Death of a Red Heroine icc-1

by Qiu Xiaolong

  Because of them, he was not going to quit.

  He resumed reading Guan’s file, making notes until it was long after office hours. Then he ate a small portion of the roast duck. The sight of its golden, crispy skin had revived his appetite. Dr. Xia had even included a couple of pancakes. The duck, rolled in the pancake with the special sauce and green onion, tasted so delicious. He stuffed the remaining duck into the refrigerator.

  At about nine o’clock he left the bureau. It did not take him long to arrive at Nanjing Road. It appeared less crowded at that late hour, but the ceaseless transformation of the neon signs infused the scene with fresh vitality.

  Presently the First Department Store came in view. A middle-aged man who was gazing into one of the store’s windows moved away at Chen’s footsteps. Chen, too, came to a stop, catching himself in front of a display of summer fashions, his own reflection faint against the glass. The lights illuminated a line of mannequins in a dazzling variety of bathing suits-skinny strap, tulip-cup neckline, brief-and-halter combination, bikini bottom, and black-and-white trim. The plastic models looked alive in the artificial light.

  “A stick of ice sugar haw!”

  “What?” Chen was startled.

  “Sweet and sour ice sugar haw. Have one!”

  An old peddler had approached with a red wheelbarrow sporting sticks of haw, sugar-glazed scarlet, shining, almost sensual. An uncommon sight on Nanjing Road. Perhaps because it was late, the peddler had been able to sneak into the area. Chen bought one. It tasted rather sour, different from those his mother had bought for him. He would have been no more than five or six, sucking at the stick, and his mother, then so youthful, was wearing her orange Qi skirt, holding a floral umbrella in one hand, and his hand in the other…

  Things had changed so fast.

  Would these models in the window age too?

  A silly question. More silly than a chief inspector in his impressive uniform sucking a stick of haw, wandering along Nanjing Road.

  It was nonetheless a fact that plastics could wear out. A cracked plastic flower, dust-covered, on the windowsill of an out-of-way hotel room. An image that had so touched him, inexplicably, during a trip in his college years. Probably left there by another traveler. No longer lustrous, no longer beautiful-

  No longer politically attractive-in others’ eyes.

  Models, plastic or otherwise, would be replaced.

  A model worker in the early nineties, Guan might have had more realistic worries. While on display, young, vivacious, she could admire her reflection in the ever-changing window of politics, but she must have been aware that her charm was fading. The myth of the model worker, though still honored in the Party newspapers, now appealed to few. Intellectuals got media attention. Entrepreneurs got money. TOEFL test takers got passports. HCC got positions. A model worker got less and less.

  No reversing time and tide, Guan knew. The way things were going, in a few years, to be a model worker would literally be a joke.

  For her, however, it had never been a joke. It had been the meaning of her life, and her life had not been an easy one. She’d had an obligation to be a model at all times: to say the right words, to do the right things, and to make the right decisions. A model-it was, and was not, a metaphor. That’s where she had found her life’s worth-at the moment of being admired, and emulated by others…

  Once more his thoughts were interrupted by footsteps coming from behind him. He seemed to hear a young girl’s giggle. Chief Inspector Chen must have presented a sight -a police officer gazing at the window full of glamorous mannequins in scanty swimming attire. He did not know how long he had been standing there. He took one more look as he started to move on.

  Across the street, a small fruit store was still open. He was familiar with it because his mother had used it as a shortcut to a lane where one of her close friends had lived. The lane had several entrances. One, facing Nanjing Road, had at first been partially blocked by a fruit stall, which had then been converted into the fruit store, totally blocking the access. Behind those tall shelves of fruit, however, there still was a back door opening from the inside, and the store employees used it for their own convenience. He had no idea how his mother had discovered it.

