by Qiu Xiaolong
They talked a lot. Their conversation ranged from politics to poetry and they discovered remarkable coincidences in their views, though she seemed a bit more pessimistic about the future of China. He attributed the difference to her long working hours in that ancient palace of a library.
And then came that Saturday afternoon.
The library closed early. They decided, instead of going home, to visit the North Sea Park in the Forbidden City. There they rented a sampan and started paddling on the lake. There were not many other people there.
She was leaving for Australia; she had just told him the news. It was a special arrangement between the Beijing Library and the Canberra Library. She was going there to work as a visiting librarian for six months, a rare opportunity in those years.
“We’ll not see each other for six months.” She put down her oar.
“Time flies,” he said. “It’s only half a year.”
“But time can change a lot, I’m afraid.”
“No, not necessarily. Have you read Qin Shaoyou’s ‘Bridge of Magpies’? It’s based on the legend of the celestial weaving-girl and the earthly cowherd.”
“I’ve heard of the legend, but that was such a long time ago.”
“The weaving girl and the cowherd fell in love. It was against the heavenly rule-a match between the celestial and the mundane. For their punishment, they’re allowed to meet only once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh month, walking over the bridge made of sympathetic magpies lining up across the River of the Milky Way. The poem is about their meeting on that night.”
“Recite it for me, please.”
And he did, seeing himself in her eyes: “ The varying shapes of the clouds, / The missing message of the stars, / The silent journey across the Milky Way, / In the golden autumn wind and the jade-like dew, their meeting eclipses / The countless meetings in the mundane world./ The feeling soft as water, / The time insubstantial as a dream, / how can one have the heart to go back on the bridge of magpies? / If two hearts are united forever, / What matters the separation-day after day, night after night?”
“Fantastic. Thank you for reciting the poem to me,” she said.
They did not have to say more. There was a tacit understanding between them. The reflection of the White Pagoda shimmered in the water.
“There’s something else I have to tell you,” she said, hesitantly.
“What’s that?”
“It’s about my family-”
It turned out that her father was a politburo member of the Party Central Committee, who was rising fast to the top.
For a moment, he was at a loss for words. That was not at all what he had expected.
Upon graduation, T.S. Eliot could have led an easy life by obtaining a job through the connections of his family, or those of his wife Vivien’s family, but he chose not to. He took a different road. Through “The Waste Land,” through his own efforts, Eliot came to be recognized as an innovative modernist poet.
Looking over her shoulder, he gazed at the red walls of the Forbidden City resplendent in the late afternoon light. Across the White Stone Bridge loomed the huge Central South Sea complex, where a group of the Party politburo members lived. Her father was going to move there soon, she had just told him.
Her family was much more powerful than Vivien’s.
Such a family background could make a world of difference in China.
What could he possibly offer her? A couple of poems. Romantic enough for a Saturday afternoon. But not enough for the life of a politburo member’s daughter.
Whatever she might see in him at the moment, on the North Sea Lake, he was not going to be the man for her, he concluded.
“Before I leave,” she said, “shall we talk about our future plans?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe-since you will be back in half a year, maybe we’ll see each other then-if I’m still in Beijing.”
She did not say anything in response.
“I’m sorry,” he added, “I did not know anything about your family background.”
No future plans. He did not say it in so many words, but she understood. He promised he would keep in touch, but that, too, was no more than a varnish over their breakup. She accepted his decision without protest, as if she had anticipated it. The White Pagoda shimmered in the afternoon sunlight, in her eyes.
She, too, was proud.
Afterward, he had had his moments of doubt, but he was quick to dispel them. It was not anybody’s fault. Politics in China. A decision he had to make.
After he had gotten his job in Shanghai, he became once more convinced that he had made the right decision. Her stay in Australia was extended to one year. One afternoon, on the lowest level of the bureau mail shelf, he found a letter containing a clipping from an Australian newspaper that carried a picture of her, along with a rejection of his poetry by a local magazine. He was just one of the nameless, an entry-level cop. Nor had he much hope of success with his so-called modernist writing in China.
Then, the second year, a New Year’s card from Beijing told him that she had come back from Australia. They had not seen each other since that afternoon at North Sea Park.
But had they really parted? Was that why they had not said anything? She had never left him. Nor had he gotten over her. Could that be the cause of his writing to her on the night when he felt he was totally crushed?
It was the last thing he had wanted to do-to beg for her help. In the post office, he had kept telling himself that he was writing the letter in the name of justice.
She must have realized how desperate the situation was. She had gone out of her way, had thrown the weight of her family behind him. She had introduced herself to Minister Wen as his girlfriend, and now her family’s influence had been put into the balance of power.
One HC’s son vs. one HC’s daughter.
So it would have appeared to the minister. And to the world. But what would this mean for her? A commitment. The news that she had a cop as her lover would spread fast in her circle.
She had given him so much-and at what cost to herself!
Still, she had told the minister that she was his girlfriend. And she had remained single. There must have been a lot of young men dancing around-because of her family or just for her, no one could know for sure.
