DETECTIVE YU WOKE EARLY Sunday morning and reached for his wife Peiqin, but she wasn’t in bed beside him. Probably shopping, he guessed. She would usually go to the market early on Sunday morning.
He thought he heard a muffled sound outside the door. The building was old and housed many families – it was likely some residents were already up and moving. He didn’t get up. Reaching for a cigarette, he went over in his mind what he had done for the last few days.
With the Party’s emphasis on “a harmonious society,” the bureau suddenly had a new focus. Several cases were assigned to the special case squad, temporarily under Yu during Chen’s leave. Those cases didn’t seem that special to Yu, but Party Secretary Li saw them in a different light. For instance, the squad was told to keep an eye on a “troublemaking” journalist who tried to expose the officials involved, directly or even indirectly, in a corruption case. Li’s lecture for the job was delivered in the name of “political stability” as a precondition for the “harmonious society,” condemning the journalist’s efforts, which could cause people to lose their faith in the Party. Yu didn’t have his heart in those assignments. Keeping an eye on someone didn’t necessarily mean seeing something, or doing something, as he told himself again, taking a long pull at his cigarette.
His mind wandered off to the unannounced “vacation” for Chief Inspector Chen. It wasn’t the first time Chen had taken such a vacation, but it was the first time he had done so without saying anything about it to Yu. On the contrary, Chen had contacted Yu’s father, Old Hunter, instead.
According to the retired officer, Chen’s decision was utterly understandable. Too much risk was involved. “Some knowledge can really kill, son.”
But Yu felt terribly let down. He should have been told about what kind of an assignment it was. He had worked with Chen on many cases, weathering storms in the same boat. What was more frustrating was that even Old Hunter begrudged him the necessary information, hemming and hawing while trying to enlist him to help. And even that was only because of Yu’s personal connection to Hong, the neighborhood committee cop in charge of the Jiling district. Old Hunter had likely already approached Hong without success. So it was up to Yu to do a background check on someone named Tan who had once lived in the district. In addition, Yu was told to be alert to anything seen or heard at the bureau regarding Internal Security.
Hong had also been an “educated youth” in Yunnan Province and had joined the Shanghai police force around the same time as Yu. They had known each other for more than twenty years. Hong cooperated without asking a single question, but the information he provided only mystified Yu.
In the mid-seventies, Tan, the only son of a capitalist family, tried to sneak across the border to Hong Kong in the company of his girlfriend Qian, also of black family background. They were caught making the attempt. Tan was so badly beaten that he killed himself, leaving a note in which he shouldered all the responsibility, trying to shelter his girlfriend from the consequences of their act. It was an unquestioned suicide, and an understandable one too. For such a “crime,” Tan could have spent his next twenty or thirty years rotting in prison.
Tan’s parents died shortly thereafter. Qian died a couple of years later. A sad story, but how someone who had died twenty years ago could have any bearing on Chen’s assignment today, Yu failed to understand.
He didn’t stop there, though. He went on to look into the background of Peng, another lover of Qian’s. The initial check yielded little. In those years, it was a crime for people to have sex without a marriage license, and Peng was sentenced to five years for his affair with Qian, a woman then ten years his senior. He never recovered. Nor had he had a regular job since his release. If there were anything remarkable at all about Peng, it would be his ability to muddle along all these years.
Yu had no idea how any of this could be helpful to Chen, who could have easily gotten the same information with a couple of phone calls.
In the meantime, Yu had heard nothing concerning the movements of Internal Security, at least not within the bureau. There was something unusual about the quiet. Party Secretary Li’s reticence about Chen’s leave spoke volumes about it. Yu ground out his cigarette, more confused than before, and lonely too.
Then, in spite of himself, he dozed off before putting the ashtray out of sight.
When he opened his eyes again, Peiqin was in the room, half sitting, half squatting on a wooden stool, plucking the feathers from a chicken in a plastic basin full of hot water. A bamboo-covered thermos bottle stood beside. There was also a basket full of vegetables and soybean product on the floor.
“The common kitchen area is too crowded,” she said, glancing up at him, then at the ashtray on the nightstand.
So the sound he had heard earlier outside the door could have been the chicken struggling in Peiqin’s hand. It was too late, now for him to hide the ashtray.
