Enigma of China (15 page)

He rose and took his leave without waiting to hear anything else she might want to say.

But he’d barely made it to the end of the lane when he heard footsteps rushing up behind him. It was Guizhen, still clutching the envelope.

“It’s way too much.”

“Let’s not talk about it anymore. As I have said, you’re actually helping me out. The Big Buck friend gave it to me because of my position. I wouldn’t be able to live up to Wei’s trust if I took it for myself.”

“I shouldn’t-” Once again, she didn’t finish the sentence. “Oh, you asked me if there was anything unusual about Wei that morning.”

“Yes?”

“Before he left home, he examined and reexamined the picture in
Wenhui Daily
. The picture of Zhou and the pack of 95 Supreme Majesty, you know. He went so far as to look at it through a magnifying glass. At home, he seldom talked about his work, but that morning he showed the picture to me, asking whether I could make out the words on the cigarette pack.”

“Could you?”

“No, I couldn’t. They were too small and blurred.”

FOURTEEN

Chen’s Saturday started with something that had little to do with his responsibilities as a chief inspector.

Detective Yu had called the previous evening.

“It would be a great favor if you could come to Longhua Temple on Saturday-just for ten or fifteen minutes, no more than that. It’s the Buddhist service for Peiqin’s late parents-her father was born a hundred years ago. Peiqin says that I shouldn’t tell you about it. We know it’s not something appropriate for a Party cadre like you to attend. But one of her cousins recently held a similar service, spending money like water, and inviting as many big shots as possible. So I think-”

According to a popular Buddhist belief, the deceased, once they reached the age of one hundred, went on to another life. So on the hundredth anniversary of their birth, their children generally arranged a religious service, preferably in a temple. It was extremely important in the tradition of Buddhist reincarnation, since afterward, there were no further obligations to the dead on the part of those still living in the world of red dust.

Chen wondered whether Peiqin really held such beliefs, but that didn’t matter as long as her relatives did. Since Detective Yu never asked him for any favors, the chief inspector wasn’t in a position to say no.

Besides, it might be a nice change from the latest round of ever-depressing routine meetings. He’d had to spend most of Friday at a meeting of the Shanghai Party Committee. As a new member, he wasn’t required to say much, but all the political speeches by the leading members of the committee were not only boring but also inexplicably exhausting.

Qiangyu, First Secretary of the Committee, had made a long speech, emphasizing the great achievements in the city under the correct leadership of the Shanghai Party Committee. There might be something significant in the speech, Chen had vaguely sensed, so he had tried to read between the lines, but he soon gave up, surrendering instead to a dull yet dogged headache.

By Friday evening, Chen was glad of the chance to do something different, and something for Peiqin’s sake.

“Of course I’ll be there. I’ll stay for as long as the ceremony takes; you can count on me, Yu.”

* * *

Saturday morning, Chen was sitting in the back of a Mercedes driven by the bureau chauffeur, Skinny Wang.

“The Yus will have a lot of face at the temple today,” Skinny Wang said, “in front of their relatives.”

In the final analysis, Chen reflected, people had to believe in something-anything-in this age of spiritual vacuum. With no concepts such as the heaven or hell of Western religions, Chinese people took vague comfort in doing something like the temple service to help the dead in the next life.

The newly materialistic society was shaping many aspects of life according to its own terms-even things like this temple service.
The more expense, the more face.
That was a type of competition the Yus couldn’t afford, which was why Yu, a non-Buddhist, had to bring Chief Inspector Chen-supposedly a high-ranking Party official-into the scene. It was all for the sake of face. Face was an important issue to the Shanghainese.

“Here we are, Longhua Temple,” Skinny Wang declared.

Because of the ever-expanding boundaries of the city, the temple, originally located near the outskirts, was no longer considered too far away. And because of that location, it was larger than other temples nearer to the city center.

The driver parked and followed Chen as he stepped into an enormous courtyard leading to an impressive front hall lined with the gilded Buddhist statues, all of which were wreathed in spiraling incense. The wings on both sides of the main hall were rented out as service rooms and fetched large fees for the temple.

