Qiu Xiaolong - The Mao Case

“As a businessman, I’ve made a bunch of money, but so what? In a hundred years, will the money still be mine? Indeed, as our grand master Old Du said, literature alone lasts for thousands of autumns. It’s proper and right for a novice like me to buy a meal for a master like you.”

Chen’s speech echoed one by Ouyang, a friend Chen had met in Guangzhou. An amateur poet yet a successful businessman, Ouyang had made a similar statement over a dim sum meal.

As far as nonfiction was concerned, however, Chen was legitimately a novice, so he could in fact learn something from Diao.

“Your book was a huge success,” Chen went on. “Please tell me how you came to write it?”

“I was a middle school teacher all my life. As a rule, I would start my class by quoting proverbs. Now, for a proverb to be passed on from generation to generation, there must be something in it – something in our culture. One day, I quoted a proverb – hongyan baoming – a beauty’s fate is so thin. When my students pressed me for an example, I thought about the tragic fate of Shang. Eventually, I started contemplating a book project, but I hesitated to focus on Shang, for the reasons you might guess. In the process of researching it, I learned about the equally tragic fate of her daughter, Qian. Something clicked in my mind. That’s how I came to write it.”

“That’s fantastic,” Chen said. “You must have done a lot of research on Shang.”

“Some, but not a lot.”

“It’s like a book behind a book. In the lines about the daughter, people may read the story of the mother.”

“Readers read from their own perspectives, but it’s a book about Qian.”

“So tell me more about the story behind the story. I’m fascinated by the real details.”

“What cannot be said must pass over in silence,” Diao responded guardedly. “What’s true and what’s not? You like the Dream of the Red Chamber, so you must remember the famous couplet on the arch gate of the Grand Illusion – ‘When the true is false, the false is true. / Where there is nothing, there is everything.’ ”

As Chen anticipated, Diao wasn’t willing to speak freely to a stranger, not even to just admit that it was a true story, despite the lunch at Fangshan.

“People of my generation have heard all sorts of stories from those years,” Diao went on, taking a sip at the tea. “As long as the official archive remains sealed to the public, we may never be able to tell whether a story is true or not.”

“But you must have gathered more information than you used in the book.”

“I put in only what I considered reliable.”

“Still, you must have interviewed a lot of people.”

Diao didn’t respond. A speaker outside started playing a song from the popular TV series Romance of Three Kingdoms. “How many times, the sinking sun red, / a white-haired man angles, alone, in the river / rippling with stories from time immemorial… ” The TV series was based on the historic novel about the vicissitudes of the emperors and would-be-emperors in the third century, and the author ended the novel with a poem from the perspective of an old fisherman.

“Remember the poem titled ‘Snow’ by Mao?” Diao asked instead.

“Yes, particularly the second stanza. ‘The rivers and mountains so enchanting / made countless heroes bow in homage. / Alas, the First Emperor of the Qin and the Emperor Wu of the Han / were lacking in literary grace; / Emperor Tai of the Tang, and the Emperor Tai of the Song / had not enough poetry at heart; / Genghis Khan, / the proud son of Heaven for his generation, / knew only shooting eagle, bow outstretched. / All are past and gone! / To look for the really heroic, / you have to count on today.’ ”

The return of the waitress interrupted their talk. She placed a large platter on the table. “The live fish from the Central South Sea.”

“I had to distinguish between what would be publishable, and what wouldn’t,” Diao resumed after helping himself to a large fish filet.

“Tell me about your background research then.”

“What’s the point? It’s nothing but knocking upon one door after another. Let’s enjoy our meal. To be honest with you, I’m a budget gourmet.”

“Come on. The meal is nothing for a bestselling author like you. That’s why I decided to quit my business.”

“You keep talking about my book as a bestseller. A lot were sold, that’s true, but I got very little for myself.”

“That’s unbelievable, Mr. Diao.”

“Don’t dream of making money by writing books. For that, you’d better stick to your business. If it would help, I might as well tell you how much I’ve made. Less than five thousand yuan. According to the editor, he took a great risk with an initial printing of five thousand copies.”

“But what about the second and third printing? There must have been more than ten printings for your book.”

“There is never even a second printing. As soon as there is buzz on a book, pirated copies come into the market, and you don’t get a single penny.”

“What a shame! Only five thousand yuan,” Chen said. Some of his more lucrative translation projects had paid him as much, for only ten pages or so, though he knew he had gotten the project because he was chief inspector. He glanced at his leather briefcase. It contained a sum of at least five thousand yuan – which he brought to buy a wedding present for Ling. But he had been having second thoughts about it after watching her leave in that luxurious limousine last night. It might be a large sum for him, but it was nothing to her.

He picked up the briefcase, snapped it open, and took out an envelope. “A small ‘red envelope’ of about five thousand yuan, Mr. Diao. Far from enough to show my respect, it is only a token of my admiration.”

It was a bulging envelope, unsealed, with a hundred-yuan bill peeping, which bore a portrait of Mao, declaring as the supreme Party leader to China, “The poorer, the more revolutionary.”

“What do you mean, Mr. Chen?”

“To tell the truth, I’m interested in writing something about Shang, publishable or not. So the envelope is in compensation for your invaluable information. For a businessman like me, it’s an investment, but it also shows my respect for you.”

“An old man like me, Mr. Chen, doesn’t have anything to brag about, but I think I can size up a man well. whatever you are up to, you aren’t after money.”

“whatever you tell me is not black or white. Nor will anyone be able to prove it’s from you, Mr. Diao. Outside of this room, you may say you have never met me.”

“Not that I was so unwilling to tell you the story about Shang, Mr. Chen,” Diao said, draining the cup, “but what I gathered could be just hearsay. You can’t take it literally.”

“I understand. I’m not a cop, so I don’t have to base every sentence on hard facts.”

“I didn’t write the book about Shang, but that doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be written. In ten or fifteen years, aspects of the Cultural Revolution may be totally forgotten. Oh, you’re not recording our talk, are you?”

“No, I’m not.” Chen opened the briefcase again, showing the contents.

“I trust you. So where shall I begin?” Diao went on, barely waiting for an answer. “Well, I won’t beat about the bush. About Shang: believe it or not, I happened to know a peddler, whose fish booth was crushed by her body falling out of a fifth-story window -”

The roast Beijing duck arrived with the waitress as well as a white-clad and -capped duck chef, who peeled the crisp duck skin in front of their table with a flourish.

“The slices of crispy duck skin, wrapped in the paper-thin pancake with the special sauce and green onion was the Empress Dowager’s favorite,” the waitress said. “As for this one special dish of fried duck tongues mantled with red peppers like maple-covered hills, can you guess how many ducks?”