Death of a Red Heroine

he overheard Rosenthal muttering to Vicky about chronic carbon monoxide poisoning in the city. Another serious problem, he admitted to himself, though Shanghai had been making earnest efforts in environmental improvement. In deference to the official guidebook, he remained silent.
    As always, a special room on the upper deck of the boat was assigned to foreign visitors. Their room was equipped with air conditioning and satellite TV. There was a Hong Kong kung fu movie starring Bruce Lee—another supposed privilege since Bruce Lee was not available in Shanghai movie theaters. The Rosenthals were not in the mood for the movie. It took Chen quite a long time to find the switch to turn it off.
    The waiter and waitress seemed to make a point of bursting into the room, bringing drinks and fruits and snacks, smiling. Some tourists, passing by their door, also looked in curiously. Chen felt as if he were in a glass cage.
    In the not-too-far distance, the Bund was alive with a colorful variety of riverfront activities. The eastern shore was catching up, changing even more rapidly with all the new construction going on.
    “I’m thinking of some lines about another river,” Rosenthal said. “In ‘East Coker,’ Eliot compares the river to a brown god.” “An ancient Chinese philosopher compared the people to river water,” Chen said, “‘Water can carry a boat, but it can also overturn a boat.’”
    “Lost in ‘The Waste Land’ again?” Vicky said with mock irritation. “It would be a shame to lose the sight of the wonderful river.”
    They could not enjoy their conversation for long. Another knock came at the door, then a few more, persistently. “Magic show. First-class performance.” A waiter was waving several tickets in his hand. “On the first floor.”
    Like the movie, the magic show was just another intrusion. Well meant, of course. It would not be polite for them to remain in the cabin.
    There was no stage on the first floor. Just an open space partitioned off by several stanchions connected by a plastic cord, one end at the long window opening out to the deck, the other leading a small door beneath the staircase. There were already quite a number of people gathering. In the center, a magician was poking his wand vigorously into the air.
    A young woman, apparently the magician’s assistant, came out of the small door. A touch of the magician’s wand on her shoulder, and she was immobilized, seemingly frozen in the cold blue light. As the magician approached, she collapsed into his arms. Holding her with one arm, he slowly raised her up. She lay stretched out across his forearms, her long black hair trailing to the floor, accentuating her slender neck, almost as white as a lotus root. And as lifeless. The magician then closed his eyes in concentration. To the sound of a muted drum roll, he slid his hand from beneath her, leaving her body floating in the air for a still second. Applause rose from the audience.
    So that’s the hypnosis of love. A metaphor for it. Spellbound. Helpless. Had Guan Hongying also been like this? Weightless, substance-less, nothing but a prop, being played with at will in Wu’s hands.
    And he thought of Wang.
    Everything was possible to a lover. Had he been such a lover?
    He could not give himself an answer.
The willow looming through the mist,
I find my hair disheveled, and the cicada-shaped pin fallen on the bed.
What care have I about my days afterward,
As long as you enjoy me to the full tonight?
    Another stanza by Wei Zhuang. In traditional literary criticism, it was viewed as a political analogy, but to Chen, it was simply a female’s sacrifice for the magic of passion. Like Wang, who had been the more courageous, more self-sacrificing one, that night in his apartment, and then again the night in the phone booth.
    And years earlier, it had been the same for Guan, who had given herself to Engineer Lai before she parted with him . . .
    When the magic show was over, he could not locate the Rosenthals among the dispersing crowd. He went upstairs to find them leaning over the rail, gazing at the white waves breaking against the boat. They were not aware of him. It would be better to leave them alone. He walked downstairs to buy a pack of cigarettes.
    He was surprised to see the magician’s assistant sitting on a stool at the foot of the stairway. No longer in her glittering costume, she appeared years older, her face lined, her hair lusterless.
    The magician, too,