Red Mandarin Dress

by Unknown

  “And what connections?

  “Perhaps I don’t even have to elaborate on these here. Whatever I may say, some people will declare they are irrelevant.

  “After all, anything can be explained and justified. Someone, who happens to be sitting in the courtroom, has told me that this is an age of perspectives. Things depend on the perspective, but he forgot to add that whoever is in power gains control of the perspective.”

  It was an unmistakable reference to him, Chen knew. He rubbed his temple again.

  “Now, my learned colleague has made one specific point,” Jia went on. “Historical circumstances. It is not a term invented by him. We have read and heard about it, especially with regard to the Cultural Revolution, haven’t we?”

  “Shall we stop him?” Yu whispered to Chen. “Where is his speech leading?”

  “No, I don’t think he will go too far. Let’s wait just a little longer.”

  The trial was an unprecedented one in that a Chinese attorney was emerging triumphant, single-handedly against all the Party officials standing behind Peng. Jia deserved his moment, which might be the last cold comfort to his battered ego. Besides, Chen didn’t want the trial to be affected by the red mandarin dress case. They were two separate cases, unrelated.

  “We aren’t here, of course, to talk about all the social and political issues involved,” Jia continued. “But what about the people who have suffered loss, irrecoverable losses, in the case? Zhang Pei’s parents, for instance, who died because of the horrible conditions after being driven out of their home. Or Lang Tianping, for another, who became paralyzed after being savagely beaten in the ‘demolishing campaign’ by the relocation company. Or Li Guoqing, whose girlfriend left him when he was detained for his skirmish with those Triad thugs hired by Peng.

  “So do you think that singling out Peng for his mismanaged business operation brings justice?”

  The question disturbed Chen. Where was Jia going with all this? It could be a show Jia was putting on. Anticorruption was a popular stance in the nineties. His speech would surely win him another round of applause. But would that be so important to him?

  Was Jia pushing for a disastrous end for everyone? Such an option would be understandable for a man in his position. Possibly the last revenge, and the ultimate revenge too. In his mind, the Party authorities should have been held responsible for the Cultural Revolution. And for the government that was so anxious to wrap up this case with minimum political impact, having all the corrupt officials exposed, all the dirty politics examined, as Jia had threatened last night, would be disastrous.

  In the interest of the Party, Chen should try to stop Jia, but it was a closing statement, saying what should be said. So what should Chief Inspector Chen do?

  But Chen somehow didn’t believe Jia was really going to head far down that route. It was in their tacit understanding last night that nothing too dramatic would happen at the trial. Nothing like that from either side. If Jia wanted Chen to abide by his bargain, he himself had to do so. After all, Chen had those pictures. Jia must have taken the presence of Chen as a warning. Anything out of the way on Jia’s part would have its consequences. It involved her, not just him. Jia knew, Chen knew.

  It was like having swallowed a fly for the chief inspector to think that he had actually helped with the housing development case.

  And Chen couldn’t get rid of a sense of foreboding. Something wasn’t moving in the right direction. But what could that possibly be? He found his mind momentarily blank as he tried to put himself in Jia’s position.

  Jia must be thinking about what would happen after the trial. There was no exit for him; Jia knew that better than anybody else.

  How would Jia be able to face his fall? One of the most successful attorneys in the city, talking about justice all the time, and he had to face a trial in which he himself would be tried and convicted as a criminal, with a full confession signed in his own hand. Whatever defense he might be able to put up for himself, the result would be the same. Death, plus the worst humiliation imaginable.

  What’s more, it could still involve her. Even without those pictures, people would eventually dig out some details, if not all of them.

  But what different outcome could Jia strive for?

  Chen stopped himself from thinking further along those lines. You are no fish, so how can you know the way it thinks? Jia’s sick. That was what Chen had told Yu, and that was true.

  All of a sudden, Jia started coughing, his chest heaving in a spasm, a stained pallor masking his face.

