David Rotenberg - The Shanghai Murders

In the eastern park there was a stone statue of two children dancing. There were beds of flowers but nowhere to sit. In an action that could only be described as cruel, the sittable cement sides of the flower beds had been studded with sharp iron prods, lest one needed to rest one’s weary bones. The western park was dominated by a cast iron statue of a Long Nose, his arms raised as if either teaching or pleading, it was hard to tell which. On the pedestal were the dates 1912-1935. During the Cultural Revolution all other means of identifying the twenty-three-year-old westerner had been obliterated. Old men huddled around games of Chinese checkers, not the game with marbles children play in the West. This is a complex game that resembles a cross between go and chess. The game near the statue had drawn a crowd of watchers, each sagely advising what he would do were he the player whose move was next.

Fong approached as if to watch the game and spotted the manila folder in the trash can. Lily had slid it down one side so that it was clearly visible but not easy to pluck out. As Fong moved toward the can he saw to his horror one of the city-paid scavengers approaching the basket. These people carried a wicker basket over their shoulders and an iron pincer in their hands with which they plucked specific materials out of garbage cans for recycling. One of the assignments was paper.

But as Fong approached the recycler he could smell that paper was not this worker’s assignment. This scavenger was collecting compostable materials. The odour of rot enveloped her like a thick haze. As she walked away Fong moved toward the basket and plucked out the manila envelope. As naturally as a man on his evening stroll, he moved out of the park, passing the old men doing tai chi and the elderly women doing the oldlady version of it, “shake a leg.”

Fong sat in the growing darkness of Fuxing Park reviewing the material that Lily had left for him. Most of it was highly suspicious. The picture of Loa Wei Fen at the airport supplied by the Taiwanese screamed “set up.” The one piece of information he found untainted was from the opium whore, Wu Yeh. The pimp’s information was of little use, as was the money changer’s-both coming up with save-their-skin suggestions but no hard facts. But the tong connection, Fish Face, provided surprisingly exact information-troublingly so. It was as if the Taiwanese and the tongs were trying to outdo each other in their efforts to give Loa Wei Fen to the police. The data from the two sources was almost identical but there was an open mockery in the note from Fish Face. His ended with the phrase “Get him before he gets you.”

As Fong headed toward the park’s exit he could smell burning refuse. It was 7:00 P.M. and Shanghai was adding the pungent scent of burnt garbage to the already potent mix of the city’s air. He thought back to Wu Yeh in the opium den. He thought of the brightness leaving her and the blurred opaque dullness replacing it. Opium replacing love. One addiction for another. But the addiction of love added light while the addiction of opium simply clouded. The light was dimming in her soul, that was plain to see-as the lights had dimmed in his with Fu Tsong’s death. Dimmed but not extinguished. Now his light was reviving, thanks to a blond American sitting at a desk in the Shanghai International Equatorial and writing a letter to her sister.

Dearest Sister,

I wasn’t unhappy to find him in my hotel room when I got back. I was shocked, though, at his appearance. He’d cut off his hair and there was a gash across his face. And he wore an old quilted coat. He looked-well, he looked Chinese. I know that sounds strange but that’s what I thought as he stepped out of the shadows. For a moment I didn’t recognize him. Before I could do anything he passed by me and stepped out into the corridor. Then he returned to the room and turned out the lights, shut the draperies and pulled me into the bathroom. Before I could say anything he said as explanation, “There are no windows in here.” Well it’s hard to deny that. He pulled a picture out of a manila envelope and putting it on the sink said, “Have you seen this man?” The Chinese man in the picture was young and silkily handsome. He wore an expensive suit. “Have you?” Fong asked a second time. I told him I hadn’t although it was hard for me to be sure and who was this guy anyway? He replied without batting an eyelash, “He’s the man who killed your husband, Ms. Pitman.”

The mention of Richard’s death and Fong’s formality chilled the air. “So arrest him.”

“I don’t want to arrest him. I want to talk to him. I want to find out who put him up to this.”

“So talk to him. Or don’t you know where he is?”

“He’s staying at the Portman Hotel.” Before I could stop myself I heard my voice saying, “He looks Chinese.”

“Hotels are not segregated in Shanghai now. A Chinese man with the right money can now stay where he wishes, even eat in the same restaurants as whites, and fuck in the same beds. One would hope that the sheets had been changed, but it is hard to regulate such things. It has been a while since we have seen NO DOGS OR CHINESE ALLOWED signs in Shanghai.”

He had caught me. Nailed me for my assumption that any man with enough money to stay in the Portman would have to be European or Japanese. The silence between us began to grow. I’d lived in a marriage of wide and complex silences. I did not want this relationship to be like that, so I forced myself to reach out to him.

“It scarcely matters if I say that I’m not guilty, does it?” His silence was a succinct answer but much to my relief he was not continuing to fade into the background, to move away. “If you know where he is and you want to talk to him, go over and pay him a social call.”

“He’d kill me.”

“You’re a policeman. You know how to defend yourself.”

“Not against this kind of man. He’d kill me . . . but he might not kill you.”

I laughed at him. I told him to forget it. I told him this was his problem, not mine. I told him to get out of the bathroom, I needed to take a pee. He told me to go ahead but he didn’t move. So I hiked my skirt and peed.

Then he did.

Then in the deep tub of the Shanghai International Equatorial Hotel I came alive with a Chinese man I’d barely known for five days. As the shower beat down on my back and head I rode him to an oblivion that had been denied me for many years.

When I awoke it was after midnight. He had just finished dressing and was heading toward the door with a promise to return-a promise I extracted from him when I said I would find the room number of the man who killed Richard.

Pray for me, A.

To Fong the school’s old theatre, late at night, echoed of life past, finished. Joy and laughter huddled in the corners of the ancient building, hiding from the emptiness lest their potency be sucked dry by the void.

That evening the top of the proscenium arch was emblazoned with a red banner proclaiming the vital role of the theatre workers. There must have been a political meeting in here earlier in the day. That’s a wee bit redundant, all meetings are political. Especially in China. The theatre, which of course belonged to the people, could be taken over by the “people’s representatives” whenever the people’s representatives decided that the people needed further encouragement in their labours, studies, or work habits. Meetings were also called whenever these representatives needed to remind the people how very important it was to be represented by representatives.

The meetings occurred frequently enough in the theatre that a special rigging for the banner had been drilled into the plaster on either side of the arch: a strangely archaic set of heavy pulleys and ropes. As if the banner, which could not weigh in excess of two pounds, somehow, no doubt because of its weighty message, assumed untold mass.