Death of a Red Heroine

in an Anhui accent, “Could you take a picture for me, please?” A young girl held out a small camera.
    “Sure.” He took the camera from her.
    She began posing in front of the First Department Store. A provincial girl, new to Shanghai, she chose the glamorous models in the store window for a background. He pressed the button.
    “Thank you so much!”
    She could have been Guan, ten or fifteen years earlier, her eyes sparkling with hopes for the future, Chen reflected with a sinking heart.
    A successful conclusion to an important case. The question for him was: How had he managed to bring the case to a triumphant close? Through his own HCC connection—and a carnal connection— with a politburo member’s daughter.
    What irony!
    Chief Inspector Chen had sworn that he would do everything in his power to bring Wu to justice, but he had not supposed that he would have been brought to connive in such a devious way.
    Detective Yu had known nothing about it. Otherwise, Chen doubted that his assistant would have collaborated. Like other ordinary Chinese people, Yu was not unjustified in his deep-rooted prejudice against the HCC.
    Even though Ling might prove to be an exception. Or just an exception with him. For him.
    He saw a number of similarities between Guan, the national model worker and Chen, the chief inspector. The most significant was that each had a relationship with an HCC.
    There was only one difference.
    Guan had been less lucky in her love, for Wu had not reciprocated her affection. Perhaps Wu had cared for her a bit. But politics and ambition had happened to be in their way.
    Had Guan really loved Wu? Was it possible that she, too, was driven by politics? There could not be a definite answer—now they were both dead.
    How about his own feelings toward Ling?
    It was not that Chief Inspector Chen had deliberately, coldly used her. To be fair to himself, he had never allowed such an idea to come to the surface of his mind, but what about subconsciously?
    Nor was he sure that there had been nothing but passion on his part last night.
    Gratitude for her magnanimity?
    In Beijing, they had cared for each other, but they had parted, a decision he had not really regretted. All those years, he had often thought of her, but he had also thought of others, made other friends—girlfriends, too.
    When the case first came to his attention, he was dancing with Wang at his house-warming party. In the following days, it was Wang who had accompanied him through the early stages of the investigation. In fact, he had hardly thought of Ling at all in those days. The letter written at the post office had been anything but romantic; it was inspired by a moment of desperation—by the instincts of a survivor.
    He was a survivor, too ambitious to perish in ignoble silence.
    It was the haunting image of Liu Yong, the deplorable Song dynasty poet, who had only a prostitute to take pity on him at his deathbed, that had spurred him into desperate action. He had resolved not to end up a loser like Liu Yong. You have to find a way out, he’d told himself.
    That’s the way she came back into his life.
    Maybe just for the one night.
    Maybe more than that.
    Now what was he supposed to do?
    In spite of the difference in their family background, there ought to be some way for them to be together. They should be able to live in the world of their own discourse, not just in other people’s interpretations.
    Still, he could not help shuddering at the prospect before him. For it was not going to be a world of their own, but in which he would, perhaps, begin to find his life much easier, even effortless. He would never be able to shake off the feeling that nothing was accomplished through his own efforts. She did not need to go to this or that minister, claiming him as hers. He would have become an HCC himself. And people would be eager to do a lot of things for him.
    There was no point going back to the bureau at the moment. He was in no mood for Party Secretary Li’s recital of the Wenhui Daily editorial. Nor did he want to go back to his own apartment, alone, after such a night.
    He found himself walking toward his mother’s place.
    His mother put down the newspaper she had been reading, “Why didn’t you call?”
    She rose to set a cup of tea before him.
    “Politics,” he said bitterly, “Nothing but politics.”
    “Some trouble at work?” She looked puzzled.
    “No, I’m all right.”
    “Politics. You mean the conference? Or