by Xiaolong Qiu
But she was so different, taking a large gulp from the latte, crunching the ice with her white teeth, and wiping the sweat from her face with a paper napkin.
‘So you are working at the café instead, Director Chen?’
‘No, not exactly. At home, it’s just so easy to find all sorts of excuses to be lazy. A new TV episode, or a portion of fried soup buns delivered like yesterday. And you end up doing nothing for the whole day. But at a café, you feel obliged to do something for a cup of coffee’s worth.’
‘You’re kidding. That’s the last thing you have to worry about.’
‘As I’ve told you, I had a talk with Professor Zhong at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. He suggested that I write a story based on Poets and Murder, so I need the time and the coffee to digest what I’ve just learned from him.’
‘A story! That’s original. But why not? You are a poet as well as an inspector, and you can do a better job than Gulik. To say the least, much better than the stuff for these Judge Dee TV movies.’
That was a comment similar to Professor Zhong’s, but it would be too long a discussion for the moment.
‘You said you have something to talk to me about, Jin.’
‘First, the office statement,’ she said, taking out her cellphone for him to see the statement published in the city government e-newsletter. It gave top position to the office statement, highlighting his comment about the inadmissibility of the evidence under normal circumstances.
And then she brought up some microblogging posts, in which he was represented as lending his name to the governmental handling of the scandal. Some netizens seemed not to be too pleased about it, even though his comment was true.
‘A fantastic job, Jin. I really appreciate it. For the routine work in the office, as I’ve said to you, you can make decisions without having to discuss them with me first. Of course, I would like to work with you at the office. It’s just my energy levels may not yet be up to it.’
‘And another thing, Director Chen. This morning I did some research for the office and talked to someone in Min’s neighborhood.’
‘Hold on, you mean Min, the Republican Lady I told you about yesterday?’
‘Yes, that’s her. As a secretary of the office, I believe it’s my responsibility to do some research into the background of the Min case, which is turning into a most sensational one on the Internet. And I happened to find in a blog post that her neighborhood was not far away,’ she paused to take another gulp of the drink, the ice tinkling in the cup. ‘So I went to Min’s neighborhood committee, but no one was there during lunch time. I ended up talking to a once-neighborhood patroller named Bao, and I recorded the conversation with him.’
This time Chen was more than surprised. But for his bound hands, he himself would have done the same as a cop, but she moved fast. He failed to recall what he had said to her about the Min case, but some of his words could have been taken as subtle hints to her.
‘I’m amazed, Jin. You did not have to go out of your way for this. We’re not doing any investigation, but I’ll listen to your recording back home – just the die-hard curiosity of an ex-cop,’ he said guardedly. ‘And before my coming to work in the office, I may need more of your help with the Judge Dee story. Your expertise will make a huge difference regarding the accuracy of historical details.’
‘That’s great!’ she exclaimed, draining the tea. ‘But I’d better hurry back to the office. I sneaked out during the lunch break, you know. Already been out for quite a long while. Oh, you know how to listen to the recording, Director Chen?’
It was his turn to get confused. The cellphone might have the function, but he had never used the phone for recording. On a moment of impulse, he took out his special phone.
‘It’s a phone with its number known only to the people I trust.’
‘Thanks. I won’t give it out.’ She took it from his hand and demonstrated how to listen to the recording.
‘Now I’m sending the recording to your special phone through WeChat, and you can start listening to it over your cup of coffee here.’
‘It’s so smart of you, Jin.’
‘Let me know if there’s any other research I can do for the office,’ she said, ready to rise before turning to add casually, ‘By the way, Director Ma, the Chief of Staff for the city government, came down to our office this morning. He’s so concerned about your health. He wants me to keep him posted about you – with all the possible details.’
‘Thanks, Jin. The only problem with me is that I cannot rest properly on leave. At night, I keep tossing and turning in bed with irrelevant thoughts racing through my mind, like a bulb burning hot before bursting. So I wake up still so tired in the morning. That’s why I tried to work a little instead on something light like a Judge Dee story, which may actually help me sleep better. It’s a practice suggested by Dr Xia, an old friend of mine.’
She nodded with a knowing smile instead of saying anything, as if seeing through why he was complaining about his health problem.
Chen remained sitting there alone, taking the lid off another cup of coffee as he started listening to the recording.
What he heard first was something like the mumbled noises and voices in the background – ‘Small croaker with pickled cabbage soup, milky white soup’ … ‘Fried stinking tofu with a lot of pepper sauce’ … ‘Sliced pork in fish sauce with garlic …’
So the interview could have been recorded in a neighborhood eatery. She had not worked with him before, but she seemed to have conducted the interview after his own fashion – over lunch. Shaking his head, he listened on.
Jin: Let me say again, Old Bao, I’m not doing any investigation here. But it’s turning into the most-talked-about case on the Internet. I mean the Min case, so we have to learn as much as possible about its background, and the first-hand information from an experienced neighborhood activist like you would help greatly. You said you have lived in the same lane with Min?