An image came to him-a lady in ancient attire on a Lantern Festival card that she had sent him, and he had kept for years- first juxtaposed with Ling, then merged with her. It was the image of a lonely woman standing under a weeping willow, with a poem by Zhu Shuzheng, a brilliant female Song dynasty poet: At the Lantern Festival this year, The lanterns and the moon are the same as before, But where is the man I met last year? My spring sleeves are soaked with tears.
Ling had chosen a rice paper Lantern Festival card, the painting exquisitely reprinted, the poem in elegant calligraphy. Without writing anything on the card herself, she simply addressed it to him and signed her own name below.
He decided not to pursue that line of thought any further. Whatever might have happened, or might happen yet, he was determined to pursue the case to the end.
When he finally got back to his apartment building, it was quite dark-like a black stamp on night’s starry envelope.
He had hardly talked to any of his neighbors, but he knew that every apartment in the building was occupied. So he unlocked his door as quietly as he could.
He lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling.
Images at once familiar yet unfamiliar flashed by him. Some of them had already found their way into the fragments of his poetry, some-not as yet.
She, at the subway entrance, carrying hyacinth in her arms, the mural behind her of an Uighur girl walking toward him: motionless motion, infinite, light as the summer in grateful tears; the fragrance of the jasmine wafting in her hair, and then in his teacup, with an orange pinwheel turning at the paper window, she holding the lunchbox under the ancient upturned eaves against the clear Beijing sky; she unfu
rling a Tang scroll in the rare book section, reading his ecstasy as empathy with the silverfish escaping the sleepy eyes of the periods, her bare feet beating a bolero on the filmy dust of the ancient floor; the afternoon light stippling her figure in the boat; she coming to him through a labyrinth of lanes on a bike creaking under the weight of books for him, a dove’s whistle against a thickening sky…
In the midst of his reverie he fell asleep.
Chapter 35
I t had been three days since Chief Inspector Chen resumed work at the office.
Party Secretary Li had promised to talk to him, but he had not done so yet. Li had been avoiding him, Chen knew, to avoid discussion of the case. Any contact between them might be watched. Party Secretary Li was too cautious not to be aware of it. There was no telling when Detective Yu would come back from his “temporary” assignment. Commissar Zhang was still having the week off. His presence would make no difference, but his absence could.
No news from Beijing, though Chen was not really expecting any.
He should not have written the letter to Ling. And he was not going to write a second one. Nor was he going to dial that number she had given him. For the moment, he did not even want to think about it.
Maybe it was wise to wait, as she had said, to do nothing until “further signal.” And there was nothing he could really do, with the knowledge that Internal Security was lurking and, ready to pounce if he made a move. Nor was there any new development except, to his surprise, he learned that Wu Xiaoming had applied for a visa for America.
Once more the news came from Overseas Chinese Lu, who had obtained it from Peiqin, and Peiqin, from Old Hunter, from his connections in Beijing. Wu was applying not for a business visa, but a personal one. It was an unusual move, considering that Wu’s name was on the top-candidate list for an important position in China. If Wu was trying to get away, Chief Inspector Chen had to act promptly. Once Wu was abroad, there would be no apprehending him.
The white Lexus was Wu’s; Old Hunter had identified the license plate number. In the last few days, one of the things Chen had been doing himself, which might not appear suspicious to Internal Security, was research on the regulations concerning high cadres’ car service. A high cadre at Wu Bing’s level was supposed to have a car exclusively, including a full-time chauffeur at the government’s expense, but the cadre’s family members were not entitled to use the car. With Wu Bing lying in the hospital, it was not justifiable for his family to have the chauffeur drive them around. So Wu Xiaoming, citing the necessity of visiting his father in the hospital every day, had offered to drive himself. Who had been driving it while Wu was in Beijing?
Overseas Chinese Lu had not succeeded in identifying the driver of the car. Nor had his repeated attempts to contact Ouyang in Guangzhou borne fruit. Ouyang was not at home. This could mean Ouyang had also gotten into trouble-like Xie. Internal Security was capable of anything.
The uncertainty of waiting, in light of the recent information as to Wu’s application for a U.S. visa, was becoming too much for Chen. He had to talk to Party Secretary Li.
Despite his high rank, Li was in the habit of fetching hot water for tea from the boiler room at eleven fifteen every morning. So at eleven fifteen, Chen was also there, holding a thermos bottle. It was a place where people would come and go. Their encounter might seem natural.
Several other people were filling thermoses with water in the boiler room. Li greeted each of them warmly before he moved over to Chen. “How are you, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen?”
“I’m fine, except that I’m doing nothing.”
“Take a break. You’ve just come back.” Leaning over to pick up his thermos bottle, Li added under his breath, “Have you found what we talked about the last time?”
“What?”
“After you have found it,” Li said, “come to my office.”
Li had already turned toward the stairs, taking with him the filled thermos bottle and the last word.
The motive.
That was what Li had asked for the last time they met in his office. Chen had to find it. There was no point discussing anything more in the boiler room. Politics aside, justification of further investigation depended on discovery of Wu’s motive.
