Qiu Xiaolong - Red Mandarin Dress

“He might have tried, but for one reason or another, it didn’t work out. But you have a point, Mr. Jia. A good point.”

It was obvious that Jia was trying to undermine the whole basis of the story, and Chen welcomed his engagement in the exercise.

“And here is another such hole. If he were so passionately attached to his mother, then why would he strip his victims and dress them in such a way? That kind of attachment is a skeleton in the family closet, to say the least-one he would be anxious to keep hidden.”

“A short, simple explanation is that things are twisted in his mind. He loves her, but he can’t forgive her for what he considers to be her betrayal. But I have a more elaborate explanation for this psychological peculiarity,” Chen said. “I’ve mentioned the Oedipus complex, in which two aspects are mixed. Secret guilt and sexual desire. For a boy in China during the sixties, the desire part could be more deeply embedded.

“Now, the memory of her most desirable moment, the afternoon when she was wearing that mandarin dress, was juxtaposed with that of another moment, the most horrible memory, that of her having sex with another man. Unforgettable and unforgivable because in his subconscious, he substitutes himself as the one and only lover. So those two moments are fused together like two sides of a coin. That’s why he treated his victims as he did-the message was contradictory even to himself.”

“I am no expert or critic,” Jia said, “but I don’t think you can apply a Western theory to China without causing confusion. For me-as a reader-the connection between his mother’s death and him subsequently killing appears groundless.”

“About the difficulty of applying a Western theory to China, I think you’re right. In the original Oedipus story, the woman is no devil. She doesn’t know, she’s just doing what’s commonly expected in her position. It’s a tragedy of fate. J’s story is different. And it happens to involve something I’ve been exploring in a literature paper. I’ve been analyzing several classical love stories in which beautiful and desirable women suddenly turn into monsters, like ‘The Story of Yingying’ or ‘Artisan Cui and His Ghost Wife.’ No matter how desirable the woman is in the romantic sense, there’s always the other side-which is disastrous to the man with her. Is it something deep in Chinese culture or in the Chinese collective unconscious? It’s possible, especially when we take into consideration the institution of arranged marriage. Demonization of women, especially of women involved in sexual love, is therefore understandable. So it’s like a twisted Oedipus message with Chinese characteristics.”

“Your lecture is profound but beyond me,” Jia said. “You should write a book about it.”

Chen, too, wondered at his sudden exuberance here, in the company of Jia. Perhaps that was what he had been struggling with in his paper, and it took an unexpected parallel to the case to make him see the light.

“So for J, his peculiar way of killing proved overwhelming, with the force coming not just out of his personal unconscious, but out of the collective one as well.”

“I’m not interested in the theory, Chief Inspector Chen. Nor do I think your readers will ever be interested. As long as your story is full of holes, you can’t make a case.”

Jia evidently believed that Chen had played all his cards and was unable to touch him. In return, Jia was picking up the holes in the story to let Chen know that he thought the cop was merely bluffing in a game at psychological warfare.

Indeed, there were holes that Jia alone could fill, Chen thought, when he was struck by a new idea. Why not let Jia do the job?

Unworkable as the idea seemed, Chen instantly decided to give it a try. After all, Jia might be tempted to tell the story from his perspective-with different emphases and justifications, as long as he could maintain, psychologically, that it was nothing but a story.

“You are a good critic, Mr. Jia. Now, supposing you were the narrator, how could you improve the tale?”

“What do you mean?”

“About the holes in the narrative. Some of my explanations may not be enough to convince you. As the author, I wonder what kind of explanations you as a reader might expect, or might try to provide.”

The look he gave Chen made it clear Jia knew it was a trap, and he didn’t respond immediately.

“You are one of the best attorneys in the city, Mr. Jia,” Chen went on. “Your legal expertise surely makes the difference.”

“Which particular holes are you talking about, Chief Inspector Chen?” Jia said, still cautious.

“The red mandarin dress, to begin with. Based on the research done about the material and style, he had the dresses made in the eighties, about ten years before he started killing. Was he already planning it? No, I don’t think so. Then why such a large supply of them, and in different sizes too, as if he had anticipated the need to choose for his victims?”

“That defies explanation, doesn’t it? But as an audience, I think there may be a scenario more acceptable to me, and also consistent with the rest of the story.” Jia paused to take a sip at the wine, as if deep in thought. “Missing his mother, he tried to have the dress in the picture reproduced. It took him quite a while to find the original material-it was long out of production-and to locate the old tailor who had made the original dress. So he decided to use up the material, having several dresses made instead of just one. One of them must be close to the original. He didn’t foresee that they would be used years later.”

“Excellent, Mr. Jia. He still lives in the moment of having his picture taken with her. It isn’t surprising that he tried to hang on to something of it. Something tangible, so he could tell himself that the moment had existed,” Chen said, nodding. “Now, about the other hole you pointed out. You were right about his capability of thwarting Jasmine’s plans in some other way. Besides, Jasmine wasn’t like the other victims. How could she have been willing to go out with a stranger?”

“Well,” Jia said. “How can you be so sure that he had planned to kill her? Instead, he might have tried to talk her out of her passion. Then something just happened.”

“How, Mr. Jia? How could he try to talk her out of love?”

“I’m not the writer, but he might have found out something about her lover-something suspicious in his business or in his marital status. So he arranged to meet her to discuss it.”

“Oh yes, that explains why she would go out with him. Fantastic.”

“He wanted her to stop seeing the man. She wouldn’t listen. So he threatened her with the possible consequences, like disclosing their secret affair, or accusing her lover of bigamy. During their heated argument, she started shouting and screaming. He put his hand on her mouth to silence her. In a trance, all of a sudden, he saw himself turning into Tian, and doing to her what Tian had done to his mother. An uncanny experience like reincarnation. It was Tian who was attacking her-”

“Except that in the last minute,” Chen cut in, “the memory of his mother still unmanned him. He strangled her instead of raping her. That explains the bruises on her legs and arms, and his washing her body afterward. He was a cautious man, worried about evidence left behind in the failed attempt.”

“Well, that’s your account, Chief Inspector Chen.”

“Thank you, Mr. Jia, you have fixed the problem,” Chen said, draining his cup. “Just one more hole. He dumped the bodies at public locations. A defiant message, I understand. But the last victim was left in the cemetery. Why? If the grave robber hadn’t stumbled upon the body, it could have been left undiscovered for days.”