Yet another knock came at the door. This time it was only Shen’s introduction letter with his signature plus a red seal at the bottom. Shen recommended Chen warmly, raving about his business career and literary interests. As represented in the letter, Chen was ready to settle down to work on a literary project about Shanghai in the thirties.

His cover story was another weird coincidence. Chen recalled Ouyang, a friend he had met in Guangzhou, saying something similar except that Ouyang was a real businessman, who never made enough money to work on a literary project.

IN THE EARLY AFTERNOON, Chen arrived at Shaoxing Road, a quiet street lined with old magnificent buildings behind high walls.

It was an area he was relatively familiar with because of a publishing house located nearby. Still, behind the high walls, behind the shuttered windows, the houses seemed to be hinting at mysterious, inexplicable stories within.

Instead of heading directly to Xie Mansion, he went across the street, into a miniature café. It must have been converted from a residential room and had only three or four tables inside. A narrow bar sporting several coffee makers and wine racks took up one third of the space. He cast a curious look toward the partition at the back of the room. The proprietor apparently lived in the space behind the partition wall.

He chose a table by the window. For the party in the late afternoon, Chen had put on a pair of rimless glasses, changed his hairstyle, and donned an expensive suit of light material. The people there probably wouldn’t recognize him except for the one from Internal Security. While Chen was known in his own circle, he thought those at the party would be a different lot, and he looked at his window reflection with a touch of ironical amusement. Clothing makes, if not a man, at least the role for a man.

A young girl emerged from behind a door in the partition wall, through which Chen caught a glimpse of a back door that led into a lane. She looked like a middle school student, helping the family business, serving coffee to his table with a sweet smile. The coffee was expensive, but it tasted fresh and strong.

Sipping at the coffee, he dialed the Shanghai Writers’ Association. A young secretary answered the phone. She was quite cooperative but knew little about Diao, the author of Cloud and Rain in Shanghai. Diao was not a member of the association and had become known to the association only after the book’s publication. She checked through files and said that Diao might have been invited to a literary meeting somewhere, but she didn’t exactly know where. Diao wasn’t in Shanghai, of that much she was sure.

Chen followed up by making a long-distance call to Wang, the chairman of the Chinese Writers’ Association in Beijing, asking him to find out the whereabouts of Diao. Wang promised to call back as soon as he learned anything.

Placing the phone by the coffee cup, Chen took out the file on Xie, turning to the part about the history of the mansion.

A lot had happened to the prestigious buildings in this area. In the early fifties, high-ranking Party officials had moved in, driving out most of the former residents, only a few of whom remained. Things got much worse at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. At the time, a large house could be forcefully seized by dozens of working-class families, each of them occupying one room – a “revolutionary activity” that abolished the remaining privileges of the pre-1949 society. In the early nineties, a number of those old buildings were pulled down to make way for new construction. It was a miracle that Xie kept his house intact for all these years, and according to the legend told and retold in that social circle, it was achieved through a sacrifice made by Xie’s ex-wife. It was said that she had an affair with a powerful Red Guard commander, who consequently let the family remain in the house undisturbed. Then she and her husband divorced and she went to the United States before the value of the mansion was rediscovered.

Whatever the truth behind the stories, the mansion across the street looked magnificent in the afternoon sun. Looking up from the file, Chen didn’t see anyone approaching the building yet. He decided to measure out his time, alone, with the coffee spoon.

A group of young people came in, clamoring for coffee, Coca Cola, and a variety of snacks in a boisterous chorus. They took no notice of him.

About twenty-five minutes later, he saw a black car pulling up in front of the mansion. Two girls emerged, waving their hands to the driver. There was no taxi sign on top of the car. They went up to the front door and pushed the bell. From where he was sitting, Chen couldn’t see who opened the door for them. Soon another man arrived in a taxi and headed toward the door.

Chen rose, paid for his coffee, and walked out.

On close examination, Xie Mansion struck him as slightly shabby and dilapidated. The paint on the door had faded badly. There was no intercom. Pressing the discolored doorbell, he had to wait minutes before a lanky man in his early fifties came out, examining the Italian leather briefcase in Chen’s hand like a business card.

“Mr. Xie?” Chen said.

“He is inside. Please come in. You are a bit early for the party.” Chen didn’t know the exact time the party would start, but newcomers seemed to be arriving from time to time. People who might not necessarily know one another.

He walked into a spacious living room, which was oblong, with large French windows on one side looking out into a garden. There were several people standing by the windows, holding drinks in their hands. The party hadn’t started yet and no one bothered to greet or acknowledge him. He noticed a middle-aged woman in the group, slightly plump, incessantly fanning herself with a round silk fan. The air conditioning was barely on. Opposite the French window, there were several chairs along the wall, unoccupied.

At the other end of the living room, there was another room with frosted-glass sliding doors. Through the slightly opened door, Chen caught a glimpse of a red skirt. That had to be where the female students had their painting lessons. It seemed that there were two events this afternoon, the painting class, and the dancing party.

He moved over to the group by the French window. These people were sometimes called Old Dicks in the Shanghai dialect – from the phrase Old Sticks in Colloquial British English. In Shanghai the phrase carried association of high-class gentlemen in the thirties, brandishing brass-topped walking sticks, hence the embodiment of the values of that time. Now in the nineties they had staged a comeback, their knowledge of the thirties marketable and fashionable.

“My name is Chen,” he introduced himself to a silver-haired man with gold-rimmed glasses and a gold watch chain dangling from his vest pocket. “I’m a writer.”

The silver-haired man nodded, adjusting the gold-rimmed glasses along the ridge of his aquiline nose, saying not a single word in response. He continued talking to a chubby old man in the group.

Chen was not one of them, apparently. None of them seemed interested in him. Still, he managed to introduce himself around, trying to fit in. The Old Dicks were invariably nostalgic, looking backward at the past as if it were the only real life. They kept exchanging anecdotes of the “good families,” out of which they came, as a means of criticizing the present-day upstarts who possessed neither history nor taste. They remained indifferent to the presence of a stranger with apparently neither an illustrious family background nor knowledge of those glittering years.

It was not until fifteen minutes later that a man came striding out of the other room, extending his hand even at a distance. An ordinary-looking man in his early sixties, fairly short, slightly overweight, with thinning hair and an angular face, he wore a gray jacket and black dress pants. He spoke with a strong Shanghai accent.