  “Are you okay?” the judge said, anxious for Jia to finish his speech.

  “I am fine. Just an old problem,” Jia said.

  The judge hesitated before asking Jia to continue. It was too important a trial to be interrupted.

  “So I’m tempted to tell you a story in parallel to our case,” Jia resumed with renewed strength in his voice. “A story about what happened to a little boy during the Cultural Revolution. He lost his father, lost his home, and then in a most humiliating way, lost his mother he deeply loved. The experience totally traumatized him, like a small tree so stunted that it survives only in a twisted way. As the proverb says, ‘With a whole nest overturned, not a single egg will be left unbroken, though the crack may not be so visible.’ He grew up with the one and only purpose of seeking justice for his family. But when the Cultural Revolution was declared a well-meant mistake by Mao, a mistake understandable in the historical circumstances—he realized that it was a hopeless mission. So finally he decided to take justice into his own hands.

  “Of course, people are supposed to uphold justice not in their own hands but in a courtroom like this, we all understand. However, is there a court that prosecutes the crimes of the Cultural Revolution? Or will there ever be one?”

  Chen was about to stand up when Jia was seized with another outbreak of coughing, more violent this time, his face first purple, then ghastly white. His body began reeling.

  The courtroom was sunk deeply in silence.

  “Don’t worry. Just an old problem,” Jia managed to say before collapsing to the floor.

  “Is he sick?” Yu said with something more than astonishment on his face.

  Chen shook his head. It was not an old problem, he suspected. Something terribly wrong. A possibility presented itself, which he might have been trying to ignore until this moment.

  There could be a way out for Jia, though not that quick, not here, not like that.

  Jia was already turning and making a weak gesture at Chen.

  Chen stood up, taking off his glasses. He produced his badge to the court security officers who were rushing over to his side.

  A reporter in the room recognized him, exclaiming, “Chief Inspector Chen Cao!”

  Chen strode over and leaned down toward the fallen man. People were stunned, transfixed. The judge stepped down, hesitating for a moment before retreating into the judge’s room, and the two court clerks followed suit, as if fleeing hastily from a crime scene. No one else moved. Jia started speaking with a voice audible only to the chief inspector.

  “The end is coming more quickly than I expected, but it does not matter whether I finish my closing statement or not. What cannot be said has to pass over in silence,” Jia said, taking an envelope out of his suit pocket. “Here are checks for those families. I have endorsed them. You have to do me the favor of giving them away.”

  “To their families?” Chen said, taking over the envelope.

  “I have kept my word—the best I can, Chief Inspector Chen. So will you, I know.”

  “Yes, I will. But—”

  “Thank you,” Jia said with a waxy smile. “I really appreciate what you have been doing for me, believe me.”

  Chen believed him, who must have been sick and tired of his struggling all these years, in vain, in loneliness. Chen gave him an opportunity finally to put an end to it.

  “She loves me. I know. She does all that for me,” Jia said with a stra
nge glow in his face. “You’ve brought back the world to me. Thank you, Chen.”

  Chen grasped his hand that was getting cold.

  “You like poetry,” Jia said again. “There’s a poem in the envelope too. You may keep it as a token of my gratitude.”

  Closing his eyes, Jia spoke no more. After all, what else could he say?

  Chen produced his cell phone to call for an ambulance. Perhaps already too late. It was nothing but a pose he had to strike, for the sake of the audience.

  Like the trial, also a pose, though necessary on the part of the government.

  There was something wrong with the phone. No signal. It might be just as well. Chen almost felt relieved.

  But others must have called. The medical people rushed in, pushing him off the man lying on the floor.

  “I have kept my word—” Chen stood up, thinking of Jia’s last words as the medical people started carrying Jia out on a stretcher.

  Chen didn’t have to open the envelope. The checks should be more than enough as evidence, with Jia’s signature, along with the fact that the checks were given to him in the presence of so many people in the courtroom.

