The Mao Case (21 page)

Without Chairman Mao, without China
? Chen didn’t ask. It sounded like a much-chanted line from a popular song in the sixties, except that it was a statement then, not a question.

“What a great man!” Bi went on in an emotional voice. “During three years of natural disasters, Mao refused to eat any meat.”

“Yes, millions of people died of starvation under the Three Red Flags those years,” Chen blurted out. The so-called “three years of natural disasters” was but a way to shift the blame for the disaster caused by Mao’s political campaign. In a different version of events, Chen had been told that Mao made a public show of eating no meat while still enjoying fish and wild game, some of them live, directly from the Central South Sea. At least Mao never starved in the Forbidden City.

“No, you can’t talk about history like that, young man. China was surrounded and sabotaged by imperialists and revisionists then. It was Chairman Mao that led us out of the woods.”

That was the official version. Chen knew it would be pointless to argue with Bi, an old man who had spent years by the side of Mao. Chen decided to sing a different tune.

“You’re right, Comrade Bi. I’ve just visited Mao’s bedroom. So simple, not even a soft mattress on the bed. It embodies our Party’s fine tradition of hard work, simple living. Indeed, few had the privilege of working with Mao. You, too, have made a contribution to China.”

“Working under Mao, I should say,” Bi said with a toothless grin. “Now, I’m just curious. In his bedroom, there’s such a large bed, covered with books. But almost nothing else. Did Madam Mao live here?”

“No, she didn’t.”

Chen didn’t push. Instead, he produced a cigarette, lit it respectfully for Bi, and waited.

“Madam Mao’s a curse,” Bi said, exhaling loudly.

Another officially approved statement. In the Party newspapers, the Cultural Revolution had been attributed to the Gang of Four, headed by Madam Mao.

“So Mao lived here all by himself?” Chen probed cautiously. “You know what? Mao had long been estranged from her. If she wanted to see him, she had to make an appointment, speaking to me first.”

“Oh, Mao must have trusted you so much.”

“Yes, we stopped her several times. She tried to break in, but Mao gave us instructions that no one could barge in without reporting to us first.”

That was unusual between a husband and wife. Bi didn’t say why, but it echoed what Chen had just read in the memoir. A guard wouldn’t have had the guts to stop Madam Mao, unless specifically instructed by Mao for a reason.

Instead of moving on to an elaboration of the unspoken reason, Bi leaned down, grinding out the cigarette on a slab of rock and putting the butt into the satchel.

“I have to make my rounds. It’s not easy for you to be let in. Stay here as long as you want. You’ll be able to bathe in the greatness of Chairman Mao.”

Bi shuffled away, humming a song to himself. “Red is the east, and rises the sun. China produces Mao Zedong, a great savior who works for happiness of the people.”

It was a tune that Chinese people would sing every day during the Cultural Revolution. And that the big clock atop the Custom House on the Bund played every hour. Watching Bi’s retreating figure against the deserted garden, Chen thought of a Tang-dynasty poem titled “The Outside Palace.”

In the deserted ancient outside palace,

the flowers bloom

into a blaze

of solitary, scarlet splendor.

Those palace ladies long left behind

there, white-haired,

sit and talk in idleness

about Emperor Xuan.

For a moment, Chen found himself confounded. He was no politician. Nor a historian. Nor a poet any longer, according to Ling, but a cop who did not even know what to do here.

The blue jay flapped by again, its wings still shiny like in a lost dream. The sudden ringing of his cell phone broke into his confusion. It was Detective Yu from Shanghai.

“I had to call you, Chief. Old Hunter gave me your temporary cell number — wherever you are. Song was killed.”

“What?” Chen stood up.

“I don’t know the details of his death except that he was attacked on a side street.”

“Attacked on a side street — by whom?”

“Internal Security will say nothing. But from what I’ve heard, it is possible he was mugged by gangsters. The fatal blow against his skull was made by something like a heavy metal bar.”

“A heavy metal bar —” A tell-tale weapon for Chen. “Now, who’s in charge of the investigation?”

“Another person from Internal Security. They called the bureau, demanding to be told your whereabouts. Party Secretary Li came to me, his face pulled as long as that of a horse.”

“I’m coming back today, Yu,” he said. “Find the name of the Internal Security officer for me. And his phone number too.”

“I’ll do that. What else, Chief?”

