The Red Pavilion

'We hadn't met before, Dr Lee, but you knew my reputation, just as I knew yours, and you were afraid I would find out about you. After you had killed the Queen Flower, you came back to the Red Pavilion. You stood for a while on the veranda watching me through the barred window. Your evil presence only caused me a bad dream. You couldn't do anything, for I was lying too far from the window, and I had barred the door.'

He looked up. The leper's face was a gruesome, leering mask. The putrid odour in the small room had become worse. The judge pulled up his neckcloth over his mouth and nose and spoke through it:

'You tried to leave the island after that, but the boatmen wouldn't take you. I suppose you searched the forest on the waterside for a hiding place, and there met by accident, after thirty years, your mistress Green Jade. Recognized her by her voice, I presume. She warned you that I was investigating Tao Kwang's death. What made you cling to a life that held only misery for you, Dr Lee? Were you determined to save your reputation at any cost? Or was it devotion to the woman whom you loved, thirty years ago, and whom you had thought dead? Or an evil desire to come out winner, always? I don't know how an incurable disease may affect a great mind.' As there was no reply, Judge Dee resumed: ' Yesterday afternoon you spied again on me, for the third time. I should have known, I should have recognized the unmistakable odour. You heard me saying to my lieutenant that I was going here. You went to call your hired men and ordered them to lie in ambush among the trees and kill me. You could not know that, after I had gone inside the sitting-room, I had changed my plans. Your men attacked my lieutenant and two of the warden's men instead. All were killed, but one of them mentioned your name, just before he died.

'After I had read your son's letter, I suddenly understood. I knew what you had been, Dr Lee. Feng had described you as the dashing young official of thirty years ago. And Green Jade described you again when she spoke to me of a lover with a wild, reckless strain in him, a man who would casually throw away wealth, position, everything—because of the woman he loved.'

'That was you, dear!' the woman spoke softly. 'That was you, my handsome, reckless lover!'

She covered his face with kisses.

Judge Dee looked away. He said in a tired voice:

'Persons suffering from an incurable disease are beyond the pale of the law, Dr Lee. I only wish to state that you murdered the courtesan Autumn Moon in the Red Pavilion, as you murdered there Tao Kwang, thirty years ago.'

'Thirty years!' the beautiful voice spoke up.' After all those years we are together again! Those years never happened, dear, they were a bad dream, a nightmare. It was only yesterday that we met, in the Red Room ... red as our passion, our burning, reckless love. Nobody ever knew we met there, you, the handsome, talented young official, loving me, the most beautiful, the most talented of all courtesans, the Queen Flower of Paradise Island! Feng Dai, Tao Kwang, and so many others, they all sought my favour. I encouraged them, feigned not to be able to make up my mind, only to protect our secret, our sweet secret.

'Then came that last evening . . . when was it? Wasn't it last night? Just when you were crushing my trembling body in your strong arms, we suddenly heard someone in the sitting-room. You sprang from the bed, naked as you were you ran out there. I followed you, saw you standing there, the red rays of the setting sun colouring your dear body a fiery red. When Tao Kwang saw us standing there close together, naked and defiant, he grew white with rage. Pulling his dagger he called me a shameful name. "Kill him!" I cried. You sprang on him, wrenched the dagger from his hand and plunged it into his neck. The blood spouted over you, red blood over your red, broad breast. Never, never have I loved you more than then . . .'

The ecstatic joy gave the ravaged blind face a strange beauty. The judge bent his head. He heard the vibrant voice resume:

'I said: "Let's dress quickly and flee!" We went back to the Red Room, but then heard someone enter the sitting-room. You went and saw that silly boy. He rushed out again at once, but you said that he might recognize you. It was better to take the body to the Red Room, put the dagger in his hand, lock the door behind us, push the key back inside under the door . . . then they'd say that Tao had killed himself.'

'We parted on the veranda. They were just lighting the lampions, in the small kiosk, over in the park. You said you would go away for a few weeks, wait till the suicide had been registered. Then . . . you would come back to me.'

She began to cough. It became steadily worse, soon it was shaking her wasted frame. Foam and blood came on her lips. She wiped it off carelessly and went on, her voice suddenly weak and hoarse:

'They asked me whether Tao had loved me. I said yes he had loved me, and it was true. They asked me whether he had died because I would not have him, and I said yes he had died because of me, for again it was true. But then the sickness came. ... I got it, my face, my hands . . . my eyes. I would die, and I wanted to die, die rather than ever let you see me again, as I had become.... There was the fire, other sick women dragged me along, over the bridge, to the forest.

'I didn't die, I lived. I, who wanted to die ! I took the papers of Miss Ling, Gold Jasper as she was called. She had died, in the field drain, by my side. I came back, but you thought I was dead, as I wanted you to think. How glad I was when I heard how great, how famous you had become! It was the only thing that kept me alive. And now, at last, you have come back to me, in my arms!'

Suddenly the voice fell silent. When Judge Dee looked up he saw her thin, spidery fingers quickly passing over the still head in her lap. The one eye had closed, the rags on the sunken breast did not move any more.

Pressing the ugly head to her flat bosom she cried out:

'You came back, Heaven be praised! You came back so that you could die in my arms . . . and I with you.'

She hugged the dead body, whispering endearing words.

The judge turned round and went outside. The creaking door fell shut behind him.

XX

When Judge Dee had rejoined Ma Joong, his lieutenant asked eagerly:

'You were quite some time. What did she say, sir? '

The judge wiped the beads of perspiration from his forehead, then swung himself on his horse. He muttered:

'No one was there.' Taking a deep breath of the fresh morning air, he added: 'I made a thorough search of her lodging, but found nothing. I had a theory, but it proved to be wrong. Let's ride back to our hostel.'

While they were crossing the piece of waste land, Ma Joong suddenly pointed ahead with his riding-whip and exclaimed:

'Look at all that smoke over there, sir! They have begun to burn the altars. The Festival of the Dead is over!'

The judge stared at the dense columns of black smoke billowing over the rooftops.

'Yes,' he said, 'the Gates of the Other World have closed.' Closed, he thought, on the ghosts of the past. Thirty years the shadows of that one night in the Red Pavilion had dragged on, darkening the lives of the living. And now at last, after thirty long years, those shadows had slunk away to that dank, evil-smelling hovel; now they were cowering there, with a dead man, and a dying woman. Soon they would have gone, gone for ever, never to come back.