by Qiu Xiaolong
The cool air from the central air-conditioning of the Starbucks was heavenly. It was one of the earliest American cafés in Shanghai, and its chain shops were rapidly spreading and attracting a large crowd of trendy customers. A new class, conveniently called the white collars, had emerged, most of them with well-paid positions in private or foreign companies. Young, educated, and well-off, they were eager to catch up with the world-through their newly acquired global brand awareness. Sitting in a corner, Gu was waiting for him.
“A cool place,” Chen said as he took his seat, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a paper napkin.
“How could the Shanghai people have managed all these years without a good café?” Gu said. “People need a place like this.”
“Good question. Old Marx is right again. Coffee belongs to the superstructure-for the mind, not for the basic needs of the body. People must have a solid economic basis before worrying about the superstructure.”
“No wonder you’re a political star, Chief Inspector Chen. You’re capable of applying Marxism to a cup of coffee.” Gu chuckled. “A lot of people come here for the feeling of being fashionable in today’s society-that’s for the mind too.”
That was probably true. Sitting in an expensive American café might convince them they were the successful elite. But Chen hadn’t come for that.
“A cop cannot afford to be fashionable.” Chen decided not to talk about Dong for the moment, with whom Gu might have things to do in the future, as he did with Chen. Instead, the inspector came to the point directly. “I need to ask you a question, Gu.”
“Go ahead.”
“Do you happen to know An Jiayi?”
“Oh yes, a celebrity.”
“Any contact with her?” Chen said. “For instance, has she visited your place?”
“No, she hasn’t. As a rule, men don’t bring their women to karaoke.”
“What does that mean?”
“They come for K girls, my Comrade Chief Inspector. It’s no business secret. Now that people have hi-fi stereo systems at home, they don’t have to come to my place to sing. Someone like An has to be especially careful. It wouldn’t be pleasant for her to be seen in KTV club in the company of another man.”
“In the company of another man?”
“Isn’t that something you want to find out-whom she associates with?”
“Well, I am curious,” Chen said, nodding, before changing the topic. “She has a PR company, hasn’t she?”
“I’ve heard of it.”
“Now that’s something that beats me. She has no business experience. Nor has she any capital-as far as I know.”
“No, that’s something you don’t know. Today’s society is like a huge market and everything is for sale. So is her anchorwoman position. She doesn’t need any other capital.”
“Enlighten me, Gu. I’m no businessman, you know.”
“You think she interviews people for nothing? No, people pay a lot for publicity. What’s more effective than a TV show?” Gu took a deliberate sip at his coffee. “She can really help.”
“But how could her show run like that?”
“Believe it or not, these celebrities charge even for sitting at your banquet table. At the grand opening of my bar on Hengshan Road, I paid Hei Ling-an actress photographed by Taiwan Playboy-a thousand yuan for sitting there beside me. Pictures of her in my bar will appear in the newspaper, and customers will come. So there’s a price for it.”
“There’s a price for everything,” Chen said mechanically. And that was the problem. People paid the communist ideology only lip service. In spite of the People’s Daily and the Party documents, the social reality was that each and every person looked out for him- or herself.
“Of course, she doesn’t charge for every show of hers. Still, everybody is looking at the money-nothing else,” Gu added with a cynical snicker. “What else is there?”
“But can a TV appearance be worth that much?”
“For some businesses, such an appearance could bring direct or indirect benefits. The image of a successful entrepreneur interviewed by a well-known anchorwoman speaks volumes, more than a whole-page advertisement in Wenhui Daily.”
“What you’ve said about her TV show may be true,” Chen said. “So she has made enough money. Then why has she started a PR company? Surely, deals like this must be made under the table.”
“How can there ever be enough money? The amount from her TV show is only a small dish. She has other clients. Much larger ones.”
“How?”
“Well, because of our bureaucratic system, it may sometimes take government officials months, or even years, to approve a company’s request for approval of plans or a deal. It won’t do to knock at an unfamiliar door- even at a back door-with a bulging red envelope. You need guanxi-the person to knock for you, and to lubricate the bureaucratic machine. That’s where her PR company comes in. She knows those officials through her work. It’s easy for her to say a word or two in her sweet voice. For a matter of bureaucratic inefficiency, a short phone call might be enough. So companies are quite willing to pay her a sum for the early approval, for it gets them a competitive advantage and opens up other opportunities.”
“That makes sense,” Chen commented, stirring his coffee. So her company’s role was to secure connections. Everything depended on her personal relationship with government officials. “Does she know anyone in charge of the real estate business?”
