Red Mandarin Dress

by Unknown

  But it might not be a coincidence that he was going to meet Jia on Dongzhi night. A sign that things were going to change. The Way can be told, / but not in an ordinary way.

  He came in sight of the Old Mansion.

  A hostess held the door for him respectfully. It was a different girl, one who did not recognize him.

  Both Overseas Chinese Lu and White Cloud were already in the lobby. Lu was in his black three-piece suit with a florid tie and a couple of large diamond rings on his fingers, and she, in the red mandarin dress bought at the Old City God’s Temple Market.

  “The restaurant owner has agreed to cooperate in every way,” Lu said exultantly. “He’ll let me take care of your room. So I’ll stay here and prepare an unbelievable feast for you.”

  “Thank you, Lu,” he said, turning to White Cloud, handing her an envelope. “Thank you so much, White Cloud. Change into a different outfit for now, just like one of the waitresses here. You’ll serve in the private room. Of course, you don’t have to stay there all the time. Bring in whatever Mr. Lu prepares for the evening. At my signal, come in dressed like the woman in the picture.”

  “The red mandarin dress,” she said, opening the envelope and examining the pictures inside. “Barefoot, the bosom buttons unbuttoned, and the side slits torn?”

  “Yes, exactly like that. Go ahead and tear the side slits.” Chen added, “I’ll buy you another one.”

  “Old Heaven,” Lu exclaimed, stealing a glance at the picture in her hand.

  Chen then left and moved on to the hotel, which was only a two-or three-minute walk away.

  Standing under the hotel arch, he didn’t wait long. In less than five minutes, he saw a white Camry rolling into the driveway. Another car, possibly Yu’s, pulled up behind it, at a distance.

  Chen strode out and extended his hand to Jia, who was getting out of the car. He was a tall man in his late thirties, wearing a black suit, his face pale and troubled under the dancing neon light.

  “Thank you for coming on such short notice, Mr. Jia. My secretary has reserved a room for us at the Old Mansion. It’s very close. You have heard of the restaurant, haven’t you?”

  “The Old Mansion! You’ve spent some time choosing this restaurant for tonight, Chief Inspector Chen.”

  It wasn’t a direct answer, but it bespoke his awareness that Chen had made a thorough study of his background.

  At the gate of the restaurant, the hostess bowed to them gracefully, like a flower blossoming out of the old painting behind her. “Welcome. You’ll be at home tonight.”

  The arrival of several beer girls in the lobby, however, served to highlight the changed times.

  “At home,” Jia said sarcastically, observing the sashlike streamers flung slantingly across their shoulders. “Tiger Girl, Qingdao Girl, Baiwei Girl, Sakura Girl.”

  The hostess led them across the hall, into an elegant room—possibly a sunroom in its original design, now converted into a private room for special customers. It overlooked the back garden, which appeared enticingly well kept, even in the depths of winter. The table was set for two, the silverware shining under the crystal chandelier like a lost dream. There was also a dainty silver bell placed on the table. Eight miniature dishes were already set on the lazy susan.

  White Cloud came in and poured each of them a cup of tea, opening a menu for them. She wore a sleeveless, backless black dress.

  “For our most extraordinary story, Mr. Jia,” Chen said, raising the cup.

  “A story,” Jia said. “Do you really believe it to be more meaningful than your police work?”

  “Meaning exists in your thinking. In my college years, as you may not know, poetry was the only thing meaningful for me.”

  “Well, I’m an attorney, one-track-minded.”

  “An attorney serves as a good example of this point. What is so meaningful to you in a case may be totally meaningless to others. In our age, meaning depends on an individual perspective.”

  “It sounds like a lecture, Chief Inspector Chen.”

  “For me, the story has reached a critical point, a matter of life and death,” Chen said. “So I think that the view of the garden may provide a peaceful background.”

  “You seem to have a reason for everything.” Jia’s expression didn’t show any change as he cast a sidelong glance out to the garden. “It’s an honor to be invited by you, whether as a writer or a chief inspector.”

