his poetry translation, but had died without having finished it.

  In spite of his failure to see any relevance to the murder case, Chen did not put the manuscript down. He could see why Yin had cherished the manuscript. It contained wonderful love poems, as Yin had said in the Afterword, which also evoked the most memorable days of their lives. In the cadre school, they would have pored over those poems together, in English and in Chinese, holding hands. On such a night, they might have felt as if the poem of Su Dongpo had been written for them, and that they themselves were united forever through its lines:

  The night watchman struck the third watch.

  Golden waves of the moonlight fading,

  a jade handle of the Dipper lowering,

  we calculate with our fingers

  when the west wind will come,

  unaware of time flowing away like a river in the dark.

  The Afterword was written in a clever way. Yin did not try to say too much, but merely presented the scenes in which she and Yang had read and discussed those poems at the cadre school. She ended, however, with a scene in which she stood alone, reading a poem written by Li Yu, which had once been recited to her by Yang, deep in the night:

  When will the endless cycle

  of the spring flower and the autumn moon

  come to an end?

  How much remembrance of things past

  does a heart know?

  Last night, in the attic revisited

  by the eastern wind,

  it was unbearable to look

  toward home in the fair moonlight.

  The carved rails and the marble steps must remain

  unchanged, but not her beauty.

  How much sorrow do I have?

  It is like the spring flood of a long river flowing east!

  The manuscript had enormous sentimental value. Chen touched it gently. No wonder Yin had kept it in a bank safety deposit box.

  Now he stood up and moved to the window, looking out at the street waking under his gaze. Across the road, he saw a Young Pioneer hurrying out the door, tying his red scarf with one hand, holding a fried rice cake in the other, a heavy satchel on his back-it appeared, for a fleeting moment, as if he was Chen himself, hurrying to school, thirty years ago. The chief inspector collected himself and turned back to the desk littered with dictionaries and papers.

  Now he had something else for White Cloud to do in the Shanghai Library. Some of the poems translated by Yang might have appeared in English study journals, although Chen was not sure when that might have occurred-perhaps before the Anti-Rightist movement in the mid-fifties. If so, some annotation there might throw light on the mysterious abbreviations in the manuscript. They might not turn out to be important or relevant, but he was curious. In addition, the library must have some catalogs from Chinese and foreign publishers. He could try to contact some of them, to see whether they might be interested in publishing the collection. There was no hurry, but it gave him comfort to think that he was attempting to do something for the dead.

  In that way, Chen could also keep White Cloud busy, and away from his room. Then he felt he would be able to settle down to working on his translation. And he did just that, product
ively, for a couple of hours, before she arrived for the day. The laptop helped.

  When sunlight came streaming through the window, and White Cloud entered the room, carrying a paper bag of fried mini-buns, he had already finished several pages. He explained her new assignment: To find poems in magazines translated by Yang, and to identify publishers that might be interested in publishing a collection of such poems. Also, he had an elusive feeling this might uncover something else, even though he did not know what. It was a long shot. He himself would probably not go to the library on the basis of that sort of hunch, but having White Cloud available made it possible.

  “I have to assist Detective Yu, as you know, anyway I can,” Chen explained to her, “but I do not have time to do so and to work on the translation for Mr. Gu too. So you are really helping a lot.”

  “A little secretary is supposed to do whatever her boss wants her to,” she said with a sly smile. “Anything. You don’t have to explain. Mr. Gu has emphasized it many times. But what about your lunch?”

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said. “It may take you several hours. Take your time at the library.”

  Surprisingly, he received no phone calls that morning. The translation progressed smoothly. A sparrow twittered outside his window in the cold wind despite the barrenness of the twigs. He forgot about his lunch, for he was transported back into the glitter and glamour of the city in the thirties. Like visitors to the New World would someday be, he was “drunk with money, dazzled with gold.”

  When the phone finally rang, waking him from the scene of a French girl dancing a modern dance, her bare feet flashing like snow on a red-carpeted stage inside a postmodern shikumen house, he felt disoriented as he abruptly returned to reality. The caller was Yu. He had not made much progress in the investigation, he reported. Chen was not surprised. Not that he did not have a high opinion of Yu’s ability. Investigations took time.

  “I don’t know if the interviews will lead to anything,” Yu said.

  “We may at least learn something more about Yin.”

  “That’s another thing. Her neighbors seem to have known very little about her. She was a writer, she had published a book about the Cultural Revolution. That’s about it. Otherwise, she was an outsider in the building.”

  “What about her colleagues?”

  “I’ve talked to her department head. I got nothing really informative from him. As for the file provided by her school authorities, it contains little except a bunch of official clichés.”

  “Anybody would be nervous discussing a dissident writer,” Chen said. “The less said, the better. It’s understandable.”

  “But to substantiate the insider-murderer theory, and to rule out people who knew her at the college, I would have liked to have interviewed some of her colleagues.”

  “My guess is that they will not say much either, but it’s too early to exclude any possibilities.”

  At the end of the conversation, the clock said one thirty.

  But for the translation project, Chen thought as he made a cup of soybean milk for himself, it might have been a good idea for him to visit some of the scholars who had known Yin or Yang. Instead, he picked up the phone and dialed Professor Zhou Longxiang, who had worked at the same college as Yin. Chen had once consulted Zhou about classical Chinese poetry, and had since kept in touch.

