A Loyal Character Dancer

Inspector Chen?” Li said.
     
    “I will explain everything in due course, Party Secretary Li,” Chen said, turning to Wen. “Comrade Wen, I now understand why you changed your mind about the passport application, why you wanted to stay with Liu, and why you insisted on going back to Fujian. If you were going to the United States, you needed to bring with you the poison the Flying Axes had given you. You had left it behind when you fled on April fifth.”
     
    Wen did not utter a word but as Liu touched her shoulder lightly, she dropped her face into her hands and began to sob.
     
    “Feng ruined your life. The gangsters gave you no choice. The local police did a poor job protecting you. You had to think of your baby,” Chen continued. “Any woman in your position would have considered doing the same thing.”
     
    “But you cannot, Wen,” Liu said in an emotional voice. “You must start a new life for yourself.”
     
    “Liu has done such a lot for you, Wen,” Catherine interjected. “If you do something stupid, what will happen to him?”
     
    Chen said, “I am not saying this to scare you, but you have stayed with him for a couple of weeks. People will suspect that you two planned it together. And Liu will be held responsible.”
     
    “I cannot see how Liu can keep out of trouble if anything happens to Feng.” Yu added, “People must find somebody to punish.”
     
    “Nor can I see how the Flying Axes will be able to get you out of trouble afterward,” Li joined in.
     
    “They won’t be able to,” Qian said, speaking up the first time, like an echo.
     
    “I’m sorry, Liu,” Wen sobbed, clutching Liu’s hand. “I did not think. I would rather die than get you into trouble.”
     
    “Let me tell you something about my Heilongjiang years,” Liu said. “My life was a long tunnel without any light at the end. Thinking of you made the only difference. Thinking of you holding the red loyal character with me on the railway platform. A miracle. If that was possible, anything might be possible. So I hung on. And everything changed for me in 1976, at the end of the Cultural Revolution. Believe me: Things will change for you, too.”
     
    “As I promised you in Suzhou,” Chen said, “nothing will happen to Liu as long as you cooperate with the Americans. Now, in the presence of Comrade Party Secretary Li, I’m making the same promise.”
     
    “Chief Inspector Chen is right,” Li said with all sincerity. “As an old Bolshevik with forty years in the Party, I, too, give you my word. If you act properly, nothing will happen to Liu.”
     
    “Here is an English dictionary.” Yu took out of his pants pocket a dog-eared book. “My wife and I were both educated youths. In Yunnan, I never dreamed that some day I would become a Shanghai cop speaking English with an American officer. Things change. Liu is right. Take the dictionary. You will have to speak English there.”
     
    “Thank you, Detective Yu.” Liu accepted it for Wen. “It will be most helpful.”
     
    “Here is something else.” Chen produced an envelope, which contained the picture of Wen leaving Shanghai as an educated youth, the picture used in the Wenhui Daily.
     
    Catherine took it for Wen, who still had her face buried in her hands, sobbing inconsolably.
     
    Twenty years earlier, at the railway station, a turning point in her life…Catherine gazed at the picture, and then at Wen. Now at the airport, another turning point in her life, but Wen was no longer the young, spirited Red Guard loyal character dancer looking forward to her future.
     
    “One thing about the witness protection program,” Catherine said quietly. “People can leave at their own risk. We do not recommend it. Still, things may change. In several years, when the triads have been wiped out. I may be able to discuss a new arrangement with Chief Inspector Chen.”
     
    Wen looked up through her tears, but she did not say anything. Instead, she reached into her purse, produced a small package, and handed it over to her. “Here is the stuff the Flying Axes gave me. You don’t have to say more, Inspector Rohn.”
     
    “Thank you,” Chen and Yu said, in chorus.
     
    “Now that she has promised full cooperation with you,” Liu said, casting a glance at the adjoining small room, “can we have some time for ourselves?”
     
    “Of course.” Catherine said promptly. “We’ll wait here.”

Chapter 37
     
     
    A
    fter Wen and Liu had retired,