Chen went over it again. If Wu had wanted to part with Guan, she was in no position to stop him. She was a third party-the other woman-a notorious person in China’s ethical system. She would have found herself in a socially condemned position. Furthermore, revelation of an extramarital affair would have been political suicide. Even if she had been desperate enough to make such a disclosure, she probably would not have got anywhere. Wu had had an affair with her, but he wanted to end it. So what? As Party Secretary Li had pointed out, an affair would not have been considered too serious a political lapse now. With his family background and connections, Wu could have gotten away with it easily.
She could not have presented a real threat to Wu, even at a time when people were talking about Wu’s promotion.
On the other hand, Guan was a national celebrity-not some provincial girl. Wu would have to have known that her disappearance would be investigated, which could lead to him, secret as their affair had been. Wu was too smart not to have realized this.
So why should he have taken such a risk?
Guan must somehow have posed a much more serious threat to him, a threat Chief Inspector Chen had not yet discovered.
And until he did, Chen could only occupy himself in reading the latest Party documents delivered to his office. One was about the ever-increasing crime rate in the country and the Central Party Committee’s call on all Party members to take action. He also had various forms to fill out for the coming seminar of the Central Party Institute, though he doubted if he would be able to attend after all.
In frustration, he dug out his father’s book. He had not read it since the day he had bought it. It was a difficult one, he knew. He turned to the end of the book, to an epilogue in the form of a short fable entitled, “A Jin Dynasty Goat.”
Emperor Yan of the Jin Dynasty had many imperial concubines, and one favorite goat. At night, the emperor let the goat amble before him through a sea of bedrooms. When the goat stopped, the Emperor took it as a sign from Heaven to spend the night in the nearest room. More often than not, he found the goat halted in front of the three hundred and eleventh concubine’s pearl-curtained door. She was wrapped in white clouds, in anticipation of the coming rain. So she bore him a son who became Emperor Xing. Emperor Xing lost the country to barbarian aggressors through his thirst for a sea harbor. It was a long, complicated story, but the three hundred and eleventh concubine’s secret was simple. She sprinkled salt on her doorstep. The goat stopped there to lick the salt.
The late professor used the fable to illustrate the contingency of history. But for a chief inspector, everything about a criminal case should be certain, logical.
It was almost three. Chief Inspector Chen had skipped lunch, but he did not feel hungry. He heard a knock on the door.
“Come in,” he said.
To his surprise, Dr. Xia stood in the doorway carrying a huge plastic bag in each hand.
“My shoes are wet.” Dr. Xia shook his head, showing no inclination to step in. “I’m bringing you a Beijing roast duck from the Yan Cloud Restaurant. Last time you generously treated me. As Confucius says, ‘It is proper and right to return other people’s kindness.’”
“Thank you, Dr. Xia,” Chen said, standing up, “but a whole duck is too much for me. Better bring it back to your family.”
“I have another one.” Dr. Xia lifted up the other plastic-wrapped duck. “To tell you the truth, a patient of mine is the number-one chef there. He insisted on giving them to me-free. Here is a small box of their special duck sauce. Only I don’t know how to prepare green scallions.”
“As Confucius says, ‘It is not proper and right to decline a senior’s gift.’” Chen tried to imitate Doctor Xia’s bookish style. “So I have to acc
ept it. Have a cup of tea in my office?”
“No, thank you, I can’t stay. “But Dr. Xia remained in the doorway, fidgeting, then half turning to the main office.“But I have to ask a favor of you.”
“Sure, whatever I can do,” Chen said, wondering why Dr. Xia chose such a moment to approach him for a favor.
“I want you to introduce me into the Party. I’m no activist, I know. There’s a long way for me to go before I can prove myself to be a worthy Party member. Still, I’m a honest Chinese intellectual with minimum conscience.”
“What?” he was astonished. “But-haven’t you heard the news here?”
“No, I haven’t,” Dr. Xia raised his voice, waving his hand, adjusting his gold-rimmed glasses. “Nor do I care. Not at all. Listen, you are a loyal Party member, that’s all I know. If you are not qualified, no one else in the whole bureau is.”
“I don’t know what to say, Dr. Xia.”
“Remember the two lines from General Yue Fei? ‘I will kowtow to Heaven / when the land is set in order.’ To set our land in order, that is what you want, and what I want.”
With this dramatic statement, Dr. Xia raised his head higher, as if defying an invisible audience, and walked off, not bothering to take a look at the surprised faces in the large office.
“Bye, Dr. Xia,” someone said belatedly.
Chen closed the door after himself with one hand, the duck in the other.
He knew why Dr. Xia had paid him this unexpected visit. It was to show his support. The good old doctor, who had suffered such a lot during the Cultural Revolution, was far from ready to join the Party. The visit-together with the rehearsed statement and the roast duck-was a stance Dr. Xia felt impelled to take as an honest Chinese intellectual-with “minimum conscience.”
And it was not just for him, Chief Inspector Chen realized.
It might be a losing battle, but Chen saw he was not alone in it. Detective Yu, Peiqin, Old Hunter, Overseas Chinese Lu, Ruru, Wang Feng, Little Zhou… and Dr. Xia, too.