  “I’m not that hungry yet,” Chen said. “Perhaps we might talk a little first.”

  “Fine with me.”

  “Great.” Chen said, turning to White Cloud, “we’ll go with the house specials for two. You may leave now.”

  “If you need me, ring the silver bell,” she said. “I’ll be standing outside.”

  “Now for the story,” Chen said, looking at her retreating figure, her black hair streaming over her bare back. “Let me say this first: it is not finished. For several characters in the story, I haven’t decided their names yet. In the mysteries I have translated, an unidentified person is conveniently called John Doe. For the sake of convenience, I call my protagonist J.”

  “Interesting! Like my name in Chinese Pinyin phonetics, it starts with a J too.”

  Jia was keeping his composure well, even beginning to display a suggestion of defiant humor. It was not the time to push through the window paper, Chen calculated. As in tai chi, an experienced player does not have to push all the way. He took the magazine out and set it on the table.

  “Well, the story began with the picture,” Chen said, opening the magazine with a leisurely movement, “at the moment when the picture was taken.”

  “Really!” Jia said, raising his voice in spite of himself.

  “A story can be told from different perspectives, but it is easier to proceed from a third person, and for us, also in a mixed sense, since part of the story is still going on. What do you think?”

  “Whatever you like, you are the narrator. And you majored in literature, I’ve heard. I wonder how you became a cop.”

  “Merely circumstance. In the early eighties, college graduates were assigned to their jobs by the state, which you know. Indeed, there was little we could choose for ourselves. In childhood, we all used to dream of a totally different future, didn’t we?” Chen said, pointing at the picture. “It was taken in the early sixties. I was probably a couple of years younger than J, the boy in the picture. Look at him, so happy and proud. And he had every reason to be so, in the company of a beautiful mother who cares so much for him, with the Red Scarf streaming in the sunlight, full of hope for his future in the socialist China.”

  “You’re lyrical for a chief inspector. Please go on with your story.”

  “It happened in a mansion much like this one, with a garden practically the same, except it’s spring in the picture. Incidentally, this restaurant used to be a residential house too.

  “Now, in the early sixties, the political climate was already changing. Mao started talking about the class struggle and the proletarian dictatorship in preparation for the Cultural Revolution. Still, J had a sheltered childhood. His grandfather, a successful banker before 1949, continued to receive dividends that more than ensured an affluent life for the family. The boy’s parents worked at the Shanghai Music Institute, and he was their only child. He was attached to his mother, who was young, beautiful, talented, and equally devoted to him.

  “Indeed, she was extraordinary. It was said that a lot of people went to a concert just for a glimpse of her. She kept a sensibly low profile. Still, a photographer discovered her. Not keen on publicity, she agreed to have the picture taken together with her son in the garden. That morning proved to be blissful for J, with her holding his hand affectionately, posing together, and with the photographer raving about the two of them making such a perfect picture. That was the happiest moment in his life. Woven with her radiant smile shining in the sunlight, the moment seemed framed in a golden frame.

  “Shortly after the photo
session, the Cultural Revolution broke out. J’s family suffered disastrous blows—”

  His narration was interrupted by the appearance of White Cloud carrying four cold dishes of the house specials on a silver tray.

  “Fried sparrow tongues, wine-immersed goose feet, stewed ox eyes, ginger-steamed fish lips,” she said. “They are made in accordance to a special menu left in the original mansion.”

  Lu must have gone out of his way to prepare these “cruel dishes,” and he spared no cost. A small dish of sparrow tongues could have cost the lives of hundreds of birds. The fish lips remained slightly red, transparent, as if still alive, gasping for air.

  “Incidentally, these dishes remind me of something about the story, something so cruel,” Chen said. “Confucius says, ‘A gentleman should stay away from killing and cooking in the kitchen.’ No wonder.”

  Jia appeared disturbed, which was the effect expected.

