The Mao Case

world.”
    “What’s that?”
    “I’m a loyal fan of Shang, having watched every one of her movies, but I haven’t seen a real-life photograph of hers. You
     were blessed to have been with her for so many years, Auntie Zhong. I wonder if you could show me or sell me some of her pictures.”
    “She had so many fans. But what difference did it make in her last
days?” She stepped back, however, making a vague gesture to let him in the pigeon coop — like attic room. “Now, after so many
     years, you come out of nowhere, asking for her pictures.”
    “Now listen to me, Auntie Zhong. I knew nothing about her troubles at the time. Later on, I searched for her pictures everywhere,
     but without success. It was only yesterday that somebody told me about your relationship to her, and about her passion for
     photographs. So I thought she might have left some to you as souveniers.”
    “No, Mr. Yu.”
    “If you don’t have any pictures, would you be able to tell me where I can find them?”
    “Why can’t you leave an old woman in peace? I already have one foot dangling in the coffin. And have mercy on Shang, leave
     her in peace too.”
    “It’s more than twenty years since her death, but not a day passes by that I don’t have her in mind. A matchless pearl with
     her beauty radiating from her soul. These new movie stars nowadays are mud-covered hens compared to a graceful phoenix like
     her.” He declared, lifting the plastic bag, “I’m an ordinary retiree. This is just a token of my heart-felt gratitude to you,
     for all the help you have given her and her family. You’re the one sending a cart of charcoal to her in the dreadful winter.”
    “Oh, I’m only an ignorant, illiterate woman,” she said. “I was nothing until Shang took me to Shanghai.”
    “Please tell me something about her.”
    “I was with Shang, then with Qian, and finally with Jiao too,” she said, appearing to be softening, taking the plastic bag.
     “Things are gone and past like the drifting smoke, like the passing cloud. What can I really tell you? At the beginning of
     the Cultural Revolution, I had to leave her. Otherwise, she could have been charged with another crime — the crime of bourgeois
     life style.”
    “Yes, that was so considerate of you.”
    “She was so pitiable. She hung on to a last straw of hope that the
guiren
would come to her rescue.”

    “Can you be more specific about that
guiren
, Auntie Zhong?”
Guiren
— an unexpected luck-bringer — was another word often heard
     in Suzhou opera.
    “He didn’t come,” she said, sniffling. “Nobody came. She gave herself over to despair.
Kalpa
.”
    In Suzhou opera,
kalpa
meant predestined disasters. He noticed a Buddha statue standing on the only table in the room, with
     a bronze incense burner in front of the statue.
    “
Kalpa
or not!” he said. “People should have helped. Was there not a single one?”
    “No, not a single one,” she said. “If the
guiren
chose not to do so, who else could?”
    He understood the reason why she kept using the term
guiren
. They both knew who they were talking about. “Back to my earlier questions, did she show you her pictures?”
    “Some of them.”
    “Including those with the
guiren
?”
    “I don’t remember exactly.”
    “Yes, it’s such a long time ago,” he said, taking it as not a downright denial. “After her tragic death, did any of those
     pictures come to light?”
    “Not that I know of.”
    “Do you think she could have left them behind somewhere?”
    “No, I don’t know that, either.”
    For her age, she proved to be more than alert. So he decided to push on in a new direction.
    “Oh, Buddha is really blind. Such disaster for Shang, and for Qian too. They did nothing to deserve such
kalpa
or karma.”
    “Don’t ever talk like that, Mr. Yu. Buddha is divine. Karma works out in a way far, far beyond us. whatever might have happened
     to Shang and Qian, a real
guiren
finally came to Jiao.”
    “What do you mean?” He added in haste, hardly able to conceal the excitement in his voice, “Didn’t Jiao grow up in an orphanage,
     alone all those years?”

    “Someone helped her through those years — a
guiren
in the background. Now that Jiao has settled down comfortably, I think I can leave the world in peace. Buddha is so great!”
    “Oh? Who helped?”
    “A gold-hearted man.” She rose to put some tall incense into the burner. “I burn incense for him every day. May Buddha