So was he, seeing more and more meaning in his police work, though he stepped into a bookstore, and spent several minutes looking for a poetry collection. Chief Inspector Chen was not that obsessed with the case, nor with its political significance for his career.
There was, perhaps, one side of him that had always been bookish, nostalgic, or introspective. Sentimental, or even somewhat sensual in a classic Chinese version- ”fragrance from the red sleeves imbues your reading at night.” But there was also another side to him. Not so much antiromantic as realistic, though not as ambitious as Wang had accused him of being at the Riverfront Cafe. A line memorized in his college years came back to him: “ The most useless being is a poor bookworm.” It was by Gao Shi, a well-known general, successful in the mid-Tang dynasty, and a first-class poet at the same time.
General Gao had lived in an era when the once prosperous Tang dynasty was torn by famine, corruption, and wars, so the talented poet-general had taken it upon himself to make a difference- through his political commitment-for the country.
Today, China was once more witnessing a profound change, with significant challenges to the established systems and views. At such a historical juncture, Chen was also inclined to think that he could make a more realistic difference as a chief inspector than just as a poet. A difference, even if not as substantial as General Gao’s, which would be felt in the lives of the people around him. For example, by his investigation of this crime.
In China, and perhaps anywhere else, making such a difference would be more possible from a position of power, Chief Inspector Chen thought, as he inserted the key into the lock of Guan’s dorm room door.
To his dismay, the hopes that led him to make a second visit to Guan’s room were evaporating fast. He stood there under the framed portrait of Comrade Deng Xiaoping, musing. Nothing seemed to have changed in the room. And he could find nothing new in the photos, either, though there were several showing Guan in the mountains. He took these out and arranged them in a line on the table. Vivid images. Sharp colors. Standing by the famous welcoming pine, she smiled into the camera. Looking up at the peak, she lifted up her arms to the white clouds. Sitting on a jutting rock, she dabbled her bare feet in the mountain stream.
There was also one in a hotel room. Perching on the window sill, she was dressed rather scantily, her long, shapely bare legs dangling gracefully beneath a short cotton skirt. The morning sun shone through her thin cotton tunic, rendering it almost transparent, the swell of her breasts, visible beneath the material, suggesting the ellipse of her abdomen. Behind her, the window framed the verdant mountain range.
No mistaking her presence in the mountains. There was not a single picture, however, of her together with somebody else. Could she have been that narcissistic?
The idea that she’d made the trip by herself did not make sense, as Wang had pointed out at the cafe. But supposing she had, there was another question-Who had taken all the pictures of her? For her? Some had been taken at difficult angles, or from a considerable distance. It was hard to believe that she could have managed to have taken them by herself. There was not even a camera left among her few belongings. Nor a single roll of film, used or unused, in the drawers.
Comrade Deng Xiaoping himself appeared to be leaning down out of the picture frame, beneath which he stood, frustrated at Chen’s frustration.
One metaphor Chen had translated in a mystery came to his mind. Policemen were like wind-up toy soldiers, hustling here and bustling there, gesticulating, and chasing around in circles, for days, months, and even years, without getting anything done, and then suddenly they found themselves put aside, shelved, only to be wound up for another time.
Something about this case had been winding him up. It was a nameless impulse, which he suspected might not totally be a policeman’s.
Suddenly he felt hungry. He had had only a cup of black coffee at the Riverside Cafe. So he headed out to the shabby restaurant across the street. Choosing a rickety wooden table on the sidewalk, he once more ordered a portion of fried buns plus a bowl of beef soup. The soup came first with chopped green onion floating on the surface, but like the last time, he had to wait for the buns. The place had only one big flat wok for frying them.
There’s no breakthrough every day for a cop, he thought, and lit a cigarette, inhaling the fragrance of Peony mixed with the fresh air. Looking across the street, he became fascinated by the sight of an old woman standing close to the entrance of the lane. Almost statuesque on her bound feet, she was hawking ices from an ancient wheelbarrow, her shrunken face as weatherbeaten as the Great Wall in a postcard. Sweating, she was swathed in black homespun, like an opaque piece of smoke-darkened glass for watching a summer sun eclipse. She wore a red armband with Best Socialist Mobile Service Woman in Chairman Mao’s calligraphy. Perhaps she was not in her right mind, or she would not have worn that antique armband. Fifty or sixty years earlier, however, she could have been one of those pretty girls, standing there, smiling, her bare shoulders shining against the bare wall, soliciting customers under the alluring gas lights, launching a thousand ships into the silent night.
And in time, Guan might have become as old, shrivelled, ravenlike as the peddler, out of touch with the time and tide, unstrung, unnoticed.
Then Chen noticed that there were, indeed, several young people hanging around the dorm building. They seemed to be doing nothing in particular-crossing their arms, whistling off key, looking at the passersby along the road. As his glance fell on the wood-and-glass kiosk attached to the dorm, he realized that they must be waiting for phone calls. Looking into the cubicle, Chen could see the white-haired old man picking up a phone, handing it to a middle-aged woman outside, and putting coins into a small box. Before the woman finished speaking, the old man was picking up another phone, but this time he wrote something down on a slip of paper. He moved out of his cubicle toward the staircase, shouting upwards, a loudspeaker in one hand and the slip of paper in the other. Possibly he’d called the name of some resident upstairs. That must have been an incoming call. Due to the severe shortage of private phones in Shanghai, such public telephone service remained the norm. Most people had to make phone calls in this way.
Guan, too.
Chen stood up without waiting for the arrival of the fried buns and strode across the street to the dorm.
The old man was in his late sixties, well-preserved, well-dressed, speaking with an air of serene responsibility. Against a different office background, he might have looked like a high-ranking cadre. Lying on the table amid the phones was a copy of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms with a bamboo bookmark. He looked up at Chen.
Chief Inspector Chen produced his I.D.
“Yes, you’re doing the investigation here,” the old man said. “My name is Bao Guozhang. Folks here just call me Uncle Bao.”
“Uncle Bao, I would like to ask you a few question about Comrade Guan Hongying,” Chen remained standing outside the cubicle, which could hardly seat two people. “Your help will be greatly appreciated.”
“Comrade Guan was a fine member of the Party. It’s my responsibility to help your work as a member of the Residents’ Committee,” Uncle Bao said seriously. “I’ll do my best.”
The Residents’ Committee was, in one sense, an extension of the local district police office, working partially, though not officially, under its supervision. The organization was responsible for everything happening outside people’s work units-arranging weekly political studies, checking the number of the people living there, running daycare centers, distributing ration coupons, allocating birth quotas, arbitrating disputes among neighbors or family members, and most important, keeping a close watch over the neighborhood. The committee was authorized to report on every individual, and the report was included as confidential in the police dossier. Thus the institution of the Residents’ Committee enabled the local police to remain in the background while maintaining effective surveillance. In some instances, the Residents’ Committee had actually helped the police solve crimes and capture criminals.
“Sorry, I did not know that you’re a member of the committee,” Chen said. “I should have consulted you earlier.”
“Well, I retired three years ago from Shanghai Number Four Steel Factory, but my old bones would have rusted if I did nothing all day. So I started working here. Besides, the committee pays a little, too.”
While a few officials of the committee were full-time cadres, most members were retired workers on pensions, receiving a little extra pay in return for their community service. In view of the high inflation in the early nineties, an additional stipend was most welcome.
“You’re doing something important for the neighborhood,” Chen said.
“Well, in addition to the public telephone services here, I also keep an eye on the dorm building security,”
