Enigma of China Read online

  He then took another sip in silence.

  “But it’s strange,” she said. “Usually, cars drive slowly around here. What day was this?”

  “Monday.”

  “So that’s—” She didn’t finish the sentence. “Yes, I remember hearing something about it.”

  “Detective Wei was killed—right there and then.”

  “Killed. That’s impossible.” Shocked, she stood up and pointed out the window. “Look at the snaillike traffic.”

  Chen followed her gesture and waited for her to go on.

  “This is a busy street. It’s not like the highway, but it has its own terrible traffic. Sometimes the traffic is in a total snarl. On the fifteenth floor, you might not hear that much noise, but one definitely can in my office.”

  “Because it’s a busy intersection with many people coming and going?”

  “Do you know how many people come to Wenhui every day? A large number of the journalists have their own cars. Then there are the taxis for the visitors. Sometimes there are so many that the taxis form a long, curving line in front of the building. There is also the kindergarten across the street.”

  “The kindergarten? Yes, I remember seeing one across the street. But what about it?”

  “You should see it around three thirty. There are even more cars lined up and waiting then. It’s a private kindergarten. One of the best in the city—the best location, the best reputation, and the best history. The enrollment cost alone is thirty thousand yuan per year. The annual donation parents have to make on top of that comes to around another ten thousand.”

  “Wow, that’s more than an ordinary worker’s annual salary.”

  “But those aren’t ordinary parents. That’s why, starting around three in the afternoon, you’ll always see a long line of cars there—chauffeurs and nannies, waiting in private luxury cars.”

  “But what about the other times of the day?”

  “There are still quite a lot of people. The kids might not arrive on time, or their parents may have them picked up earlier for one reason or another. The kindergarten aside, there are many people coming to Wenhui at any time of the day,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “Some of the visitors here are government Big Bugs. That driver must have totally lost his mind to drive so recklessly along Weihai Road.”

  “You mean that a driver along here should know better,” he said, taking out a notebook.

  “I can’t say for sure. Anything could have happened. Is this the case you’re working on?”

  “No, I’m only a consultant on that case, but Detective Wei was a colleague of mine.”

  “Is foul play suspected?”

  “I just heard about it, but I can’t help wondering how it could have happened right in front of Wenhui Office Building.”

  “I’ll ask around and let you know. Some of my colleagues may have seen or heard more about it.”

  “You’re really helpful.”

  “I’ve also had the pictures from the meeting at the Writers’ Association developed.” She pulled out an envelope containing photos. They started looking through them together.

  “That’s a good portrait,” he said, picking out a shot of himself. “Someday I may use it on a book cover.”

  “That would be fantastic.”

  “I’ll see to it that you get credit.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I take a lot of photos, especially for the finance section. Credit or no, it’s just a routine part of the work. I’ll e-mail you the file too.”

  “Thanks. By the way, you asked me about the Zhou case the other day. Have you heard or read anything about the photo of the pack of 95 Supreme Majesty? A Wenhui journalist is sometimes better informed than a cop.”

  The question didn’t come as a surprise to her. In fact, it would have been a surprise if the chief inspector hadn’t asked the question.

  “First, let me tell you something, Chief Inspector Chen, something that happened to a journalist friend of mine in Anhui. He wrote an article exposing a major state company’s falsified sales figures right before it applied to go public. Do you know what happened? He was listed by local police as one of the ‘most wanted’ for slander, despite the fact that the article was well researched and documented. The head of the company turned out to be the nephew of the public security minister in Beijing. Even today the journalist has to hide in another province because of his ‘crime.’

  “Now, a job at a Party-run newspaper is generally considered a good one. It’s secure and decently paid, as long as you know when to shut your mouth and to close your ears. So in terms of the picture in question, what can a journalist say except what can be read in an official newspaper?”

  “That’s what disturbs me,” he said.