Bao: Yes, all these years. Tell you what, Secretary Jin! Whatever happens to the shameless bitch Min, she deserves it. She can dream of her spring-and-autumn dream about getting away so easily this time!
Jin: So she has done something like this before? Please tell me from the very beginning.
Bao: Indeed, it’s a world turned upside down. I moved into the lane in the mid-sixties. At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, her family was driven out of the shikumen house – to a small tofu-like tingzhijian room in the lane. Believe it or not, that tingzhijian room is just under my wing room.
Nowadays people keep on saying all kinds of things about the Cultural Revolution. And about Chairman Mao, too. But think about it. Those years, how many working-class families had to live squeezed together like in a can of sardines? More than twenty, to say the least, in a house the size of Min’s, with each family huddling in a partitioned room. You call that fair? No, definitely not. Not to mention all the dividends her family received after the Party government turned private companies into state companies in the mid-fifties.
Min was born toward the end of the Cultural Revolution, I think, possibly one or two years after it. In that tingzhijian room, she grew up to be a young slut. When she graduated from high school, she already had men circling her like flies around a piece of rotten meat. Her family then had a change of fortune. Her grandfather was said to be a patriotic banker before 1949, with rich, influential relatives coming back from abroad. So a district official came to her family, offering compensation for their so-called loss during the Cultural Revolution. Anyway, hers was then called a ‘good family’, and she had rich and powerful men swarming into the lane for her, with flowers in the open, and with money in secret. Shortly afterward, the whole shikumen house was handed back to her family like on a platter. It was supposed to be in accordance with the government policy, but it was achieved through all her connections – in bed.
Jin: The city government had a new policy regarding private properties at the time, but it
’s also true that few were lucky enough to get their house back.
Bao: Exactly, she also got so much money from those men, without having to work a real job for a single day. She kept the tingzhijian room in the lane, in which her maid Qing stayed instead, and bought several new apartments near the New World for her parents and younger brother. And she moved into the completely refurbished shikumen house – all for herself – a full-time high-end slut in a fancy brothel.
Jin: A fancy brothel? You mean she had customers coming and paying for sex with her?
Bao: Um, probably not a hooker or prostitute in the common sense of the word – she’s called a mingyuan. It’s a term used before 1949 in the Republican era, meaning a precious flower of the high society. Nothing but a high-class courtesan in reality. Anyway, she then started to have the weekly dinner party at home. Obscenely expensive, about ten thousand yuan per person for a private dinner with her, usually with seven to eight men at a round table. In the old days, such a dinner party was called a flower party in a brothel, and if people paid a price high enough, then overnight—
Jin: You think it could be something like sex orgies with those people in the shikumen house at night?
Bao: I have never been inside the shikumen house at night, so I could not be sure about that. But it’s more than possible that the man who paid the highest price would have her for the night. Anyway, can you believe anyone would pay ten thousand yuan simply for one meal?
Needless to say, such wild parties could not but hurt the image of our lane. People complained about it to the neighborhood committee, but they were told that she was untouchable.
Jin: Because of the government standing behind her?
Bao: Not the government itself, but the head of the neighborhood committee heard something about one of her visitors being a top government official. And he knew better than to tell us about it.
Jin: She must have had powerful connections to get back the shikumen house and the permission to have those parties there. It’s little wonder.
Bao: And she calls her party a salon. An outrageous salon just like in the old days. It is now the new society under the Communist Party, but she’s still after those things under the KMG during the Republican period. Hence her nickname Republican Lady.
Jin: Nickname aside, have you seen or heard suspicious things about her and her men before or after those wild parties at night?
Bao: To give a devil her due, I myself have not seen men sneaking in and out of the shikumen house in the middle of the night, but some of her neighbors saw something there in the early hours.
Jin: Can you tell me the names of those neighbors?
Bao: Well, you can ask the neighborhood committee about it.
Jin: That’s fine. But can you tell me anything you noticed about that particular night, Old Bao?
Bao: That evening, I went to my son’s in Hongkou District, and I got back to the lane quite late. Around eleven – five or ten minutes earlier or later. Now you have mentioned it, I remember I noticed someone waiting near the entrance of the lane, waiting for his car after the party.
Jin: How did you know he was a guest at her party waiting for his car?
Bao: It’s a common scene – people waiting outside for their cars after her party. And he looked like one from her party – dressed in an expensive-looking suit. Her guests usually come in their own cars, and with their own chauffeurs. Ours is a narrow side street. Too narrow for a taxi to come in, and difficult for a car to park. For her wealthy visitors, they simply have their chauffeurs pick them up after the dinner party. Some of them have their bodyguards, too. So you can see those guests of hers waiting outside for cars late at night.
Jin: You have a good point. Now about the maid named Qing, you’ve just mentioned that Qing stayed in the tingzhijian room underneath you.
Bao: That’s true. Qing helped at the shikumen house during the day, and came back to the tingzhijian room for the night. Occasionally, she might have stayed overnight in the shikumen when there were too many things for her to do, but I cannot say for sure.