“Where is Qinqin?” he asked.
“Group study with his schoolmates. He left early and won’t be back until late in the evening.”
Lifting his towel blanket, Yu sat up. “Let me help, Peiqin.”
“You have said that since our ‘educated youth’ days in Yunnan, but have you ever helped with a chicken?”
“But I did in Yunnan, at least once – I ‘acquired’ a chicken in the middle of the night, remember?” He was pleased that she didn’t bring up the issue of his smoking first thing in the morning.
“Shame on you! For a cop to talk about that.”
“I wasn’t a cop then.” He smiled in spite of himself. During their “educated youth” years in Yunnan Province when they were poor and starved, Yu once stole a chicken from a Dai farmer during the night, and Peiqin cooked it in stealth.
Today, in the morning light, her bare arms were specked with the chicken blood, just like so many years ago. He fought down the temptation to light another cigarette.
“It’s almost over,” she said. “We’re going to have home-grown hen soup today. You and Qinqin have been working so hard.”
As a rule, Peiqin didn’t put something special on the dinner table unless their son Qinqin was at home. It was an unwritten rule Yu understood well. Nothing was spared in support of Qinqin’s effort to get into a good college, which would be crucial to his future in the new China.
“A chicken soup, plus carp filet fried with tomato and shepherd purse blossom mixed with tofu,” Peiqin said with a happy smile. “Because it is Sunday, you may have a cup of Shaoxing yellow wine too.”
“But you don’t have to get a live chicken. It’s too troublesome.”
“You haven’t learned anything from your gourmet boss. He would tell you that there is world of difference between a live home-grown chicken and a frozen one from the so-called chicken farm.”
“How could you be wrong, Peiqin, with even Chief Inspector Chen supporting your chicken choice?”
“Now you can help me by lying on the bed, and not smoking. It’s Sunday morning. You have hardly had the time to talk to me lately.”
“But you’ve been busy too.”
“Don’t worry about me. Soon Qinqin will be in college, and I won’t be busy anymore. Well, anything new about Chen’s leave?”
He knew she would get around to that topic, and he reached for the ashtray absentmindedly. He told her what he had learned, mainly from Old Hunter.
“Perhaps Chen chose Old Hunter,” she said finally, “because your father isn’t a cop anymore, and no one will pay close attention to him.”
“But Old Hunter also withheld information from me.”
“He either doesn’t know, or he must have his reasons. Now, what has the old man been up to?”
“He has been busy patrolling somewhere – shadowing somebody, I believe. But if not for my connection to Hong, Old Hunter might not have let me do anything.”
“What did you find out?”
“I just did a background check on two men linked to a woman named Qian, who died about twenty years ago in a traffic accident. Of the two men, the older one, Tan, died two years before she did – suicide. There was nothing suspicious about the circumstances of his death. As for the second, Peng, he’s a nobody, one of those jobless loafers you see everywhere nowadays.”
“Then, why all the fuss?” She put the pair of stainless-steel tweezers in the plastic basin. “Who is Old Hunter shadowing?”
“A young girl named Jiao, Qian’s daughter. Possibly a kept girl – a little concubine.”
“Who keeps her?”
“No one knows. That’s what Old Hunter has been trying to find out, I think, but he has forbidden me to do anything concerning her.”
“That’s strange. A Big Buck will show off his mistress like a five-karat diamond ring – a symbol of his success. Unless he belongs to a different circle…”
“What do you mean?”
“Instead of being a Big Buck, he might be a high-ranking Party official, so he is trying to keep their relationship a secret. But he can’t keep it secret for too long if cops are looking into it.”
“Not just the cops, but Internal Security too.”
“And Chief Inspector Chen as well. That’s not good,” she said broodingly. “Did you learn anything else from your father?”
“He apparently had a long talk with Chen, mentioning a story about how the tomb builders of Cao Cao were killed because of what they knew, but that happened more than a thousand years ago.”
“That sounds ominous! Some knowledge can be really deadly. Did you notice anything unusual about him?”
“He had a book with him – with a strange title, like a weather book about Shanghai…”
“Do you think the book has something to do with Chen’s investigation?” She added, “The old man is not a great reader.”
“Yes, that’s what I think.”
“Hold on, Yu – can you recall the name of the book?”
