Qiu Xiaolong - When Red is Black

“I will do my best, Chief Inspector Chen.”

“I owe you a big one, Gu,” Chen said. “Let me know as soon as possible. I really appreciate this.”

“What is a friend for? You, too, are helping your friend.”

The arrival of their order prevented them from saying more, but Chen thought he had covered what was necessary.

The lunch was not so satisfactory. The Gulao pork looked like sweet and sour pork done in a hurry at home. The beef in oyster sauce did not taste as delicious as he remembered it. The fried milk was a joke.

And Gu paid the check once again. The waiter took Gu’s gold credit card-an unmistakable sign of his wealth-ignoring the cash in Chen’s hand.

Later that afternoon, Chen arrived at the Renji Hospital with a small bamboo basket of fruit. At the front desk, he was told that his mother had been transferred to another room. Panic-stricken, he rushed upstairs, where he found that she had been moved to a better room, a semi-private which also had more advanced equipment. His mother was pleased to see him; she reclined in the adjustable bed, looking more relaxed than he had seen her in weeks.

“I’m really fine,” she said. “They’ve been running one test after another. You don’t have to come every day. And don’t bring me anything more, I already have so many gifts.”

It was true. There were so many things on top of the nightstand that it was almost like a display at an expensive food store: smoked salmon, roast beef, white bird nest, American ginseng, pearl powder, black tree ears, and even a bottle of Russian vodka.

Chen thought he could guess from whom this array came.

“No, they’re not from Overseas Chinese Lu alone,” his mother said, shaking her head, as if in disapproval of something invisible in the air. “Some are from a certain Mr. Gu. I had never met him before he came to see me here. He must be a new buddy of yours, I guess. He insisted on calling me aunt, like Lu does. He also summoned the head of the hospital to my room, and right in front of me, he pushed a bulging red envelope into his hand.”

“He’s incorrigible, that Mr. Gu.”

But he was not completely surprised. White Cloud would have kept her real boss informed of everything concerning Chen, but Gu should have mentioned his visit over lunch.

“Since then the doctors and nurses have been extraordinarily nice to me. They moved me here. This is a much better room, normally for high cadres, they said,” she told him and shook her head. “You must be somebody nowadays, son.”

“No, not me, but Mr. Gu. I’ve been doing some translation for him.”

“Really!” She appeared to be in better spirits and there was amusement in her voice as she said “Perhaps I’m too old to understand things in today’s world, but since when have you had a secretary working for you at home?”

“She’s no secretary.” He had foreseen that his mother would mention this. In her eyes, he must have strayed far enough from his father’s path. Now the news that he had a “little secretary” would only confirm her opinion. “She is just a temporary assistant for the translation project.”

“She is young, clever,” his mother said. “And she makes a very good home-made chicken soup.”

“Yes, she is very capable.” He doubted that the soup had been made in White Cloud’s home. She bought the soup from a restaurant with Gu’s money, probably. But he decided not to correct his mother.

“And she’s a university student. She likes your work, she has told me.”

He realized that his mother was already launched in a different direction. It should not have surprised him. “Yes, she’s a Fudan University student,” he said. He was not about to disclose that he had first met White Cloud when she was working as a K girl in a private room of the Dynasty Club.

Fortunately, his mother was still too weak to push this topic any further. He decided to leave well enough alone. If she wanted to cherish hopes, in spite of everything, especially in her present frail health, why not let her?

He did not like Confucianism, despite his late father’s influence. Like many other people of his generation, Chen believed that Confucian ideology had caused rather than solved problems in the course of the history of Chinese civilization. Still, the chief inspector considered it only human nature to be a filial son. That was the least a man should do-to provide for his parents in their old age, and, whenever possible, to make them happy.

He shuddered to think of those who refused to pay the deposit for their parents at the hospital. And for those who were unable to do so. It was not their fault, of course. Chen was able to do so, in the last analysis, because of his Party cadre position.

Someday, he might be able to make his mother happy in that particular aspect, but his first priority must be to do a good job as a chief inspector of police. In the Confucian ethical system, responsibility to one’s country was more important than to one’s family.

As for White Cloud, she was just a temporary assistant, as he had told his mother. He did not know whether the future would ever throw her into his path again. There was no predicting with Mr. Gu, of course. Two lines came to mind: Waving my hand lightly, I’m leaving, / leaving, carrying not a cloud with me.

He thought he had forgotten this poem by Xu Zhimo, and he wondered whether it had come back to him now because of her name. Or was it because of something else?

The ringing of the telephone woke Yu.

Chen told him, “Bao’s address is 361 Jungong Road. Second floor. It’s in the Yangpu District.”

Yu said, “How did you get this information?”

“Through one of my connections,” Chen replied vaguely.

The boss did not sound too willing to go into detail. Yu understood.

“I’m on my way,” Chen continued. “Not a word to Old Liang or anybody else. Meet me there.”

This was a surprise to Yu. So far, Chen had made a point of staying in the background. When Yu reached that section of Jungong Road, the chief inspector was already waiting for him, smoking a cigarette.

In the pre-1949 era, this area had been a slum. It had been upgraded in the early fifties, when some workers’ housing was built there to show the superiority of the socialist system. Nothing further had been done, as the city was overwhelmed by one political movement after another. The area was now considered a depressed neighborhood that had a markedly different living standard from other parts of the city. It had acquired a nickname-”the forgotten corner.”

In recent years, it had also become one of the streets where provincials gathered because of the cheap rentals that they could obtain there by means of illegal subleases. Five or six people usually squeezed into a single room when they first arrived in the city. When they bettered their finances, they moved out into other areas.

“According to my information, Bao lives by himself in a small room here,” Chen said. “He moved in about two months ago. He does a not have a regular job; he survives by working part-time for an interior construction company.”

“If he has a room for himself, he is better off than others,” Yu commented.

Bao’s building, 361 Jungong Road, was one of the old two-story workers’ houses from the fifties. It boasted neither the sophisticated style of a shikumen house nor the modern facilities of the new apartment buildings. The house consisted of units, rather than apartments; each unit was inhabited by several families; each family had one room and shared the common kitchen area. Bao’s room had originally been a balcony accessed from the kitchen area of the unit. Beneath it was a small restaurant on the first floor of the building. It, too, looked like it had been converted from a residential room.