“No. Pretty soon the Cultural Revolution broke out. All of us were like broken clay Buddhist idols drifting down the river- already too disintegrated to care about anybody else. I was thrown into jail for the so-called crime of listening to the Voice of America. When I got out, he was already away at that cadre school. And there he died.”
“Do you have any knowledge about his continuing writing during the Cultural Revolution?”
“No, but I doubt it. It’s hard to imagine somebody like him writing in English in those years.”
“Well, Yang was actually allowed to keep English books because of one particular word-fart, I think it was-in Chairman Mao’s poetry translation.”
“Oh, yes, I have heard that.”
“Do you think anybody else may have known about this manuscript?”
“No, I don’t think so. It would have been suicidal for him to tell anybody,” Zhuang said. “Except Yin, of course.”
When he finished with Zhuang, Chen scribbled something else on another napkin. He had also come to a different decision about dinner. There was no point moving to another restaurant. He could use some time to himself, just thinking. White Cloud dancing, away from the table most of the time, was all to the good.
The abbreviations on the poetry translation manuscript started to make sense. If it were a novel Yang had been writing, as Zhuang had supposed, “ch” could refer to chapters. Yang might have tried to use poems in his novel, to insert them at various places in the text, in a way similar to Doctor Zhivago. And Peiqin’s suggestion of plagiarism would fit in, too. The portions of Yin’s novel that seemed to be too well-written-
But where was this novel manuscript? Chen could not be sure that such a manuscript had ever really existed.
Often, Chen put down some thoughts in his notebook, on a piece of paper, or even on a napkin like this evening, but afterward, for one reason or another, he failed to develop these ideas, and what he put down remained in fragments.
So, too, could Yang have written down some ideas on a sleepless night, in the days of the Socialism Education Movement when he was with Zhuang in that dorm room. But those notes might never have been developed into a novel. Still, Chen added a few more words to the napkin and put it into his pocket before he looked up.
White Cloud seemed to be thoroughly enjoying herself in Golden Time Rolling Backward, like a fish in water. Although the new culture of nostalgia did not appeal that much to him, he found it quite pleasant to spend an evening in such a trendy place, in the company of a pretty girl. She was popular here; her face became flushed as she danced with one young man after another. They kept coming over to the table, like flies drawn to spilled syrup. Chen refrained from dancing with her. With a touch of quizzical self-scrutiny, he diagnosed something akin to jealousy. Naturally a young girl preferred companions of her own age; a temporary boss meant nothing but business to her.
He thought of several lines by Yan Jidao, an eleventh-century poet.
The narrator of the poem was a young girl like White Cloud, and then he thought of another line by an American poet, already paraphrased in his mind: I do not think she will sing to me.
He had the waitress bring the dinner menu as White Cloud returned to their table. He did not have much experience choosing non-Chinese cuisine, but a medium-done steak was something he could not order in a Chinese restaurant. She had Red House baked clams as an appetizer, and French roast duck for her entree. He tried to encourage her to choose the more expensive items, caviar and champagne. People at other tables appeared to be doing so. He felt he was obliged.
To his surprise, she chose a bottle of Dynasty, a fairly inexpensive domestic wine from Tianjin. “Dynasty is good enough. No point choosing the imported XO whiskey or champagne,” she said, pushing aside the wine list.
The steak was tender. The waitress insisted that it was genuine American beef. He did not know whether this made any difference, except in price. The clams appeared exquisitely done, golden in the candlelight, with the clam meat picked out, mixed with cheese and spices, and put back onto the shells. It was easy for her to pick up the mixture on her fork.
“So delicious,” she exclaimed, putting a second helping on her fork, and offering it across the table to him to taste.
For Chen, it was still not going to be an evening of Golden Time Rolling Backward. His cell phone started ringing again. This time it was Yu, reporting the latest development in the investigation. Chen smiled apologetically to White Cloud.
“I have just received a new report from Dr. Xia. None of the fingerprints in the room matches Wan’s. That throws his statement further into question. At the very least, we may assume that the drawer-searching part is a fabrication.”
“Yes, that’s an important point.”
“I tried to discuss it with Party Secretary Li again, but he said that Wan might not have remembered everything while he was committing the murder in a moment of rage; afterward, since everybody talked about the emptied drawers, Wan spoke of them too.”
“No, Party Secretary Li cannot brush it aside like that.”
“Absolutely not,” Detective Yu said in a voice of mounting frustration. “But when I pressed the point, Li lost his temper, shouting ‘It’s a case of high political significance. Someone has already confessed, but you still want to go on investigating forever. For what, Comrade Detective Yu?’”
“Li understands nothing but politics.” Normally, it was Chen who had to deal with Party Secretary Li about “politically significant cases,” and he understood how frustrating it must have been for Yu.
“If political considerations override everything else, what is the point of being a cop?” Yu asked. “Where are you, chief? I think I hear music in the background.”
“I’m with a business associate on the translation project.” That was true, Chen thought, to some extent. He felt upset, not with the question, but because of it. “Don’t worry. Go on speaking, Detective Yu.”
White Cloud poured more wine into his glass, in silence.
“And then, after the talk with Party Secretary Li, guess who I met just in front of the bureau? Li Dong.”
“Ah, Li Dong.” Li, a former member of the special case squad, had quit the police force to run a private fruit store. “How is he?”
“Li Dong has developed that single store into a business chain that supplies fruit for the Shanghai airport and the Shanghai railway station. He’s used the connections he made in the police force. And he talks like another man. ‘Nowadays, one month’s profit from the airport alone is more than the bureau pays in a year. You are still working here, Comrade Detective Yu, but for what?’”
“That little rascal. Now that he has gotten a little money, he speaks like a rich man. How could he have changed like that? It’s only a year since he quit the police force.”
But that was not the answer Yu sought, Chen knew. What had Detective Yu been working so hard for? The official answer was that people worked for the sacred cause of communism. Party newspapers might still occasionally say this, but everybody knew it was a joke.
Chief Inspector Chen worked hard too, yet at least he could say that he worked for his position, for the benefits of his position: the apartment, the bureau car, the various bonuses-including this well-paid project from Mr. Gu. That, too, came from his position; there was no question about it.