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Authors: Qiu Xiaolong
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with new voices and faces and few remembered him as a poet anymore.
Chen would not have remembered him either but for a meeting with a British sinologist who raved about Shen’s earlier literary work. Chen was impressed by a short poem about Shen’s early days:
Pregnant, happy / for the coming baby / who’ll be able to be / a Shanghainese, his wife’s touching / the blue veins streaking / her breasts, like—//the mountain ranges / against the pale clouds the day / he left, his grandmother / stumbling after him / in her bound feet, putting / a chunk of the soil /in his hand, saying, / “It—(a mutilated earthworm / wriggled out of the lump)—will / bring you back.”
As an executive member of the Writers’ Association, Chen took it upon himself to arrange for a reprint of Shen’s collection. It was not an easy job. The old man was nervous about poetry, like a man once bitten by a snake, and the publisher, hesitant about possible financial loss, was like a man in fear of a snake. Still, the collection came out and was caught up in the city’s collective nostalgia. People were pleased to rediscover a poetic witness of those golden years before the revolution. A young critic pointed out that the American Imagist poets were indebted to classical Chinese poetry and that Shen, labeled an Imagist, was actually restoring the ancient tradition. The article appealed to a group of “new nationalists,” and the collection sold fairly well.
Chen took out his address book and dialed Shen’s number.
“A gentleman’s request I cannot refuse,” Shen agreed, quoting from Confucius. “But I have to take a look at the mandarin dress.”
“No problem. I’m not in the bureau today, but you can talk to Detective Yu, or to Inspector Liao. Either of them will show you the dress.”
He then informed Yu of Shen’s visit. As Chen expected, Yu was pleased with the unexpected help, promising to show the dress to the historian. At the end of their call, Chen added, “Oh, it’s so thoughtful of Peiqin—she had the copy of Random Harvest specially delivered to me. I’ve been looking for that movie for a long time.”
“Yes, she’s been watching a lot of DVDs, trying to find clues there.”
“Anything new?”
“No, nothing so far, but the DVDs might give her a break from her job.”
“You’re right about that,” Chen said, though he didn’t really think so. It was like his reading for the last two weeks. Once he took it seriously—as something he had to do, something with a purpose—it gave him no break.
Before he could leave for the library to continue his work, there was another special delivery to his home. It was a package of new information about Jia Ming from Director Zhong.
Mostly it was speculation about Jia’s motive for making trouble for the government. Jia and his entire family had suffered during the Cultural Revolution; Jia ultimately lost his parents. He had become a lawyer in the early eighties, when such a career choice was uncommon. During the sixties and seventies, attorneys were hardly existent or relevant in China. Lawyers, like stocks, were considered part and parcel of capitalist society: hypocritical and for the rich. Major cases were determined or predetermined by the Party authorities, all in the name of the proletarian dictatorships. Liu Shaoqi, chairman of the People’s Republic of China, had been thrown in jail without a trial, and there he died alone, without a notice sent to his family for years. Jia had deliberately chosen to become an attorney at a time when it was far from a popular profession: he had planned to make trouble for the government from the beginning.
Because of his early entry into the field, he was quickly successful. As a legal system was advocated and recognized as part of China’s reform, he became well known for his defense of a dissident writer. He made such a brilliant defense that the judge appeared tongue-tied several times, which people caught on TV and
Chen would not have remembered him either but for a meeting with a British sinologist who raved about Shen’s earlier literary work. Chen was impressed by a short poem about Shen’s early days:
Pregnant, happy / for the coming baby / who’ll be able to be / a Shanghainese, his wife’s touching / the blue veins streaking / her breasts, like—//the mountain ranges / against the pale clouds the day / he left, his grandmother / stumbling after him / in her bound feet, putting / a chunk of the soil /in his hand, saying, / “It—(a mutilated earthworm / wriggled out of the lump)—will / bring you back.”
As an executive member of the Writers’ Association, Chen took it upon himself to arrange for a reprint of Shen’s collection. It was not an easy job. The old man was nervous about poetry, like a man once bitten by a snake, and the publisher, hesitant about possible financial loss, was like a man in fear of a snake. Still, the collection came out and was caught up in the city’s collective nostalgia. People were pleased to rediscover a poetic witness of those golden years before the revolution. A young critic pointed out that the American Imagist poets were indebted to classical Chinese poetry and that Shen, labeled an Imagist, was actually restoring the ancient tradition. The article appealed to a group of “new nationalists,” and the collection sold fairly well.
Chen took out his address book and dialed Shen’s number.
“A gentleman’s request I cannot refuse,” Shen agreed, quoting from Confucius. “But I have to take a look at the mandarin dress.”
“No problem. I’m not in the bureau today, but you can talk to Detective Yu, or to Inspector Liao. Either of them will show you the dress.”
He then informed Yu of Shen’s visit. As Chen expected, Yu was pleased with the unexpected help, promising to show the dress to the historian. At the end of their call, Chen added, “Oh, it’s so thoughtful of Peiqin—she had the copy of Random Harvest specially delivered to me. I’ve been looking for that movie for a long time.”
“Yes, she’s been watching a lot of DVDs, trying to find clues there.”
“Anything new?”
“No, nothing so far, but the DVDs might give her a break from her job.”
“You’re right about that,” Chen said, though he didn’t really think so. It was like his reading for the last two weeks. Once he took it seriously—as something he had to do, something with a purpose—it gave him no break.
Before he could leave for the library to continue his work, there was another special delivery to his home. It was a package of new information about Jia Ming from Director Zhong.
Mostly it was speculation about Jia’s motive for making trouble for the government. Jia and his entire family had suffered during the Cultural Revolution; Jia ultimately lost his parents. He had become a lawyer in the early eighties, when such a career choice was uncommon. During the sixties and seventies, attorneys were hardly existent or relevant in China. Lawyers, like stocks, were considered part and parcel of capitalist society: hypocritical and for the rich. Major cases were determined or predetermined by the Party authorities, all in the name of the proletarian dictatorships. Liu Shaoqi, chairman of the People’s Republic of China, had been thrown in jail without a trial, and there he died alone, without a notice sent to his family for years. Jia had deliberately chosen to become an attorney at a time when it was far from a popular profession: he had planned to make trouble for the government from the beginning.
Because of his early entry into the field, he was quickly successful. As a legal system was advocated and recognized as part of China’s reform, he became well known for his defense of a dissident writer. He made such a brilliant defense that the judge appeared tongue-tied several times, which people caught on TV and
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