Death of a Red Heroine

by Qiu Xiaolong

  He had a feeling that the lines were flowing to him from a superior power. He just happened to be there, with the pen in his hand. . . .

  He did not know when he fell asleep.

  The ring of the telephone on the night stand startled him.

  As he stirred from his dream, blinking, he realized Ling was no longer beside him. The white pillows were rumpled against the headboard, still soft, cloud-like in the first morning light.

  The telephone kept on ringing. Shrill and sharp, so early in the morning, like an omen. He snatched it.

  “Chief Inspector Chen, it’s all finished.” Yu sounded edgy, as if he too had hardly slept.

  “What do you mean—all finished?”

  “The whole thing. The trial is over. Wu Xiaoming was sentenced to death, guilty on all the charges against him, and executed last night. About six hours ago. Period.”

  Chen glanced at his watch. It was just past six.

  “Wu did not try to appeal?”

  “It’s a special case. The Party authorities put it that way. No use making any appeal. Wu was well aware of that. His attorney, too. An open secret to everybody. Appeal or no appeal, it would have made no difference.”

  “And he was executed last night?”

  “Yes, just a few hours after the trial. But don’t start asking me why, Comrade Chief Inspector.”

  “Well, what about Guo Qiang?”

  “Also executed, at the same time and on the same execution ground.”

  “What?” Chen was more than shocked. “Guo had committed no murder.”

  “Do you know what the most serious charge against Wu and Guo was?”

  “What?’’

  “Crime and corruption under Western bourgeois influence.”

  “Can you try to be a bit more specific, Yu?”

  “I can, of course, but you will be able to read all the political humbug in the newspapers. Headlines in red print, I bet. It will be in the Wenhui Daily. Now it’s part of a national campaign against ‘CCB’—corruption and crime under Western bourgeois influence. A political campaign has been launched by the Party Central Committee.”

  “So it is a political case after all!”

  “Yes, Party Secretary Li is right. It’s a political case, as he said from the very beginning.” Yu made no effort to conceal the bitterness in his voice. “What a great job we have done.”

  Chen went downstairs. He saw Ling again in the hotel lobby.

  Several members of the American delegation had gathered around the front desk to admire a Suzhou embroidered silk scroll of the Great Wall. Ling was interpreting. She did not notice him at first. In the morning light, she appeared pale, with dark rings visible under her eyes. He did not know when she had left his room.

  She was wearing a rose-colored Qi skirt, the slits revealing her slender legs. A small straw purse hung from her shoulder, and a bamboo briefcase was in her hand. An Oriental among the Occidentals. She was about to leave with the American delegation.

  As he gazed at her in a flood of morning light, he was awash in gratitude.

  She did not disengage herself immediately. As soon as she was free, he asked, “Will you call me when you get back to Beijing?”

  “Of course I will.” She added after a pause, “If that’s all right with you.”

  “How can you ask that? You have done such a lot for me—”

  “No, don’t. You’re under no obligation.”

  “Then we’ll see each other in Beijing,” he said, “in October. Maybe earlier.”

  “Remember the poem you recited for me in the North Sea Park that afternoon?”

  “That afternoon, yes.”

  “So it’s just a couple of months.”

  A small American woman with a slight limp came shuffling toward her.

  “Are we done with what we have come for?”

  “Yes, I’m done with what I came for,” she said, looking at him before she turned to join the delegation members.

  Outside, it was a bright, shining morning. A gray mini-van awaited the delegation on Nanjing Road. She was the last to get into the van, carrying a leather suitcase for someone. As the car started moving, she rolled down the window and waved her hand at him.

  He watched as the van pulled out I’m done with what I came here for. That was what she had said.

  What had he come here for? He wished he could say the same, but he couldn’t.

  It had happened. It might never happen again. He did not know. He did know, however, that there was no stepping twice into the same river.

  But he had to run back into the hotel. Some representatives were leaving. As the host, he had to say good-bye to them and bestow various gifts on behalf of the Shanghai Police Bureau. Smiling, shaking hands with one representative after another, he realized that his responsibilities at the Guoji Hotel had been designed to get him out of the way.

  “The order of the acts has been schemed and plotted, / And nothing can avert the final curtain’s fall.”

  By noon, he was free to go downstairs to the newspaper stand in the lobby. There were several people gathering in front of it, reading the newspaper over each other’s shoulders. As he walked toward them, he saw a headline printed in red:

  CORRUPTION AND CRIME UNDER WESTERN BOURGEOIS INFLUENCE

  There was a full page editorial in the People’s Daily about Wu’s case.

  What struck Chen as most absurd was that Guan’s name was not even mentioned. She was just one of the unnamed victims. The homicide was treated as an inevitable effect of Western bourgeois influence. Chief Inspector Chen’s name was not mentioned either, which was probably well-meant, as Party Secretary Li had explained. But Commissar Zhang was cited as a representative of the old high cadres determined to push through the investigation. Zhang’s commitment was seen as the Party’s determination.

  It is not people that make interpretations, but interpretations that make people.

