Death of a Red Heroine

before my retirement.”
    “Then take care.”
    “I will.”
    “Next time I come to Shanghai, I’ll bring a couple of Luhua hens for you.”
    “Don’t bother.”
    “The folks here say Luhua hens are good for an old man’s health. I’m raising half a dozen. Genuine Luhua.”
    Now she was sounding more and more like her poor and lower-middle-class peasant self again.
    A click. He heard her putting down the phone. And the empty silence. She was thousands of miles away. So many years had passed since he talked to the daughter in his heart.
    Slowly he moved back to the desk. The file was still lying there, and he turned to the notes he had made during the meeting, going over everything again. Stretching out across the desk to get a cigarette, he found only an empty pack beside the pen holder. He reached into his pocket. The only thing he found, however, was something he did not immediately recognize.
    It was a number on a piece of paper crumpled into a small ball. He must have put it there himself—it was in his own handwriting. Why? He was lost. For a moment, he felt he was much closer to Wu Bing, alone, lying unconscious on a hospital bed. All his life, Comrade Wu Bing had fought for the cause of communism. And what then? A vegetable, unable to do anything to protect his son from being targeted as a suspect. His opposition to the direction of the investigation, Zhang hastened to tell himself, did not stem from the kinship he was feeling with Wu Bing. Nor was it the young people coming to the fore, upstarts making tons of money, or Chief Inspector Chen challenging his authority. To build the investigation on such a biased concept about HCC was part of a social trend questioning the correct leadership of the Party.
    What if Wu Xiaoming had committed the murder? Whoever had committed the crime should be punished, of course. But then, would that be in the interests of the Party? With such a social trend, news of the investigation would certainly add fuel to the fire.
    Zhang could not find an answer.
    It had never been difficult, however, for him to find an answer in the early years when he had first joined the Party. In 1944, a promising college student, he went to Yan’an without finishing his studies, experiencing all the hardships of a donkey-back trip. Life there was harsh—sharing a Yan’an cave with four other comrades, working twelve hours a day, and reading by candlelight. After three months, he could barely recognize his reflection in the river. Gaunt, unshaven, undernourished, scarcely any trace left of a young intellectual from the big city. But he believed he had a satisfactory answer in the changed reflection. He knew he was doing the right thing for the country, for the people, for the Party. And for himself, too. Those were the happy years.
    In the following years, though Commissar Zhang’s career had not been too smooth, he had never doubted the answer.
    But now—
    Finally he decided.
    He would write a report to Jiang Zhong, an old comrade-in-arms who still held an influential position in Internal Security, thus leaving the question to the higher Party authorities. They should know how to handle a sensitive case like this, whether Wu Xiaoming was guilty—or not. In the best interests of the Party.
    He also enclosed a copy of “Night Talk,” underlining some words in the poem. He felt it was his responsibility to share with the higher authorities his concern about Chief Inspector Chen’s ideological ambiguity. In spite of his efforts, he was not sure what Chen had tried to say in the poem, but what really mattered would be the interpretation of the reader. If anyone could associate the “square” in the poem with the one in contemporary politics, then it should not have been written at all. So with the investigation, people’s responses would be a matter of crucial concern for the Party.
    Commissar Zhang was not unaware of the possible impact his report might bring to bear on Chief Inspector Chen. But then, it need not necessarily mean the end of the world for a young man.

Chapter 22
    G uangzhou.
    Chief Inspector Chen stood under the sign at the railroad station, which was swarming with travelers from all over the country. The economic and cultural center of South China, Guangzhou was fast becoming a second Hong Kong.
    Ironically, Guangzhou had a much longer history according to a travel guide in Chen’s hand. It had come into contact with Western barbarian businessmen when Hong Kong