A Loyal Character Dancer

Ma’s office.”
     
    “This yellowish paste is called Huangzhizhi. It is capable of bringing the inner injury to the surface, so you can heal more quickly.”                                        
    He went into the bathroom and came back with a couple of wet towels.                                       
    “The paste is no longer useful now.” He knelt down by the couch to wipe off the remainder and to rub her ankle. “Does it still hurt?”                                        
    “No.” She shook her head, watching Chen examine the bruise, making sure there was no paste left.                
     
    “Tomorrow you will be able to run like an antelope again.”
     
    “Thank you,” she said. “So, it’s time for the story.”         
     
    “Would you like a drink first?”                       
     
    “A glass of white wine would be perfect. What about you?”
     
    “The same.”                                     
     
    She watched him open the refrigerator, take out a bottle, and come back with the glasses.
     
    “You are making it a special evening.” She raised herself slightly on one elbow, sipping the wine.                  
     
    “The story goes back to the early sixties,” Chen started, sitting in the chair drawn close to the couch, gazing down at the wine, “when I was still an elementary-school student...”
     
    In the early sixties, the Mas had owned a used-book store, a husband-and-wife business. As a kid, Chen had bought comic books there. Out of the blue, the local government declared the bookstore “a black center of antisocialist activity.” The charge was made on the evidence of an English copy of Doctor Zhivago on its shelves. Mr. Ma was put in jail, where he was allowed to take with him, out of all his books, only a medical dictionary. Toward the end of the eighties, he was released and rehabilitated. The old couple did not want to reopen the bookstore. Mr. Ma thought of running a herbal drugstore with the knowledge he had acquired in prison. His business license application traveled from one bureaucratic desk to another, however, without making any progress.
     
    Chen had been an entry level cop then, not the one in charge of “rectification of wrong cases.” When he heard about Mr. Ma’s situation, however, he managed to put in a word through Party Secretary Li and obtained the license for the old man.
     
    Afterwards, Chen happened to talk to a Wenhui reporter, dwelling on the irony of Mr. Ma becoming a doctor because of Dr. Zhivago. To his surprise, she wrote for the newspaper an essay entitled “Because of Dr. Zhivago.” The publication added to the popularity of Mr. Ma’s practice.
     
    “That’s why the old couple are grateful to you,” she said.
     
    “I did little, considering what they went through in those years.”
     
    “Do you feel more responsible now that you are a chief inspector?”
     
    “Well, people complain about the problems with our system, but it is important to do something—for people like the Mas.”
     
    “With your connections—” she paused to take a sip of her wine, “which include a woman reporter writing for the Wenhui Daily.”
     
    “Included,” he said, draining his glass in one gulp. “She is in Japan now.”
     
    “Oh.”
     
    His cell phone rang.
     
    “Oh, Old Hunter! What’s up?” He listened for several minutes without speaking and then said, “So it must be someone important, I see. I’ll call you later, Uncle Yu.”
     
    Turning off the phone, he said, “It’s Old Hunter, Detective Yu’s father.”
     
    “Does his father work for you too?”
     
    “No, he’s retired. He’s helping me with another case,” he said, standing. “Well, it’s time for me to leave.”
     
    He could not stay longer. She did not know about his other case. And he would not tell her about it. It was not her business.
     
    As she tried to rise, he put a hand lightly on her shoulders. “Relax, Inspector Rohn. We have a lot of work to do tomorrow. Good night.”
     
    He closed the door after him.
     
    The echo of his footsteps faded along the corridor.
     
    There was a sound of the elevator bobbing to a stop and then starting to descend slowly.                        
     
    Whatever