  Yu was moving over to his side, with a phone in his hand. He must have spoken to the other cops, holding them back. It was a bizarre ending. Not only to the trial of the housing development case, but for the red mandarin dress case too.

  The courtroom was now like a pot of boiling water spilling all over.

  Chen handed the envelope to Yu, who opened it and started examining the checks with utter disbelief on his face.

  “The families of the red mandarin dress victims, including Hong’s,” Yu said in an awe-stricken voice. “He must have kept a record of them. With the checks signed, it’s like a full confession. We will now be able to close the case.”

  Chen didn’t speak up at once. As for how to conclude the case, he still had no idea.

  “His own signature,” Yu said emphatically. “It should be conclusive.”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Any comment, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen?” the reporter who had recognized Chen shouted at him across the crowd, trying to elbow his way through the restraining line kept by the courtroom security officers.

  “Are you in charge of the case?” Another reporter joined in, pushing forward with several others.

  The courtroom was now in total confusion, as if the pot of boiling water was not merely spilling all over, but the pot itself toppled upside down.

  Some of the reporters followed the stretcher out. Chen and Yu were left standing alone where Jia had fallen several minutes ago. Other reporters were shifting their attention to the two cops, their cameras flashing.

  Chen dragged Yu into the judge’s room, which was empty, closing the door after them. Almost immediately there came loud knocking on the door, presumably by the reporters who had broken through the restraining line, but then the knocking stopped. Whoever was there at the door must have been dragged away by security.

  “Did you anticipate such an ending, Chief?” Yu asked, straight to the point.

  “No,” Chen said, taken aback by the sharpness of the question from his longtime partner. “Not exactly. Not like that.”

  But it was a turn he could have foreseen. And he should have. Facing trial for the serial murder, with the skeletons of his family history exposed, with the picture of his mother’s naked body unearthed, with the stories of her sex scandal examined, with the Oedipus complex exaggerated, Chen himself wouldn’t have hesitated to choose the same exit Jia had.

  Chen wondered about Yu’s reaction. Yu might suspect Chen of having acted out of his bookish consideration, of giving in to the last appeal made by Jia last night. After all, giving a fatally wounded soldier the opportunity to kill himself was a time-honored tradition. It wasn’t exactly true, but Yu didn’t know everything.

  “Those checks are a large sum,” Yu said sarcastically, “but of course the money was meaningless to him.”

  Jia’s last act also spoke for his contrition. Jia wasn’t a delusional killer, as Chen had maintained. In his heart, Jia knew what he did was wrong. The checks made a large sum—Jia’s way of offering compensation, though as he had just said in his statement, that’s no justice.

  But there was something more to it. It pleaded for leniency in a message the chief inspector alone could grasp. It was as if he was pushing the credit over to Chen, though it was a huge gamble for Jia. If Chen were not a man of his word, he could take credit for solving the murder case and still go ahead with the publication of his sensational story with all those pictures. Jia’s signed checks implied his unconditional trust in Chen. As in an ancient battle, a dying soldier gave himself to his opponent whom he respected.

  Chen, knowing he was trapped, broke out in a cold sweat.

  “Jia didn’t have to do that,” Chen said finally. “He’s too clever not to know the consequences. These checks sealed his crime. He did it as a way of appealing to me: he kept his word to cooperate, so now it’s up to me to keep my word.”

  “What word?” Yu said. “So you’ll start writing the case report, Chief?”

  Indeed, what about the case report?

  The Party authorities would push for an explanation. As a Party member police officer, he could hardly say no. And the story would have to come out.

  But they might not necessarily push for the whole truth, Chen thought, if he started throwing off hints about the Cultural Revolution background of the case. If he handled it right, they probably wouldn’t care too much about the mumbling vagueness of his explanation. Digging out the skeletons of history could backfire. So he might be able to trick the government into hushing up the details. Perhaps he could come up with a different story instead, acceptable to everyone. A blurred statement about the death of the serial murderer, hopefully, without even revealing his identity or the real cause. After all, whatever story he might produce, some people wouldn’t believe it. As long as there were no new victims in a red mandarin dress, the storm would blow over.

