Death of a Red Heroine

but such a family connection was politically unthinkable for an aspirant to a diplomatic position. So his name was removed from the ministry’s list. He was then assigned to a job in the Shanghai Police Bureau, where, for the first few years, his work consisted of translating a police interrogation procedure handbook, which no one wanted to read, and of writing political reports for Party Secretary Li, which Chen himself did not want to write. So it was only in the last couple of years that Chen had actually worked as a cop, first at the entry level, now suddenly as a chief inspector, but responsible only for the “special cases” turned over to him by others. And Yu, like some people in the bureau, had his com- plaints fueled not only by Chen’s rapid rise under Deng’s cadre policy, but also by his continuing literary pursuits, which were conventionally—and conveniently—viewed as a deviation from his professional commitment.
    Chen read through the case report for a second time, and then realized that it was lunchtime. As he stepped out, he found a message for him in the large office. It must have been left before his arrival that morning:
Hi, it’s Lu. I’m working at the restaurant. Our restaurant. Moscow Suburb. A gourmet paradise. It’s important I talk to you. Give me a call at 638-0843.
    Overseas Chinese Lu talked just like that—excited and ebullient. Chen dialed the number.
    “Moscow Suburb.”
    “Lu, what’s up?”
    “Oh, you. How did it go last night?”
    “Fine. We were together, weren’t we?”
    “No, I mean what happened after we left—between you and Wang?”
    “Nothing. We danced a few more dances, and then she left.”
    “What a shame, old pal,” Lu said. “You’re a chief inspector for nothing. You cannot detect even the most obvious signal.”
    “What signal?”
    “When we left, she agreed to stay on—alone with you. She really meant for the night. An absolutely unmistakable signal. She’s crazy about you.”
    “Well, I’m not so sure,” Chen said. “Let’s talk about something else. How are things with you.”
    “Yes, Ruru wants me to thank you again. You’re our lucky star. Everything is in good shape. All the documents are signed. I’ve already moved in. Our own restaurant. I just need to change its sign. A big neon sign in both Chinese and English.”
    “Hold on—Chinese and Russian, right?”
    “Who speaks Russian nowadays? But in addition to our food, we will have something else genuinely Russian, I tell you, and you can eat them, too.” Lu chuckled mysteriously. “With your generous loan, we’ll celebrate the grand opening next Monday. A booming success.”
    “You’re so sure about it.”
    “Well, I have a trump card. Everybody will be amazed.”
    “What is it?”
    “Come and see for yourself. And eat to your heart’s content.”
    “Sure. I won’t miss your Russian cabbage soup for anything, Overseas Chinese.”
    “So you’re a gourmet too. See you.”
    Other than that, however, they did not have too much in common, Chief Inspector Chen reflected with a smile, putting down the phone. It was in their high-school years that Lu had gotten his nickname. Not just because Lu wore a Western-style jacket during the Cultural Revolution. More because Lu’s father had owned a fur store before 1949, and was thus a capitalist. That had made Lu a “black kid.” In the late sixties, “Overseas Chinese” was by no means a positive term, for it could be used to depict somebody as politically unreliable, connected with the Western world, or associated with an extravagant bourgeois life style. But Lu took an obstinate pride in cultivating his “decadent” image—brewing coffee, baking apple pie, tossing fruit salad, and of course, wearing a Western-style suit at the dinner table. Lu befriended Chen, whose father was a “bourgeois professor,” another “black kid.” Birds of a feather, comforting each other. Lu made a habit of treating Chen whenever he made a successful cooking experiment at home. After graduating from high school, as an educated youth Lu had been sent to the countryside and spent ten years being reformed by the poor and lower-middle-class peasants. He only returned to Shanghai in the early eighties. When Chen, too, moved back from Beijing, they met with the realization that they were different, and yet all those years they had stayed friends, and they came to appreciate each other’s differences while sharing their common