“You have done some asking around about Qian’s lovers, both the first and the second, haven’t you?”

“Yes, Old Hunter must have told you about Peng, the second one.”

“Now about Tan, the first one. A group of people from Beijing conducted a special investigation into him before his death.”

“Do you have anything about the investigation?”

“No, I don’t. Contact his neighborhood committee again. The neighborhood cop, I mean, since you know him well. At the time, the neighborhood committee provided something like an interview list for the Beijing group. A list of the people close to Tan and Qian.”

“I’ll go there,” Yu said, “and get the list. Anything else?”

“Call me immediately if there’s anything new.”

Closing the phone, Chen knew he had to leave the Central South Sea.

He was in no mood to go back into Mao’s rooms, though he had conveniently called this the Mao Case.

TWENTY-THREE

THE TRAIN WAS RUMBLING
along in the dusk.

Chen had obtained the train ticket through a scalper, paying a much higher price for it. He didn’t try to bargain. There was no possibility of purchasing an airline ticket without showing official documents, which he didn’t have. It was a hard seat in a third-class car, but he considered himself lucky to have gotten on the train at the last minute.

During his college years, he had frequently traveled between Beijing and Shanghai, sitting on the hard seats, reading, dozing through the night. Now he was finding it very uncomfortable — his legs were stiff, and his back strained. He was unable to doze, let alone sleep. He didn’t have a book with him except for
Cloud and Rain in Shanghai
, which he was in no mood to take out, and the memoir by Mao’s doctor, which he couldn’t read openly.

He must have been spoiled by his chief inspector-ship, he mused with a touch of self-irony. In the last several years, his trips had been by airplane or in the soft sleeping cars, and he had forgotten about the discomfort of traveling on the hard seat.

Sitting opposite him, across a small table, was a young couple, possibly on their honeymoon trip. Both were dressed too formally for the overpacked train: the man was wearing a new shirt and well-ironed dress pants, the woman, a pink dress with thin straps. Initially, she sat leaning against the window, but soon she shifted in her seat and was nestled against him. For them, the discomfort was nothing, as long as they had the world in each others’ eyes.

Beside Chen was a young girl, apparently a college student, who wore a white blouse, a grass-green skirt imprinted with vines and trails, and light-green plastic slippers. There was a book on her lap — a Chinese translation of
The Lover
by Marguerite Duras. He had read the book, still remembering that the beginning of the novel echoed the lines by W. B. Yeats, “
When you are old and gray and full of sleep
… ”

He wondered whether he was able to write — or even to say anything like that.

“The train is reaching Tianjin in a couple of minutes. Passengers for the city of Tianjin should get prepared.” The train announcer spoke melodiously in the typical Beijing dialect, with the “er” sound more pronounced than in standard Mandarin.

The train was already slowing down. Looking out, he saw on the gray platform several peddlers walking and hawking Dogs Won’t Leave. An unbelievable brand name for the steamed pork-stuffed buns, a special snack of Tianjin. Perhaps originally from a compliment: “The buns taste so good that the dogs won’t leave.” One of the peddlers moving up to the train looked like a thug, pushing a basket of buns up to the windows with an almost fierce expression.

More people came crowding in at Tianjin, rushing and squeezing with luggage on their shoulders and in their hands, jumping at any vacant seat they could find. According to railway regulations, only passengers boarding at the first stop could be guaranteed a seat.

The train started moving again, the green banner waving on the platform in the growing dark.

He leaned against the window, trying to focus on the new development in Shanghai, the wind ruffling his hair as the train gained speed. Looking over the scant information available so far, Chen soon concluded it was pointless to speculate. But Song’s death was not from a random mugging on the street, of that much he was sure.

A train conductor began pushing a dining cart through the aisle, selling snacks, instant noodles, teas, and beer. Squatting at the bottom rack of the cart were long-billed brass kettles. Chen chose fried beef and scallion instant noodles in a plastic bowl, into which the conductor adroitly poured out an arch of hot water. In addition, Chen had a tea-leaf egg soaked in it. It wouldn’t be pleasant to squeeze all the way through the train to the dining car and then back.

He waited two or three minutes before taking out the egg, and he put a package of seasoning into the soup. The instant noodles tasted palpable, with the green specks afloat on the soup remotely redolent of chopped scallion. Just like in his college years, except that instant noodles then didn’t come in plastic containers.

