The Mao Case Read online

  But this time, it was different.

  She felt drawn to the case because of something personal, yet far more than personal.

  Peiqin had been a straight-A student in elementary school, wearing the Red Scarf of a proud Young Pioneer, dreaming of a rosy future in the golden sunlight of socialist China. Everything changed overnight, however, with the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution. Her father’s “historical problem” cast a shadow over the whole family. Youthful dreams shattered, she came to terms with the realities — toiling and moiling as an educated youth in Yunnan, plowing barefoot in the rice paddy, plodding through the muddy trails, day in and day out … and ten years later, coming back to the city, working at a tingzijian restaurant office with wok fumes and kitchen noises erupting from downstairs, and squeezing into a single room without a kitchen or bathroom, with Yu and Qinqin eking out whatever was available… She had been too busy, sometimes working two jobs, to be maudlin about her life. And she had kept telling herself that she was a lucky one — a good husband and a wonderful son, what else could she really expect? At a recent class reunion, Yu and she were actually voted the luckiest couple — both had stable jobs, a room they called their own, and a son studying hard for college. After all, the Cultural Revolution had been a national disaster, not just for her family but for millions and millions of Chinese people.

  Occasionally, she still couldn’t help wondering what life would have been like without the Cultural Revolution.

  The cut on her finger stung again.

  Who was responsible for it?

  Mao.

  The government didn’t want people to talk about it, tried to avoid the topic or to shift the blame to the Gang of Four. As for Mao, it was said that he had made a well-meant mistake, which was nothing compared to the great contributions he’d made to China.

  Perhaps she was in no position to judge Mao, not historically, but what about personally, from the perspective of one whose life had been so affected by those political movements under Mao?

  Her personal factors aside, there was no forgiving Mao for what she had just learned from Old Hunter — for what Mao had done to Kaihui.

  As a young girl, she had read Mao’s poem to Kaihui, cherishing it as a moving revolutionary love poem. She had also read an earlier one on parting with Kaihui, even more sentimental and touching in her imagination.

  Now, what a shock when she learned the truth behind the poems! It wasn’t simply a brazen betrayal by Mao; it was practically cold-blooded murder. Mao must have seen Kaihui as an obstacle to his affair with Zizhen, so he had let Kaihui stay where she was, to fall prey to the nationalists’ retaliation. Did Kaihui know it in her last days? Peiqin’s eyes watered at the thought of Kaihui being dragged to the execution ground, her bare feet bleeding all the way — following the local superstition that the executed couldn’t find her way back home without her shoes.

  And Peiqin had no doubt about Mao’s desertion of Shang. After rereading Cloud and Rain in Shanghai, Peiqin lay awake for the night. It was nothing, historically, for someone like Mao to have used and discarded a woman like a worn-out mop. But what about Shang, an equal human being?

  Standing up, Peiqin went into the bedroom again. Gazing at Mao’s picture above the bed, she realized that it was a portrait not so commonly seen, not now, not since the days of the Cultural Revolution. Mao was sitting in a rattan chair, wearing a blue-and-white-striped terrycloth robe, smoking a cigarette, and smiling toward the distant horizon, the immediate background of the picture suggestive of a riverboat. Presumably it was a picture taken after a swim in the Yangtze River.

  Was it possible that Jiao, after the fashion of recent years, had “re-discovered” Mao? Chinese people had always been interested in emperors — for thousands of years. There was a “royal revival” going on in movies and on TV, and the Qing emperors and empresses abounded in current bestsellers.

  But how could Jiao, of all people, have entertained any fond fantasies of Mao — since Mao was responsible for the tragedies of her family?

  And the Mao mystery aside, how could a young girl like Jiao afford to live like this without a job?

  It was possible that Jiao was a kept woman, or “little concubine”— ernai, a new term that was gaining currency quickly in the contemporary Chinese vocabulary.

  But Internal Security hadn’t found a “keeper” in the background, though somebody had been seen in her company, at least once, in the apartment here. For a young woman like Jiao, there was nothing surprising about an occasional visitor or two.

  Peiqin pulled out of her thoughts. She hardly knew anything about Jiao, a girl from a different generation and of a different family background. There was no point in speculating too much.

  Nor did she have any idea what Chen was really after. As a cop’s wife, she had no objection to snooping around for her husband’s sake, or that of his boss, but she would have liked more clues about what she was looking for.

  Again, she glanced at her watch. Jiao wouldn’t come back this early. Peiqin decided to start her “search proper.”

  She proceeded cautiously, pulling out the drawers, looking under the bed, examining the closet, rummaging through the boxes… From a mystery she had read, she learned that people could purposely hide things in the most obvious places, to which she also paid close attention. After spending nearly an hour going through every nook and cranny, she found little except things that further reinforced her earlier impression of Jiao’s being obsessed with Mao.

  In a drawer, Peiqin found several tapes of documentaries showing Mao receiving foreign visitors in the Forbidden City. Some of them she might have seen in Yunnan in the early seventies; it was during a time when hardly any movies were shown except the eight modern revolutionary model plays and documentaries of Mao. Peiqin and Yu would joke that Mao was the biggest movie star.

