Red Mandarin Dress (4 page)

The pinnacle of the library came into view, shimmering over the corner of Huangpi Road. The library, too, was said to be moving soon. Where would the new site be, he wondered, pushing open the revolving door.

On the second floor, he handed over a list of books to Susu, a pretty, young librarian behind the desk. She flashed him a smile that brought out two vivacious dimples, and started checking for the books.

He had just installed himself in the reading room overlooking the People’s Park and opened the first book when his cell phone rang. He pushed the button. No one spoke. Possibly a wrong number. He turned the phone off.

The term
thirsty illness
first appeared in “The Story of Xiangru and Wenjun,” originally in a biographical sketch in Sima Qian’s
Shiji
. The library edition of
Shiji
was a fully annotated one, so he could be quite sure of its meaning. The story began at the very beginning, narrating how Xiangru and Wenjun fell in love through music.

The story mentioned the term
thirsty illness,
but only once.

Xiangru stammered, but he was an excellent writer. He suffered from thirsty illness
(xiaoke ji).
Since he married into the Zhuo family, he was rich. He did not commit himself to an official career. . . .

The sketch then moved on to Xiangru’s literary career and did not touch on the subject of his thirsty illness again. Given the seminal significance of
Shiji
, the story came to be retold in a number of literary versions, proving to be archetypal in its influence on the late genre of scholar-beauty romance.

Chen then started checking through anthologies and collections. One of the earliest literary versions of the love story appeared in
Xijing Zaji,
a collection of anecdotes and stories.

In the
Xijing Zaji
version, Chen observed, the term
thirsty illness
appeared in a context quite different from the
Shiji
’s. Instead of beginning from the beginning, the later tale started with the plight of the couple on their return to Chengdu, leaving out the romantic part and highlighting their materialistic motives. Xiangru was portrayed as a mercenary conspirator, and Wenjun, though a beauty, was a woman of suspect morals.

A substantial difference came in the semantics of
thirsty illness
: here, it was an illness caused by love. Xiangru was aware of the cause and effect, trying to satirize himself out of it, but to no avail. He died of his passion for Wenjun.

So here the meaning of
thirsty illness
was close to Bian’s—a consequence of romantic passion. That was what Bian jokingly meant by the romantic poet’s “kind of thirsty illness.”

Chen opened
Ocean of Words
, the largest Chinese dictionary, in which
thirsty illness
clearly meant diabetes. “It is so named because the patient feels thirsty, hungry, urinates a lot, and looks emaciated.” A medical term carrying no other association whatsoever—exactly the same as its use in
Shiji
.

He pulled over other reference books, thinking about the superstitious beliefs about sexual love in ancient China. As far as he could remember, the Taoist opposed sexual love—or, to be more exact, ejaculation—on the grounds that it deprived a man of his essence.

Whatever the philosophical or superstitious influence, an association between love and death appeared on the thematic horizon of the literary version. The romance thus contained within itself an “other,” which decried the romantic theme.

Also, the later version’s Wenjun appeared as a frivolous and sinister woman. Chen copied in his notebook a sentence: “So impressed by Xiangru’s talent, she trespassed the grounds of rites.” He underlined the word
rites,
thinking of a Confucian quotation, “Do all things in accordance to the rites.”

But what could have been the rites regarding people falling in love?

He went to request more books. Susu said that it could take some time to get them because of the staff’s lunch break. So he decided to go out for lunch. It was a warm afternoon for that time of the year.

People’s Park was close by, in which there was an inexpensive but nice canteen. Many years ago, his mother had taken him there. It took him a while to find it, but he finally did. He ordered a plastic box of fried rice, slices of beef in oyster sauce with green onion, plus a fish ball soup in a paper bowl. The same beef recipe, he hoped, as he had enjoyed in the company of his mother.

He also looked for a bottle of
Zhengguanghe
lemon water, but he saw only a variety of American brands: Coca Cola—
Delicious, Enjoyable
; Pepsi—
Hundreds of Things Enjoyable
; Sprite—
Snow Pure
; 7-Up—
Seven Happiness
; Mountain Dew—
Excited Wave
. At least the translations of the drinks were not so Americanized, he contemplated in wry amusement.

His cell phone started ringing again. It was Overseas Chinese Lu, his middle school buddy, now the owner of Moscow Suburb, a swank restaurant known for its Russian cuisine and Russian girls.

“Where are you, buddy?”

“In People’s Park, enjoying a box lunch. I have this week off for my Chinese literature paper.”

“You must be joking—a Chinese literature paper in the midst of your soaring career?” Lu exclaimed. “If you are really going to quit the police force, come and be my partner, as I’ve said hundreds of times. Indeed, customers will come pouring in because of your connections.”

But Chen knew better. His connections came from his position. Once out of that position, most of his “friends” would evaporate into thin air. He would probably never go to work with Lu, so he saw no point in discussing it.

“Come to Moscow Suburb,” Lu went on. “I have all my Russian waitresses wearing mandarin dresses. It’s a weird sight. Westerners look out of joint in mandarin dresses. Still, so mysterious, so exciting, so delicious that customers practically devour them alive.”

“The exotic flavor, I bet.”

For an entrepreneur like Lu, it was natural to seize any opportunity to make money without worrying about aesthetics, or ethics.