The couple opposite produced a stainless-steel container of fried steak and smoked fish, along with paper-wrapped chopsticks and spoons. They must have prepared well for the trip. The woman started peeling an orange and feeding her partner, segment by segment.

Chen finished his egg, thinking he might as well have bought a couple of Dogs Won’t Leave buns. And he was surprised by the thought. He hadn’t lost his appetite even during such a trip. He fished for a cigarette in his pocket but did not take it out. The air was bad enough in the train.

Beside him, the girl started reading her book without eating anything. She must have felt uncomfortable, sitting so long in the one position, so she kicked off her slippers and put a bare foot on the edge of the seat opposite. She highlighted paragraphs with a pen, her fingers tapping on the seat. Young, yet serious, her way with the book might just be like her way with the world. He tried to stretch his legs without disturbing his neighbors, but it was difficult. He nearly tipped over the noodle bowl onto the table. The woman opposite glared at him.

What he had read about Mao’s special train came back to mind. The sleeping car was equipped with all the modern conveniences, the special bed with the wooden-board mattress, and those pretty conductors and nurses who waited on Mao hand and foot …

Chen was massaging his brows, half closing his eyes, in an effort to ward off an onslaught of headache, when his cell phone rang. It was Detective Yu again.

“Hold on,” Chen said into the phone.

He excused himself and squeezed out into the aisle, heading to the door. To his surprise, several people stood leaning against the door. Apparently, they were the seatless passengers. Behind them, he saw a toilet marked “unoccupied.” So he hurried in and locked the door behind him.

“Now, tell me what you’ve found,” he said, opening the small window. It was stuffy and smelly in the toilet.

“I went to the neighborhood committee. Hong wasn’t a neighborhood cop at the time, but he talked to Huang Dexing, the one before him. There was a group of people who came in from Beijing. The local government called Huang, telling him to cooperate in whatever way requested. It sounded like a highly confidential assignment. The team searched through both Tan’s and Qian’s places. And they wanted to talk to the people close to them.”

“Did they find anything?”

“No. Huang helped make up an interview list, but it wasn’t used. Tan died, and Qian almost died, lying delirious in a hospital bed for days. So the group gave up and went back to Beijing.”

It was now like an oven in the train toilet, though the sun had long gone down.

“Huang tried to remember the interview list, but with no success,” Yu went on. “It happened so many years ago, and there is no record of it anywhere. As far as he could remember, the list included some people from the circle Qian moved in, before the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, and from the middle school Tan graduated from. One of them seen with him shortly before his attempt to flee to Hong Kong, and another one was also from a black family background. I went one step further and checked into the Great Leap Forward Middle School. I talked to a retired teacher who had taught Tan. According to him, one of Tan’s close friends was Xie —”

“What do you know about Xie, Detective Yu?”

“Well, Old Hunter followed Jiao to Xie Mansion. So he must be connected to the case, I guess.”

In spite of his warning, Detective Yu had moved ahead on his own, which Chen should have anticipated. But the information just obtained by his capable partner could prove to be crucial. It put Xie into the perspective, as someone who, to say the least, had been withholding information.

“The information about Xie is important. But remember, you and Old Hunter keep your hands off him. I’m on my way back to Shanghai. We have to discuss Xie before anyone makes a move. Now, have you found anything else out about Song’s death?”

The door handle started rattling. Someone waiting outside was impatient.

“Nothing. But I got the name of his replacement, Liu, and Liu’s cell number, Chief.”

“That’s great.” Chen put the number into his phone. “I’ll call you when I’m back in Shanghai.”

Chen decided to make a phone call to Liu, in spite of the raging door handle. A short call.

“Liu, I’m Chen Cao.”

“Oh, Chief Inspector Chen! Where have you been?”

“I’m on the train back to Shanghai. Meet me in the train station around eight in the morning,” he said without answering Liu’s question, and then added, “I was sick.”

Hanging up, he finally walked out of the toilet. A giant of a man with a large beard glared at him, hurried in, and slammed the door behind him.

There was a pleasant breath of wind streaming in from the crevice of the door. But he had to squeeze back to his seat. A middle-aged, stout woman was sitting on the floor with her legs stretched out in front, and her small daughter, behind her in a similar position, their backs supporting each other. Chen had to step carefully, high lifting his feet.

