A Loyal Character Dancer

by Qiu Xiaolong

  As he lit a cigarette outside the store, he saw a young man in front of another store across the street dialing a cell phone and casting a long glance in their direction. A Chinese onlooker would be intrigued by the sight of an American woman changing her clothes behind the makeshift curtain. Chen did not feel comfortable in his temporary role, standing there like a bodyguard, a “flower protector” in classical Chinese literature.

  Something else was bothering him, too. He was not sure what. He dropped the cigarette before he finished, stamping it out under his heel, and went back into the store. She pulled aside the curtain and emerged holding the robe wrapped in a plastic bag.

  “I bought it.”

  “The American lady speaks Chinese so well,” the owner said with an obliging smile. “I’m giving her the price for a regular Chinese client.”

  They resumed their shopping, bargaining, comparing, making small purchases here and there. As they squeezed their way through the market, it started to rain. They hurried into a garagelike store, where a young salesgirl was perched on a high chair behind the counter. Probably in her early twenties, she was cute in a clean-cut way, and she wore a black DKNY top that showed her belly button, and a pair of shorts with a Tommy Hilfiger logo on the hip. She dangled her Prada slippers and smoked a brown More cigarette. She stood up to meet them, a collective image of contemporary fashion.

  “Welcome to our store, Big Brother.”

  It was a strange greeting, he thought. The young salesgirl appeared to focus her attention on him.

  “It’s raining,” he said. “So we’ll look around.”

  “Take your time, Big Brother. Your girlfriend deserves the best.”

  “Yes, she does,” he said.

  “Thank you,” Catherine said in Chinese.

  The salesgirl introduced herself. “My name is Huang Ying. It means Oriole in Chinese.”

  “What a lovely name!”

  “Our products are no low-quality fakes. The companies themselves sell to us through an unofficial channel.”

  “How?” Catherine asked, taking up a black handbag bearing the label of an exclusive Italian designer.

  “Well, most of them have joint ventures in Hong Kong or Taiwan. This handbag, for example. They ordered two thousand. The Taiwan factory produced three thousand. The same quality, needless to say. And we get one thousand directly from the factory. For less than twenty dollars.”

  “It’s genuine,” Catherine said, after taking a closer look.

  Chen could not see anything special about it-except for the price tag. It seemed enormously expensive to him. Handing the bag back to her, he noticed a row of colorful fashionable clothes hanging on a stainless-steel rack in a corner. The price tags seemed staggering.

  There was also a length of scarlet velvet-a fitting room curtain partially hiding a cushioned stool by the back door. This store was of better quality-at least in that respect. When people changed, they would feel more secure.

  “Take a look at this watch. Oriole took out a display case. “The company is not well known for its watch line. So why bother? It’s because they are manufactured in Taiwan, and sold here.”

  “Hasn’t the government tried to close this market?” Catherine said to him.

  “The market patrollers come here from time to time, but things can be worked out,” Oriole said glibly. “Say he takes away ten T-shirts and says, ‘I’ve confiscated five of your T-shirts, right?’ And you say, ‘Five, that’s correct.’ So instead of hauling you in, he turns in five, pockets five, and lets you off.”

  “Nothing else has been done here?” Chief Inspector Chen felt embarrassed.

  “Occasionally the cops come by. They raided Bald Zhang’s at the end of the street last month, and sentenced him to two years. It can be dangerous.”

  “If it’s so dangerous, why do you still do it?”

  “What choice do I have?” Oriole said bitterly. “My parents worked all their lives at Shanghai Number 6 Textile Mill. Laid off last year. Broken iron rice bowls. No benefit of the socialist system anymore. I have to support the family.”

  “Your store must make a good profit,” Chen said.

  “It’s not my store, but with the money I’m earning, I cannot complain.”

  “Still, it’s not a job-” he did not finish the sentence. He was in no position to be condescending or compassionate. Oriole might earn more than a chief inspector. In the early nineties, there was nothing like the opportunity to make money. Still, it was not a decent job for a young girl-

  Catherine was busy comparing watches, trying their effect, one by one, on her wrist. It might take her some time to make up her mind. How long, he wondered. Rain beat on the partially rolled-down aluminum door.

  As he looked out, his glance swept over a man across the street dialing his cell phone, staring in their direction.

  The same light green cellular phone.

  It was the man who had taken pictures for them in front of Moscow Suburb earlier in the afternoon, and also the man who had looked into the Oriental clothes store fifteen minutes earlier.

  He turned and asked Oriole, “Can you draw the fitting room curtain? I like the black slip, the Christian Dior.” He took it from the clothes stand and put it into Catherine’s hand. “Would you try it on?”

  “What?” She stared at Chen, aware of the pressure of his hand.

  “Let me pay you the tag price, Oriole,” he said, handing several bills over to the salesgirl, “I’d like to see the effect on her. It may take a short while.”

  “Sure, take as much time as you want,” Oriole took the money, grinned eloquently, and pulled the curtain for them. “When you have finished, let me know.”

  Another customer entered the store. Oriole stepped toward him, repeating over her shoulder, “Take your time, Big Brother.”

