The Mao Case

the younger cop, who wouldn’t have invited him out simply for
     a leisurely talk about the emperors and their tombs.
    “So is that what worries you, Chief?”
    Chen nodded without responding to the question and raised a teacup. “Look at the phrase on the cup. ‘A long, eternal life!’
     Originally, that was a chant for the emperors. During the Cultural Revolution, the first English sentence I learned was ‘A
     long, eternal life to Chairman Mao!’ Exactly the same phrase as was used with regard to the emperors for thousands of years.
     Mao surely knew that, but did he object to it?”
    Old Hunter began to suspect that there was a secret investigation concerning Mao. He had worked with Chen, though not as his
     partner, and they trusted each other. Chen would usually have come to the point directly. But anything involving Mao would
     make the situation different. Chen had to be cautious — and not just for himself. Whatever the situation, Old Hunter had to
     assure Chen of his support.
    “You hit the nail on the head, Chief. Mao was a modern emperor, for all his talk about Marxism and communism. During the Cultural
     Revolution, whatever he said — a sentence, a phrase — was called ‘the supreme decree,’ and we had to celebrate by beating drums
     and marching under the scorching sun through the streets. And you couldn’t complain about the heat. Once I even suffered sunstroke.
     In ancient times, an emperor was compared to the sun, but Mao simply was the sun. One politburo
member was thrown in jail for the crime of slander against Mao, because he wrote an article about the black spots on the sun.”
    “You know a lot about those years, but it may not be fair to judge Mao on something like that, considering the long feudalistic
     history in China,” Chen said.
    “I don’t know about the so-called feudalistic history — not a familiar term to me. An emperor is an emperor, that’s all I know.”
     Old Hunter took a slow sip at his tea, the tea leaves unfurling unexpectedly, like tadpoles in the white cup. “Now, let me
     tell you about a case I had toward the end of the Cultural Revolution.
    “In Suzhou opera, a story has to be told from the very beginning. To understand the things that happened during the Cultural
     Revolution, you have to learn about it from the beginning.”
    “You certainly talk like a Suzhou opera singer,” Chen said, “using tricks like enriching your speech with proverbs and tantalizing
     the audience with digressions before coming to a crucial point. Yes, please, start at the very beginning. The tea is just
     beginning to be tasty, and I’m all ears.”
    “I was about your age at the time, Chief. Li Guohua, then the associate Party secretary, gave me an assignment — the first ‘major
     political case’ in my career. In those days, everyone believed wholeheartedly in Mao and the communist propaganda. A low-level
     cop, I was so proud of working for the proletarian dictatorship. I swore to fight for Mao just like those young Red Guards.
     So I secretly called that case a Mao case.”
    “A Mao case?”
    “Oh, it gave such a tremendous boost to my ego. It was just like pulling a large flag over my body as if it were a ‘tiger
     skin.’ The suspect in the case was named Teng, a middle school teacher accused of slandering Mao in his class. Born in a worker’s
     family and a member of the Communist Youth League, Teng was dating a girl with a good political family background, so he appeared
     to be an unlikely culprit. He had no motive whatsoever. So I went over to the school, where Teng had already been in isolation
     interrogation for days.”
    “How did Teng commit this crime?”

    “I’m coming to it, Chen. You cannot enjoy the steaming hot tofu if you are so impatient,” Old Hunter said, holding his cup
     high in the air. “In those years, Mao’s poems made up a large part of the middle school textbook. In class, Teng was said
     to have given a viciously slanderous interpretation of one of Mao’s poems. However, Teng insisted that what he presented to
     the class was based on official publications, that he had done a lot of research and preparation beforehand —”
    “Hold on, which poem are you talking about?”
    “Mao’s poem to his wife Yang Kaihui.”
    “Ah, that one — ‘I lost my proud Yang, and you lost your Liu —’” Chen said, murmuring the first line of the poem. “In my middle
     school years, that poem was held up as a perfect