Qiu Xiaolong - A Loyal Character Dancer

“The Peace Hotel.”

“It’s not easy to prepare traditional Chinese medicine in a hotel. You need to have a special earthen pot and to watch over the process. Let us prepare the medicine and send it to you by messenger.”

“Yes, that’s better, old woman.” Mr. Ma stroked his beard approvingly.

“Thank you,” Catherine said. “It is so thoughtful of you.”

“Thank you so much, Mr. Ma,” Chen said. “By the way, do you have any books about triads or secret societies in China?”

“Let me check.” Mr. Ma stood up, went into a back room, and came out presently with a thick volume. “I happen to have one. You can keep it. I no longer run a bookstore here.”

“No, I’ll return it. You have saved me a trip to the Shanghai Library.”

“I’m glad my dust-covered books can still be of some use, Chief Inspector Chen. Anything we can do for you, you know, after-”

“Don’t say that, Mr. Ma,” Chen cut the old man short. “Or I dare not come here again.”

“You have so many books-not just medical books, Mr. Ma.” Catherine was interested in the curtailed conversation between the two men.

“Well, we used to run a used bookstore. Thanks to the Shanghai Police Bureau,” Mr. Ma said with undisguised sarcasm, twisting his beard between his fingers, “we’re running this herbal drugstore instead.”

“Oh, our business is pretty good,” Mrs. Ma intervened in a hurry. “Sometimes more than fifty patients a day. From all walks of life. We have nothing to complain about.”

“Fifty patients a day? That’s a lot for a herbal drugstore that does not accept state-issued medical insurance.” Chen turned to Mr. Ma with a renewed interest. “What kind of patients are they?”

“People come here for various reasons. For some, because the state-run hospital cannot do anything about their problems, for some, because they cannot go there for their problems. For instance, injuries in a gang fight. The state-run hospital will immediately report it to the police. So I’ve helped a few of them.” Mr. Ma looked up at Chen before going on with a hint of defiance. “It’s your job to catch them, Chief Inspector Chen, if they are criminals. They come to me as patients, so I treat them as a doctor.”

“I see, Doctor Zhivago.”

“Don’t call me that.” Mr. Ma waved his hands hurriedly, as if trying to chase away an invisible fly. ‘Once bitten by a snake, forever nervous at the sight of a coiled cord.’”

“Some of these people must be grateful to you,” Chen said.

“You can never tell with them, but like in kung fu novels, they always talk about paying their debts of gratitude.” Mr. Ma added after touching the beads for a few seconds, “Nowadays, they are capable of anything. Their long arms reach to the skies. I have to do something for them, or my practice will be in big trouble.”

“I understand, Mr. Ma. You don’t have to explain it to me, but I have to ask you another favor.”

“Anything.”

“We’re looking for a woman, a pregnant woman from Fujian. A Fujian triad called the Flying Axes may be looking for her, too-she was an educated youth from Shanghai years ago. If you happen to hear anything about her, please let me know.”

“The Flying Axes-I don’t think I have met any of its members. This is Blue territory, you know. But I can ask around.”

“Your help will be invaluable to us, Mr. Ma, or shall I say, Doctor Zhivago?” Chen stood up to leave.

“Then you’ll have to be the general.” Mr. Ma smiled.

Catherine was intrigued with their talk, particularly the part about Doctor Zhivago. Years earlier, her mother had bought her a music box that, played “Lara’s Song.” The novel had since become one of her favorites. The tragedy of an honest intellectual’s life in an authoritarian society. Now the Soviet Union was practically finished, but not China. There was something fascinating about the background of the conversation, almost like a scroll of a traditional Chinese painting, in which the blank space suggested more than what was presented on the paper.

When they got back to the hotel, it was near six. She heard him telling Little Zhou to leave. “Don’t wait for me. I’ll take a taxi home.”

In her room, the chambermaid had prepared everything for the night. The bed was turned down, the window closed, and the curtain drawn. There was a pack of Virginia Slims by a crystal ashtray on the nightstand, an imported luxury that suited her status here. Everything had been prepared for a distinguished guest. As he helped her seat herself on the couch, she said, “Thank you, Chief Inspector Chen, for all you have done for me.”

“Don’t mention it. How do you feel now?”

“I feel much better now. Mr. Ma is a good doctor.” She motioned him to sit in the sofa. “Why did you call him Dr. Zhivago?”

“It’s a long story.”

“We are finished for the day, aren’t we? So please tell me the story.”

“You will probably not be interested in it.”

“I majored in Chinese studies. There’s nothing more interesting to me than a story about Doctor Zhivago in China.”

“You should have a good rest, Inspector Rohn.”

“According to your Party Secretary Li, you are supposed to make my stay a satisfactory one, Chief Inspector Chen.”

“But if you call in sick tomorrow, Party Secretary Li will hold me responsible.”

“I cannot take my evening walk along the Bund,” she pleaded in mock seriousness, but she felt a bit vulnerable, too, as she spoke. “I am alone, in this hotel room. Surely you could humor me.”

Perhaps he realized how she felt, her ankle sprained, her yin-yang system out of balance, in a solitary hotel room, in a strange city, where she had no one to talk to-except him. He said, “Fine, but you have to lie down, and make yourself comfortable.”

So she slipped off her shoes, reclined on the couch, and laid her feet on a cushion he placed for her. Her posture was modest enough, she thought, her dress pulled down over her knees.

“Oh, I’ve forgotten all about Mr. Ma’s instructions,” he said. “Let me take a look at your ankle.”

“It’s better now.”

“You have to take off the paste.”

When the gauze was removed, she was astonished to see her ankle had turned black and blue. “The bruise did not show in Mr. Ma’s office.”

“This yellowish paste is called Huangzhizhi. It is capable of bringing the inner injury to the surface, so you can heal more quickly.”

He went into the bathroom and came back with a couple of wet towels.

“The paste is no longer useful now.” He knelt down by the couch to wipe off the remainder and to rub her ankle. “Does it still hurt?”

“No.” She shook her head, watching Chen examine the bruise, making sure there was no paste left.

“Tomorrow you will be able to run like an antelope again.”

“Thank you,” she said. “So, it’s time for the story.”

“Would you like a drink first?”

“A glass of white wine would be perfect. What about you?”

“The same.”

She watched him open the refrigerator, take out a bottle, and come back with the glasses.

“You are making it a special evening.” She raised herself slightly on one elbow, sipping the wine.

“The story goes back to the early sixties,” Chen started, sitting in the chair drawn close to the couch, gazing down at the wine, “when I was still an elementary-school student…”

In the early sixties, the Mas had owned a used-book store, a husband-and-wife business. As a kid, Chen had bought comic books there. Out of the blue, the local government declared the bookstore “a black center of antisocialist activity.” The charge was made on the evidence of an English copy of Doctor Zhivago on its shelves. Mr. Ma was put in jail, where he was allowed to take with him, out of all his books, only a medical dictionary. Toward the end of the eighties, he was released and rehabilitated. The old couple did not want to reopen the bookstore. Mr. Ma thought of running a herbal drugstore with the knowledge he had acquired in prison. His business license application traveled from one bureaucratic desk to another, however, without making any progress.