Death of a Red Heroine

“So I have to accept it. Have a cup of tea in my office?”
    “No, thank you, I can’t stay. “But Dr. Xia remained in the doorway, fidgeting, then half turning to the main office.“But I have to ask a favor of you.”
    “Sure, whatever I can do,” Chen said, wondering why Dr. Xia chose such a moment to approach him for a favor.
    “I want you to introduce me into the Party. I’m no activist, I know. There’s a long way for me to go before I can prove myself to be a worthy Party member. Still, I’m a honest Chinese intellectual with minimum conscience.”
    “What?” he was astonished. “But—haven’t you heard the news here?”
    “No, I haven’t,” Dr. Xia raised his voice, waving his hand, adjusting his gold-rimmed glasses. “Nor do I care. Not at all. Listen, you are a loyal Party member, that’s all I know. If you are not qualified, no one else in the whole bureau is.”
    “I don’t know what to say, Dr. Xia.”
    “Remember the two lines from General Yue Fei? ‘I will kowtow to Heaven / when the land is set in order.’ To set our land in order, that is what you want, and what I want.”
    With this dramatic statement, Dr. Xia raised his head higher, as if defying an invisible audience, and walked off, not bothering to take a look at the surprised faces in the large office.
    “Bye, Dr. Xia,” someone said belatedly.
    Chen closed the door after himself with one hand, the duck in the other.
    He knew why Dr. Xia had paid him this unexpected visit. It was to show his support. The good old doctor, who had suffered such a lot during the Cultural Revolution, was far from ready to join the Party. The visit—together with the rehearsed statement and the roast duck—was a stance Dr. Xia felt impelled to take as an honest Chinese intellectual—with “minimum conscience.”
    And it was not just for him, Chief Inspector Chen realized.
    It might be a losing battle, but Chen saw he was not alone in it. Detective Yu, Peiqin, Old Hunter, Overseas Chinese Lu, Ruru, Wang Feng, Little Zhou . . . and Dr. Xia, too.
    Because of them, he was not going to quit.
    He resumed reading Guan’s file, making notes until it was long after office hours. Then he ate a small portion of the roast duck. The sight of its golden, crispy skin had revived his appetite. Dr. Xia had even included a couple of pancakes. The duck, rolled in the pancake with the special sauce and green onion, tasted so delicious. He stuffed the remaining duck into the refrigerator.
    At about nine o’clock he left the bureau. It did not take him long to arrive at Nanjing Road. It appeared less crowded at that late hour, but the ceaseless transformation of the neon signs infused the scene with fresh vitality.
    Presently the First Department Store came in view. A middle-aged man who was gazing into one of the store’s windows moved away at Chen’s footsteps. Chen, too, came to a stop, catching himself in front of a display of summer fashions, his own reflection faint against the glass. The lights illuminated a line of mannequins in a dazzling variety of bathing suits—skinny strap, tulip-cup neckline, brief-and-halter combination, bikini bottom, and black-and-white trim. The plastic models looked alive in the artificial light.
    “A stick of ice sugar haw!”
    “What?” Chen was startled.
    “Sweet and sour ice sugar haw. Have one!”
    An old peddler had approached with a red wheelbarrow sporting sticks of haw, sugar-glazed scarlet, shining, almost sensual. An uncommon sight on Nanjing Road. Perhaps because it was late, the peddler had been able to sneak into the area. Chen bought one. It tasted rather sour, different from those his mother had bought for him. He would have been no more than five or six, sucking at the stick, and his mother, then so youthful, was wearing her orange Qi skirt, holding a floral umbrella in one hand, and his hand in the other . . .
    Things had changed so fast.
    Would these models in the window age too?
    A silly question. More silly than a chief inspector in his impressive uniform sucking a stick of haw, wandering along Nanjing Road.
    It was nonetheless a fact that plastics could wear out. A cracked plastic flower, dust-covered, on the windowsill of an out-of-way hotel room. An image that had so touched him, inexplicably, during a trip in his college years. Probably left there by another traveler. No longer lustrous, no longer beautiful—
    No longer politically attractive—in others’ eyes.
    Models, plastic or