It was like having swallowed a fly for the chief inspector to think that he had actually helped with the housing development case.
And Chen couldn’t get rid of a sense of foreboding. Something wasn’t moving in the right direction. But what could that possibly be? He found his mind momentarily blank as he tried to put himself in Jia’s position.
Jia must be thinking about what would happen after the trial. There was no exit for him; Jia knew that better than anybody else.
How would Jia be able to face his fall? One of the most successful attorneys in the city, talking about justice all the time, and he had to face a trial in which he himself would be tried and convicted as a criminal, with a full confession signed in his own hand. Whatever defense he might be able to put up for himself, the result would be the same. Death, plus the worst humiliation imaginable.
What’s more, it could still involve her. Even without those pictures, people would eventually dig out some details, if not all of them.
But what different outcome could Jia strive for?
Chen stopped himself from thinking further along those lines. You are no fish, so how can you know the way it thinks? Jia’s sick. That was what Chen had told Yu, and that was true.
All of a sudden, Jia started coughing, his chest heaving in a spasm, a stained pallor masking his face.
“Are you okay?” the judge said, anxious for Jia to finish his speech.
“I am fine. Just an old problem,” Jia said.
The judge hesitated before asking Jia to continue. It was too important a trial to be interrupted.
“So I’m tempted to tell you a story in parallel to our case,” Jia resumed with renewed strength in his voice. “A story about what happened to a little boy during the Cultural Revolution. He lost his father, lost his home, and then in a most humiliating way, lost his mother he deeply loved. The experience totally traumatized him, like a small tree so stunted that it survives only in a twisted way. As the proverb says, ‘With a whole nest overturned, not a single egg will be left unbroken, though the crack may not be so visible.’ He grew up with the one and only purpose of seeking justice for his family. But when the Cultural Revolution was declared a well-meant mistake by Mao, a mistake understandable in the historical circumstances-he realized that it was a hopeless mission. So finally he decided to take justice into his own hands.
“Of course, people are supposed to uphold justice not in their own hands but in a courtroom like this, we all understand. However, is there a court that prosecutes the crimes of the Cultural Revolution? Or will there ever be one?”
Chen was about to stand up when Jia was seized with another outbreak of coughing, more violent this time, his face first purple, then ghastly white. His body began reeling.
The courtroom was sunk deeply in silence.
“Don’t worry. Just an old problem,” Jia managed to say before collapsing to the floor.
“Is he sick?” Yu said with something more than astonishment on his face.
Chen shook his head. It was not an old problem, he suspected. Something terribly wrong. A possibility presented itself, which he might have been trying to ignore until this moment.
There could be a way out for Jia, though not that quick, not here, not like that.
Jia was already turning and making a weak gesture at Chen.
Chen stood up, taking off his glasses. He produced his badge to the court security officers who were rushing over to his side.
A reporter in the room recognized him, exclaiming, “Chief Inspector Chen Cao!”
Chen strode over and leaned down toward the fallen man. People were stunned, transfixed. The judge stepped down, hesitating for a moment before retreating into the judge’s room, and the two court clerks followed suit, as if fleeing hastily from a crime scene. No one else moved. Jia started speaking with a voice audible only to the chief inspector.
“The end is coming more quickly than I expected, but it does not matter whether I finish my closing statement or not. What cannot be said has to pass over in silence,” Jia said, taking an envelope out of his suit pocket. “Here are checks for those families. I have endorsed them. You have to do me the favor of giving them away.”
“To their families?” Chen said, taking over the envelope.
“I have kept my word-the best I can, Chief Inspector Chen. So will you, I know.”
“Yes, I will. But-”
“Thank you,” Jia said with a waxy smile. “I really appreciate what you have been doing for me, believe me.”
Chen believed him, who must have been sick and tired of his struggling all these years, in vain, in loneliness. Chen gave him an opportunity finally to put an end to it.
“She loves me. I know. She does all that for me,” Jia said with a strange glow in his face. “You’ve brought back the world to me. Thank you, Chen.”
Chen grasped his hand that was getting cold.
“You like poetry,” Jia said again. “There’s a poem in the envelope too. You may keep it as a token of my gratitude.”
Closing his eyes, Jia spoke no more. After all, what else could he say?
Chen produced his cell phone to call for an ambulance. Perhaps already too late. It was nothing but a pose he had to strike, for the sake of the audience.
Like the trial, also a pose, though necessary on the part of the government.
There was something wrong with the phone. No signal. It might be just as well. Chen almost felt relieved.
But others must have called. The medical people rushed in, pushing him off the man lying on the floor.
“I have kept my word-” Chen stood up, thinking of Jia’s last words as the medical people started carrying Jia out on a stretcher.
Chen didn’t have to open the envelope. The checks should be more than enough as evidence, with Jia’s signature, along with the fact that the checks were given to him in the presence of so many people in the courtroom.
Yu was moving over to his side, with a phone in his hand. He must have spoken to the other cops, holding them back. It was a bizarre ending. Not only to the trial of the housing development case, but for the red mandarin dress case too.
The courtroom was now like a pot of boiling water spilling all over.
Chen handed the envelope to Yu, who opened it and started examining the checks with utter disbelief on his face.
“The families of the red mandarin dress victims, including Hong’s,” Yu said in an awe-stricken voice. “He must have kept a record of them. With the checks signed, it’s like a full confession. We will now be able to close the case.”
Chen didn’t speak up at once. As for how to conclude the case, he still had no idea.
“His own signature,” Yu said emphatically. “It should be conclusive.”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Any comment, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen?” the reporter who had recognized Chen shouted at him across the crowd, trying to elbow his way through the restraining line kept by the courtroom security officers.
“Are you in charge of the case?” Another reporter joined in, pushing forward with several others.
The courtroom was now in total confusion, as if the pot of boiling water was not merely spilling all over, but the pot itself toppled upside down.
Some of the reporters followed the stretcher out. Chen and Yu were left standing alone where Jia had fallen several minutes ago. Other reporters were shifting their attention to the two cops, their cameras flashing.
Chen dragged Yu into the judge’s room, which was empty, closing the door after them. Almost immediately there came loud knocking on the door, presumably by the reporters who had broken through the restraining line, but then the knocking stopped. Whoever was there at the door must have been dragged away by security.