  “I’m responsible for finance and new business news. So I’m supposed to attend meetings like the one in which Zhou made his speech, and then write a story about it, whether I agree with what’s said or not. However, I didn’t go to the meeting that day. Why? I was told that the Housing Development Committee would send preapproved text along with pictures, which I could publish by simply adding some adjectives and adverbs. Which was what I did.

  “People active on the Internet, and not working for Wenhui or other Party newspapers, might be able to tell you more about it,” she said cautiously. “I’ve heard that the human-flesh search was started on a Web forum run by somebody named Melong, but that’s about all I know.”

  “Melong?” An inscrutable expression flashed across his face, as if he was hearing the name for the first time. It was probably a deliberate response. To a high-ranking cop in charge of the investigation, that couldn’t have been news, she thought.

  “For Melong, the search that started with Zhou’s picture might have been intended as a smart protest, but what it then led to went way beyond his expectations or imagination,” she said. Then she added, “Perhaps I could make some inquiries for you in financial circles.”

  “That would be a great help, Lianping. I’d really appreciate it. I’m still a layman, standing outside the door of the Web world.”

  “Oh, I also keep a blog. Nothing official, you know,” she said, writing down the blog address on a Post-it. “It’s called Lili’s Blog.”

  “Why Lili?”

  “That’s my real name, the one my parents gave me. But for a journalist, it sounds too much like a pet name. So I changed it to Lianping.”

  “I’m going to read it,” he said. He drained the coffee, which was already getting cold, and stood up. “And I’ll send you my poems as soon as possible. Thanks for everything, Lianping.”

  TWELVE

  CHIEF INSPECTOR CHEN WENT to the bureau the next morning as usual.

  Being a special consultant to the Zhou case didn’t absolve him of his responsibility for the Special Case Squad. He was still the head of the squad, though Detective Yu was, effectively, in charge.

  After taking a quick look at an internal report, Chen put it down with a lingering bitter taste in his mouth. It was about a dissident artist named Ai, who was said to be stirring up trouble with some of his postmodern exhibitions, which consisted of distorted nude figures done in an absurdist fashion. Chen decided not to take it on as a potential case for the squad. Not because he knew anything about Ai’s work but because he didn’t think it was justifiable to open an investigation of an artist like Ai simply for the sake of “a harmonious society.”

  There was a message from Party Secretary Li about a routine meeting around noon, but Chen chose not to return the call.

  Instead, he kept brooding over the suspicious circumstances of Wei’s death. An abandoned brown SUV had been found in Nanhui. It had been stolen from a paper company several days ago. The abandoned SUV added to the possibility of its having been a premeditated assault, but at the same time, it was also a dead end. Despite his hunch that Wei’s death was connected to his investigation into Zhou’s death, Chen knew better than to discuss it around the bureau, not even with Detective Y
u. The chief inspector felt utterly abysmal about not helping more with Wei’s work. He had a splitting headache coming on.

  Then he remembered that Lianping had given him the address of her blog. Taking a break from thinking about Wei, he turned to his computer and typed in the address.

  What she had posted there seemed to be quite different from her articles in the newspaper. The title of a recent piece immediately grabbed his attention: “The Death of Xinghua.”

  Xinghua was a poet and translator of Shakespeare who died during the Cultural Revolution. He was little known among the younger generation, so Chen wondered why she chose to write about him.

  A first-class poet and scholar, Xinghua translated Shakespeare’s Henry IV, edited and annotated the complete translation. That’s about all that people would learn about him if they happened to turn one or two pages in the Complete Works of Shakespeare. What could be more tragic than a forgotten tragedy!

  As early as the Anti-Japanese War in the forties, Professor Shediek at Southwest United University considered Xinghua one of his most promising students, as gifted as Harold Bloom. Xinghua soon made a name for himself with his poems and translations, but his career was abruptly cut short. In 1957, he was labeled a rightist during the nationwide antirightist movement. He was condemned and persecuted in the subsequent political movements, and he died in his midforties at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. When an article about him appeared in the official newspaper in the late seventies, the circumstances of his final days were not mentioned at all, as if he had simply died a natural death.

