Qiu Xiaolong - Death of a Red Heroine

Lao’s information came as a surprise to Yu, who had not expected such staunch support from his superior.

“Your chief inspector knows how to speak the Party language,” Peiqin said quietly.

“Yes, he does. Luckily, this time on my behalf,” he said.

“What about inviting him to dinner? The restaurant is going to have two bushels of live crabs, Yangchen Lake crabs, at the state price. I can bring a dozen home, and I will just need to add several side dishes.”

“That’s a good idea. But it will be too much work for you.”

“No. It’s fun to have a guest once in a while. I’ll make a meal that your chief inspector won’t forget.”

And more or less to his surprise, Chen had accepted his invitation readily, adding that he would like to discuss something with Yu afterward.

It was really turning out to be too much work for Peiqin, Yu stood there thinking somberly, watching her moving busily around in the confined space. Their portion of the public kitchen area contained no more than a coal stove and a small table with a makeshift bamboo cabinet hung on the wall. There was hardly room for her to put down all the bowls and plates.

“Go into our room,” she repeated. “Don’t stand here watching me.”

The table in their room, set for dinner, presented an impressive sight. Chopsticks, spoons, and small plates were aligned with folded paper napkins. A tiny brass hammer and a glass bowl of water stood in the middle. It was not exactly a dining table though, for it was also the table on which Peiqin made clothes for the family, where Qinqin did his homework, and where Yu examined bureau files.

He made himself a cup of green tea, perched on the arm of the sofa, and took a small sip.

They lived in an old-fashioned two storied shikumen house-an architectural style popular in the early thirties, when such a house had been built for one family. Now, sixty years later, it was inhabited by more than a dozen, with all the rooms subdivided to accommodate more and more people. Only the black-painted front door remained the same, opening into a small courtyard littered with odds and ends, a sort of common junk yard, which led to a high-ceilinged hall flanked by the eastern and western wings. This once spacious hall had long since been converted to a public kitchen and storage area. The two rows of coal stoves with piles of coal briquettes indicated that seven families lived on the first floor.

Yu’s room was on the southern end of the eastern wing on the first floor. Old Hunter had been assigned to that wing in the early fifties with the luxury of having one extra room as a guest room. Now in the nineties, the four rooms accommodated no fewer than four families: Old Hunter with his wife; his two daughters, one married, living with her husband and daughter; the other thirty-five, still single; and his son, Detective Yu living with Peiqin and Qinqin. As a result, each room functioned as bedroom, dining room, living room, and bathroom.

Yu’s room had originally been the dining room, about eleven square meters in size. It had not been ideal since the northern wall had only a window no bigger than a paper lantern, but it was worse as an all-purpose room, and especially inconvenient for visitors, for the room next to it was Old Hunter’s, which had originally served as a living room, with the door opening into the hall. Thus a visitor had to walk through Old Hunter’s room first. That was why the Yus had seldom had a guest.

Chen arrived at six thirty, carrying in one hand a small urn of Shaoxing sticky rice wine-Maiden Red. The perfect wine for crabs. Chen had his black leather briefcase, as usual, in his other hand.

“Welcome, Chief Inspector,” Peiqin said, a perfect Shanghai hostess, wiping her wet hands on her apron. “As an old Chinese saying goes, ‘Your company lights up our shabby room.’”

“We have to squeeze a bit,” Yu added. “Please take your seat at the table.”

“Any crab banquet room is a great room,” Chen said. “I really appreciate your kindness.”

The room was hardly large enough to hold four chairs around the table. So they were seated on three sides, and on the fourth side, their son Qinqin sat quietly on the bed.

Qinqin had long legs, large eyes, and a plump face, which he hid behind a picture book on Chen’s arrival. But he was not shy when the crabs appeared on the table.

“Where is your father, Old Hunter?” Chen asked, setting his chopsticks on the table. “I haven’t greeted him yet.”

“Oh, he’s out patrolling the market.”

“Still there?”

“Yes, it’s a long story,” Yu said, shaking his head.

Since his retirement, Old Hunter had served as a neighborhood patroller. In the early eighties, when private market peddlers were still considered illegal, or at least “capitalistic” in political terminology, the old man made himself responsible for safeguarding the holiness of the state-run market. Soon, however, the private market became legal, and was even declared a necessary supplement to the socialist market. The government no longer interfered with private businessmen as long as they were willing to pay their taxes, but the retired old cop still went there, patrolling without any specific purpose, just to enjoy a sense of being useful to the socialist system.

“Let’s talk over our meal,” Peiqin cut in. “The crabs cannot wait.”

It was an excellent meal, a crab banquet. On the cloth-covered table the crabs appeared rounded, red and white, in small bamboo steamers. The small brass hammer shone among the blue and white saucers. The rice wine was nicely warmed, displaying an amber color under the light. On the windowsill, a bouquet of chrysanthemums stood in a glass vase, perhaps two or three days old, thinner, but still exquisite.

“I should have brought my Canon to photograph the table, the crabs, and the chrysanthemums,” Chen said, rubbing his hands. “It could be an illustration torn from The Dream of the Red Chamber.”

“You’re talking about Chapter Twenty-eight, aren’t you? Baoyu and his ‘sisters’ composing poems over a crab banquet,” Peiqin said, squeezing out the leg meat for Qinqin. “Alas, this is not a room in the Grand View Garden.”

Yu was pleased that they had just visited the garden. So he knew the reference. “But our Chief Inspector Chen is a poet in his own right. He will read us his poems.”

“Don’t ask me to read anything,” Chen said. “My mouth’s full of crab. A crab beats a couplet.”

“The crab is not really in season yet,” Peiqin apologized.

“No, it’s the best.”

Apparently Chen enjoyed Peiqin’s excellent cooking, relishing the Zhisu sauce particularly, using up a small saucer of it in no time. When he finished eating the golden digestive glands of a female crab, Chen was sighing with pleasure.

“Su Dongbo, the Song dynasty poet, said on one occasion, ‘O that I could have crabs without a wine-supervisor sitting beside me.’”

“A wine-supervisor of the Song dynasty?” Qinqin spoke for the first time during the meal, showing his interest in history.

“A wine-supervisor was a low-ranking officer in the fifteenth century,” Chen said, “like a medium-rank police officer nowadays, responsible only for other officials’ behavior at formal feasts and festivals.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about that, Chief Inspector Chen. Drink to your heart’s content,” Peiqin said. “Our meal is informal and you are Yu’s supervisor.”

“I’m really overwhelmed by your dinner, Mrs. Yu. A crab feast is something I have been missing for a long, long time.”

“It’s all to Peiqin’s credit,” Yu said. “She managed to get all the crabs at the state price.”

It was a well-acknowledged fact that no one could be so lucky as to buy live crabs at a state-run market. Or at the official price. The so-called state price still existed, but merely in newspapers or government statistics. People paid seven or eight times more in the free markets. However, a state-run restaurant could still obtain one or two baskets of crabs at the state price during the season. Only the crabs never appeared on the restaurant’s tables. The moment they were shipped in, they were divided and taken home by the restaurant staff.