The Interior (2 page)

Instead her mind filled again with images of Miaoshan in life. As a toddler in split pants. As a girl dressed in a faded blue padded jacket who was devoted to her studies, diligently practicing her Chinese ideograms and reciting her English. As the young woman she had recently become who sometimes seemed such a stranger. “One day I will earn enough money that we will leave this place,” she had often said with such conviction that Suchee had believed her. “We will go to Shenzhen, maybe even America….” Silently Suchee pulled at her hair, trying to drive away her dream-ghost daughter. Silently she screamed,
How could this have happened?

From the dry-goods store, Suchee purchased paper in assorted colors so that tonight she might cut them into offerings, which would be burned at the grave. In this way Miaoshan, who was so poor in life, would be accompanied to the afterworld with clothes, a car, a house, friends. To distract Hungry Ghosts from Miaoshan’s funeral belongings, Suchee would cook up a pot of rice to sprinkle on the bonfire. When the flames died down, her daughter would truly be gone forever.

Suchee had one more purchase to make—a coffin. Undertaker Wang, knowing that Suchee was almost as poor as he, suggested that the girl be cremated. But Suchee shook her head. “I want a coffin, a good one,” she insisted.

“I can make you something nice,” Wang said. “See this wood over here? This will be perfect for you.”

But when Suchee ran her fingertips over the rough grain, she shook her head again. She looked about her until her eyes rested on a crimson lacquer coffin with hand-wrought hardware. “That one there,” she said, pointing. “That is the one for Miaoshan.”

“Oh, too expensive! My nephew buys that one in Beijing and sends it here to me. At first I’m thinking, my nephew has put me out of business! That kind of coffin is for a Red Prince, not someone in our poor village. But these days…” The undertaker rubbed his chin. “We have some prosperity in our village now. I am keeping it for one of the village elders. They are all old men, and they can’t live forever.”

But Suchee didn’t appear to be listening. She crossed the small, hot room and placed her hands on the crimson surface of the coffin. After a moment she turned and said, “I will take it.” Before Wang could voice his objections, Suchee reached into a pocket, pulled out a wad of old bills, and began counting them. She was not prepared to bargain with him as she might have under other circumstances, and, to his honor, he did not cheat her but accepted a fair price with a solid profit. Undertaker Wang considered that if a peasant woman like Ling Suchee was willing to buy a coffin like this for a no-account daughter, then perhaps that nephew of his should send a few more lacquer coffins to the village.

Her business with Wang completed, Suchee stepped back outside into the harsh sunlight. With each of these stops her determination grew. She would make Captain Woo hear her. She crossed the street to the building that housed the Public Security Bureau, then waited while a secretary went into one of the offices to speak with the captain. When she came out, her face was set in a disapproving grimace. “The captain is busy,” the woman said. “He says you should go back home. Be a proper mother. You have a duty, you know. Take care of your daughter.” The woman’s voice softened just a little. “You have things you need to do for her. Go on.”

“But I have to tell him—”

The secretary’s firmness returned. “Your case has been heard. Captain Woo has already finished the paperwork.”

“How can this be?” Suchee asked. “Captain Woo has not interviewed anyone. He has not asked me if Miaoshan had any enemies. We are a small village, but you and I both know there are many secrets here. Why isn’t he asking about those?”

Instead of answering these questions, the secretary said, “The official file is complete.” As an afterthought she added, “Do not cause trouble for yourself.”

Suchee bent her head, looked at her callused feet, and tried to absorb what she had heard.

“Go on,” the secretary insisted, a strident tone creeping into her voice. “We are sorry for your loss, but you must go away. If you don’t, I will have to call…”

Suchee slowly stood, looked the woman directly in the eye, and uttered the worst curse she could think of. “Fuck your mother,” she said and walked out.

She headed straight for the post office, knowing she would have to pass the Silk Thread Café. Approaching it, she saw the elders of the town—some old, some not so old, but all of them in clean and ironed white shirts that seemed an affront to all those who labored in the rocky fields that surrounded this village—sitting at their customary tables at the front of the establishment. When the men saw her approaching, their banter quieted so that all that could be heard was the sound of the café’s television in the background.

She met their stares straight on. With the vision of her daughter hanging in the shed looming before her eyes, she said, “You will pay. I will make you pay if it takes my last breath and my last drop of blood.”