“Cloud and Rain… something.”
“Cloud and Rain – oh I see, now I see -”
“What do you see?” he said, noting an anxious and eager look in her eyes, a sort of scared opacity, as if she were staring at something strange, monstrous.
“Cloud and Rain -” She jumped up from the stool, wiping her hands on her apron while bending to pull a cardboard box out from under the bed. “I’ve got a copy of it. Cloud and Rain in Shanghai.”
“That’s it. That’s the name of the book,” he said, his eyes following her. In the room, the makeshift bookshelf belonged to Qinqin. Peiqin had her own books, like her favorite novel, Dream of the Red Chamber, but he didn’t know where she kept them. The cardboard box was an old one, originally used for Meiling brand, canned lunch meat, possibly from her restaurant.
She had found the book in question and started leafing through it in great excitement.
“What are you looking for?”
“Yes, that’s it – Qian. And Tan too, sure enough,” she said, holding the book up in her hand. “Have you heard of a movie star named Shang?”
“Shang? I’ve never seen her movies. She was popular in the fifties, I think, and she died during the Cultural Revolution.”
“She committed suicide.”
“Yes?”
“Yes,” she said, taking another look at the page, “Qian was Shang’s daughter.”
“Is that book about Shang?”
“No, it’s about her daughter, Qian, but it was popular because of Shang, or rather because of the man she slept with.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“Mao!” she said in the shifting morning light that dappled her face like in a painting. “That’s why Chen doesn’t want to get you involved. That’s also why Party Secretary Li is keeping his mouth shut. It’s all because of Mao.”
“I’m lost, Peiqin.”
“You haven’t heard about Mao’s affair with Shang?”
“No, not really.”
“There’s a book titled Mao and His Women. Have you never heard of it?”
“No, but you cannot take those stories seriously. Have you read it?”
“No, but I read some excerpts in a Hong Kong magazine that a customer left in the restaurant. The book is banned here, of course, but they are true stories. Mao liked dancing with beautiful young women. It’s acknowledged in the official newspapers, which say that Mao was under a lot of stress, so the Party Central Committee wanted him to relax through dancing. Shang was a regular partner of his and they danced together many times.”
“You never talked to me about this.”
“I don’t want to talk about Mao. Not in our home. Hasn’t he brought enough disaster for all of us?”
Yu was taken aback by her vehement response. Considering what her family had suffered during the Cultural Revolution, however, her reaction was understandable.
“Mao lived in Beijing, and Shang, in Shanghai,” he said. “How was that possible?”
“Well, Mao came to Shanghai from time to time. Whenever he was here, the local officials would arrange parties for him at a grand mansion that had belonged to a Jewish businessman before 1949. Shang was waiting for him there.”
“He might have danced with her, but that did not necessarily mean he slept with her.”
“Come on, Yu. Mao could have danced with anyone in Beijing. Why come all the way to Shanghai?”
“But Mao traveled a lot. There’s a song about his traveling for the welfare of the country, I remember.”
“You’ve never heard these stories about Mao? I can’t believe you, Yu. Shang wasn’t the only one. Mao had so many personal secretaries, nurses, orderlies. Remember Jade Phoenix, the pretty secretary who took care of him day and night at his imperial residence? Now mind you, she was a young woman with only elementary school education who actually worked as the confidential secretary for Mao. Again, it was written up in the Party newspapers that even Madam Mao had to suck up to Jade Phoenix. Why? Everybody knows the answer.”
“Yes, Jade Phoenix was in a documentary movie in Yunnan, that I do remember. It was just a glimpse of a knockout helping Mao walk out of his room. You know what? In that moment, I, too, couldn’t help speculating about their relationship, and I felt so guilty about it afterward, as if I had committed a most unforgivable crime.”
“You didn’t have to feel guilty at all. Jade Phoenix is now an honorable manager of a Mao restaurant in Beijing and she sits there occasionally. The business is booming and reservations have to be made days beforehand. All the customers go there for a chance to see Jade Phoenix.”
“But it all happened so many years ago. Why this assignment for Chen, all of a sudden?”
“That I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “Some power struggle at the top?”
“No, I don’t think they are going to remove Mao’s portrait from the Gate of Tiananmen Square, not anytime soon.”