“That should be no surprise,” Gu responded, looking up at Chen. “Land development approval is the biggest black hole today. Before our economic reform, land belonged to the state and it was up to the government to plan any development. Now it’s totally different. Private construction companies can apply for land from the local government. Everyone has a good reason, and the officials don’t have the time to study all the applications. For the property developer, it’s a matter of life and death to get the land, and at a cheap price too. The price varies, depending on the location as well as on the purpose-”
“It sounds complicated,” Chen said, recalling similar details about the land application in the New World Project. “I’m learning a lot today. So the government officials have to grant the use of the land in one way or another, but the officials don’t have to listen to her, particularly when it’s not a simple matter of bureaucratic efficiency. Can a phone call in her sweet voice be so effective? After all, it could be a multimillion yuan deal.”
“You really don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“About her special relationships with people in the city government.” Gu came up with a mysterious smile. “To be exact, with someone in the office of land development. An old proverb has come back into current circulation, Chief Inspector Chen: People sneer at poverty, but not at prostitution. When the only criterion for value is a man’s-or a woman’s- money…”
“So you mean-”
“I’ll find out more for you. Whatever you want me to do, Chen.”
“Thanks,” Chen said, though he had not said what he wanted. Gu was a very clever man, capable of hearing the sound vibrating beyond the strings. He wondered how Gu could try to help. As in afterthought, he added, “Oh, you don’t have to mention our talk to anyone.”
***
Shortly after Chen left the café, he got a call from Comrade Zhao.
“Xing made a new statement to the local newspapers, saying that he is going to give a press conference soon. He said he will release the names of those officials involved if we do not stop persecuting him.”
“Let him do so. The more he blabs, the easier our work will be here.”
“Do you think he’ll tell the truth? And no matter how blatant his lies, some Americans will use what he says against China.”
“What else can we do?”
“Xing may be bluffing there, I think, trying for some sort of deal. We have to push on with our work here.”
“Well,” Chen said, failing to see the connec
tion here. Nor was he clear about what deal Zhao meant. He didn’t want to give any details about his new approach. “I have been doing my best.”
“Now, I don’t think I have to repeat myself,” Comrade Zhao concluded. “You are an emperor’s special envoy in Shanghai.”
***
Late that afternoon, Chen decided to pay a visit to his mother. He hadn’t seen her since his interview with Dong.
There was not much, however, he could do for her. He had tried to talk her into staying with him, but she had invariably declined. His was a one-bedroom apartment. It would be too inconvenient, she declared, when he had visitors, especially young female visitors. As an alternative, he tried to find her a maid-a “provincial sister” in a live-in arrangement-but she would not listen to this, either.
The traffic snarls were terrible, especially at rush hour. When the car finally came in sight of Jiujiang Road, the lane, enveloped in the graying dusk, appeared shabbier than he had remembered.
In the bureau, he had heard people talking about the possibility of a three-bedroom apartment for him, so that his mother could move in with him. The housing system was still on a dual track. While some people had started buying their own apartments, the majority remained dependent on the government quota. A Party cadre, once promoted to a given rank or position, would be granted corresponding benefits, including better housing in the overcrowded city. The prospect for him was complicated, however, with so many lower-level cops on the waiting list, bickering and complaining. A special housing quota directly from the city government, as Dong had suggested, would have helped.
Around the street corner, he saw several kids playing in the shadow cast by a Coca-Cola umbrella. The red and white umbrellas had mushroomed everywhere. According to Shanghai Morning, they were a part of the colorful Shanghai landscape, along with the billboards presenting life-size Chinese stars drinking to their hearts’ content. But he was still surprised at the sight of the umbrella there, close to the lane, where most of the inhabitants would find the drink too expensive, if not too exotic.
Aunt Qiang, a short, gray-haired woman who lived next door, stared at him as he got out of the taxi. She had a bamboo basket dripping with shepherd’s purse blossom, a rural delicacy he had first read about in a poem by Qiji. She took a step forward and said, “Oh, you. Little-”
It appeared as if nothing had changed from his childhood memories, surely not the fresh, luscious shepherd’s purse blossom, but the old neighbors might no longer consider it appropriate to address him by his small name.
He passed by a Chinese chess game in front of a dingy hot-water shop. Usually, the players and the audience would smoke, drink, and sometimes eat inside the water shop. The outside location was perhaps due to one of the players, Wong Ronghua, an ex-member of Shanghai Chess Team, attracting a large audience. Wong, a gaunt, grizzled man, grinned at Chen, revealing his teeth stained through years of bitter tea and poor cigarettes. He straddled one end of a wooden bench, and his opponent perched on the other end, keeping it precariously balanced. The chessboard was placed between them. Stripped to the waist in his black shorts, Wong appeared sallow, malnourished, with his ribs visible, looking like a washboard.
There were three or four hot-water bottles lined along the bench, squatting on the ground like the audience on the other side, who would probably remain in that position to the end. The neighborhood was not exactly a slum, but these were the people left out of the materialistic transition of the society.
His mother was upstairs watching TV in the attic room. The same fifteen-inch TV set he had bought years ago-still at the “state price” then. She had made a scarlet velvet cover for the TV, which must have kept her company a lot. Alone, she did not go out much, much less so after her recent stay in the hospital.
