Death of a Red Heroine

filmy dust of the ancient floor.
    Soon he had to resist the temptation to look at her over his books. In spite of his effort to concentrate by turning his chair sideways, his thoughts wandered away. The discovery disturbed him.
    Most of the time he read till quite late and soon he found himself leaving the library with her. The first couple of times, it looked like coincidence. Then he saw that she was standing by her bike, under the ancient arch of the library gate, waiting for him.
    Together, they would ride through the maze of quaint winding lanes at dusk. Past the old white and black sihe style houses, and an old man selling colorful paper wheels, the sound of their bike bells spilling into the tranquil air, the pigeons’ whistles trailing high in the clear Beijing sky, till they reached the intersection at Xisi, where she would park her bike, and change to the subway. He would watch her turn back at the subway entrance, to wave to him. She lived quite far away.
    One early morning as he was riding toward the library, he stopped at Xisi subway station, where he knew she would emerge to find her bike. He bought a ticket and went down to the platform. There were so many people milling about. Waiting there, he lost himself gazing at a mural of Uighur girl carrying grapes in her bare arms. The Uighur girl appeared to be moving toward him, the bangle on her ankle shining, infinite light steps, moving. . . Then he saw her moving toward him, out of the train, out of the crowd. . . .
    They talked a lot. Their conversation ranged from politics to poetry and they discovered remarkable coincidences in their views, though she seemed a bit more pessimistic about the future of China. He attributed the difference to her long working hours in that ancient palace of a library.
    And then came that Saturday afternoon.
    The library closed early. They decided, instead of going home, to visit the North Sea Park in the Forbidden City. There they rented a sampan and started paddling on the lake. There were not many other people there.
    She was leaving for Australia; she had just told him the news. It was a special arrangement between the Beijing Library and the Canberra Library. She was going there to work as a visiting librarian for six months, a rare opportunity in those years.
    “We’ll not see each other for six months.” She put down her oar.
    “Time flies,” he said. “It’s only half a year.”
    “But time can change a lot, I’m afraid.”
    “No, not necessarily. Have you read Qin Shaoyou’s ‘Bridge of Magpies’? It’s based on the legend of the celestial weaving-girl and the earthly cowherd.”
    “I’ve heard of the legend, but that was such a long time ago.”
    “The weaving girl and the cowherd fell in love. It was against the heavenly rule—a match between the celestial and the mundane. For their punishment, they’re allowed to meet only once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh month, walking over the bridge made of sympathetic magpies lining up across the River of the Milky Way. The poem is about their meeting on that night.”
    “Recite it for me, please.”
    And he did, seeing himself in her eyes: “ The varying shapes of the clouds, / The missing message of the stars, / The silent journey across the Milky Way, / In the golden autumn wind and the jade-like dew, their meeting eclipses / The countless meetings in the mundane world./ The feeling soft as water, / The time insubstantial as a dream, / how can one have the heart to go back on the bridge of magpies? / If two hearts are united forever, / What matters the separation—day after day, night after night?”
    “Fantastic. Thank you for reciting the poem to me,” she said.
    They did not have to say more. There was a tacit understanding between them. The reflection of the White Pagoda shimmered in the water.
    “There’s something else I have to tell you,” she said, hesitantly.
    “What’s that?”
    “It’s about my family—”
    It turned out that her father was a politburo member of the Party Central Committee, who was rising fast to the top.
    For a moment, he was at a loss for words. That was not at all what he had expected.
    Upon graduation, T.S. Eliot could have led an easy life by obtaining a job through the connections of his family, or those of his wife Vivien’s family, but he chose not to. He took a different road. Through “The Waste Land,” through his own efforts, Eliot came to be recognized as an innovative modernist