  Chief Inspector Chen had not used the shortcut before, though the owner greeted him warmly like an old customer. He stepped behind the first row of shelves, examining an apple like a fastidious customer. The back door was still there. He pushed at it and it opened into a half-deserted lane. He cut through the lane with quick steps. The other end led out to Guizhou Road, where he stopped a passing taxi, and gave the driver directions. “Qinghe Lane, on Hubei Road.”

  He made sure he was not being followed.

  Chapter 36

  T he stick of sugar haw was as yet unfinished when the taxi pulled up at Qinghe Lane.

  Chief Inspector Chen threw the stick into a trash bin. A few feet away, an idiot stood tittering all by himself, holding a plastic bag above his head like a hood. He did not see anybody else near Guan’s dorm building. The Internal Security people were probably stationed under his own window.

  On his way up to Guan’s room he met nobody. It was a Friday night. People were watching a popular, sentimental Japanese soap opera that showed a young girl losing a battle to cancer. His mother had told him about it; everybody was enthralled.

  Not Guan.

  At her door, the lock remained unchanged. He still had the key. Once inside, he locked the door behind him. He did not turn on the light; instead, he took out a flashlight. He stood in the middle of the room. There was something he wanted to find. Something crucial to the conclusion of the case. If it had ever been there, it might have vanished by now. Wu might have been to the room, found it, and made away with it-hadn’t one of the neighbors mentioned a man who might have come from Guan’s room? Perhaps he should have searched more thougroughly, should have borrowed a forensics expert. But they were so understaffed, and it had not seemed worthwhile. The small room could not conceal much.

  If Guan had intended to hide something from Wu, where would she have put it?

  Any searcher would have looked in the desk, and the drawers, tapped on the walls, turned over the bed, combed through every book and magazine… Chief Inspector Chen had already checked these obvious places.

  He let his flashlight sweep around the room without consciously directing it: An effortless effort, as advocated in Tao Te Ching. The light finally came to a stop at the framed portrait of Comrade Deng Xiaoping hanging on the wall.

  He did not know why the light had stopped there. He stared at the now illuminated portrait. It was a huge picture for the room, but such a size was not uncommon for a national leader’s portrait. In fact, it was the standard size. He had a similar one in his own tiny office.

  He had thought highly of Comrade Deng Xiaoping. Whatever might be said against the old man, it was undeniable that China had made great progress under Deng’s guidance in economic reform and, to some extent, in political reform as well. The last decade had witnessed tremendous changes-in various aspects of people’s lives.

  Even in the way people hung their leader’s portrait.

  During Chairman Mao’s time, it had been a political necessity to hang a huge portrait of Mao and to say morning prayers and evening prayers under it. There were those familiar lines he remembered from one of the modern Beijing operas, “Under the portrait of Chairman Mao, I am filled with new strength.” So the frame had to be specially designed too. A golden frame for the godlike Mao. Not so with Deng. After his retirement, Deng had called himself an “ordinary Party member”- at least the newspapers so reported. Deng’s portrait in the living room was not a political necessity. The frame in Guan’s room was of a light pink color, showing some delicate embossed design. Possibly it was one originally selected for herself, but then used for Deng. He was shown sitting in an armchair, deep in thought, wearing a high-buttoned gray Mao suit, holding a cigarette, an enormous brass spittoon at his f
oot, a map of China behind him, his forehead deeply lined. There was no seeing through to what was going on behind the deep lines on the old man’s forehead.

  Chen moved a chair against the wall and climbed onto it. He removed the framed portrait from the wall, laid it on the floor, and turned it over. Several clips secured the frame to the board. They were easily bent. He removed the board cautiously.

  A stack of pictures wrapped in tissue paper was revealed. He unwrapped them and spread them out on the table.

  He stared at them, or they stared up at him.

  The first few showed Guan in intricate poses, nude or seminude, her body cleverly composed to heighten various effects- her long hair covering her breasts, or her body partially wrapped in a towel, or even more shockingly, in the newspaper showing her picture as she was awarded the title of national model worker. There was one of Guan lying naked on a brown rug in front of a fireplace. The crackling fire illuminated the curves of her body, her hands handcuffed behind her back, her mouth gagged, and her legs spread wide apart. He recognized the fireplace. It was the one in Wu’s living room, the green marble fireplace.