  “So the picture represents the happiest moment in J’s life, now forever lost,” Chen resumed, a crisp sparrow tongue rolling on his tongue. “His grandfather died, his father committed suicide, his mother suffered mortifying mass-criticisms, and he himself turned in a ‘black puppy.’ They were driven out of the mansion, into an attic room above the garage. Then something happened.”

  “What?” Jia said, his chopsticks trembling slightly above the ox eye.

  “Now I’m coming to a crucial part of the story,” Chen said, “for which your opinions will be invaluable. So I’d better read from my draft instead—it’ll be more detailed, more vivid.”

  Chen took out his notebook, in which he had scribbled some words the previous night in the nightclub, and then again early this morning in the small eatery. Sitting across the table, however, Jia wouldn’t be able to read the contents. Chen began to improvise, clearing his throat.

  “It was because of a counterrevolutionary slogan found on the garden wall of the mansion. J didn’t write it, nor did he know anything about it, but ‘revolutionary people’ suspected him. He was put into so-called isolation interrogation in a back room of the neighborhood committee. All by himself, all day long, he was denied all contact with the outside world, except for interrogations by the neighborhood committee and a stranger surnamed Tian, who came from the Mao Team stationed at the music institute. J had to stay there until he admitted his crime. What supported him through those days was the thought of his mother. He was determined that he would not get her into trouble, that he could not leave her alone. So he would not confess, nor do something in the footsteps of his father. As long as she was outside, waiting for him, the world was still theirs, as in that picture in the garden.

  “But it wasn’t easy for a little boy. He fell sick. One afternoon, unexpectedly, a neighborhood cadre came into the room and, without any explanation, told him that he could go home.

  “He hurried back, anxious to surprise her. He climbed up the staircase soundlessly. Opening the door with his key, he was anticipating a scene of reunion, of rushing into her arms, a scene he had dreamed of hundreds of times in the dark back room.

  “To his horror, he saw her kneeling on the bed, stark naked, and a naked man—none other than Tian—entering her from behind, her bare hips rising to meet each of his thrusts, groaning and grunting like animals—

  “He shrieked in horror, whirling back down the staircase, lost in a nightmare. For the boy, who had worshipped his mother like the sunshine of his existence, the scene delivered a shattering blow, as if the whole earth had been snatched out from under his feet.

  “She jumped up from the bed, unclothed, and ran out after him. He quickened his steps frantically. In his confusion, he might not have heard her stumbling down the staircase, or he might have mistaken it for the sound of the world tumbling behind him. He tore down the stairs, across the garden, and out of the mansion. His instinctive reaction was to run, his mind still full of the bedroom scene, so vivid with her flushed face, her hanging breasts, her body reeking of violent sex, her raven-black pubic hair still dripping wet. . . .

  “He didn’t look over his shoulder once, as the image of the moment had fixed and transfixed him—of a naked woman, distraught, disheveled, rushing like a demon after him—”

  “You don’t have to go into all these details,” Jia said in a suddenly husky voice, as if reeling under the blows.

  “No, those details are important for his psychological development, and for our understanding of it,” Chen said. “Now, back to the story. J ran back to the back room of the neighborhood committee, where he broke down and fainted. People were puzzled at his return. In his subconscious, the room was the place where he could still believe in a wonderful world with her waiting for him there. An act of psychological significance, like trying to turn back the clock. And in that back room he wasn’t aware of her death that same afternoon.

  “When he finally woke up, it was to a changed world. Back in the empty attic, alone, in the company of her picture in a black frame. It was too much for him to stay there. He moved out,” Chen said, putting down the notebook. “No need dwelling on that period. I don’t have to read sentence by sentence. Suffice it to say that now an orphan, he went through the stages of shock, denial, depression, and anger, struggling with all the emotions twisted and embedded deep inside him. As a Chinese proverb goes, a jade is made out of all the hardships. After the Cultural Revolution, J entered a college and obtained a law degree. At that time, few were interested in such a career, but his choice was motivated by a desire to bring justice for his family, particularly for her. He managed to track down Tian, the Mao Team member.

