Red Mandarin Dress

“The same with the picture of the woman in a mandarin dress.”
    “Can you tell me more about the picture?” Chen said. “Is the mandarin dress a red one?”
    “It represents a beautiful woman in a stylish mandarin dress, together with her son, a Young Pioneer wearing a Red Scarf. He is pulling her hand, and pointing toward the distant horizon. The picture is entitled, ‘Mother, Let’s Go There.’ The background is something like a private garden. It is a black and white picture so I’m not sure about the color of the dress, but it’s in a graceful style.”
    “How could such a picture have caused a controversy?” Chen said. “It’s not a movie. There is no story in it.”
    “Let me ask you a question, Chief Inspector Chen. What was the ideological prototype for women in Mao’s time? Iron girls, masculine, militant, wearing the same shapeless Mao suits as men. No suggestion of the female form or sensuality or romantic passion. So the political climate wasn’t favorable to the implicit message of the picture, particularly when it was nominated for a national prize.”
    “What implicit message?”
    “For one thing, it represented the ideal mother as feminine, elegant, and bourgeois. In addition, the garden background is quite suggestive too.”
    “Can you describe the picture in greater detail?”
    “Sorry, that’s about all I remember. I don’t have the picture in front of me. But you can easily find it. It was published in 1963 or 1964 in China Photography . That was the only photography magazine at the time.”
    “Thank you, Xiong. Your information may be very important to our work.”
    Chen decided to go to the library, which wasn’t too far away.
    At the library, with the help of Susu, he got hold of a copy of the particular issue of China Photography in only ten minutes. It would usually take hours to unearth a magazine published in the sixties.
    It was a black and white picture, as Xiong had described. The woman wearing the mandarin dress in the picture was a stunner. Chen couldn’t tell the exact color of the dress, but it was apparently not a light color.
    She was in a garden, standing barefoot with a tiny brook shimmering behind her, where she might have just dabbled her feet. The boy holding her hand was about seven or eight years old, wearing the Red Scarf of a Young Pioneer. Nobody else was visible in the background.
    Chen borrowed a magnifying glass from Susu and made a careful study of the mandarin dress.
    It appeared identical in design to those used in the murders—short sleeves and low slits, conventional in its general effect. Even the double-fish-shaped cloth buttons looked the same.
    If there was any difference at all, it was that she wore the dress gracefully, with all the buttons buttoned in a demure way. She was barefoot, but standing in the background, in the company of her son, the suggestion more of a young happy mother.
    The photographer was named Kong Jianjun. In the index of the magazine Chen found that Kong was also a member of the Shanghai Artists Association.
    A siren was coming from the eastern end of Nanjing Road when Chen stepped out, carrying the magazine. He was close to believing that it was Hong—her soul, or whatever it was—that had guided him.
    He made a phone call to the Shanghai Artists Association.
    “Kong Jianjun passed away several years ago,” a young secretary said in the office. “He was mass-criticized during the Cultural Revolution, I’ve heard.”
    “Do you have his home address?”
    “The one in our record is old. He had no children—left behind only his wife. She must be in her seventies. I can fax his file to your office.”
    “To my home. I’m on vaca—hold on, fax it to this number,” he said, giving her the library fax number.
    “Okay. You might also talk to the neighborhood committee if she still lives there.”
    “Thanks. I’ll do that.”
    He went back to the library to pick up the fax. The pages were delivered to him by Susu, who also brought him a cup of fresh coffee and a nut cream cake.
    “It’s hard to owe a beauty favors,” he said.
    “You are quoting Daifu again,” she said with a sweet smile. “Come up with something new next time.”
    What came to mind was, unexpectedly, a scene from years earlier, in another library, in another city. . . . There is only the spring moon / that remains sympathetic, still shining / for a lonely visitor, reflecting / on the petals fallen / in a deserted