  Professor Zhou, apparently lonesome after his retirement, was glad of Chen’s call. He launched into a lecture about the death of poetry for fifteen minutes before Chen was able to bring the conversation to the subject of Yin. At once Zhou’s voice showed irritation. “She was a shameless opportunist, that Yin Lige. I should not speak ill of the dead, I know, but when she was a Red Guard, she showed no mercy at all toward others.”

  “Perhaps she was too young then.”

  “That’s no excuse. What a disaster of a woman! She brought nothing but trouble to people close to her. Including Yang, who was a fine scholar.”

  “That’s a very interesting point, Professor Zhou,” Chen said. “As you are not superstitious, please enlighten me.”

  “It’s simple. But for the affair with her, he would not have been subject of criticism meetings at the cadre school,” Zhou said. “Karma. By her actions during the Cultural Revolution, she brought her troubles upon herself.”

  It was a cruel thing to say, whether one was Buddhist or not. The old professor’s opinion must have been fixed there and then in the furnace of the Cultural Revolution. It did not throw much light on the investigation, but it reconfirmed the impression of her unpopularity even among her colleagues.

  Looking at his watch, Chen told himself he could not afford to make many phone calls like that. Then he had an idea: he might try an approach of a different sort. It would be something else for White Cloud to do. It was surprising that she kept floating into his mind like a cloud that hovered over his work, and not just the translation work. He was not without a touch of self-satisfaction as he thought a little more about it. He could send her to talk to Yin’s former colleagues. He was, as in the proverb, A general who makes plans in his tent, and determines the outcome of a battle thousands of miles away. Even on his vacation, he was still able to contribute to the investigation.

  A few minutes before four, White Cloud returned carrying two plastic bags. She had changed her clothes, and wore jeans and a leather jacket over a low-cut white sweater. On her feet were a pair of short, shiny black boots.

  “I’ve got something for you.” She put one of the plastic bags on the desk.

  “You’ve been really quick. Thank you so much. I know I can count on you, White Cloud.”

  “I have photocopies of Yang’s poetry translations. You may read them for yourself.” Still carrying the other bag, she added, “I’ll fix something for you in the kitchen.”

  “What do you have in your hand?”

  “A surprise.”

  He had no clue as to what the plastic bag contained. It was large and black, and there seemed to be a faint, indistinct sound coming out of it.

  He started reading the photocopied pages. Yang’s poetry translations had been published in a number of English study journals, mostly in the last few years. Such journals had an enormous circulation in China, where so many people were now engaged in learning English.

  In most cases, to Chen’s surprise, the editors had put in a few words as to why people should read Yang’s poetry today. According to one magazine editor, it would be a good way to impress Americans. According to another, it would become fashionable, especially among lovers, to quote these translated poems on Valentine’s Day, which was being introduced into China. There were also several short introductions by Yin, about the techniques employed in the translation of these poems, which might be helpful to beginners. However, he failed to find any clue to the mysterious abbreviations.

  White Cloud was making noises in the kitchen area. She must be cooking, even though it was still a bit early for dinner.

  She finally emerged, carrying a large tray with a broad smile. “From the Dynasty Club,” she announced, placing on the folding table an impressive dinner that included some delicacies he had never seen before. One was a small dish of fried sparrow gizzards, golden crisp. How many sparrows had gone into the making of that dish, he wondered. The other dish, of duck, was also original-it was duck heads with the skulls removed, so people could easily reach the tongues, or suck out the brains. It was the sauna shrimp, however, that really impressed him. River shrimp were brought to the table in a glass bowl, live, still jumping and wriggling. She also provided a small wooden pail whose bottom was covered with red hot stones. She poured some wine into the bowl of shrimp, then took the drunken shrimp from the bowl and put them into the pail. There was a shrill hiss, and, in two or three minutes, a plate of sauna shrimp appeared.

  Gu must have given her many instructions, including how to prepare the sauna shrimp. She might not be an excellent cook, but she knew how to procure delicious food, and that was good e
nough for him.

  “Is that what you wanted?” she said, picking up one copied page of the poetry translation.

  “It may be a piece of the puzzle. I will have to try to fit it in.”

  “You will,” she said. “I hope you like the shrimp too.”

  “Thanks. You are spoiling me.”

  “Not at all. It’s a great honor to work with you, as Mr. Gu tells me.”

  To Chen, however, it sounded somewhat like a reminder to concentrate on the translation lying on the desk, and to remember that theirs was a business relationship.

  He recalled their first meeting in a private room in the Dynasty Club. She, too, had been quite professional-as a K girl. The least he could do now was to show his appreciation. He picked up another shrimp with his fingers.

  Chapter 10

  Detective Yu arrived at the neighborhood committee office early. He wanted to do some reading, even after Peiqin had told him the story of Yin’s novel. Peiqin had also underlined some parts for him to study more closely. The first few pages he turned to described Yang reading to Yin at night behind the pigsty, with piglets grunting off and on as a chorus.

  The cloud seems to be changing its shape. / Insubstantial, soft, wrapping itself against the other, / curling up. Then comes the rain. … It took Yu a minute to figure out the metaphor. It was clever of Yin to write in such highly suggestive language, without being explicit. He wondered, however, if Yin and Yang could have really done anything while they were at the cadre school. They both lived in the dorm, with many roommates in their respective rooms. Even if their roommates were out of the way for an hour or two, it would have been too risky for the two to attempt anything. In those years, if people were caught having extramarital sex, they could be sentenced to years of imprisonment. He read the lines one more time. After close study, it was even more provocative. Chief Inspector Chen, who wrote his own poetry more or less like that, might appreciate it.