The Mao Case

details of his death except that he was attacked on a side street.”
    “Attacked on a side street — by whom?”
    “Internal Security will say nothing. But from what I’ve heard, it is possible he was mugged by gangsters. The fatal blow against
     his skull was made by something like a heavy metal bar.”

    “A heavy metal bar —” A tell-tale weapon for Chen. “Now, who’s in charge of the investigation?”
    “Another person from Internal Security. They called the bureau, demanding to be told your whereabouts. Party Secretary Li
     came to me, his face pulled as long as that of a horse.”
    “I’m coming back today, Yu,” he said. “Find the name of the Internal Security officer for me. And his phone number too.”
    “I’ll do that. What else, Chief?”
    “You have done some asking around about Qian’s lovers, both the first and the second, haven’t you?”
    “Yes, Old Hunter must have told you about Peng, the second one.”
    “Now about Tan, the first one. A group of people from Beijing conducted a special investigation into him before his death.”
    “Do you have anything about the investigation?”
    “No, I don’t. Contact his neighborhood committee again. The neighborhood cop, I mean, since you know him well. At the time,
     the neighborhood committee provided something like an interview list for the Beijing group. A list of the people close to
     Tan and Qian.”
    “I’ll go there,” Yu said, “and get the list. Anything else?”
    “Call me immediately if there’s anything new.”
    Closing the phone, Chen knew he had to leave the Central South Sea.
    He was in no mood to go back into Mao’s rooms, though he had conveniently called this the Mao Case.

TWENTY-THREE
    THE TRAIN WAS RUMBLING along in the dusk.
    Chen had obtained the train ticket through a scalper, paying a much higher price for it. He didn’t try to bargain. There was
     no possibility of purchasing an airline ticket without showing official documents, which he didn’t have. It was a hard seat
     in a third-class car, but he considered himself lucky to have gotten on the train at the last minute.
    During his college years, he had frequently traveled between Beijing and Shanghai, sitting on the hard seats, reading, dozing
     through the night. Now he was finding it very uncomfortable — his legs were stiff, and his back strained. He was unable to doze,
     let alone sleep. He didn’t have a book with him except for
Cloud and Rain in Shanghai
, which he was in no mood to take out, and the memoir by Mao’s doctor, which he couldn’t read openly.
    He must have been spoiled by his chief inspector-ship, he mused with a touch of self-irony. In the last several years, his
     trips had been by airplane or in the soft sleeping cars, and he had forgotten about the discomfort of traveling on the hard
     seat.

    Sitting opposite him, across a small table, was a young couple, possibly on their honeymoon trip. Both were dressed too formally
     for the overpacked train: the man was wearing a new shirt and well-ironed dress pants, the woman, a pink dress with thin straps.
     Initially, she sat leaning against the window, but soon she shifted in her seat and was nestled against him. For them, the
     discomfort was nothing, as long as they had the world in each others’ eyes.
    Beside Chen was a young girl, apparently a college student, who wore a white blouse, a grass-green skirt imprinted with vines
     and trails, and light-green plastic slippers. There was a book on her lap — a Chinese translation of
The Lover
by Marguerite Duras. He had read the book, still remembering that the beginning of the novel echoed the lines by W. B. Yeats,
     “
When you are old and gray and full of sleep
… ”
    He wondered whether he was able to write — or even to say anything like that.
    “The train is reaching Tianjin in a couple of minutes. Passengers for the city of Tianjin should get prepared.” The train
     announcer spoke melodiously in the typical Beijing dialect, with the “er” sound more pronounced than in standard Mandarin.
    The train was already slowing down. Looking out, he saw on the gray platform several peddlers walking and hawking Dogs Won’t
     Leave. An unbelievable brand name for the steamed pork-stuffed buns, a special snack of Tianjin. Perhaps originally from a
     compliment: “The buns taste so good that the dogs won’t leave.” One of the peddlers moving up to the train looked like a thug,
     pushing a basket of buns up to the