“Chen Cao, Party Secretary of the Shanghai Police Bureau, and member of Shanghai Communist Party Committee,” said Peiqin. Not exactly surprised, she introduced him loudly to people as soon as he entered. “The legendary Chief Inspector Chen, head of the Special Case Squad, you must have heard or read about him-he is Yu’s boss.”

Peiqin’s introduction included all the new official titles Chen had acquired. Chen understood.

“It’s from our Party Secretary,” Skinny Wang chimed in, putting down in front of the service table a large flower wreath with a white silk banner bearing Chen’s name and official positions.

On the table were black-framed pictures flanked by burning candles, surrounded by a variety of Shanghai snacks and fruit.

“Both Yu and Peiqin are my friends,” Chen said to the others in the room, after bowing to the photos.

Yu and Peiqin bowed back to him as a token of their gratitude.

Chen then held a bunch of tall incense in his hand, bowing respectfully three more times.

As Chen did so, all the others in the room seemed to be staring, holding their breath.

There were several chestlike cardboard boxes stacked up against the table, Chen observed as he put the incense into a container. The boxes probably contained netherworld money for the dead. Years ago, money for the dead was simply placed in large red bags. The imitation boxes with padlocks vividly painted on them represented an “improvement with time,” showing sophisticated consideration for the convenience of the dead in the other world. Chen couldn’t help wondering whether his gift of the wreath, standing alone, was out of place. Then he noticed that the wreath bore several ribbons and bows folded to look just like silk ingots.

“I don’t know how to thank you, Party Secretary Chen,” Yu said.

“There’s no need for that, Yu. It’s an opportunity for me to pay tribute to my uncle and auntie.”

Like the use of “Party Secretary Chen” by Yu, “uncle and auntie” by Chen was for the benefit of others. Chen was becoming increasingly self-conscious, so he walked over to a monk arranging large envelopes on a side table. He tried to engage the monk in a conversation about Buddhism, but the latter simply stared at him blankly, without responding, as if Chen was an alien.

Peiqin moved over and whispered, “The service might lessen my guilt a little.”

So that was one of the reasons she wanted to have the service. Her father had gotten into political trouble in her elementary school years and had died in a far-away labor camp. During the Cultural Revolution, her mother also passed away. Peiqin hardly ever talked to others about her parents. Only once did she tell Chen that as a little kid, she had been secretly resentful of her parents because her family background had shaped and determined her life in those years.

A line of monks started to file into the room. Like the others, Chen began kowtowing again. To his surprise, the head monk pronounced his name and position solemnly at the head of the list of the service participants, as if it would mean a great deal to the dead.

It caused another whispered stir in the room. Some of Peiqin’s relatives began talking to one another, and her second aunt, a fashionable old lady with silver hair and gold-rimmed glasses, wobbled over using a bamboo stick.

She said to Chen, in earnest, “Thank you so much, Chief Inspector Chen. You have made the day for Peiqin, and for all of us as well. I’ve seen your picture in the newspapers. Perhaps we’ll also see a picture of you in the newspapers here at the temple…”

She didn’t have to finish the sentence: she knew the request was preposterous. Any pictures of him in the newspapers were in conjunction with articles about his work. They were never about him, a Party member police officer, being at a Buddhist service in a temple.

But Chen simply nodded, pulled out his cell phone, and punched in a number.

“Are you free this afternoon, Lianping?”

“Yes. Why, Chief Inspector Chen?”

“I’m at Longhua Temple. My partner, Detective Yu, and his wife, Peiqin, are going to have a meal as part of a service here. Some of their relatives were talking about the possibility of there being some pictures of the event in the newspaper…”

“All for the sake of face-in this world or the other. I understand,” she said, but then added in a louder voice, “It’s a free lunch, right? Actually, I want to thank you for thinking of me. I’ll be there in twenty minutes, Party Secretary Chen.”

Both Yu and Peiqin appeared flabbergasted, catching only fragments of the phone conversation during the monks’ chanting.

In less than twenty minutes, Lianping walked in, her arrival heralded by a quick succession of flashes from the camera in her hands.

