Qiu Xiaolong - The Mao Case

“Welcome,” Fei greeted him with his habitual smile from behind his beer-bottle-bottom-thick glasses, combing his thinning hair with a plastic comb.

They had never talked at length, but that might be just as well. Fei wouldn’t have talked as freely had he known Chen was a chief inspector. Unlike in the shikumen houses in the old quarters, people in the new apartment complexes here did not really know each other.

Instead of just asking for the book in question, Chen decided to browse around a little first, as he usually did. There was no point rousing any unnecessary speculation.

To his surprise, he came upon several books on modern revolutionary Beijing operas – the only operas available during the Cultural Revolution.

“Why the sudden interest in them?” he asked Fei. “Well, those who enjoyed them then are middle-aged now. They are nostalgic for the past – for their idealistic youth. Whatever the reality was, they don’t want to write off their own youthful years. So these ‘red antique books’ sell quite well. Can you guess which the most popular one is?” Fei paused for a dramatic effect. “Little Red Book of Mao.”

“What?” Chen exclaimed. “Billions of copies were printed back then. How can it be a rare or antique book?”

“Do you still have one at home?”

“Oh no.”

“So you see. People got rid of them soon after the Cultural Revolution, but now they are coming back with a vengeance.”

“Why?”

“Well, for those left out of the materialistic reforms, Mao is becoming a mythic figure again. The past is now seen as a sort of golden Mao period where there was no gap between the rich and poor, no rampant Party corruption, no organized crime and prostitution, but instead there were free medical insurance, stable pensions, and state-controlled housing.”

“That’s true. Housing prices have rocketed. But there are also so many new buildings in Shanghai now.”

“Can you afford them?” Fei said with a sardonic smile. “Perhaps you can, but I can’t. ‘While wine and meat go bad untouched in the red-painted mansion, / people die from cold and starvation in the street.’ Haven’t you heard the latest popular saying – ‘You’ve worked hard for socialism and communism for decades, but overnight, it’s back to capitalism’?”

“That’s a witty one.” Chen then asked casually, “By the way, do you have a book called Cloud and Rain in Shanghai? It’s a book about those years under Mao, I think.”

Fei eyed him up and down. “That’s not the kind of book you usually choose, sir.”

“I’m on vacation this week. Someone recommended it to me.”

“It sold out a while ago, but I have one copy I kept for myself. For an old customer like you, you may have it.”

“Thank you so much, Mr. Fei. Was it such a bestseller?”

“You’ve never heard of it?”

“No,” Chen said. The minister had asked the same question. “Isn’t it about the tragic fate of a young girl?”

“It is. But there’s something else about the book. You have to read between the lines.”

“Something else?” he said, offering a cigarette to Fei. “You must have heard of Shang.”

“The movie star?”

“Yes. She was the mother of Qian, the nominal heroine of the book. There’s a famous maxim in Taodejin: ‘In misfortune comes the fortune, and in fortune comes the misfortune.’ It’s so dialectical.” Fei took a deliberate puff at the cigarette. “By the early fifties, Shang’s career had started going downhill, but then it took off again. Why? Because she danced with Chairman Mao, whispering in his ears and leaning against his broad shoulder… God alone knows how many times Mao came to Shanghai just for that, later into the night, and then into the morning. Dancing, her body surging softly against his, like cloud, like rain -”

“Does the book mention all that?”

“No, or it wouldn’t have been published. The author wrote it very carefully. Still, her life story in itself was more than suggestive. Mao could have picked any dancing partner, anytime, anywhere. What imperial favor! Everyone envied her. Eventually, she paid the price when, at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, a special team came from Beijing, interrogating her in isolation, which then led to her suicide.”

“Why – I mean, why the isolation interrogation?”

“According to the book, the special team was trying to coerce her into confessing to ‘plotting against and slandering our great leader Mao.’ However, there was nothing out of line mentioned in the book except that after her first dance with Mao, she told a friend, ‘Chairman Mao is big – in everything.’

“Come on, ‘big’ may simply mean ‘great.’ People always called Mao a great leader,” Chen said, stroking his chin again. “So then why the persecution?”

“You still don’t see? Madam Mao was a fury. Shang was younger, prettier, and more in Mao’s favor – at least for a while. As soon as Madam Mao gained power on through the Cultural Revolution, she retaliated by dispatching that special investigation team to Shanghai. That’s the real story behind the story of Qian in the book.”

That was a story that the average reader could easily imagine, but it didn’t account for the Beijing authorities’ sudden interest in Jiao. Chen decided to push his luck a little further.

“Speaking of Mao, do you carry a book written by his personal doctor?”

“If that book were ever found here, my store would be closed overnight. You’re not a cop, are you?”

“Oh, I was just curious, since we were already on the subject.”

“No, don’t carry it and haven’t read it, but a friend of mine has. It is filled with stories about Mao’s private life with sordid and vivid details you’d never find in any official publications.”

“I see.”

“Let me dig out Cloud and Rain in Shanghai for you,” Fei said, disappearing behind a shelf, into the back.

Chen chose a book on the history of the Shanghai movie industry and another about intellectuals and artists during the Cultural Revolution. Along with Cloud and Rain in Shanghai, he might be able to patch together Shang’s life story. He also put into his basket a new volume of Tang-dynasty poetry. There was no point making Fei suspect he was researching Shang.

Fei came back with a book in his hand. There was a picture of Qian on the cover, in a corner of which was another picture, that of Shang, faded, nearly lost in the background.

As Chen was taking out his wallet at the counter, Fei seemed to think of something else. “Look at her,” he said, pointing at Shang’s image. “What a tragedy! I sometimes wonder if she was murdered.”

“Murdered!”

“Many celebrities committed suicide during those years, but many of them were practically beaten or persecuted to death. Suicide, however, was nobody’s fault but the dead – a convenient conclusion for the Party government.”

“Ah,” Chen said, more or less relieved. Again, Fei’s comment was no more than common knowledge about what happened during those years.

“As for the special team from Beijing, there’s another interpretation,” Fei went on. Chen was the only customer in the store, and Fei appeared unwilling to let him go. “Shang might have known some deadly secret. So they silenced her once and for all. Remember the trial of the Gang of Four? Madam Mao was accused of persecuting movie stars associated with her in the thirties.”

That was true. The stars had suffered persecution because they knew Madam Mao as a notorious third-rate actress. But Shang would have been too young then.

Chen thanked Fei and left with his books for the dumpling restaurant.

When he arrived at the corner, he was disappointed to see a boutique mandarin dress store where the restaurant had been. The store was closed and there was only a mannequin posing coquettishly in an unbuttoned red dress in the window.