  The next few were of Guan with Wu, both stark naked. The pictures must have been taken with some time-delay device. One showed Guan in Wu’s lap, smiling nervously at the camera. Her arms were around his neck, and his hands on her nipples. In the next, she had turned over, showing a pair of buttocks cupped by his hands, her pubic hair T-shaped from that angle, and her bare feet enormous. The rest were of various acts of sexual intercourse: Wu entering her from behind, his part vanishing in the curve of her ass, and his free hand steadying her pear-shaped breasts; Guan arching herself up under Wu, her arms clasping his back, her face turning aside on the pillow, taut in orgasm, Wu with her legs over his shoulders, entering her…

  To Chen’s astonishment, there was also a picture of Guan with a different man on top of her, posing in a gesture of studied obscenity. This man’s face was partially obscured, but it was not Wu. Guan lay spread-eagled on her back, her eyes closed, as if in ecstasy.

  Then came some pictures of Wu with other women-on the bed, on the rug, in front of the fireplace, or on the floor, in various poses ranging from the erotic to the obscene. One showed Wu having sex with three women.

  Chen thought he recognized one of them, a movie star who had played a talented courtesan of the Ming dynasty.

  Then he noticed some small words on the back of those pictures.

  “14 August. Somewhere between ecstasy and fainting out of fear. Slipping off her panties in five seconds. Entering her vaginally from behind.”

  “23 April. A virgin. Naive and nervous. Bleeding and screaming like a pig, and then writhing like a snake.”

  “A saint in the movie, but a slut off the screen.”

  “Passing out in her second climax, literally. Dead. Cold. Did not come back until two minutes later.”

  The last picture was of Guan again: wearing a mask, manacled to the wall, but otherwise stark naked, staring into the camera with a mixed expression of uneasiness and wantonness.

  A model for a mask.

  Or a mask for a model.

  On the back of the picture was small printing: “A national model worker, three hours after she delivered a speech at the city government hall.”

  Chief Inspector Chen felt sick. He did not want to read any more.

  He was no moralistic judge. In spite of the Neo-Confucian principles the late Professor Chen had instilled in him, he did not consider himself traditional or prudish. However, the pictures, with these comments, were too much for him. He had a sudden, vivid picture of Guan lying on the hard board bed, moaning, arching herself up to the man’s thrust and writhing, beneath the framed portrait of Comrade Deng Xiaoping, who was seated, musing over the future of China.

  He heard himself groaning.

  There was a feeling of unreality about the whole thing. Chief Inspector Chen had finally found what he had been trying so hard to find. The motive.

  Now everything was coming into perspective. Toward the end of their relationship, Guan had got hold of the pictures, which Wu had used against her, but which she had later used to threaten him. She was aware of how destructive the pictures could have been to him, especially at the moment of his potential promotion. She suspected Wu would try to get them back. That was why she had hidden them.

  What she had not anticipated, however, was Wu’s desperation. It cost her her life. Wu’s political career was at a critical moment. With his father lying so ill, this might be his last chance to advance. A scandalous affair or a divorce, either would have damaged his chances. There was no choice left for him. To silence Guan forever would have been his only way out. Now he knew why Wu Xiaoming had committed the crime.

  Chief Inspector Chen put the pictures in his pocket, hung Deng’s portrait back on the wall, and turned off the flashlight.

  As he looked out of the dorm building, he saw a lone man loitering, casting a long shadow across the street. He decided to take a different lane exit. It led to a side street just one block away from the Zhejiang Movie Theater.

  A crowd was pouring out of the movie theater, chatting about a new documentary on the Shengzhen economic reform. People were requested to watch the movie as part of their political education. Its release was supposed to signify some dramatic turn in politics.

