The Mao Case

putting the jasmine petal from her hair into his teacup —
“The transparently white unfolding in the black.”
    “So are you here in Beijing on another case?” she said.
    “No, not exactly. It’s more of a vacation. I haven’t been to Beijing
     for a long time.”
    “Our chief inspector is enjoying a vacation!”
    He was upset by the sarcasm in her voice. It was she who had married somebody else, not the other way round.
    “Any sight of specific interest on your vacation?” she went on without looking up at him.
    Actually, there was one, he suddenly realized. Mao’s former residence in the Central South Sea, the Forbidden City. He had
     just read about it on the train. The residence was closed, and it didn’t have a direct bearing on the investigation, but he
     had taken to visiting the people involved in an investigation or, failing that, their residence, as a way of closing the distance
     between cop and criminal. For this case, Chen didn’t set out to judge Mao. Still, a visit to his residence might help the
     chief inspector, if only psychologically, gain insight into the personal side of Mao.
    Ling should be able to get him into the Central South Sea through her connections in Beijing. “Mao’s old home in the Central
     South Sea,” he blurted out, “but it is closed.”
    “Mao’s old home!” she echoed in surprise. “Since when have you become a Maoist?”
    “No, I’m not that fashionable.”
    “Then why?” She gave him an alert look.
    He didn’t respond at once, trying to recall whether he had ever talked to her about Mao.

    “You remember that evening in Jingshan Park? With the evening spread out against the tilted eaves of the ancient, splendid
     palace, we sat together, and you murmured a poem to me.”
    And it came back, the memories of her sitting on a gray slab of rock, holding his hand, and of his catching sight of a tree
     hung with a white board saying, “The tree on which Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming dynasty hung himself,” and of his shivering
     with the memory of the blackboard hung around his father’s neck during the Cultural Revolution…
    “I still have that poem,” she said, producing from her purse something like a cell phone but larger, palmlike, which he had
     never seen before. She pressed several keys on the gadget.
    “Here it is,” she said, beginning to read aloud from the LCD screen.
    It was on a hillside, Jingshan Park, Forbidden City / where the Qing Emperor had succeeded / the Ming Emperor, we sat / on
     a slab of rock there, watching / the evening spreading out against the tilted eaves / of the ancient, splendid palace. / Below
     us, waves of buses flowed / along Huangchen Road — a moat, hundreds of years ago. We murmured / words in Chinese, then in English
     / we were learning. The bronze stork / which had once escorted the Qing Dowager / stared at us. You dream of us becoming /
     two gargoyles, you told me / at Yangxing imperial hall, gurgling/ all night long, in a language comprehensible / only to ourselves.
     A mist / enveloped the hill. We saw a tree / hung with a white board saying / “It’s on this tree that Emperor Chongzhen /
     committed suicide.” The board reminded me / of the blackboard hung my father’s neck / during the Cultural Revolution. The
     evening / struck me as suddenly cold. / We left the park.
    “Yes, the poem. I really appreciate it that you kept it for me —”
    “I did it on the airplane. Nothing to do during those business flights.”
    But he was vexed, almost irrationally, imagining her traveling with
her businessman husband, sitting side by side, and reading his poems to
him.
Chen had given her a number of his poems. He
     started wondering whether she had kept them, and where.
    “Oh, about the poems I wrote — I meant the poems for you, Ling. I haven’t kept the manuscripts properly, only some pieces here,
     some pieces there. If you still have them, can you give them back to me?”
    “You want them back?”
    He regretted the way he had made the request. So impulsive and abrupt. How was she going to interpret it?
    But she changed the subject. “I have a friend working in the Central South Sea. A visit to his old home can be arranged, I
     guess.”
    Since they were back to talking about Mao, he decided to push his luck further. “Oh, there’s a book written by Mao’s personal
     doctor, do you know anything about it?”
    “This is about an investigation concerning Mao, isn’t it?” she said, looking