She came over to give Chen a hug, her cheek touching his. She was wearing a low-cut black dress, black heels, and a white silk scarf around her neck-along with a red-stringed
Wenhui
name tag.

“If Chief Inspector Chen wants me to come, how could I not?” she said with a sweet smile, shaking hands with Peiqin and Yu before she turned to the others. “I’ve been working on a profile of Chief Inspector Chen for
Wenhui Daily
, and these pictures will appear with the article. Chen is not just a hard-working policeman but a multifaceted person. The picture might well be captioned, ‘Chen kowtows with his partner at the temple-the genuine human side of a Party official.’”

It sounded almost plausible, but he doubted that she would really run such a picture in the Party newspaper.

With the service gradually reaching the climax, he managed to withdraw into a corner, where Lianping soon joined him. They were left alone for the moment. Others knew better than to bother them, except when some latecomers had to be introduced to the distinguished guest, Chief Inspector Chen.

“Guess how much the service costs?” she whispered.

“A thousand yuan?”

“No. Far more than that. I’ve checked out a brochure at the entrance. The hall rental alone costs more than two thousand-and that doesn’t include the fee for the service or the red envelopes for the monks.”

“Red envelopes for the monks?”

“Have you heard the proverb,
An old monk chants the scripture without putting his heart into it
? That’s easy for a monk to do, chanting, as they do, 365 days a year. According to folk wisdom, that would make the Buddhist service less effective. To make sure that the monks perform the service wholeheartedly, red envelopes are absolutely necessary.”

In spite of her youth, she was perceptive, as well as cynical and opinionated, about the absurdities of contemporary social reality.

“Because of your high official position, your presence adds to their collective face,” she went on, with a teasing smile. “So you are doing them a great favor. For that matter, Zhou would have been as passionately welcomed here, before his fall, of course. Ours is a society of connections-connections that are established through the exchange of favors.”

He was taken aback.

“Detective Yu is my partner, and a good friend too,” he said. “Don’t read too much into it. We’re not ‘exchanging favors.’”

“I know things are different between you two. You’re his boss, and you don’t have to come. That’s why I’m here taking pictures. But the service is beyond me. Philosophically, Buddhism is about the vanity of human passions, but this service is the very embodiment of vanity in the world of red dust, more relevant to the living than to the dead.”

“That’s true. I tried to talk to a monk about the difference between Mahayana and Hinayana. He simply stared at me as if I were an alien from another planet, gibbering in an indecipherable language.”

Their conversation was interrupted by Peiqin’s summoning all of them to a lunch at a restaurant across the street. According to a red notice on the gate of the restaurant, the meal was being held in a large room with three round tables. Yu and Peiqin were there, busily leading people to their respective tables.

Lianping was seated next to Chen at the main table. It was possibly a well-meant trick arranged by Peiqin, who was as eager for Chen to “settle down” as his own mother was. He had no objection to the seating arrangement, and Lianping smiled, playing along with whatever interpretation the host might have of her.

“The shrimp is fresh,” Lianping said, peeling a large one with her slender fingers and placing it on his saucer-almost like a little girlfriend-before whispering in his ear. “I wonder why it’s not a vegetarian meal.”

Peiqin, leaning over to pour wine into Chen’s cup, overheard her comment and responded with an approving nod.

“We checked out the menu of the vegetarian restaurant attached to the temple. It was two hundred fifty per person for the so-called vegetarian buffet, including Häagen-Dazs, as much as you can eat.”

“What’s the point of featuring Häagen-Dazs with a vegetarian meal?” Chen exclaimed.

“The meal following a service has to be expensive, or else the host-as well as the guests-will all lose face. Not to mention the ghosts of the dead. It’s difficult for a vegetarian meal to be that expensive, hence the Häagen-Dazs.”

“I think you made the right choice here, Peiqin,” he said, helping himself to a chunk of sea cucumber braised with oyster sauce and shrimp roe.

A cell phone chirped. Several people immediately checked theirs, but it was Lianping’s. She took out her phone and glanced at it without trying to answer it.