Red Mandarin Dress

business to let a customer leave like this. It wasn’t the time for Chen to find an explanation for his luck.
    “Thank you so much, Manager Zhang.”
    “I have seen many people,” Zhang said. “You are different, I know. If the hill does not turn, the water turns. If the water doesn’t turn, the man turns. Who knows? We may bump into each other one day.”
    Zhang walked him out to the elevator. When the elevator door opened, a late customer emerged. A group of girls hurried to offer their services to the new guest with a silver ring of laughter. Chen saw Green Jade among them, running out barefoot.
    She didn’t look at him.
    “Come again, Big Brother,” Zhang said as the elevator door was closing. “It may be easier for you to get a taxi at the intersection of Henshan and Gaoan Roads.”
    Outside, Chen didn’t get into a taxi.
    It was almost four o’clock. He thought of a proverb: “Full of joy, the night is short.” He wasn’t sure he had enjoyed himself inside the club, but time had passed quickly there.
    It was a cold night, though it was coming to its end. The exciting ideas he had while inside seemed to be somewhat chilled by the wind.
    While some of the details in the case fit, others didn’t.
    The meeting with the retired neighborhood cop in a couple of hours would be crucial.
    Afterward, Chen would check into the background of Mei’s son, starting with the document concerning the sale of the Old Mansion, on which the seller, as the inheritor of the house, had to sign his name and perhaps provide some other information.
    It was already Thursday, a day he couldn’t afford to waste in the wrong direction.
    But for the moment, he was wandering aimlessly. He had to move. It was cold. With most of the lights off, the street presented a vision he hadn’t seen before. He turned into a side street, made another turn, and to his surprise, he emerged within sight of the Old Mansion again. It looked dark, deserted, desolate. A night bird flashed out of nowhere.
    He thought of the poem by Su Shi, “Swallow Pavilion.”
    The night advanced, I awake, / no way to renew my walk / along the old garden: / a tired traveler stranded at the end of the world, / gazing homeward, heartbroken. / The Swallow Pavilion is deserted. / Where is the beauty? / Swallows alone are locked inside, for no purpose. / It is nothing but a dream, / in the past, or at present. / Whoever wakes out of the dream? / There is only a never-ending cycle / of old joy, and new grief. / Someday, someone else, / in view of the yellow tower at night, / may sigh deeply for me.
    It was a sad poem. The pavilion was renowned because of Guan Pan-pan, a gifted Tang dynasty poet and courtesan who lived there. Guan fell in love with a poet, and after his death, she shut herself up, receiving no visitor or client for the rest of her life. Many years later, Su Shi, a Song dynasty poet, visited the pavilion and wrote the celebrated poem.
    Chen imagined Mei standing in the back garden of the mansion, holding the hand of her little boy, shining like a radiant cloud in her red mandarin dress. . . .
    Shivering, he made his way to the food market. Several leaves fell in the fading starlight, dropping to the hard ground with a sound like the falling of the bamboo slips used for divination at an ancient temple, darkly portentous.
    There was no one visible in the market yet. Near the entrance, he was surprised to see a long line of baskets—plastic, bamboo, rattan, wood, straw—of all shapes and sizes, stretching to a concrete counter under a sign that read “yellow croaker,” a fish very popular in Shanghai. Those baskets evidently stood for the wives who would soon come here, securing their positions in the line, their eyes still dreamy with their families’ satisfaction on the dinner table.
    He wondered whether it could be a scene that he had seen before, and he lit himself a cigarette against the wind.
    Bang, bang, bang . There came a sudden clatter. He was startled by the sight of a night-shift worker cracking a gigantic frozen bar of fish with a huge hammer. Aware of Chen’s approaching footsteps, the night worker turned around, appearing headless against the upturned collar of his cotton-padded imitation army overcoat. It was a ghastly image in the early morning.
    Chen’s nerves were still bad.
    Soon, however, several middle-aged women entered the market, heading to the line to replace the baskets and bricks that marked their place. The market