  I happened to get in touch with his widow, who told me about all that he had suffered toward the end of his life. At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, he was subjected to the most humiliating mass criticism and punishment. His home was ransacked by Red Guards, and his almost completed translation of The Divine Comedy was burned on the street. That summer, he was forced to work in the rice paddy field from six in the morning to eight in the evening for “ideological transformation through hard labor.” Xinghua was sweating all over, thirsty, and hungry, but he wasn’t allowed any water or food; toward the end of the day, he had no choice but to wet his lips with a handful of water scooped up from a dirty creek. At the sight of that, a Red Guard rushed over and fiercely pushed his head into the contaminated water, holding it under for several minutes, while another Red Guard kicked him violently in the side. Soon Xinghua fell sick with a swollen belly and fainted in the field. Less than two hours later, he died there of acute diarrhea. The Red Guards insisted, however, that he had committed suicide, and required that an autopsy be performed. Why? Because suicide was said to be another crime—a deliberate act against the efforts of the Party and people to save him. Xinghua’s family begged, but to no avail. His body was cut open; fortunately, the autopsy report proved that he had died of having swallowed contaminated water, and his family was spared the posthumous label of counterrevolutionary.

  But why did the details of his tragic death never come out in the official media? Why were the Red Guards never punished? It is said that the Red Guard who pushed Xinghua’s head into the creek was from the family of a high-ranking cadre, and the one who kicked Xinghua became a high-ranking Party cadre himself. It was said that they simply, passionately believed in Mao, and with Mao’s portrait still hung high on the gate of Tiananmen Square, what really could be done? Although the Cultural Revolution was officially declared a well-meant mistake by Mao, there is still an unofficial rule that all writing about the Cultural Revolution should be “contained.” In other words, vague, short, euphemistic, and as little as possible.

  After all, who remembers Xinghua?

  It’s by chance that I came across a poem by Xinghua. A stanza of it reads:

  Trying to grasp a blade of grass, a piece of wood, to secure / the present moment, to avoid the flight of time, / to hold on, to fix oneself, / but in the distant mountains, autumn spreads out at the peaks, / storing infinite joy and sorrow. / After failure comes a stroke of luck.

  It is a sad poem. Not only because one’s self has to be maintained by grasping a blade of grass or a piece of wood, but contrary to the heartrending wish in the last line, no stroke of luck came to the poet in the end.

  Chen lit a cigarette, waving out the match forcefully. It wasn’t perhaps one of the blogs that would appeal to a large number of people. Most of them had probably never heard of Xinghua. The number of hits on the page spoke to that. But Lianping nonetheless did her research and wrote emotionally. It wasn’t just about one man’s suffering during the Cultural Revolution, it was also about today’s society.

  Chen liked the poem quoted at the end of the article.

  Now, what about his own luck as a policeman? Chen picked up the phone and called Jiang at the hotel.

  At his insistence, Jiang confirmed one thing. The original post that landed Zhou in trouble appeared in a Web forum managed by a man named Melong, though Jiang appeared to be surprised that Chen had learned this through his own channels.

  Chen then called Lianping.

  “I want to thank you for your blog post on Xinghua. It’s a good piece. It’s a pity few remember him today.”

  “I majored in English too. Don’t forget that.”

  “So you must know a lot about blogs and blogging.”

  “They aren’t difficult, but blogs aren’t uncensored. Web sites have to take a piece down the moment they get a notice from the netcops. Fortunately or unfortunately, Xinghua isn’t a name on their radar.”

  “By the way, you mentioned someone named Melong yesterday. Do you post on his forum?”

  “He runs a popular forum, and he’s asked me to write for him, but I choose not to. His forum is a bit too controversial, if you know what I mean.”

