by Xiaolong Qiu
But he was discomforted at the color of the brownish water flowing into the tub, possibly discolored with some mineral deposit, but more probably, he reflected with a wry smile, with some rust from the pipe. Instead of immersing himself for a long and luxurious bath, he got out of the tub in less than ten minutes and wrapped himself in a white terry robe.
He lay stretching out on the sofa, ready to close his eyes for a while.
Then came a light knocking on the door, tentatively, in the enveloping silence of the night.
He jumped up and opened the door to the sight of her standing barefoot in a white terry robe – like his double in the mountain hotel.
It struck him with a sense of déjà vu as he took in the details of her framed in the doorway, her shoulder-length hair still wet under the soft light.
‘Come on in, Jin.’
‘You’re not sleeping, Director Chen?’ she said, her eyes dreamy-looking, as if focusing on something distant.
‘No. Are you?’
Both the question and the answer seemed to be redundant.
‘I saw the light from under your door, so I thought …’ she said in embarrassment, touching at her slightly wet hair. ‘The shower in my bathroom broke down after just one minute—’
‘Of course you can use my bathroom, which is connected to the mountain spring, as I’ve told you.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, smiling with a sudden twinkle in her eyes before stepping past him.
Watching her disappearing into the bathroom, he was in no mood to lie back on the sofa.
He felt restless, listening to the water gurgling in the bathroom. It was hard for him not to let his mind wander under such a starry night.
She seemed to have never let him go, not even in the night-covered mountains. But he soon ridded himself of the thought. For a young, bright, attractive, hard-working girl like her, she had been simply doing an extraordinary job as a secretary to the office.
And for a trouble-plagued, middle-aged man like him, he could hardly take care of himself at the moment, much less a young girl of great expectations.
He rose, moved to the window, and stood there with his hands resting on the sill. He pushed open the window a little, hoping that the fresh night air could help to cool him down.
The moonlight streaming fair, soft on the peaks, the night air was sweet. In the distance, the mountain ridges looked like undulating waves in ‘Dover Beach’ by Matthew Arnold.
Thousands of years earlier, Judge Dee could have looked out at a night scene just like this, writing a poem, or contemplating a difficult case, in the middle of his own troubles in the fierce Tang power struggle around the throne—
Something buzzing in his robe pocket brought him back to the present. He took out the phone. It was a WeChat message from Kong.
‘Some of Xuanji’s love poems will come out in the newspaper tomorrow, like a prologue to the serialization of your novella. So excited about it. Shanghai Daily is interested in the English version.’
It was just another cunning push from Kong, but Chen did not feel obliged to immediately respond to the message.
And then came another message, in which Kong enclosed several links to poetry readings in English, saying they were from Shanghai Daily. Absentmindedly, Chen clicked one of the links.
He was then lost in the reading of a poem by a British actor with a deep, singularly sad voice. What a coincidence! It happened to be one of his favorite poems, also about such a starry night, with the poet looking out of the window, thinking not just about the present, but the past too …
‘The sea of faith was once—’
He did not even hear the door of the bathroom opening, and her moving light-footedly across to him – not until she came to stand beside him by the window.
And he turned off the recording of the reading.
She remained standing by his side, her terry robe brushing against his. She seemed not to be in a hurry to move back to her own room.
Neither of them said a word for a minute or two.
‘Still dwelling on the conclusion of the case, my director?’
‘No point dwelling on speculations,’ he said, aware of her wet hair touching his shoulder before changing the subject. ‘Thank you for introducing me to WeChat.’
‘Why?’
‘I was just looking out, and listening to the reading of a poem through WeChat. It’s so convenient.’
‘What poem?’
‘“Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold.’ He fast-moved the cursor toward the ending of the poem.
For the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain—
‘Hold on. I think I’ve read a collection of English poetry translations you have done, including that poem. “And we are here as on a darkling plain, / Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, / Where ignorant armies clash by night.” That’s the very ending of the poem, right? I love that poem.’
‘Right. And it’s one of the saddest love poems, as if the world without joy, love, light, peace, or help for pain, provided the only justification for two people to be true to each other. The only thing that comes with a sort of certitude.’ He added like in afterthought, ‘I was thinking of Xuanji, the heroine in the Judge Dee story—’
‘For Xuanji in your Judge Dee story, did she ever stand at the window in the company of someone really caring for her, looking out together to the night with certitude? I’ve read some more material about the ill-starred Tang poetess, but I don’t know. And for that matter, I doubt it about Min too.’
He felt her leaning against his shoulder, her wet hair touching his face, and her hand touching his, lightly—
All of a sudden, a furious flapping sound against the window startled them apart. Looking out, he thought he discerned something black hovering close to the pane. Possibly a night bird that had lost its way back home, flustering against the lit window, he supposed. But at such a height? He pushed open the window.
