Red Mandarin Dress (13 page)

For many years after 1949, psychological problems had not been acknowledged in socialist China. People were supposed to have no problems, psychological or otherwise, as long as they followed the teachings of Chairman Mao. If they admitted to having trouble, they had to reform their minds through hard labor. Psychology was practically declared a bogus science. Psychoanalysis didn’t exist as a practice. Nor was it sensible for people to go to an analyst—if one was available at all—since talking about their problems could become evidence of serious “political crime.” In recent years, psychology had been gradually reintroduced and somewhat rehabilitated, but most people remained wary of it. Psychological problems still could easily turn into political problems.

As a result, a psychological approach was considered unorthodox in the police bureau. Detective Yu, too, was full of reservations about it, believing that a psychological explanation might be helpful at the conclusion of a case, but not in the middle of the investigation.

Chen started reading Yu’s reports in earnest.

Yu had a hard time with Liao. Apart from the long rivalry between the two squads, Liao didn’t approve of Yu’s focus on Jasmine. Liao declared that the homicide squad had done everything possible in that direction. The killer was a nut, killing at random, and it would be a waste of time to look for a rational explanation.

But in a
go
chess game, an experienced player is capable of instinctively grasping an opportunity on the chessboard. One small white or black piece, in a marginal position, hardly of any significance in itself, can contain the possibility of turning the table. Yu was good with his hunches on a
go
chessboard. And in his investigations too.

After the first interview with Weng in the hotel, Yu had continued exploring along that direction. He checked Weng’s records elsewhere, including at the airport. There was nothing wrong with the entry date, but Yu had an unexpected discovery in Weng’s custom declaration. On the slip, Weng had checked the “married” box on his marriage status. That necessitated a second interview.

Chen put the second interview tape into the cassette player, skipping the preliminary part, going to where Yu questioned Weng about his relation with Jasmine in the context of his marital status.

Chen fast-forwarded the tape toward the end, but Yu didn’t make any comments, as he had sometimes did. There were no comments on the written report, either.

Chen rose to make a cup of coffee. A cold morning. Outside the window, a yellow leaf finally tore itself from the twig, trembling, as in a story he had read a long time ago.

He moved back to bed, putting the coffee mug on the nightstand, tapping his finger on the cassette player.

Chen could see Yu tapping his finger on a
go
chessboard, grappling with a possible opening, not exactly identified—not yet.

It was Weng’s statement about Jasmine’s curse.

While Tian deserved the punishment, most of the people like Tian remained unpunished after the Cultural Revolution, with Chairman Mao’s portrait still hanging on the Tiananmen Gate. As a Chinese proverb goes, to kill a monkey is to scare the chickens, and Tian happened to be the monkey, that was perhaps just his luck.

But what about Jasmine? The bike incident might have been an accident. The anonymous letters, however, went too far. She was only seventeen or eighteen. How could anyone have hated her that much?

The cell phone rang, breaking into the gloomy thoughtful morning.

“Let’s have brunch at the Old City God’s Temple Market,” White Cloud said, her voice sounding close by. “You like the mini soup bun there, I know.”

Probably a good idea to take a break. Talk with her might help—about the paper, and about the case too.

“There are several boutiques selling mandarin dresses there,” she went on before he responded. “Quite a variety of them—not good quality, but fashionable, and some of them nostalgically fashionable.”

That clinched it for him.

“Let’s meet at Nanxiang Soup Bun Restaurant.”

It was for the sake of the investigation, he told himself. She might serve as a fashion consultant in a field study, though he was slightly uneasy about it.

Was it because of something he had been studying for the paper—a femme fatale? There seemed to be a weird echo from the story he had just read. According to one critic, Yingying, in “The Story of Yingying,” was actually someone of dubious background, like a K girl in today’s society.

Chen started dressing for brunch.

About twenty minutes later, he found himself walking in under the familiar entrance arch of the Old City God’s Temple Market.

For most Shanghainese, the temple represented not so much of an attraction in itself, but simply a name for the surrounding market of local snacks and products—originally booths and stalls for the temple festivals. For Chen, the attraction came from those eateries, whose offerings were inexpensive yet unique in their flavors, such as chicken and duck blood soup, soup buns in small steamers, radish-shred cakes, shrimp and meat dumplings, beef soup noodles, fried tofu and vermicelli. . . . All these he had liked so much, in the days when society was still an egalitarian one, in which everyone made little money and enjoyed simple meals.

Things were also changing here. There was a new tall building rising behind the Yu Garden, which had originally been the back garden of the Shanghai mayor in the late Qing dynasty and was built in the traditional southern architecture style of ancient pavilions and grottos. In Chen’s childhood, his parents, unable to afford the trip to Suzhou and Hangzhou, had taken their son to the garden instead.

Moving past the garden, he stepped up onto the Nine Turn Bridge—allegedly with nine turns so that the evil spirits wouldn’t be able to find their way around. An old couple stood on the bridge, throwing breadcrumbs to the invisible golden carps in the pond and nodding at him. It was too cold for the fish to come to the surface, but the old couple remained standing there, waiting. The last turn of the bridge brought him to the Nanxiang Soup Bun Restaurant.

The first floor of the restaurant appeared little changed: a long line of customers waited outside for their turn to get in, watching through the large kitchen window, the never-boring scene of the kitchen assistants picking out the crab meat deftly on a long wooden table and mixing it with minced pork meat. He took the winding stairs up to the second floor, which was quite crowded in spite of the double price charged there. So he climbed up another flight of steps to the third floor, which charged three times as much for the same soup buns. The table and chairs were of imitation mahogany, not too comfortable, but there weren’t too many people there. He took a seat overlooking the lake.

As a waiter came to pour him a cup of tea, White Cloud walked up the staircase, tall and slender in a white imitation-fur overcoat and high heels. Helping her take off the overcoat, he saw her wearing a modified backless pink mandarin dress. The dress fit her well, accentuating her curves. Once more he was reminded of that famous Confucian statement,
A woman makes herself beautiful for the man who appreciates her.

“You are floating over like a morning cloud,” he commented before ordering four steamers of soup buns stuffed with minced crab and pork meat. The waiter took the order from him, stealing a look at her.

“Your appetite is good today,” she said, placing on the table a pink silk purse that matched the color of her dress.

“
A beauty is so delicious that people want to devour,
” he said, quoting Confucius.

“You are being romantic.” She tore open a small packet with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball that she carried in her purse, wiped his chopsticks first, and then hers. Nanxiang was one of the few old Shanghai restaurants that still resisted using disposable chopsticks.

“Nostalgic, perhaps,” he said, immersing the ginger slices into saucers of vinegar. One of the saucers was cracked, just like in the old days, as on that afternoon with his cousin Peishan.

In the early seventies, Peishan had been one of the first educated youths to “go to the countryside for reeducation by the poor and lower-middle-class peasants.” Before leaving Shanghai, Peishan took Chen to this restaurant, which, like other restaurants at the time, was supposed to serve only working-class people “in the Party’s glorious tradition of hard working and simple living.” Culinary enjoyment was denounced as a decadent bourgeois extravagancy. People were supposed to eat simply for the sake of making revolution. A number of high-end restaurants were closed. Nanxiang Soup Bun survived as a lucky exception owing to its incredibly cheap price: a bamboo steamer for only twenty-four cents, affordable by any working-class standard. That afternoon, Peishan and Chen patiently waited no less than three hours for their turn. Consequently they gave a huge order: four bamboo steamers for each of them, after the long wait and Peisan’s sentimental comment, “When, when can I come back to Shanghai—to the delicious soup buns?”