“Whatever flavor, the plastic box lunch in the park is definitely not edible. A disgrace to a renowned and refined gourmet like you. You have to come—”

“I will, Lu,” Chen said, cutting Lu short, “but I have to go back to the library now. Someone’s waiting for me.”

The box lunch was waiting, to be exact. It would soon get cold.

Before he opened the plastic box, however, his phone shrilled yet again. He should have turned it off during the break. It was Hong, the young cop in the homicide squad who worked as Liao’s assistant.

“This is a surprise, Hong.”

“Sorry, Chief Inspector Chen, I got your cell phone number from Detective Yu. I tried your home first, but no success.”

“You don’t have to say sorry for that.”

“I have to report a case to you.”

“But I’m on vacation, Hong.”

“It’s important. Both Party Secretary Li and Inspector Liao told me to contact you.”

“Well,” he said. A lot of things could have turned into important grains in Li’s political mill. As for Liao, his request that Hong call Chen was possibly no more than a deferential gesture.

“Where are you, Chief Inspector Chen? I can come over immediately.”

It could be another sensitive case, something not convenient to discuss on the phone. But, if so, then it wasn’t for the library, either.

“Come to People’s Park, Hong. Close to the entrance of the number three gate.”

“You’re enjoying your vacation. People’s Park. What a coincidence!”

“What do you mean?”

“A second body in a red mandarin dress was found early this morning. In front of the Newspaper Windows close to the number one gate of the park.” She added, “Oh, Detective Yu has joined the special investigation too.”

“A serial murder!” Chen recalled having seen a crowd there earlier, though he hadn’t paid any particular attention. It wasn’t an unusual scene for the Newspaper Windows.

“That’s what I’m calling about. They wanted me to be the one to contact you because they said that Chief Inspector Chen would not say no to a young girl.”

The request could not have come at a worse time—for his paper. Still, he had to do something. It was the first serial murder case for the city, for the bureau. At the very least, he had to make a gesture of concern.

“Bring me the information you’ve gathered, Hong. I’ll take a look in the evening.”

“I’m on my way.”

The lunch box remained untouched, now totally cold. He threw it into the trash can. He rose and moved toward the gate in question, trying to imagine the scene earlier.

The Newspaper Windows were located at the intersection of Nanjing and Xizhuang Roads, an area that permitted no parking along the curb. Any car parked there would get immediate attention, and the police patrol went on all night.

The murderer must have planned it carefully, Chen reflected.

There was a large crowd of people there, but the area around the Newspaper Windows was not taped off. He didn’t see any cops moving around, either.

He caught the sight of a young girl walking over in a white overcoat, like a pear blossom in the morning light. A far-fetched metaphor, for it was still early winter. She was not Hong.

Several old people stood in front of the Newspaper Windows, reading, talking, as usual. To his surprise, the newspaper section that drew the most readers was that of the stock market. “The Bull Is Crazy,” the headline read in bold.

FOUR

DETECTIVE YU CAME HOME
later than usual.

Peiqin was washing her hair in a plastic basin on a folding table near the common sink, in the common kitchen area shared by the five families on the first floor. He slowed to a stop by her side. Looking up with her hair covered in soap bubbles, she motioned to him to move into their room.

In the room, the table held a platter of rice cakes fried with shredded pork and pickled cabbage. He’d had a couple of steamed buns earlier, so he thought he might have a cake later as a nighttime snack. Their son Qinqin was studying late at school, as usual, preparing for the college entrance examination.

Yu felt exhausted at the sight of their bed, with the dragon-and-phoenix-embroidered cotton padded quilt already spread out, the soft white pillow set against the headboard. Without taking off his shoes, he dumped himself across the quilt. After two or three minutes he sat up again, and leaning against the hard headboard, produced a cigarette. Peiqin would not come in for a while, he guessed, and he needed to think.

Smoking, he found his thoughts still stuck, as though in a pail of frozen glue. So he tried to review the work already done on the mandarin dress murders.

The whole bureau had been bubbling like a pot of boiling water. Theories were advanced. Cases were quoted. Arguments were pushed. Everybody appeared well-informed on the case.

Party Secretary Li’s insistence on the “reliance-on-people approach” hadn’t worked. The neighborhood committees accosted a large number of people seen in the vicinity and asked them to provide alibis, but that hadn’t led to anything. That was no surprise.

In the sixties and seventies, the committees had been an effective government watchdog because of the housing conditions and the ration-coupon system. When a dozen families lived together in a
shikumen
house, sharing one kitchen and yard, neighbors watched one another, and because the food and grocery ration coupons were distributed by the neighborhood committees, the committees’ power over residents was enormous. But with the improvement in housing conditions and abolishment of the ration coupons, committees no longer found it easy to monitor a resident’s life. They could still be somewhat effective in the remaining old neighborhoods of ramshackle overcrowded
shikumen
houses, but this killer apparently lived in a different environment, enjoying both space and privacy. In the mid-nineties, a neighborhood cadre could no longer so easily barge into a family’s life as during the years of Mao’s class struggle.

Inspector Liao’s revision was of little help. While his material profile narrowed the range of suspects, none of those with previous history of sex crimes met all of Liao’s specified conditions. Most of them were poor, just two or three lived by themselves, and only one, a taxi driver, had access to a car.