  The editorial concluded impressively, authoritatively:

  Wu Xiaoming was born of a high cadre family, but under Western bourgeois influence, Wu turned into a criminal. The lesson is clear. We must always remain alert. The case shows our Party’s determination to fight corruption and crime caused by Western bourgeois influences. A criminal, of whatever family background, will be punished in our socialist society. Our Party’s pure image will never be soiled.

  Chief Inspector Chen did not want to read more.

  There was another piece of news, shorter, but also on the front page, about the conference, with his name listed as one of the important cadres who attended it.

  He became aware of other people talking in front of the newsstand. They were engaged in a heated discussion.

  “How easily those HCC can make tons of money,” a tall man in a white T-shirt said. “My company needs to apply for a quota for textile exports every year, but it is very difficult to get one. So my boss goes to an HCC, and that S.O.B. just picks up the phone, saying to the minister in Beijing, ‘Oh, dear Uncle, we all miss you so much. My mother is always talking about your favorite dish . . . By the way, I need an export quota; please help me with it.’ So this ‘nephew’ immediately gets his quota on a fax signed by the minister, and sells it to us for a million Yuan. You call this fair? In our company, one-third of the workers are being laid off, with only one hundred and fifty a month of so-called ‘waiting for reassignment’ pay—not enough to buy a moon cake for their kids at the Mid-Autumn Festival!”

  “It’s much more than quotas, young man,” another man said. “They get those high positions like they were born to be way above us. With their connections, power, and money, what can’t they do? Several well-known actresses were involved in the case, I’ve heard. All of them stripped naked, as white as lambs, scratching and screeching all night long. Wu has not wasted his days.”

  “Well, I heard that Wu Bing still is in a coma in Huadong Hospital,” an elderly man cut in, apparently not comfortable with the direction of the discussion.

/>   “Who is Wu Bing?”

  “Wu Xiaoming’s father.”

  “Good for the old man,” the man in the white T-shirt said. “He will be spared the humiliation of his son’s downfall.”

  “Who cares? The father should be responsible for his son’s crime. I’m glad, for once, our government has made the right decision.”

  “Come on, you think they’re serious? It’s just like the old saying, ‘Kill a chicken to scare monkeys.’”

  “Whatever you say, this time the chicken is an HCC, and I would like to make a stew of it, delicious, tender, plus a pinch of MSG.”

  As he stood listening to the discussion, the various aspects of the case came together.

  It was so politically complicated, this homicide case. In the inner-Party struggle, Wu’s execution was a symbolic blow to the hard-liners, so that they would not continue to stand in the way of reform, but it was also a message modified by Wu’s father being sick and away from the center, so that it would not upset those still in power to the point of shaking the “political stability.” In terms of ideological propaganda, the case was conveniently presented as the consequence of Western bourgeois influence, which protected the Party’s credit. And finally, to ordinary Chinese people, the case also served as a demonstration of the Party’s determination to fight corruption at all levels, especially among the HCC, a dramatic gesture demanded by China’s politics after the summer of 1989.

  The combination of all these factors had made Wu Xiaoming the best candidate for an example. It was possible that failing Wu Xiaoming, another HCC with a similar background would have been chosen for such a purpose. It was proper and right that Wu should be punished. No question about it. But the question was: Had Wu been punished for the crime he had committed?

  So Chief Inspector Chen had played right into the hands of politics.

  The realization came to him as he left the hotel and walked slowly along Nanjing Road with heavy steps. The street was as crowded as ever. People were walking, shopping, talking, in high spirits. The sun cast its brilliance over the most prosperous thoroughfare of the city. He bought a copy of the People’s Daily.

  In his high-school days, he had believed in everything published in the People’s Daily, including one particular term: proletarian dictatorship. It meant a sort of dictatorship logically necessary to reach the final stage of communism, thus justifying all means toward that ultimate end. The term proletarian dictatorship was no longer used. Instead, the term was: the Party’s interests.

  He was no longer such an unquestioning believer.

  For he could hardly believe in what he himself had done.

  Wu Xiaoming had been executed at the moment when he had been sleeping with Ling. What had happened between Ling and him was, by the orthodox Communist code, another instance of “Western bourgeois decadence.” The same crime Wu had been accused of—”decadent lifestyle under the influence of Western bourgeois ideology.”

  Chief Inspector Chen could tell himself, of course, a number of convenient things—that things are complicated, that justice must be upheld, that the Party’s interest is above everything else, and that the end justifies the means.

  But it was more than that, he realized: the end could not but be transformed by the use of certain means.

  “Whoever fights monsters,” Nietzsche said, “should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”

  His thoughts were interrupted by a request in an Anhui accent, “Could you take a picture for me, please?” A young girl held out a small camera.

  “Sure.” He took the camera from her.

  She began posing in front of the First Department Store. A provincial girl, new to Shanghai, she chose the glamorous models in the store window for a background. He pressed the button.

  “Thank you so much!”

  She could have been Guan, ten or fifteen years earlier, her eyes sparkling with hopes for the future, Chen reflected with a sinking heart.

  A successful conclusion to an important case. The question for him was: How had he managed to bring the case to a triumphant close? Through his own HCC connection—and a carnal connection— with a politburo member’s daughter.

  What irony!

