Death of a Red Heroine

unlocked his door as quietly as he could.
    He lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling.
    Images at once familiar yet unfamiliar flashed by him. Some of them had already found their way into the fragments of his poetry, some—not as yet.
    She, at the subway entrance, carrying hyacinth in her arms, the mural behind her of an Uighur girl walking toward him: motionless motion, infinite, light as the summer in grateful tears; the fragrance of the jasmine wafting in her hair, and then in his teacup, with an orange pinwheel turning at the paper window, she holding the lunchbox under the ancient upturned eaves against the clear Beijing sky; she unfurling a Tang scroll in the rare book section, reading his ecstasy as empathy with the silverfish escaping the sleepy eyes of the periods, her bare feet beating a bolero on the filmy dust of the ancient floor; the afternoon light stippling her figure in the boat; she coming to him through a labyrinth of lanes on a bike creaking under the weight of books for him, a dove’s whistle against a thickening sky. . . .
    In the midst of his reverie he fell asleep.

Chapter 35
    I t had been three days since Chief Inspector Chen resumed work at the office.
    Party Secretary Li had promised to talk to him, but he had not done so yet. Li had been avoiding him, Chen knew, to avoid discussion of the case. Any contact between them might be watched. Party Secretary Li was too cautious not to be aware of it. There was no telling when Detective Yu would come back from his “temporary” assignment. Commissar Zhang was still having the week off. His presence would make no difference, but his absence could.
    No news from Beijing, though Chen was not really expecting any.
    He should not have written the letter to Ling. And he was not going to write a second one. Nor was he going to dial that number she had given him. For the moment, he did not even want to think about it.
    Maybe it was wise to wait, as she had said, to do nothing until “further signal.” And there was nothing he could really do, with the knowledge that Internal Security was lurking and, ready to pounce if he made a move. Nor was there any new development except, to his surprise, he learned that Wu Xiaoming had applied for a visa for America.
    Once more the news came from Overseas Chinese Lu, who had obtained it from Peiqin, and Peiqin, from Old Hunter, from his connections in Beijing. Wu was applying not for a business visa, but a personal one. It was an unusual move, considering that Wu’s name was on the top-candidate list for an important position in China. If Wu was trying to get away, Chief Inspector Chen had to act promptly. Once Wu was abroad, there would be no apprehending him.
    The white Lexus was Wu’s; Old Hunter had identified the license plate number. In the last few days, one of the things Chen had been doing himself, which might not appear suspicious to Internal Security, was research on the regulations concerning high cadres’ car service. A high cadre at Wu Bing’s level was supposed to have a car exclusively, including a full-time chauffeur at the government’s expense, but the cadre’s family members were not entitled to use the car. With Wu Bing lying in the hospital, it was not justifiable for his family to have the chauffeur drive them around. So Wu Xiaoming, citing the necessity of visiting his father in the hospital every day, had offered to drive himself. Who had been driving it while Wu was in Beijing?
    Overseas Chinese Lu had not succeeded in identifying the driver of the car. Nor had his repeated attempts to contact Ouyang in Guangzhou borne fruit. Ouyang was not at home. This could mean Ouyang had also gotten into trouble—like Xie. Internal Security was capable of anything.
    The uncertainty of waiting, in light of the recent information as to Wu’s application for a U.S. visa, was becoming too much for Chen. He had to talk to Party Secretary Li.
    Despite his high rank, Li was in the habit of fetching hot water for tea from the boiler room at eleven fifteen every morning. So at eleven fifteen, Chen was also there, holding a thermos bottle. It was a place where people would come and go. Their encounter might seem natural.
    Several other people were filling thermoses with water in the boiler room. Li greeted each of them warmly before he moved over to Chen. “How are you, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen?”
    “I’m fine, except that I’m doing nothing.”
    “Take a break. You’ve just come