  There was hardly enough space for two behind the curtain. Catherine looked up at Chen with the slip in her hands and questions in her eyes.

  “Leave through the back,” he whispered in English and opened the door, which led to a narrow alley. It was still raining, with thunder rumbling in the distance and lightning streaking across the distant horizon.

  Closing the door after them, he led Catherine to the end of the lane, which merged into Huating Road. Turning back, he saw the flashing neon sign of Huating Cafe on the second floor of a pinkish building on the corner between Huating and Huaihai roads. On the first floor was another clothing store. A gray wrought-iron staircase at the back of the building led up to the cafe.

  “Let’s have a cup of coffee there,” he said.

  They mounted the slippery staircase, entered an oblong room furnished in European style, and seated themselves at a table by the window.

  “What’s up, Chief Inspector Chen?”

  “Let’s wait here, Inspector Rohn. Maybe I am wrong.” He did not go on as a waitress approached, bringing them hot towels. “I must have a cup of hot coffee.”

  “I could do with the same.”

  After the waitress brought the coffee, Catherine said, “Let me ask you a question first. This street must be an open secret. Why does the city government allow its existence?”

  “Where there is demand, there is supply-even for fakes. No matter what measures the city government may take, people will continue their business. According to Karl Marx, for a three-hundred-percent profit, a lot of people are willing to sell their souls.”

  “I’m not entitled to be a critic today, not after I made my purchases.” She stirred ripples in her coffee with a silver spoon. “Still, something must be done.”

  “Yes, not just about the market, but also about the ideas behind it, the excessive exaltation of the material. With Deng Xiaoping saying that ‘to get rich is glorious,’ capitalistic consumerism has grown out of control.”

  “Do you think what people practice here in reality is capitalism rather than communism?”

  “You have to find the answer to this question for yourself,” he replied evasively
. “Deng’s openness to capitalist innovation is well-known. There’s a saying of his: ‘It doesn’t matter whether it’s a white or a black cat, as long as it catches a rat.’”

  “Cat and rat, rhyme and reason.”

  “Few Chinese keep cats as pets, you know. For us, cats exist for the sole purpose of catching rats.”

  The rain had ceased. Looking out the window, he could see into Oriole’s store. The velvet curtain was still drawn. He was not sure if Oriole knew they had left. His prepayment of the price as marked must have been suspicious enough. He caught Catherine glancing in the same direction.

  “Fifteen years ago, those brands were never heard of here. Chinese people were content to wear one style of clothes: Mao jackets, blue or black. Things are so different now. They want to catch up with the newest world fashions. From an historical perspective, you have to say that it’s progress.”

  “You are capable of lecturing on a lot of things, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen.”

  “For a lot of things in this transitional period, I do not have an answer, let alone a lecture. I’m just trying to come to terms with them myself.” Without conscious thought, he had built a tiny edifice of sugar cubes, which was now crumbling by his coffee mug. Why had he been so willing-even eager to discuss all these things with her?

  It was then he heard a commotion sweeping down on the street like thunder rolling in from a distance, and people shouting and screaming in chorus: “They are coming!”

  He saw street peddlers gathering up their displays in a frenzy, store owners closing their doors helter-skelter, several people running with big plastic bags on their backs. In Oriole’s store, the girl jumped out from behind the counter, plunged the store into semi-darkness by turning off a switch, and tried to pull down the aluminum door. But it was too late. Plainclothes police were already rushing in.

  What he had suspected was confirmed.

  They had been followed. By someone with inside contacts. Otherwise, the police would not have come so quickly, nor rushed directly to that store. A tip had been given, perhaps via that light green cell phone. The informer must have supposed that Chen and his American companion were inside. But for his wariness, they would have been apprehended, together with Oriole. Catherine’s status as a U.S. Marshal would have caused serious complications. As for Chen, he had committed a serious violation of the foreign liaison regulations. The existence of such a street market was a political disgrace. He should not have brought an American here, let alone an American officer in the middle of a sensitive investigation. He would have been suspended, at the least.

  Had the Flying Axes orchestrated all this-in addition to other “accidents”? He wondered how a Fujian gang, which had never before made its impact felt out of its province, could be so resourceful in Shanghai.

  Another possibility suggested itself to him. Some people within the system had long planned to get rid of him. Internal Security’s report about his fastening Inspector Rohn’s necklace, for instance, must have found its way into his dossier because of this. This very assignment might have been a trap, set so he would commit a blunder in the company of an attractive American woman officer. It could backfire, however, if it was discovered that the attempt to entrap him was being made at the expense of an internationally important case. He was not without his ally at the highest level-

  Catherine touched his hand lightly. “Look.”

  Oriole was being marched out of the store. She was a changed girl, her hands handcuffed behind her back, her hair disheveled, and her face scratched, no longer young and vivacious. Her top was wrinkled, one strap dangled from her shoulder, and she must have lost her slippers in the scuffle, so she walked barefoot into the street.

  “Did you know the police would come?” Catherine asked.

  “No, but while you were examining the watches, I saw a plainclothes man outside.”

  “Did they come for us?”

