“Yes, I know how to do that.”
She reached across to clasp his hand. The starry night came streaming through the curtain that rustled once, and once only. The candle-projected shadows flickered in the background.
Fair waves of the moon fading, / a jade handle of the Dipper lowering, / we calculate by counting on our fingers / when the west wind will start blowing, / unaware of time flowing like a river in the dark…
They once again heard a melody drifting over from the big clock atop the Shanghai Customs House.
“It’s ‘The East Is Red’ again,” he said, “a song proclaiming Mao as the savior of China.”
“Yes?”
“The customs house used to play a different melody a few years ago. When they changed it back, I don’t know. Time really flows—in the dark.”
“It seems as if I’ve known you for years, Chen,” she said softly, “but then, as if just meeting for the first time.”
“I remember when we met at the Writers’ Association. Professor Yao was giving a talk, titled ‘The Enigma of China.’ It reminded me of a painting I’d seen in Madrid.”
“What painting?”
“The Enigma of Hitler by Salvador Dalí. It is a singularly haunting painting. I saw it years ago, but the memory of some surrealistic details has never faded from my mind. The wilted tree, the torn photo of Hitler on the empty plate, the gigantic broken telephone with a teardrop, perhaps symbolic of the ideological control of people. Here, today, we could simply change the telephone speaker to an Internet cable, and the photo of Hitler to one of Mao. In the painting, I remember there’s also a shadowy figure emerging out from behind an umbrella. But what does the figure represent? It could be anybody or even a projection of the collective illusion. But I’ve never really figured that out. It could be me or you. Yesterday, my mother said something truly enlightening. ‘You never really see yourself in the painting.’”
“A painting called The Enigma of China?”
“For too long, I’ve been in the painting—or in the system, as you might well say. Perhaps it’s time for me to get out of it.”
“But I doubt that, Chief Inspector Chen,” she said. “Enigma or not—”
There came another knock on the door.
They were both startled.
“What!”
“Mr. Chen, is it time for the hot dishes?”