  “So you know him well?”

  “No, not well. I’ve only met him three or four times. But he’s clever and resourceful, a real computer wizard. That’s how he was able to start his Web forum single-handedly.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell me about him?”

  “Not offhand, but let me make some phone calls.”

  “That would be great. Thank you in advance, Lianping.” Chen then said his good-byes.

  Afterward, Chen tried to talk to Detective Yu, but Yu was out of the bureau with some other officers. Chen left a note for his longtime partner, saying that their squad shouldn’t take on any new cases during his absence. It was a rather unusual request. Yu was more than competent, but what could the squad possibly do with a case like the one on the artist Ai?

  The time for the department meeting drew near, but Chen wasn’t in any mood for it. He decided instead to skip it and sneak out of the bureau. Being a special consultant at least gave him an excuse.

  He didn’t request the services of a bureau car. On the corner of Yan’an and Sichuan Roads, he boarded bus 71, which was crowded, as always. The bus crawled along patiently in heavy traffic. Chen paid little attention to the changing scene outside, lost in a tangle of thoughts. Instead of getting off at the stop on Shanxi Road, he remained on the bus, standing, holding on to a strap overhead. The bus was heading toward East China Hospital, where his mother was.

  She’d been there for weeks, recuperating from a minor stroke. His failure to take proper care of her was unforgivable, he couldn’t help telling himself again. He was sweating profusely, bumping up against an ovenlike, overweight woman as the bus lurched down the street.

  He hadn’t visited his mother in several days, though on the phone she’d repeatedly assured him that everything was all right.

  East China Hospital was located on West Yan’an Road, in a large compound enclosed by high red walls. It was a hospital for high-ranking Party cadres, with the most advanced equipment, utmost security, and privacy. It was accessible only to those of a certain rank—a rank higher than that of chief inspector.

  His mother’s private ward was on the second floor of the European-style building. At the carpeted landing of the sta
ircase, an elderly man in a white shirt and green army pants nodded to Chen formally. It was a gesture out of an old movie. Chen didn’t recognize him, but he nodded back.

  Chen’s mother wasn’t in this hospital because of his position, which by itself was far from enough, he reflected as he knocked gently on the door. It stood ajar, with the afternoon sunlight peeping in through the windowpanes across the corridor. There was no response. He waited a moment or two before he pushed open the door. She was alone in the room, taking an early nap.

  Quietly, he drew a chair to the bedside, gazed at her sleeping face, and touched her hand.

  Who says that the splendor / of a grass blade can ever prove / to be enough to return / the generous, radiant warmth / of the ever-returning spring sunlight?

  These were the celebrated lines by Men Jiao, an eighth-century Tang dynasty poet, comparing his mother’s love for him to the warmth of the ever-returning spring sunlight. Chen was lost in memories …

  A young nurse walked down the corridor, stopped, and poked her head in without entering or saying anything. She smiled and left, moving out of sight like a pleasant breeze in the early summer.

  The room appeared bright and clean, with a window overlooking the well-kept garden in the back. It was much nicer than the old, overcrowded neighborhood in which she still lived. She might as well stay here a little longer.

  His glance then fell on the presents heaped on the nightstand. Most of them were expensive. Swallow nests, ginseng, organic tree ears, royal jelly … To his astonishment, he also saw a bottle of hajie lizard essence, supposedly bu or nutritious to the yang, according to traditional Chinese medical theory. But he wondered if it could be beneficial to an old woman in her present condition. These gifts were probably from Overseas Chinese Lu or Mr. Gu, both of whom were prosperous entrepreneurs and were making a point of showering her with expensive presents. They hadn’t even bothered to tell him that they had visited.

  In the amazing drama of China’s economic reform, it had been only a matter of years before the two had become billionaires. Had Chen listened to Lu’s advice back when Lu was just starting his restaurant chain business, Chen could have become one as well.