“With the cable, I can watch many stations,” she said with a smile, turning off the TV with her remote. She made him a cup of green tea. “The tea’s from one of your friends,” she said. “I can hardly remember his name. The big buck who came to the hospital, I remember. Specially delivered from Hangzhou. The fresh tea of this year: Before the Rain. Quite an expensive kind, for all I know.”
He thought he detected a subtle sarcastic note in her comment, but he said nothing. Instead, he kept breathing into the cup. People described him as a good son, but he was not so sure about that.
In time-honored Confucian doctrine, the worst thing possible for a man was to be without offspring to carry on the family name. That happened to be one of his mother’s favorite topics, even though she did not elaborate so directly. To his relief, she did not appear eager to bring up the topic that afternoon.
“You have something on your mind, son.”
“Well, no, not exactly.”
“I don’t know anything about your work, but I know my son.”
“I’m doing fine. But there are so many things for me at the bureau. I may not be able to come here as often as I would like. How about moving in with me for a couple of weeks? I can take better care of you.”
“Everything is so convenient here. Peddlers deliver fresh vegetables and meat to the room for a yuan. The old neighbors help a lot too,” she said. “You are busy with your work. If I stayed with you, then when you come back late, I would be worried.”
That was true. Even when he came back early, all the evening phone calls would not be pleasant for her. Not to mention some of his discussions.
“But I’m concerned about you.”
“And I am concerned about you,” she said, taking an appreciative sip. “All these gifts, and the tea too. Your friends keep sending me presents here.”
“Really!”
“Because of your position, I am afraid.”
“I understand, Mother. I have known some people through my work, but I draw a line for myself. In fact, the Party Discipline Committee has just assigned me to an important case.”
“The Party Discipline Committee? Oh, what kind of case has the committee given you?”
In recent years, the committee had become the institution responsible for fighting corruption. Hence its popularity among the people. She looked both pleased and perplexed.
“An anticorruption case.”
“Yes, the committee is like the police of the Party. Corruption is getting out of control with all the officials helping one another. It’s time that the Beijing government does something about it.”
“Yes, the Party authorities are determined.” He went on, taking a sip at the tea. “It may be a tough job, and I am afraid I cannot take good care of you.”
“Don’t worry for me. You have taken a path different from your father’s, but I think he would be pleased with your conscientious work if he could know of it in the underworld,” she said slowly. “Of late, I have often dreamed of seeing him. Perhaps the day is not too far away.”
“Dreams are dreams, Mother. You have missed him very much.”
“I don’t know what advice to give you, son, but I remember what your father used to say. There are things a man will do, and things a man will not do.”
“Yes, I always remember that.”
Another Confucian quote, but he did not know how to apply it in the present case. Such a truism could be applied to anything, depending on the perspective a person took.
“Not all people are in a position to do something,” she said.
There had been a subtle change in her attitude, he noticed. She had never really approved of his profession, but of late, she seemed to be more resigned to it, perhaps because she thought her late husband would have approved of her son serving the country as a police officer. She got up, moved to the chest, and produced a silk scroll of calligraphy.
“This is something your father left behind. Better in your apartment. I don’t even have the room to hang it properly.”
The scroll presented a poem, “River Snow,” copied in his father’s calligraphy. The verse had been written by Liu Zhongyuan, an eighth-century Tang dynasty poet:
; Not a single bird visible
in hundreds of mountains,
nor any footprint discernible
on thousands of trails,
only a solitary boat,
a bamboo-capped-and-clad old man
alone, fishing-
the snow
in the cold river.
Such a lonely world, and such a solitary man, Chen contemplated. The image of the bamboo clothing added to the chilliness of the scene. Chen was struck by the ambiguity of the last few lines-not necessarily angling for fish, nothing but the snow in the cold river. Perhaps more of a gesture.
Liu was the poet who had written the fable about the barn rats. Chen recalled Yu’s comment: It’s a fable, Chief. In real life, Liu had ended up helpless, like the old fisherman in the cold river.
But Chen understood why his mother wanted to give the scroll to him. In spite of her failing health, her mind remained clear because of her studies of the Buddhist scripture: no illusion of self, so she can see clearly.
He left his mother’s place without having sorted out his thoughts. He could not see clearly ahead.
The chess game was still going on outside the hot-water shop. None of the audience looked up at him as he passed. He was irrelevant to the battle in the world of a chessboard. Only Chang, the owner of the water shop, seemed to be nodding at him, as in the days of his childhood. His mother had hot water delivered to her attic room from time to time. But Chang could have been nodding at a master move in the chess game.
Then Chen was overtaken with an ominous question: why, all of a sudden, had she chosen to part with the scroll she had cherished for years? He struggled to push the unanswerable out of his mind.