“Chen’s not working on some cover-up for him, I hope.”
“But what can I do to help?”
“He’ll come to you when he’s in need. Don’t worry about it, but – I do understand Old Hunter’s concern,” she said, rising abruptly. “Oh, I have to put the chicken in the pot. I’ll be right back.”
She hurried back in a minute, picking up the copy of Cloud and Rain in Shanghai again. “I’m going to reread it closely. Perhaps I can find some clue for your boss.”
“You, too, have a soft spot for our irresistible chief inspector,” he said with mock jealousy. “He also has a personal problem at the moment.”
“What problem?”
“Ling, his HCC girlfriend in Beijing, has married somebody else – people have been gossiping about it at the bureau.”
“Oh that,” she said. “He got a call from Beijing during the bureau political studies meeting a couple of days ago. Somebody overheard the conversation – a few words of it. Chen looked devastated afterward.”
“It might not be that bad for him. He’s a successful cop – and not because of her. In fact, I wondered what he would become if they stayed together. You know what I mean.”
“He’s become a chief inspector on his own merits, no question about it,” Yu readily agreed. “Which is easy for others to see, but not for him.”
“Then now he can turn over a new page. With his HCC girlfriend constantly at the back of his mind, it was impossible for him to see other girls. White Cloud, for instance.”
It was another of her favorite topics. Peiqin appeared to think that the breakup had come as a shock to Chen, but Chen’s relationship with his HCC girlfriend had long been on the rocks. Last year, Chen had passed on an opportunity to go to Beijing, but Yu decided not to mention that to Peiqin at the moment.
“No, not White Cloud,” he said instead. “I don’t think she’s a good one for him, either.”
“You know what I found in a bookstore the other day?” she said, delving into the book box again to pick up a magazine. “A poem written by your chief inspector. For his HCC girlfriend, though it isn’t that explicit. Even then and there, they were already lost in their different interpretations. It’s entitled ‘Li Shangyin’s English Version.’ ” She took off her apron and started reading aloud.
The fragrance of jasmine in your hair / and then in my teacup, that evening,/ when you thought me drunk, an orange /pinwheel turning at the rice-paper window./ The present is, when you think/ of it, already the past. I am / trying to quote a line / from Li Shangyin to say what / cannot be said, but the English version /at hand fails to do justice / to him (the translator, divorced / from his American wife, drunk, found English / beating him like a blind horse), any / more than the micaceous mist / issuing from a Lantian blue jade / to your reflection. // Last night’s star, / last night’s wind – the memory / of trimming a candle, the minute / of a spring silkworm wrapping itself / in a cocoon, when the rain / becomes the mountain, and the mountain / becomes the rain… // It is like a painting /of Li Shangyin going to open / the door, and of the door / opening him to the painting, / that Tang scroll you showed me / in the rare book section / of the Beijing Library, while you / read my ecstasy as empathy / with the silverfish escaping / the sleepy eyes of the full stops, / and I felt a violent wonder / at your bare feet beating / a bolero on the filmy dust / of the ancient floor. Even then / and there, lost in each / other’s interpretations, we agreed.
“I can make neither heads nor tails of it,” Yu said with a puzzled smile. “How can you be so sure it’s a poem written for her?”
“She worked at the Beijing Library. But more importantly, why Li Shangyin? A Tang-dynasty poet, Li was seen as a social climber because he married the daughter of the then prime minister. Unfortunately, the prime minister soon lost his position, which cast a shadow on Li’s official career. He wrote his best lyrical poems in frustration.”
“So that turned out to be good for his poetry, right?”
“You could say so. Chen’s too proud to be seen as a climber.”
“If he had really cared for her, why should it have mattered so much?”
“No one lives in a vacuum, not to mention all of the politics at your bureau.”
She was passionate in Chen’s defense, waving the magazine dramatically, her face flushing like a flower.
“Oh, the chicken soup,” she said, dropping the magazine. “It’s time to turn the fire down low.”
He watched her hurrying out with a touch of amusement. After all, the chicken soup proved to be just as important as Chen to her. But then he started worrying about Chen again. It was an investigation fraught with danger, involving knowledge which could kill, as Old Hunter had warned.
Detective Yu had to do something, whether Chief Inspector Chen included him or not.