To his astonishment, it turned out to be a black-painted drone – the size of a large black raven.
It was perhaps just an uncanny coincidence in the dark night, but as an ex-cop, he did not believe it.
‘Following us all the way here?’ She was echoing his thoughts, her hand grasping his in panic.
‘You’re worrying too much, Jin. Wealthy people fly drones like kites.’
‘Even up in the mountains?’
He did not have to answer. It was a rhetorical question, he knew.
He was suddenly consumed with rage. Even in the mountains, he still would not be let alone …
And he was not alone.
Outside the window, the mountains seemed to be nearly lost in darkness, though some peaks and ridges remained dimly visible at a distance.
‘I think I have to go to Beijing for a seminar,’ he said to the inquiring look in her eyes. ‘A seminar for Party cadres.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine.’
‘But I don’t know how to guess.’
‘Perhaps, out of sight, out of mind …’ He did not finish the sentence. ‘But for now, I can still enjoy the spring bath here. At least for a week or so, and hopefully I can finish the Judge Dee novella before leaving for Beijing. You’ll be the first reader of the manuscript, Jin, I promise you. Your history major will surely make a difference. You have been so helpful.’
‘You should have watched those Judge Dee TV movies. They don’t care about the accuracy of historical detail.’ She went on, abruptly switching to another subject, ‘But do you think that the arrangement of the seminar in Beijing is a bit strange? You’re still on convalescent leave.’
‘What those people in Beijing have in mind, you may never be able to figure out.’
‘A preparatory step for you to mov
e to a higher position?’
‘It’s open to interpretation, but I don’t think so.’
‘Can you tell whether you will come back to the office?’
‘No, I can’t.’
She grasped his hand tighter.
‘And you don’t even know whether our office will still be there – if and when you come back.’
‘The office was set up just about a month ago, you know, as I was removed from my position in the Shanghai Police Bureau. Indeed, “History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors / And issues …” Sorry, I’m being Eliotic again.’
‘One thing I still remember of those history lessons I took in college. All history is the present history. People always read and interpret history from their own perspective at the present moment. So why worry about what other people have said.’
‘Yes, the moment we speak, the present is already turning into the past.’
‘So what we have is only the present moment, which is fleeting. And what will happen tomorrow? No one knows,’ she said, not releasing his hand. ‘But for tonight, I’m here – with you.’
He was taken by surprise. If he had not thought about her as the one for him, it was mainly because of his own trouble. No point dragging down a lovely young girl with him, he had told himself, subconsciously if not consciously. The thought that she should have a bright future for herself had banished other thoughts coming to his mind.
But the conspiracies of the circumstances, as if joined link by link in a long, invisible ‘red rope’ in an ancient Chinese tale, were bringing them together at this moment, standing by the hotel window that looked out to the mountains being lost in the dark.
She was turning to him, grasping him in her arms, and gazing with an unmistakable message in her eyes – perhaps the same message as on the day she first stepped into his apartment …
A message that was now defying the black evil iron drone buzzing, hovering outside the window here.
He found himself not afraid of fighting back. Now he had another reason to fight, not just for himself.
Smiling, he touched her wet hair.
They embraced each other.
Afterwards, he said quietly to her, ‘We have the mountains to ourselves.’
She whispered a throaty agreement, curling up against him before she fell asleep in his arms.
He was wondering at the sensation of being above and beyond the earth, perhaps due to the elevation of the hotel, which stood over one thousand feet above sea level. Looking up, he was surprised with a vision of the white clouds surging through the window, pressing against her sweat-covered back, her black hair flowing in the soft moonlight. Her body felt soft, almost insubstantial, like the clouds after the rain in the mountains.
It reminded him of a celebrated rhapsody composed by Song Yu, a poet in the second century BC, about the liaison of King Chu Xiang and the Wu Mountain Goddess. Clinging to the king, the Goddess promised she would come back to him in the clouds and rain. It turned into a breath-taking metaphor for sexual love in classical Chinese literature.
Their feet brushed. Touching her arched sole, he felt something, a grain of sand stuck between her toes. Possibly from the mineral deposit in the spring bath water.
Drowsiness was beginning to take over, peacefully, like the night covering the mountains.
But he was startled by a hoarse, long-drawn-out sound across the valley.
As he was blinking in the night light of the room, the sound was repeated several times in the distance. So disoriented was he, he had a feeling that the sound came, eerily, from another world.
The disorientation was intensified by the sight of her sleeping, nestling against him.
Deep, deep in the mountains, as Li Bai had written lyrically in the Tang dynasty, the realities of the world seemed to be so far away. The sound was probably just a white owl’s call, not too unusual in the area. Turning over, he reached for his watch. It was almost midnight. An owl’s hoot was supposed to be ominous, according to the traditional folklore, especially when heard deep in the morning. He felt uneasy. Rubbing his eyes, he made an effort to shake off the feeling.