Then she lifted her chin and continued on to the post office, where she bought paper, a pen, and an envelope. At the counter she slowly, painstakingly wrote out a few characters. It was important to her that their form be neat, that their content be as clear as her simple mastery of the written language would allow. Then—copying from a slip of paper that she had brought with her from that buried box in her fields—she wrote on the envelope the name and address of the only government official she knew, Liu Hulan, who had lived and worked in the village so many years before.

1

T
HIS MORNING, AS EVERY MORNING THIS SUMMER IN
Beijing, Liu Hulan woke before dawn to the deafening sounds of drums, cymbals, gongs, and, worst of all, the horrible squeals of a
suo-na
, a many-piped wind instrument that resounded for blocks, maybe even miles. Competing to be heard over the instruments were the exuberant voices, cheers, and yelps of the Shisha Hutong Yang Ge Folk Dance and Music Troupe. This was the beginning of what would be a three-hour session, and this morning it appeared to be taking place directly outside Hulan’s family compound.

Hulan hurriedly wrapped her silk robe around her, slipped on a pair of tennis shoes, and stepped outside onto the covered veranda outside her bedroom. Though it was only four, the air was already thick as custard with heat, humidity, and smog. Once the summer solstice passed, Beijingers prepared for the arrival of
Xiao Shu
, or Slight Heat Days. But this year
Da Shu
, Great Heat, had come early. This past week had seen five straight days with temperatures over forty-two degrees centigrade and humidity hovering at about ninety-eight percent.

Hulan quickly crossed the innermost courtyard, passing the other pavilions where in the old days the different branches of her extended family had lived. On the steps of one of these, her mother’s nurse—already dressed in simple cotton trousers and a short-sleeve white blouse—waited for her. “Hurry, Hulan. Make them stop. Your mother is bad this morning.” Hulan didn’t respond, she didn’t need to. She and the nurse had followed this routine now for the past three weeks.

Hulan reached the first courtyard, pushed open the gate, and stepped into the alleyway that ran before her family compound. There were perhaps seventy people here, all of them senior citizens. Most were dressed in pink silk tunics, while a few wore electric green. The latter, Hulan had learned a week ago, had come from the Heavenly Gate Dance Brigade after an argument about who would lead the dancing in their own neighborhood. The people looked colorful and—Hulan had to admit it—rather sweet in their costumes: Sequins decorated their fans, while glittering tinsel and tufts of white fluff fluttered in time to the music. The bodies of the old people happily gyrated to the drums and cymbals in a dance that was a cross between the bunny hop and the stroll.

“Friends, neighbors,” Hulan called out, trying to be heard, “please, I must ask you to move.” Of course no one paid her any attention. Hulan stepped into the dancers just as they began marching out of their circle and into rows.

“Oh, Inspector! Beautiful morning!” This greeting came from Ri Lihan, a woman in her eighties who lived five compounds away. Before Hulan could respond, Madame Ri twirled away.

Hulan tried to stop first one, then another dancer, but always they slipped past, laughing, their wrinkled faces flushed and sweaty. Hulan made her way through the dancers to the musicians. The cheeks of the man blowing on the
suo-na
were puffed out and red. The sound emanating from that instrument was high, loud, and discordant. Speech was impossible, but when the musicians saw Hulan pat at the pockets of her robe, they exchanged knowing glances. They had seen their neighbor, Liu Hulan, do this before. She was looking for her Ministry of Public Security identification, but, as was so often the case on these early morning excursions, she had left it behind. The musicians beamed and nodded agreeably to the inspector.

Still clanking, drumming, and blowing, the musicians slowly set off down the alley. Following this cue, the old folks—continuing their dancing rhythm—filed past Hulan. She waited for Madame Zhang to pirouette by, but when she didn’t Hulan walked to the old woman’s home, silently cursing this current wave of nostalgia to sweep through the city. One month it was restaurants celebrating “the long-past good days” of the Cultural Revolution; the next month there was a run on collectible Mao buttons. One month there was a craze for Western-style white wine mixed with Coca-Cola and ice; the next month old people were bringing their rumpled
yang ge
costumes and instruments out of trunks and closets and taking to the streets like a bunch of teenagers.