  Chen walked amidst the crowd.

  “It’s not just for pleasure that Comrade Deng Xiaoping has made the second trip to Shenzhen.”

  “Of course not. The special economic zone is under fire from those old conservatives.”

  “They are saying that China is no longer on the road of socialism.”

  “Capitalist or socialist, that’s none of our business. As long as we have three meals a day, we don’t care.”

  “And Old Deng has made the difference in your meals, putting chicken, duck, fish and pork on your plates, right?”

  “Yes, that’s what it is really about. We Marxists are proudly materialists.”

  The difference could be seen in the way ordinary people talked about politics on the street. Comrade Deng Xiaoping became “Old Deng”; in the early seventies, people were thrown into jail for saying “Old Mao.”

  In the bureau, Chen had also heard of Deng’s recent trip to the south. It might be a prelude to another dramatic political change, but he found it difficult to dwell on this at the moment. His thoughts were full of Guan, whose personal drama came nearer to him than all the political ones.

  At the beginning of his investigation, Chen had cherished a vision of Guan as a poor victim. An alabaster statue smashed by a violent blow. Guan was a victim. On May 11, 1990, she had been murdered by Wu, but even before that, she had long been victimized-by politics. And she was not an innocent, passive statue either. She was in part responsible for her own destruction.

  Likewise, he, once a college student dreaming of a literary career, had turned himself into Chief Inspector Chen. He came to this realization with a shudder.

  To make no choice is, in existentialist terms, in itself to make a choice.

  Guan could have married Engineer Lai, or somebody else. An ordinary housewife, bargaining over a handful of green onions in the food market, searching through her husband’s pockets in the morning, fighting for stove space in the common kitchen area… But alive, like everybody else, not too good, and not too bad. But politics had made such a personal life impossible. With all the honors heaped on her, an ordinary man was out of the question for her, not enough for her status or ambition. There was no way she could step down from the stage to pick up a man at a bus stop, or to flirt with a stranger in a cafe. On the other hand, what man would really desire a Party member wife delivering political lectures at home-even in bed?

  And then she had came across Wu Xiaoming. In Wu, she believed she saw her answer. She also glimpsed the hope of holding on to the power through her connection with him. In politics, such a union could have worked out: A model couple in the tradition of ort
hodox socialist propaganda. Love based on common communist ideals. So her union with Wu appeared to be her last chance both for personal happiness-and for political ambition.

  The only problem was that Wu was married, and that Wu did not want to divorce his wife to marry her.

  She must have been stung by Wu’s decision, the pain in proportion to her passion. She had given everything to him, at least that was what she must have felt. When everything else failed she resorted to blackmail, turning his own weapon against him. In a crisis, some people will fight back by any means, fair or foul. Chief Inspector Chen could well understand that.

  Or was it possible, he wondered, that Guan finally awoke to a passion she had never known before? And surrendered to it because she had never learned how to cope with it. Having been used to wearing a mask, she had come to take the mask as her true identity. She knew how politically incorrect it was to become enamored of a married man, but that was what she had become, a helpless woman groaning behind the mask, her hands and feet bound. Had she felt for the first time an overwhelming passion that gave her life a new meaning, which she had to keep at any cost?

  Chief Inspector Chen was more inclined to the second scenario: Guan Hongying, the national model worker, had been carried away by passion.

  What the truth was he might never discover.

  Chapter 37

  C hief Inspector Chen did not expect much from meeting with Party Secretary Li the next morning, but he could not afford to wait any longer.

  There was hardly any hope of pushing the investigation forward- with or without the new evidence, for in the light of the Party’s interests, even those pictures could be brushed aside as irrelevant. If it meant that his time in the force was coming to an end, he was prepared for it. He would have no regrets, and no bitterness. As a cop, he had served to the best of his ability, and as a Party member, too. When he became incapable of serving, he would leave. Or he would be asked to leave.