  How could Jiao have gotten hold of these? Peiqin was tempted to put a tape into the player, but she decided against it. Jiao might notice it had been played.

  Instead, Peiqin started to make a list of what seemed unusual, puzzling, incomprehensible, at Jiao’s apartment. A list for Yu and Old Hunter. If she couldn’t make much out of it, they might. Or possibly Chief Inspector Chen.

  First, the large bed, so old-fashioned, with a wooden-board mattress. For the majority of the Shanghainese, it was common to have a zongbeng mattress — something woven netlike with crisscrossed coir ropes. Peiqin insisted on having such an airy, resilient zongbeng at home. For younger people, a spring mattress was more popular and Qinqin had one. Only some really old and old-fashioned people would think of a wooden-board mattress as a possible choice; they would believe it to be good for their back.

  And then there was the miniature bookshelf set into the head-board. Was Jiao such an avid reader? She hadn’t even finished middle school. Not to mention the custom-made mahogany bookshelves with those Mao and history books.

  Peiqin wasn’t sure about the silk scroll of Mao’s poem in the living room and the portrait of Mao in the bedroom, but to her, they also seemed unusual.

  As for the dinner with all the unusual dishes, Peiqin was inclined to suppose it was a meal for two. The guest could be an old-fashioned one, at least so in his taste, though Jiao hadn’t said a word about any visitor coming that night. Peiqin thought that she’d better tip Old Hunter to it, making sure that he would keep lookout this evening.

  She was about to dial when a knock sounded on the door. She put the list into her bag and looked out through the peephole. It was a man in a dark blue uniform with something like a long-handled sprayer in his hand.

  “What do you want?” she asked uncertainly.

  “Insect spray service.”

  “Insect spray service?” She sprayed at home, by herself, but it was not her business to question it. Rich people might have all kinds of things done by professionals.

  “I scheduled it with Jiao,” he said, producing a slip of paper. “Look.”

  Jiao must have forgotte
n to tell her about it, which wasn’t that important.

  “So you’re the new maid here?”

  “Yes, it’s my first day.”

  “I came last month,” he said, “and there was another one.”

  He must have come here before, so she opened the door. He moved in, nodding and putting on a gauze mask before she could get a close look at his face. He appeared quite professional, his glance instantly sweeping round to the kitchen table. “Better cover the dishes, though the spray is practically harmless.”

  Extending the spray head, he started spraying around, poking and reaching into the corners behind the cabinet.

  After four or five minutes, he headed for the bedroom. She followed, though not closely.

  “So you’re not a provincial girl.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Then how did you end up here?”

  “My factory went bankrupt,” she improvised. “Where else could I go?”

  After he checked into the corners as well as hard-to-reach areas, he squatted down, reaching into the space under the bed. Perhaps that was the professional way.

  When he finally started to pull in the spray head, she said, “How much does Jiao owe you?”

  “Oh, she has already paid.”

  It was almost four when he left the apartment. Peiqin moved back to the kitchen where she tore the steamed eggplant into slices and added salt, sesame oil, and a pinch of MSG. Simple yet good. She also sliced a piece of jellyfish for another cold dish and prepared a small saucer of special sauce.

  She finally poked a chopstick into the pork. The chopstick pierced it easily. She turned the fire down to the lowest setting. The pork looked nicely done, rich in color.

  That was about all she could do for the day. The clock on the kitchen wall said four forty-five. She surveyed the dishes prepared and half prepared on the kitchen table, nodding with approval.

  Taking off her apron, she thought she should let Jiao know about all that she had done that afternoon. So she left a note, mentioning the visit of the insect spray man as well.

  SEVENTEEN

  MUCH TO HIS CONFUSION, Chen found himself sitting beside Yong in a black limousine, which was rolling down the once familiar Chang’an Avenue in the growing dusk.

  He hadn’t expected such a grand ride upon his arrival in Beijing. On the Shanghai-Beijing express train he had decided that, rather than go through a travel agency and have his name registered, it would be better to call Yong, ask her to book a hotel for him, and have her purchase a prepaid cell phone for him to use while in Beijing. He was acquainted with some people in the Beijing Police Bureau, but he decided not to contact any of them.

  Nor would he let them know he was taking his “vacation” in Beijing. With Yong, there was one disadvantage — her unbridled imagination regarding the purpose of his trip. On the other hand, she could tell him about Ling. There were questions he might not be able to ask Ling herself.

  It didn’t take long for Yong to call back, saying that she had taken care of everything and that she would pick him up at the station.

  What surprised him, however, was the sight of Yong waiting for him with a luxurious limousine at the exit of the Beijing train station.

  As far as he knew, Yong was an ordinary librarian, riding an old bike to work, rain or shine.

  More to his surprise, Yong didn’t immediately start talking about Ling, as he had anticipated. A slender-built woman in her late thirties with short hair, a slightly swarthy complexion, and clear features, Yong usually spoke fast and loud. There was something mysterious about her reticence.

  After the car swerved around Dongdan and passed Lantern City Crossing, it made several more turns in quick succession before edging its way into a narrow, winding lane, which appeared to be in the Eastern City area. He couldn’t see clearly through the amber-colored windows.