Jin: Do you think Qing knew about what might have happened after dinner between Min and her guests?
Bao: I don’t think she knew that much about things after dinner in Min’s bedroom.
Jin: A different question. For a young girl like Qing, do you know if she had any secret visitors?
Bao: You mean … Oh, I see what you’re driving at. If she wanted to spend the night with someone, it would probably not be in that tingzhijian room, what with her neighbors constantly moving about, and with little privacy because of the makeshift partition walls being old and thin, and the door incapable of being shut closely. You imagine for yourself. People could easily find out what the other is doing in the next room.
Jin: What do you think of her then?
Bao: Like the master, like the maid. For one thing, she dressed more and more shamelessly. Bare shoulders, bare back and bare thighs. For her men, you bet. I did not see her carrying on with other men in the open, but other neighbors in our building said they had seen a man leaving the tingzhijian early in the morning.
Jin: I see. Just one more question, Old Bao. With the shikumen houses in the lane practically joined with each other, a break-in at night could have been heard or noticed by her neighbors. Have Min’s neighbors mentioned anything unusual about that night.
Bao: No, not that I have heard of.
Jin: Thank you, Old Bao. If you think of anything else, you have my number, and you can contact me any time. Perhaps we can do another lunch talk just like today.
Apparently, that was the end of the conversation between the two. The ex-inspector himself might not have pushed any further either. Those activists could be so energetically suspicious about things in the neighborhood, but they had little or nothing substantial for support.
Bao’s account of Min came from an unmistakably hostile perspective, which had to be taken with a pinch of salt. If anything, the mention of a man seen sneaking out of Qing’s tingzhijian room in the early morning confirmed Feng’s statement regarding a possible relationship between Qing and Rong, but it could have been another man.
All in all, Jin had done an excellent job, doing what was expected of an assistant to a chief inspector, rather than a secretary at the office. And she had done all that, he supposed, because she was aware of the difficulty for him to do so under the circumstances.
There was a tacit understanding between the two. He had not said a single word about his attempting to probe into the Min case, nor given any instruction about what she should do.
And her comment made just before she left the café came like a Parthian shot – a subtle warning that people like Director Ma were anxious to finish him off.
In China, things could be like a scroll of traditional landscape painting, in which the blank space presents more than what is represented.
He decided not to speculate too much. In the worst case scenario, he would declare he had not told her to do anything about the case, and she could claim she had done it merely as research for the office. It would be justifiable for her, a secretary of the Judicial System Reform Office, to be concerned with a case talked about so much online.
Having just put the cell into his pocket, Chen pulled it out again. He took another gulp of the coffee and dialed Kong Jie, the Party secretary and editor-in-chief of the Wenhui Daily.
They had known each other for years, long before Kong became the Party boss of the influential newspaper. Kong had published Chen’s poems in Wenhui Daily. And two or three years earlier, they had been together in a ‘pen meeting’ for a week in the city of Chengdu.
Kong was one of the few who had not tried to avoid the ex-inspector after his being put on convalescent leave.
‘I guessed you would call,’ Kong said, picking up the phone on the first ring, seemingly anticipating the phone call. ‘You must have heard something about me of late.’
‘Well, I’m calling you for a reason you m
ay never have guessed. I was at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences this morning, talking with Professor Zhong about Judge Dee in the Tang dynasty. I’ve been thinking about writing a paper on Judge Dee – partially in preparation for my new office position. The judicial system in ancient China vs the judicial system in the present-day China, so to speak, but he suggested that I write a story about Judge Dee instead. What do you think?’
‘That surprises me, Director Chen. If it’s not a long paper, it can be published in Wenhui. A lot of readers will be interested in it. How a present-day detective approaches a Tang dynasty detective. Dee is popularly rediscovered, you know. But …’
‘But what?’
‘But I, too, would suggest a story – instead of a research paper. For a simple reason, Director Chen. A comparative study of China’s past and present judicial system may be too sensitive a topic at the moment. For such a paper, there are things you may have to touch on. Like the concepts of separation of powers or judicial independence. Now, here’s something between you and me. We’ve just gotten specific instructions from above that articles embracing or even mentioning these concepts cannot get published in Wenhui. The ideological control is getting tighter. Just about a month ago, China’s Chief Justice Qiang declared that the Party government has to “draw out its sword” against the concept of “separation of powers”.’
‘Yes, I’ve read that speech of Qiang’s,’ Chen said after a pause. ‘Don’t get me wrong, Kong. For my new office, I just have to learn a lot of things, but I see your point. Yes, writing the story about Judge Dee may be a more practical alternative.’
‘A short story is a totally different story. It can also be done as a comparative study for your purpose, but you don’t have to bring in any present-day case, or any theoretical discussion. Wenhui can easily publish it. No problem at all. So go ahead and tell me about the story in your mind.’
Chen moved on to tell him briefly about the storyline before adding something at the end of it.
‘I have not done any historical fiction before, but my new office assistant has a history major. She may help with historical accuracies, at least at a level comparable with Gulik’s.’