  “It’s possible. If an American were caught here with a heap of purchases, it might be played as a political card.”

  He was in no position to tell her what else he suspected, though he saw the clouds of suspicion gathering in her eyes.

  “But we could have left the store in a normal way,” she said skeptically. “Why all the drama-moving behind the fitting curtain, leaving through the back door, and running across the alley in the rain.”

  “I wanted them to believe we were still behind the curtain.”

  “For such a long time,” she said, blushing slightly in spite of herself.

  Suddenly, he thought he saw a familiar figure in the crowd, a short cop with a walkie-talkie in his hand. Then he found that it was not Qian. Yet the man with the light green cell phone had appeared outside Moscow Suburb after Qian’s call.

  A middle-aged customer at the next table, pointing his fingers at the salesgirl, burst out, “What a worn-out shoe!”

  Oriole must have stepped into a puddle. She left a line of wet footprints behind her.

  “What does he mean?” Catherine appeared puzzled. “She is barefoot.”

  “It’s slang, meaning ‘hussy’ or ‘prostitute.’ A worn-out shoe in the sense that it has been worn by so many people, and so many times.”

  “Is she engaged in prostitution?”

  “I don’t know. The business of this street is not legitimate. So people imagine things.”

  “Will she get into serious trouble?”

  “A few months or a few years. It depends on the political climate. If our government finds it politically necessary to highlight the action taken against those fakes, she will suffer. Perhaps it’s the same with your government’s emphasis on Feng’s case?”

  “There’s nothing you can do about it?” she said.

  “Nothing,” he echoed, though he was sorry for Oriole. The raid had been intended to catch them, he was sure of it. The girl had been caught instead. She should be punished for her business practices, but not like this.

  A war had been declared, and there were casualties already. First Qiao, now Oriole. The chief inspector was still in the dark, however, with no certainty as to whom he was fighting.

  Oriole was already near the end of the street.

  Behind her, the line of her wet footprints was already disappearing.

  In the eleventh century, Su Dongpo had come up with the famous image: Life is like the footprint left by a solitary crane in the snow, visible for one moment, and then gone.

  Lines sometimes came to Chen in the most difficult situations. He did not know how he was able to feel poetic when gangsters were closing in on him. At that instant something else flashed through his mind.

  “Let’s go, Catherine.” He stood up, took her hand, and dragged her downstairs.

  “Where?”

  “I have to hurry back to the bureau. Something urgent. I’ve had an idea. Sorry, I’ll call you later.”

  Chapter 25

  Several hours later, Chen tried to reach Catherine by phone without success. Nevertheless, he went up to her room hoping to find her.

  At his first knock, the door opened. She was wearing the scarlet silk robe embroidered with the golden dragon, barelegged and barefoot. She was drying her hair with a towel.

  He was at a loss for words. “I’m sorry, Inspector Rohn.”

  “Come on in.”

  “Sorry to arrive so late,” he said. “I called you several times. I wasn’t sure you were in.”

  “Don’t keep on apologizing. I was taking a shower. You are a welcome guest here, just as I am a distinguished guest of your bureau,” she said, motioning him to sit on the couch. “What would you like to drink?”

  “Water, please.”

  She went to the small refrigerator and came back with a bottle of spring water for him. “Something important has come up, I guess?”

  “Yes.” He produced a sheet of paper from his briefcase.

  “What’s that?” She took a quick look at the first few lines.

  “A poem from Wen’s past.”
He took a gulp from the bottle. “Sorry, it’s difficult to read my handwriting. I did not have the time to type it.”

  She seated herself beside him on the couch. “Could you read it for me.”

  As she leaned over to look at the poem, he thought he smelled the scent of the soap on her skin, still wet from the shower. Taking a breath, he started to read, in English:

  “Fingertip Touching

  We are talking in a jammed workshop

  picking our way, and our words,

  amid all the prizes, gold-plated statuettes

  staring at the circling flies. ‘The stuff

  for your newspaper report: miracles made

  by Chinese workers,’ the manager says.

  ‘In Europe, special grinders alone

  can do the job, but our workers’ finger-

  polish the precision parts.’

  Beside us, women bending over the work,

  their fingers

  shuttling under the fluorescent light,

  My camera focusing on a middle-aged one,

  pallid in her black homespun blouse

  soaked in sweat. Summer heat overwhelms.

  Zooming in, I’m shocked to see myself

  galvanized into the steel part

  touched by Lili’s fingertips,

  soft yet solid

  as an exotic grinder.

  “Who is the reporter in the first stanza?” she asked with a puzzled expression.

  “Let me explain after I finish.

  Not that

  Lili really touched me. Not she, the prettiest

  leftist at the station, July, 1970.

  We were leaving, the first group

  of ‘educated youths,’

  leaving for the countryside,

  ‘Oh, to be re-re-re-educated by

  the po-or and lo-lo-wer middle class peasants!’

  Chairman Mao’s voice screeched

  from a scratched record at the station.

  By the locomotive Lili

  burst into a dance, flourishing

  a red paper heart she had cut, a miracle

  in the design of a girl and a boy

  holding the Chinese character-loyal’