Death of a Red Heroine

never known. He lost himself in her hair. She shuddered when she came, panting in short, quick breaths against his face. Her body suddenly grew soft, wet—insubstantial as the clouds after the rain.
    They lay quietly in each other’s arms, feeling themselves far above and beyond the city of Shanghai.
    Perhaps due to the height of the hotel, he suddenly seemed to see the white clouds pressing through the window, pressing against her sweat-covered body in the soft moonlight.
    “We’re turning into clouds and rain,” he said, invoking the ancient metaphor.
    She whispered a throaty agreement, curling up with her head on his chest, gazing up at him, her black hair spilling.
    Their feet brushed. Touching her arched sole lightly, he felt a grain of sand stuck between her toes. Sand from the city of Shanghai—not from the Central South Sea complex in the Forbidden City.
    Their moment was interrupted by the footsteps moving along the corridor. He heard the sound of the hotel people producing a bunch of keys. A key turning—once, only once—at a door across the corridor. The suspense made their sensations even more intense. She nestled against him again. There was something in her features he had never seen before. So clear and serene. The autumn night sky of Beijing, across which the Cow Herd and Spinning Girl gaze at each other, a bridge woven of black magpies across the Milky Way.
    They embraced again.
    “It’s been worth the wait,” she said quietly afterward. Then she fell asleep beside him, the stars whispering quietly outside the window.
    He sat up, took a pad from the nightstand and started writing, the lamplight falling like water on the paper. The stillness around them seemed to be breathing with life. Amidst the images rushing to his pen, he turned to see her peaceful face on the pillow. The innocence of her clear features, of the deep-blue night high above the lights of Shanghai, charged through him in waves of meaning.
    He had a feeling that the lines were flowing to him from a superior power. He just happened to be there, with the pen in his hand. . . .
    He did not know when he fell asleep.
    The ring of the telephone on the night stand startled him.
    As he stirred from his dream, blinking, he realized Ling was no longer beside him. The white pillows were rumpled against the headboard, still soft, cloud-like in the first morning light.
    The telephone kept on ringing. Shrill and sharp, so early in the morning, like an omen. He snatched it.
    “Chief Inspector Chen, it’s all finished.” Yu sounded edgy, as if he too had hardly slept.
    “What do you mean—all finished?”
    “The whole thing. The trial is over. Wu Xiaoming was sentenced to death, guilty on all the charges against him, and executed last night. About six hours ago. Period.”
    Chen glanced at his watch. It was just past six.
    “Wu did not try to appeal?”
    “It’s a special case. The Party authorities put it that way. No use making any appeal. Wu was well aware of that. His attorney, too. An open secret to everybody. Appeal or no appeal, it would have made no difference.”
    “And he was executed last night?”
    “Yes, just a few hours after the trial. But don’t start asking me why, Comrade Chief Inspector.”
    “Well, what about Guo Qiang?”
    “Also executed, at the same time and on the same execution ground.”
    “What?” Chen was more than shocked. “Guo had committed no murder.”
    “Do you know what the most serious charge against Wu and Guo was?”
    “What?’’
    “Crime and corruption under Western bourgeois influence.”
    “Can you try to be a bit more specific, Yu?”
    “I can, of course, but you will be able to read all the political humbug in the newspapers. Headlines in red print, I bet. It will be in the Wenhui Daily . Now it’s part of a national campaign against ‘CCB’—corruption and crime under Western bourgeois influence. A political campaign has been launched by the Party Central Committee.”
    “So it is a political case after all!”
    “Yes, Party Secretary Li is right. It’s a political case, as he said from the very beginning.” Yu made no effort to conceal the bitterness in his voice. “What a great job we have done.”
    Chen went downstairs. He saw Ling again in the hotel lobby.
    Several members of the American delegation had gathered around the front desk to admire a Suzhou embroidered silk scroll of the Great Wall . Ling was interpreting. She did not notice him at first. In the