Edging near to his seat, he was surprised to see an elderly woman seated there, with her face resting flat on the small table. She had to be in her seventies or eighties, dressed in black homespun, her silver hair shining. Possibly one of the passengers from Tianjin, who had taken the seat during his phone call.

“She didn’t understand my words,” the young girl murmured apologetically, who might have tried to speak up for Chen, but to no avail.

“Call the conductor over,” the man sitting opposite said. “That’s against the rules.”

The conductor was supposed to drag the black-attired woman away, who mumbled something indistinct in response to him, sitting there without budging, like a rock.

“It would be hard for her to stand throughout the night,” a passenger across the aisle said.

“That can’t be helped,” the conductor said, beginning to push at the old woman. “Rules are rules. There’s a sleeping berth available. An upper berth. One can go there by paying the extra.”

“A sleeping berth,” Chen said. It could have become available when someone got off in Tianjin. “I’ll take it.”

“Two hundred yuan extra,” the conductor said. “Far more comfortable. That will solve the problem for a Big Buck like you. You don’t have too much luggage, do you?”

“No, I don’t have much luggage, but you may take the old woman there. I’ll pay for it. I like the seat here.”

The couple opposite eyed him in surprise. Chen took out two one-hundred-yuan bills. The old woman turned out not to be that hard of hearing. She rose without further invitation. The conductor, relieved to get the matter over with, led her away without further ado.

“Not too many people want to learn from Comrade Lei Feng anymore,” the man across the aisle commented. “It’s not Mao’s time.”

Chen took his seat against the window without response. With an upper berth in a sleeping car, it would be more difficult for him to climb up and down in case of another phone call. His decision had nothing to do with a model of selflessness like Lei Feng during Mao’s time. Even though he was burdened with a Mao case.

“You must be somebody,” the girl said, sitting close, “but you ate instant noodles instead of going to the dining car.”

“Oh, I like the instant noodles.” He smiled a self-deprecating smile. In today’s society, an instant-noodles-eater on a hard seat was nobody, incapable of paying an extra two hundred yuan for himself, let alone for someone else. The gap between the rich and the poor was an appalling given, but even more appalling was people’s reaction. In Mao’s time, it was supposed to be an egalitarian society, at least in theory. Chen was disturbed. “It’s nothing but a business expense — I mean, the ticket.”

It wasn’t exactly true. He might not have the train ticket reimbursed. Still, two hundred yuan wouldn’t worry him.

The night lights went on in the train. The couple opposite closed their eyes, leaning against each other. The car gradually became quiet. Chen gazed at his reflection in the window, reflecting on the countryside in darkness.

Beijing was left far, far behind.

Drunk, I whipped an invaluable horse; / I’m worried about burdening a beauty with too much passion
. The two lines by Daifu came unexpectedly back to his mind. Years earlier, a friend of his had once copied the couplet for him in a paper fan, which he had lost. And he hadn’t even given Ling a call before leaving Beijing, he realized, with a wave of guilt.

But then his thoughts wandered off to another poem Mao had written for Yang in their youth:

Waving my hand, I am leaving. / Unbearable for us to stand / looking at each other, inconsolably. / Our sufferings told over and again, / your eyes brimming with sorrow, / holding back tears with difficulty. / You still misunderstand my letter, / but it will pass / like cloud and mist. / You alone understand me in this world./ Oh my heart aches, / does the heaven know?

Chen didn’t like that poem, which was full of clichés. And it was still hard for him to understand how Mao could have been so callous to Yang, and to his other women.

The ringing of his phone broke into his musing. It was Old Hunter. Chen glanced at the girl beside him, who, too, was dozing, with her mouth slightly open.

Chen decided not to get up this time. A couple of fragmented sentences out of context might not be comprehensible to one who overheard them.

“Oh, I’m on the train coming back to Shanghai. A crowded train, a lot of people sitting and standing around,” he said, making sure the retired cop would get the hint.

“I went to see her maid.” Old Hunter went straight to the point, in sharp contrast to his characteristic Suzhou opera way. “Her name is Zhong.”

“Her maid?” It must have been Shang’s maid, Chen realized. “Oh I see. That’s great. Did you learn anything from her?”

“Xie visited Jiao at her orphanage. According to Zhong, he helped a lot financially.”