Death of a Red Heroine

Revolution?”
    “No. Why?”
    “I was criticized as a bourgeois intellectual and locked up in a cell for a year. After I was released, I was still considered ‘politically black,’ so I did not want to incriminate you.”
    “I’m so sorry to hear that,” Gao said, “but you should have let me know. My letters were returned. I should have guessed.”
    “It’s all over,” Liu said, “and here we are, together, fishing for our lost years.”
    “Tell you what,” Gao said, eager to change the subject, “we’ve got enough to make an excellent soup.”
    “A wonderful soup—Wow, another!” Liu was reeling in a thrashing perch—well over a foot long.
    “My old wife is no intellectual, but she’s pretty good at making fish soup. Add a few slices of Jinhua bacon, throw in a pinch of black pepper and a handful of green onion. Oh, what a soup.”
    “I’m looking forward to meeting her.”
    “You’re no stranger to her. I’ve shown your picture to her frequently.”
    “Yes, but it’s twenty years old,” Liu said. “How can she recognize me from a high-school picture? Remember He Zhizhang’s famous line? ‘My dialect is not changed, but my hair has turned gray .’”
    “Mine, too,” Gao said.
    They were ready to go back now.
    Gao returned to the wheel. But the engine shuddered with a grinding sound. He tried full throttle. The exhaust at the rear spurted black fumes, but the boat did not move an inch. Scratching his head, Captain Gao turned to his friend with an apologetic gesture. He was unable to understand the problem. The canal was small but not shallow. The propeller, protected by the rudder, could not have scraped bottom. Something might have caught in it—a torn fishing net or a loose cable. The former was rather unlikely. The canal was too narrow for fishermen to cast nets there. But if the latter was the cause of the trouble, it would be hard to disentangle it to free the propeller.
    He turned off the engine and jumped onto the shore. He still failed to see anything amiss, so he started feeling about in the muddy water with a long bamboo stick which he had bought for his wife to use as a clothesline on their balcony. After a few minutes, he touched something under the boat.
    It felt like a soft object, rather large, heavy.
    Taking off his shirt and pants, he stepped down into the water. He got hold of it in no time. It took him several minutes, however, to tug it through the water, and up onto the shore.
    It was a huge black plastic bag.
    There was a string tied around the neck of the bag. Untying it cautiously, he leaned down to look within.
    “Holy—hell!” he cursed.
    “What?”
    “Look at this. Hair!”
    Leaning over, Liu also gasped.
    It was the hair of a dead, naked woman.
    With Liu’s help, Gao took the body out of the bag and laid it on its back on the ground.
    She could not have been in the water too long. Her face, though slightly swollen, was recognizably young and good looking. A wisp of green rush was woven into her coil of black hair. Her body was ghastly white, with slack breasts and heavy thighs. Her pubic hair was black and wet.
    Gao hurried back into the boat, took out a worn blanket, and threw it over her. That was all he could think of doing for the moment. He then broke the bamboo pole in two. It was a pity, but it would bring bad luck now. He could not bear the thought of his wife hanging their clothes over it, day in, day out.
    “What shall we do?” Liu said.
    “There’s nothing we can do. Don’t touch anything. Leave the body alone until the police come.”
    Gao took out his cellular phone. He hesitated before dialing the number of the Shanghai Police Bureau. He would have to write a report. It would have to describe the way he had found the body, but first of all, he would have to account for being there, at that time of day, with Liu on board. While supposedly working his shift, he was having a good time with his friend, fishing and drinking. But he would have to tell the truth. He had no choice, he concluded, dialing.
    “Detective Yu Guangming, special case squad,” a voice answered.
    “I am Captain Gao Ziling, of the Vanguard , Shanghai River Security Department. I am reporting a homicide. A body was discovered in Baili Canal. A young female body.”
    “Where is Baili Canal?”
    “West of Qingpu. Past Shanghai Number Two Paper Mill. About seven or eight miles from it.”
    “Hold on,” Detective Yu said. “Let me see who is