  “He got away too easily,” Yu pushed on, obviously upset by Chen’s silence. “Four victims, including Hong.”

  Yu hadn’t yet gotten over the death of Hong. Chen understood. But again, Yu didn’t know that much about Jia—or what was behind Jia’s case. Chen didn’t know if he would be able to explain everything to his partner.

  But about the case report, he thought he had a better idea. Why not push the credit to Yu, a great partner who was standing by him, as always, in spite of the unanswered questions?

  “But was there any other way out for him?” Chen said. “So, now you have to wrap up the case.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, it was you that checked out the background of Jasmine, discovered the name in the short list of the Joy Gate, drew my attention to the part about Tian’s bad luck, and checked Tian’s history as a Mao member. Not to mention Peiqin’s contribution to the investigation. Her studies of the dress as an image inspired me.”

  “That’s not true, Chief. I may have explored along those lines, but I came up with nothing. It was on your order that I rechecked into Tian’s past—”

  “We don’t have to argue about that. As a matter of fact, you are doing me a favor. What explanation can I possibly give to the others?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Inspector Liao will be thoroughly pissed off. He must believe that I’ve played hide-and-seek with the bureau and worked on the case behind his back. So will Party Secretary Li. Li might well be paranoid with political suspicion.”

  “But the fact is,” Yu said, “you brought the first serial murder case in Shanghai to conclusion.”

  “I gave my word to Jia. There is something in the case that I won’t tell. Not just about him. Now that he’s dead, having fulfilled his part of the deal, my lips are sealed. You might understand, Yu, but not the others.”

  He wondered whether Yu understood, but Yu wouldn’t press for an explanation. Not too hard, an
yway. They were friends, not just partners.

  “But what can I tell them—the revenge of the Cultural Revolution? It’s out of the question.”

  “Well, he committed the crimes in a fit of temporary insanity. Afterwards he was filled with remorse. So he signed those checks for the victims’ families.”

  “But why should he have given the checks to you?”

  “I happened to be looking into the housing development case and I met him. And that’s true. Director Zhong of the Legal Reform Committee can support my statement. Even last night, Zhong called me about the housing development case, and Jia was in my presence at the time.”

  “Will they accept your story?”

  “I don’t know, but the government won’t be interested in a scenario such as ‘the revenge of the Cultural Revolution,’ as you’ve just called it. Hopefully they won’t push for details. In fact, the less said, the better for everyone. We may pull it off.” He added, “It’s possible that the Party authorities may not even want to reveal the identity of the serial murderer. He’s killed. Period.”

  “Aren’t they anxious to punish Jia—as an example to troublemakers for the government?”

  “But not punished like that, nor at the present moment. It could backfire. Of course, that’s just my guess—”

  The phone rang, unusually loud in the empty judge’s room. It was Professor Bian, who had had an appointment with Chen that morning. The student had failed to show up.

  “I know you’re busy, but your paper is quite original. I would like to know how it is progressing.”

  “I’ll turn the paper in on time,” Chen said. “I’m just having some problems with the conclusion.”

  “It’s difficult to push for a generalization in a term paper,” Bian said. “Your topic is a big one. If you can succeed in finding a shared tendency among a number of stories, it should be good enough. In the future, you may try to develop that into your MA thesis.”

  Chen wondered if he would be able to do so. He didn’t say anything immediately in response. And he was beginning to have second thoughts about his studies.

  After all, it was just one more interpretation of the old texts. People would go on reading, with or without his interpretation. There might have been a sort of anti-love discourse of arranged marriage in Chinese culture, or something like an archetype of the Chinese femme fatale. But so what? Each story was different, each author was different. Like in criminal cases, a cop can hardly apply a general theory to all of them.