Yang ge
music had originated among the peasants of China’s northeast and had been brought to Beijing by the People’s Liberation Army in 1949. Now, after years of deprivations and political upheavals, the old people had resurrected twin passions—dancing and singing. The only problems—and they were big ones as far as Hulan was concerned—were the time of day and the noise. China, although a large country, operated on one time zone. While in the far west farmers might not go to their fields until the sun came up at nine, in Beijing the day started unconscionably early. Psychologically Hulan hated waking up before six, let alone four in the morning, to the ungodly racket of the
yang ge
troupe.

This constant clamoring had also been extremely upsetting to Hulan’s mother. Rather than filling Liu Jinli with sentimental longings or carefree memories, these raucous sounds made the older woman quite querulous. Since the Cultural Revolution, Jinli had been confined to a wheelchair and still suffered from bouts of catatonia. During the first weeks that she’d come back to the quiet of the
hutong
, her health had improved considerably. But with the
yang ge
music stirring up the past, Jinli’s condition had once again spiraled downward. Which was why Hulan had gone several times already this summer to Neighborhood Committee Director Zhang to register complaints. But the old woman, whose duty it was to keep tabs on the comings and goings of the residents of this Beijing neighborhood, had joined the troupe herself and for once seemed completely immune to Hulan’s imprecations.

“
Huanying, huanying
,” Madame Zhang Junying said automatically, opening the door to Hulan. Then, seeing how her neighbor was dressed, the older woman quickly pulled Hulan inside. “Where are your day clothes? You are trying to scare the neighbors?”

“There’s nothing to see that they haven’t seen before,” Hulan said, pulling her robe more tightly around her.

Madame Zhang considered these words, then said, “For most people this is true. After all, what surprises can any of us have? But with you…” The Committee director shook her head in a maternal show of disapproval. “Come sit down. Will you drink tea?”

Hulan, as custom dictated, politely refused.

But Madame Zhang would have none of it. “Sit down here. You pour. I’ll put these papers away.” As Hulan did as she was told, the old woman continued, “Today no fun for me. I have to file my report. So much paperwork, right, Hulan?”

“I have something for you to add to your report.”

“Don’t worry,” the Committee director chortled. “I have already put in your complaints. Formal, as you requested.”

“Then why isn’t anything done?”

“You think you are the only one to complain? Remember that hot line the government set up for people to call? They got almost two thousand calls the first day.
Then
they turned off the phone!” Madame Zhang clapped her hands on her knees.

“The musicians are not supposed to be near residences…”

“Or hospitals. I know. You don’t have to tell
me
. But you must look on the positive side. We are together maybe sixty thousand old people in different dance troupes. We are going outside the house and giving young people time at home alone. Daughters-in-law are happy. Sons are happy. Maybe next year we get a grandchild or great-grandchild—”

“Auntie,” Hulan cut in sternly.

At her tone Madame Zhang finally turned serious. “I remember when your mother returned to our neighborhood from the countryside all those years ago,” she said. “
She’s
the one who taught us these songs.
She’s
the one who taught us these dances. Now you tell me she doesn’t want us to make noise? Ha!”

“But do they have to do it so early in the morning?”

At this Madame Zhang put her head back and laughed and laughed. “This is summer, Hulan. We are in Beijing. What is the temperature at this hour? Thirty-eight degrees centigrade? The people want to practice early before it gets too hot.”

The old woman watched Hulan’s face as she struggled to come up with another argument. Finally Madame Zhang leaned over and put a hand on Hulan’s knee. “I know this must be hard for your mother. But she is just one person, and the people want to have fun.” Her voice changed, becoming gruffer, deeper. “We all went through so much. We just want to enjoy the rest of our lives.”

Later, as Hulan walked back to her compound, she thought over Madame Zhang’s words. It was true, they’d all been through so much, too much really. In China the past would always be a part of the present. But unlike her neighbors, Hulan had the money and connections to make sure her family could escape it on occasion. And so Hulan made a plan. When she reached the Liu compound she went directly to her mother’s quarters. The nurse had dressed Jinli, who now sat in her wheelchair. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. Hulan tried to speak to her, but Jinli had retreated into silence. Hulan sat on the bed, dialed the phone, and made arrangements to send her mother and her nurse to the seaside resort of Beidaihe. They would be cooler there and away from the disturbing sounds of the
yang ge
troupes.

When Hulan was done, she carefully explained everything to Jinli, knowing that she might not understand anything that was said. Then Hulan kissed her mother, gave a few last instructions to the nurse, and made her way back to her own quarters.