There was no reason to suspect that it would turn out to be a bad day – with her beside him.
He finally sank into sleep.
DAY SEVEN
For Chen, it was the first dreamless night for months.
He woke up feeling refreshed, recharged, when he realized and reached out.
No one was lying beside him in the bed.
On the nightstand, there was nothing but a note staring at him in the glaring morning light: ‘I have to hurry back to the office on the first Yellow Mountain bus to Shanghai. As your secretary, I have to take care of things there. Don’t worry about it. Enjoy your well-deserved vacation in the mountains. Thanks for everything, Director Chen.’
So she had spent the night with him here.
He was not exactly disappointed with her leaving like that, though the note came almost like an anti-climax. After such a night in the mountains, it appeared as if nothing had happened there.
On second thoughts, it might have been just as well. They were high in the mountains under the cover of night, disoriented at such an altitude of the Cloud Sea Hotel, but they had to come down, one way or another.
She was probably on the morning bus back to Shanghai right now.
For a girl of the younger generation, a night in the mountains might not have meant a lot.
And he was too old – at least too old-fashioned – for her, not to mention all the troubles he had landed himself in.
At the moment, a complication in his personal life was the last thing he wanted. Still, it had happened. Whether it would happen again, he did not know. But he was grateful.
Not expecting miracle again,
But glad to have been staying
Beside you with the rain
And the cloud unfolding,
Against the night mountain,
And grateful for its happening.
Not exactly his own lines, he brooded in self-satire, but inspired by Louis MacNeice’s poem titled ‘The Sunlight on the Garden’ which was written in the days after his wife left him.
The personal aside, it was also a disappointing ending to the investigation for the ex-inspector.
Nothing to his credit, which was the least of his worries. Nothing he could do about Min’s damaged life. While he did not have too much sympathy for the Republican Lady, that was not to justify the Party system intent on crushing her for its political interest. Nothing he could do about Wanxia’s death, either. What Comrade Zhao had said in terms of taking into consideration the larger picture for China was another reminder to him. In the ‘larger picture for China’, Wanxia’s death had to be conveniently explained as the work of a diabolical murderer who was to be executed anyway for the other crimes he had committed. But Chen could no longer bring himself to toe the line. In spite of the one-of-us tone of Comrade Zhao’s letter, he now refused to see himself as ‘one of the system’. It was a point of no return for him, he knew.
For years, he had kept telling himself that things in China could not change overnight, and that he should be content like others, as he was doing all he could to facilitate the change. It was for the country, and for himself too – whether as an ex-inspector or the director of the Judicial System Reform Office. Self-realization would be more likely, as he had read long ago, in something larger than oneself. But whatever had to be done, he was determined it should not be done at the expense of law and justice.
A long-distance phone call came in, to his surprise, from a TV producer surnamed Bi in Beijing. After a brief introduction, Bi brought up his proposal:
‘Your Judge Dee novella is an excellent one. Professor Zhong highly recommended it to me, and told me about the exciting storyline. Tell you what. I immediately made up my mind.
‘It has all the makings of a huge box office success. Murder, beauty, love, fox spirit, sex, conspiracies high up.
What’s more, we don’t have to worry about censorship. It’s a Tang dynasty story.
‘And you yourself can write the screenplay. Or work with someone else. What do you say, Director Chen? I’ve already talked to a couple of investors. All of them are really interested in the project. One suggests that you shall serve as a deputy producer for the TV series.’
‘Really!’ That was about all he could manage in response on the phone.
‘We will be sending you the contract tomorrow, Director Chen. We’re looking forward to a long-term working relationship with you.’
Things were developing so fast. People already took him as a writer or even scriptwriter more than anything else. The ex-inspector shook his head at his blurred reflection in the window looking out to the mountains.
In the meantime, the newspaper would begin to serialize the novella next week. He had to give the first five to ten pages to Kong, plus something like a prologue to start with. He was not at all sure what the novella would actually turn out to be like.
Having just gone through the latest investigation, he knew it would be a story quite different from Gulik’s, almost a subversion of it. Nevertheless, it might work.
There could be quite a few days left for him in the mountains. In Comrade Zhao’s letter, the ex-inspector was told to come to Beijing for the seminar after the mountain vacation, yet without a specific date.
So it meant that he might be able to complete the novella, he contemplated, while vacationing.
Publication and loyalty aside, it would serve as a test of the feasibility of his starting a new career. And also as a way for him to get off the hook as a full-time writer for the moment. At the same time, it might remain as a cover for him if he were to go on writing as a cop.
And according to Kong, Shanghai Daily, the English newspaper of the city, was interested in the English version of the novella. So they would like to have Xuanji’s poems translated into English first, as a test of the reaction of the non-Chinese readers.