A Loyal Character Dancer

asked.
     
    “Yes, it was in the headlines last year. That HCC bastard.”
     
    “I was in charge of it. It was a difficult case. I pledged that justice would be served. And I kept my word. As a poet as well as police officer, I give you my word. I will not force you or Wen to do anything. Let’s have a talk, and then you can judge whether she should discuss her options with me.”
     
    “Chief Inspector Chen,” Catherine protested.
     
    “Hasn’t she made herself clear enough?” Liu said. “Why waste any more time?”
     
    “Wen should decide for herself, but it will not be a sound decision unless she has a good grasp of the situation. Otherwise she will make a decision you are both going to regret. Some of the factors involved are serious, I assure you, and neither of you are aware of them. You won’t let her run headlong into danger, will you?”
     
    “Then talk to her,” Liu said.
     
    “Do you think she will listen to me right now?” Chen said. “You are the only one she’ll listen to.”
     
    “Are you going to keep your word, Chief Inspector Chen?”
     
    “Yes, I will write a report to the bureau to explain her decision, whatever it may be.”
     
    Catherine wondered at his approach. The Chinese authorities had never seemed enthusiastic. They had found Wen, but now Chen did not appear very anxious to make her leave China. Why had Chen brought her with him then?
     
    “Fine, let’s talk in my study upstairs,” Liu said to Chen before he turned to Wen Liping. “Don’t worry. Have lunch with the American. No one will force you to do anything.”

Chapter 29
     
     
    L
    iu’s office was far more spacious than Chen’s at the Shanghai Police Bureau. More luxuriously furnished, too: a huge U-shaped steel desk, a swiveling leather rediner, several leather armchairs, and shelves filled with hardcover books. There was a mini-tower computer with a laser printer on the desk. Liu seated himself in an armchair and asked Chen to sit in another.
     
    Chen noticed several miniature gilded Buddhist statues on the shelves. Each of them was clothed in a colorful silk robe. It reminded him of a scene he had witnessed years earlier in his mother’s company, in an ivy-mantled temple in Hangzhou, of a gilded clay image of Buddha sitting high in the hall, while pilgrims in miserable rags knelt in front of the gold and silver silk robes. The ceremony was called “Donning Buddha,” his mother explained. The more expensive the robe, the more devoted the pilgrim. Buddha would then produce miracles in accordance with the donor’s devotion. Following his mother’s example, he lit a stick of incense and made three wishes. These wishes he had long since forgotten, but not the puzzlement he had experienced.
     
    Believe, and anything’s possible. Chief Inspector Chen did not know whether Liu believed in these statues’ powers or kept them merely for decoration, but Liu seemed to be convinced that he was doing the right thing.
     
    “Sorry about my temper,” Liu said. “She does not understand how things are in China, that American officer.”
     
    “It’s not her fault. I learned some details about Wen’s life as late as last night. Inspector Rohn does not know about them. That was why I wanted to have a talk between ourselves.”
     
    “If you know what a hell of life she had with that bastard of a husband, do you still insist on sending her to him? You cannot imagine how we admired her in high school. She led us in everything, her long plait fluttering on her bosom, and her cheeks rosier than the peach blossom in the spring breeze... God, why should I tell you all this?”
     
    “Please tell me as much as you can. So I can write a detailed report to the bureau,” Chen said, taking out a notebook.
     
    “Fine, if that’s what you want,” Liu said in bafflement. “Where shall I start?”
     
    “From the beginning, when you first met Wen.”
     
    * * * *
     
    Liu entered high school in 1967, at a time when his father, an owner of a perfume company before 1949, was being denounced as a class enemy. Liu himself was a despicable “black puppy” to his schoolmates, among whom he saw Wen for the first time. They were in the same class. Like others, he was smitten by her beauty, but he never thought of approaching her. A boy from a black family was not considered worthy to be a Red Guard. That Wen was a Red Guard cadre magnified his inferiority. Wen led the class in singing revolutionary songs, in