At seven, Liu Hulan, dressed in a cream-colored silk dress, once again stepped through the gate of her
hutong
home to a waiting black Mercedes. A young man leaned against the back passenger door. “Good morning, Inspector,” he said as he opened the door and motioned for her to get in. “Step inside quickly. I have kept the car running. The air conditioning is good.”

Hulan sank into the soft leather cushions. Her driver, Investigator Lo, stepped on the gas and began heading toward Tiananmen Square and the Ministry of Public Security compound. Lo was a compact man—short, muscular, and prudent with his thoughts and emotions. From reading his secret personal file, Hulan knew that he was from Fujian Province, single, and an expert at several martial arts disciplines.

Several times during the last two months since Investigator Lo had been assigned to her, Hulan had tried to include him in the analytical aspects of her investigations, but he’d seemed circumspect, preferring to concern himself only with his chauffeuring duties. She’d invited him out for drinks, hoping that over a beer they might begin a friendship, but Lo had politely refused these offers as well. All of this was odd. Who would turn down an offer to “climb the ladder” at the ministry? It was through the successful conclusion of cases, recommendations from superiors, or political activities that investigators usually earned promotions. Investigator Lo appeared to have either no inkling of these rules or no aptitude for accomplishing any of these things, but Hulan was not surprised.

Her old driver, Peter, had been assigned to spy on her. Despite his lack of personal loyalty, Hulan had learned to depend on his judgment and instincts. She had hoped to build a similar relationship with Lo, but he seemed focused solely on his instructions from Vice Minister Zai, which apparently were limited to keeping tabs on her and working as some sort of bodyguard—a moving block of muscle with her protection as his goal. More than once she had needed to restrain Investigator Lo, who took it upon himself to physically bully witnesses who did not respond quickly enough to Hulan’s questions.

When she had gone to Vice Minister Zai to request that Lo be transferred, he had shaken his head and said, “This is how it will be, Inspector.” His manner—the way he dismissed her complaints and concerns—was new to her. But he, like all of them, was still trying to adjust and adapt to the changes that the last few months had brought. As the saying went, the blade of grass points where the wind blows. The only problem was that the wind was blowing in so many directions these days no one could completely protect himself.

These past months had been especially strange for Hulan. Her family had literally been ripped apart. Her father had died under bad circumstances when Hulan exposed him as a smuggler, conspirator, and killer. The press—regulated as it was by the government—had made the story headline news. There had been features about Hulan’s parents, her grandparents, even her great-grandparents—all of them shown in a bad light. But for a time the government had seen in Hulan’s own story a politically advantageous message, so her life had also been examined. Photographs had been dredged out of newspaper files as well as government records showing Hulan at various crime scenes, at political rallies from her youth, even as the baby daughter of one of Beijing’s then-most promising couples. Hulan had been compared time and again to her namesake—Liu Hulan, martyr for the Revolution.

Hulan had thought that this interest would pass. But instead of dwindling, the coverage had swung in another direction thanks to Bi Peng, a reporter for the
People’s Daily
. In a country that loved puns, Bi Peng was well known for his name. Bi was just a family name, but the tone sounded like
bi
, the word for pen. What he wrote about soon spread across the country. Now, to Hulan’s growing embarrassment and anger, several newspapers and magazines had run photographs of her as one of Beijing’s elite class—a Red Princess. Here was Hulan in a grainy photograph copied from a security tape dressed in a fuchsia silk
cheongsam
and dancing at the Rumours nightclub with an American. This showed her decadence as clearly as if she’d been caught buying silk lingerie at one of Beijing’s new department stores.

But all this was just propaganda. Hulan remembered that night at Rumours perfectly well. She had not been there for fun, but rather to investigate a crime. The American in the photo was David Stark, an assistant U.S. attorney, who had come to China to help solve that case. The two of them had been successful and had been hailed as heroes. But it wasn’t safe for anyone in China to climb too high. Bi and other reporters had turned her relationship with David into a national scandal. Could the same Liu Hulan who had been treated as a brave woman now have succumbed to the depravity of the West in the form of this American man? Couldn’t she say
bai bai
—a mutant Mandarin-English phrase meaning to say “bye-bye” to lovers—to this foreign attorney? Hadn’t Inspector Liu read
China Can Say No
, the book that stressed the importance of just saying no to American imperialism, materialism, and sexism?