  “But there was no possibility of punishing all of Mao’s followers. The government didn’t encourage people to rake up their old grievances. Besides, even if he succeeded in bringing Tian to court, it wouldn’t be on a homicide charge, and it would probably come at the expense of dragging her memory through the mire again. So J decided to take justice into his own hands. From his perspective, he was justified, because there was no other way. He had Tian punished in what seemed to be a series of misfortunes. He extended the revenge to people related to Tian. To his former wife and to his daughter as well. And like a cat watching a mouse making pathetic efforts to escape, he prolonged the process of their suffering, as resourcefully as the Count of Monte Cristo.”

  “It reads like the story of Monte Cristo,” Jia cut in, “but who would take the story seriously?”

  “Well, I actually read it during the Cultural Revolution. The book enjoyed an extraordinary lucky reprint at a time when all other Western novels were banned. Do you know why? Madam Mao made a positive comment about it. In fact, she herself wreaked her revenge on the people who had looked down on her. She took it seriously.”

  “A white-bone devil,” Jia commented, like a responsive audience. “Before she married Mao, she was only a B-movie actress.”

  “She must have seen her actions as justified too, but let’s leave Mao and Madam Mao alone,” Chen said, moving his chopsticks to the ox eyes, which appeared to be staring back. “But there is one difference. For Monte Cristo still has his own life, but for J, his life was, and still is, devoid of any other meaning except revenge.”

  “I would like to make a comment here,” Jia said, tearing the fish lips with his chopsticks, though he didn’t pick them up. “In your story, he’s a successful attorney, and quite well-to-do too. How could there be no life for him?”

  “A couple of reasons. The first one came out of his disillusionment with his profession. Working as an attorney, he soon found himself not exactly in a position to fight for justice. As before, major cases were predetermined in the interests of the Party authorities, and then later, in the nineties, they were rigged in the interest of money as well, in a society lost in uncontrollable corruption. While his career as an attorney became a lucrative one, his idealistic passion had long ago proved impractical and irrelevant.”

  “How can you say that, Chief Inspector Chen? A successful cop, you must have been fighting
for justice all these years. Don’t tell me you, too, are so disillusioned.”

  “To be honest, that’s the reason I am taking a literature course. The story is part of the effort.”

  “No wonder I haven’t seen your name in the newspapers for a while.”

  “Oh, you have been following me, Mr. Jia?”

  “Well, the newspapers have been full of the serial murder case, and full of cops too. You’re a star among them,” Jia said, raising his cup in mock admiration, “so I have sort of missed you of late.”

  “For J, the second reason may be the more important,” Chen went on without responding to Jia, who, having recovered from the initial shock, seemed capable of teasing his host. “He is incapable of having sex with women—an aggravated Oedipus complex. Which is the identification of his mother as his sexual object in his unconscious, as you know. In every other aspect, he appears a healthy man, but the memory of the naked, soiled body of his mother falls like a shadow, inevitably, between the present desire and the past disaster. Whatever professional success he achieves, he can’t live a normal life. Normal life was forever fixed at that moment of his grasping her hand in the picture. And it’s a picture that was broken to pieces at the moment she fell down the stairs. He’s worn out from all the endless effort of keeping all this secret and fighting the demon—”

  “You sound like a pro, Chief Inspector Chen,” Jia said sarcastically. “I didn’t know that you studied psychology too.”

  “I have read one or two books on the subject. You surely know much more, so that’s why I would really appreciate your opinion.”

  There was a light knock on the door again. White Cloud came in carrying a large tray that held a glass pot, a glass bowl of shrimps, and a miniature stove. The shrimps were immersed in a mixed sauce, but under the bowl lid, they still squirmed energetically. Within the stove there was a layer of pebbles, burning red above the charcoal at the bottom. She first poured the pebbles into the pot, and then the shrimps. In a hissing steam, the shrimps were jumping and turning red.