  Chief Inspector Chen had sworn that he would do everything in his power to bring Wu to justice, but he had not supposed that he would have been brought to connive in such a devious way.

  Detective Yu had known nothing about it. Otherwise, Chen doubted that his assistant would have collaborated. Like other ordinary Chinese people, Yu was not unjustified in his deep-rooted prejudice against the HCC.

  Even though Ling might prove to be an exception. Or just an exception with him. For him.

  He saw a number of similarities between Guan, the national model worker and Chen, the chief inspector. The most significant was that each had a relationship with an HCC.

  There was only one difference.

  Guan had been less lucky in her love, for Wu had not reciprocated her affection. Perhaps Wu had cared for her a bit. But politics and ambition had happened to be in their way.

  Had Guan really loved Wu? Was it possible that she, too, was driven by politics? There could not be a definite answer—now they were both dead.

  How about his own feelings toward Ling?

  It was not that Chief Inspector Chen had deliberately, coldly used her. To be fair to himself, he had never allowed such an idea to come to the surface of his mind, but what about subconsciously?

  Nor was he sure that there had been nothing but passion on his part last night.

  Gratitude for her magnanimity?

  In Beijing, they had cared for each other, but they had parted, a decision he had not really regretted. All those years, he had often thought of her, but he had also thought of others, made other friends—girlfriends, too.

  When the case first came to his attention, he was dancing with Wang at his house-warming party. In the following days, it was Wang who had accompanied him through the early stages of the investigation. In fact, he had hardly thought of Ling at all in those days. The letter written at the post office had been anything but romantic; it was inspired by a moment of desperation—by the instincts of a survivor.

  He was a survivor, too ambitious to perish in ignoble silence.

  It was the haunting image of Liu Yong, the deplorable Song dynasty poet, who had only a prostitute to take pity on him at his deathbed, that had spurred him into desperate action. He had resolved not to end up a loser like Liu Yong. You have to find a way out, he’d told himself.

  That’s the way she came back into his life.

  Maybe just for the one night.

  Maybe more than that.

  Now what was he supposed to do?

  In spite of the difference in their family background, there ought to be some way for them to be together. They should be able to live in the world of their own discourse, not just in other people’s interpretations.

  Still, he could not help shuddering at the prospect before him. For it was not going to be a world of their own, but in which he would, perhaps, begin to find his life much easier, even effortless. He would never be able to shake off the feeling that nothing was accomplished through his own efforts. She did not need to go to this or that minister, claiming him as hers. He would have become an HCC himself. And people would be eager to do a lot of things for him.

  There was no point going back to the bureau at the moment. He was in no mood for Party Secretary Li’s recital of the Wenhui Daily editorial. Nor did he want to go back to his own apartment, alone, after such a night.

  He found himself walking toward his mother’s place.

  His mother put down the newspaper she had been reading, “Why didn’t you call?”

  She rose to set a cup of tea before him.

  “Politics,” he said bitterly, “Nothing but politics.”

  “Some trouble at work?” She looked puzzled.

  “No, I’m all right.”

  “Politics. Y
ou mean the conference? Or the HCC case, today’s headline? Everybody is talking about it.”

  He did not know how to explain to her. She had never been interested in politics. Nor did he know whether he should tell her about Ling although that was what his mother would really be interested in. So he just said, “I’ve been in charge of the Wu case, but it has not been concluded properly.”

  “Was justice served?”

  “Yes. Politics aside—”

  “I’ve talked to several neighbors. They are all very pleased with the outcome of the trial.”

  “I’m glad they are pleased, Mother.”

  “In fact, I have been doing some thinking about your work since our last talk. I still hope you will take your father’s path one day, but in your position, if you believe you can do something for the country, you should persevere. It helps a little if there are a few honest policemen around, even though it may not help much.”

  “Thank you, Mother.”

  After he had his tea, she walked downstairs with him. In the hallway crowded with stoves and cooking utensils, Aunt Xi, an old neighbor, greeted them warmly, “Mrs. Chen, your son is a high cadre now, Chief Inspector Director or some high ranking position. This morning I was reading the newspaper, and his name with an important title jumped out at me.”

  His mother smiled without saying anything. His rank might have appealed to her a little too.

  “Don’t forget us in your high position,” Aunt Xi continued. “Remember, I’ve watched you grow up.”

  Out on the street, he saw a peddler frying dumplings in a gigantic wok over a wheeled gas burner, a familiar scene from his childhood, only a coal stove would have been used back then. One fried dumpling would have been a lavish treat for a child, but his mother would stuff him with two or three. A loving mother, beautiful, young, and supportive.

  Time, as Buddha wrote, passes in the snapping of the fingers.

  At the bus stop, he turned around and saw her still standing in front of the house. Small and shrunken and gray in the dusk. Though still supportive.

  Chief Inspector Chen would not quit the police force.

  The visit had strengthened his determination to go on.

  She might never fully approve of his profession, but as long as he did his job conscientiously, he would not disappoint her. Also, it was his responsibility to support her. He would purchase a pound of genuine jasmine tea for her the next time he went to visit. And he would think about how to tell her about his relationship with Ling.