  The entrance of the lane looked familiar, yet strange, lined with indescribable stuffs stacked along both sides.

  “The hotel is in a hutong?” he asked. In Beijing, a lane was called hutong, usually narrow and uneven. The limousine was literally crawling along.

  “You’ve forgotten all about it, haven’t you?” Yong said with a knowing smile. “A distinguished man can’t help forgetting things. We are going to my place.”

  “Oh. But why?”

  “To receive the wind, like in our old tradition. Isn’t it proper and right for me to first welcome you at home? The hotel is really close, at the end of the lane. It’s easy, you can walk there in only three or four minutes.”

  She could have told him on the phone. But why the limousine? Yong was of ordinary family background, not like Ling.

  He had been here before years earlier — for a date with Ling, he recalled, as the car pulled up in front of a sihe quadrangle house. It was an architectural style popular in the old city of Beijing, and characterized by residential rooms on four sides and an inner courtyard in the center.

  Stepping out, he saw an isolated house standing in a disappearing lane — most of the houses there were already gone or half gone, the ground littered with debris and ruins.

  “The local government has a new housing project planned to be built here, but we aren’t moving. Not until we are properly compensated. It’s our property.”

  “Are you still living here?”

  “No, we have another apartment near New Street.”

  So they were another “nail family,” hanging in until pulled out by force. There were stories about this type of problem in the development of the city.

  In the courtyard, he noticed that all the rooms were dark except Yong’s.

  As she led him into the room, he wasn’t too surprised to see Ling sitting there, leaning against the paper window. He looked over her with an overwhelming feeling of déjà vu.

  In the limousine, he had suspected some sort of arrangement by Yong. Ling, however, appeared to be genuinely surprised, and she stood up. She could have come over from some business activity, wearing a purple satin mandarin dress, with a purse of the same color and material, apparently custom-made, like in a page torn from a high-class fashion magazine.

  There was no “wind-receiving” banquet on the table, not as Yong had promised. There was only a cup of tea for Ling. Yong hastened to pour a cup for Chen and gestured both of them to sit down.

  “My humble abode is brightened by two distinguished guests tonight,” Yong said. “Ling, CEO of several large companies in Beijing, and Chen, chief inspector of the Shanghai Police Bureau. So my ‘nail family’ has existed for a good reason.”

  “You should have told me,” Ling said to her.

  That was what he also wanted to say, but he said instead to Ling, “I’m so pleased to see you, Ling.”

  “Now, I have to hurry back to my new place,” Yong said. “My man works the night shift and I have to take care of my little daughter.”

  It was too obvious an excuse. Yong had played a similar trick once before. The memories of a similar occasion were all coming back to him.

  Yong left promptly, as years earlier, closing the door after her, leaving the two of them alone in the room.

  But things were not as before, not anymore for the two of them. He found himself at a loss for words. The silence seemed to wrap them up in a silk cocoon.

  “Yong is a busybody,” Ling said finally. “She dragged me over without telling me why, and insisted on my waiting here.”

  “A well-meant busybody,” he said, his glance sweeping over the room, which appeared little changed. There was still a basin of water in the steel-wire basin holder near the door. The large bed at the other side of the room was covered with a dragon-and-phoenix-embroidered sheet, identical to the one in his memory. And they were sitting at the same red-painted wooden table by the paper windows, against which the old lamp cast a lambent light.

  That might be the very effect Yong had intended. The past in the present. Like the last time they were here — Ling, a librarian, and he, a college
student. In those days, she still lived with her parents, and he, in a crowded dorm room with five other students. It was difficult for them to find a quiet place to themselves. So Yong invited them to her place, and as soon as they were here, she left them alone with an excuse.

  That evening was like this evening. But to night, as in a couplet by Li Shangyin, “Oh the feeling, to be collected later / in memories, was already confused.”

  “I received the book you sent from London,” he said. “Thank you so much, Ling.”

  “Oh, I happened to see it in a bookstore there.”

  “So you are back from the trip.” It was idiotic to say that, he knew. She thought of him on her honeymoon trip, but what else could he say to her? “When?”

  “Last week.”

  “You could have told me earlier.”

  “Why?”

  “I would have been able —” He left the sentence unfinished — to buy a wedding present for you.

  There ensued another short spell of silence, like in a scroll of traditional Chinese painting, in which the blank space contains more than what was painted. There is always a loss of meaning / in what we say or do not say, / but also a meaning / in the loss of the meaning.

  “Oh, did you visit the Sherlock Holmes Museum?” he said, trying to change the topic.

  “Now you are really a chief inspector,” she said, eyeing the cold tea. “A cop above everything.”

  That was another blunder on his part. She had a point. He was tongue-tied, as a cop or not, thinking that her response might have also referred to his role in another case, one that had exasperated her father because of its political repercussions. A case Chen didn’t have to take, yet he did. The outcome of it had strained their relationship.

  “You must have done well on the force,” she went on. “My father, too, mentioned you the other day.”

  “As a monk, you have to strike the bell in the temple, day after day.” He was deeply perturbed by the comment about her father, a powerful politburo member in the Forbidden City.