Death of a Red Heroine

forgets himself with his old pal,” Ruru explained to Wang whom she had met before. “Nowadays, only Chief Inspector Chen calls him ‘Overseas Chinese’.”
    “It’s seven,” Chen said. “If they’re not here yet, Professor Zhou and his wife won’t come. So let’s start.”
    There was no dining room. With the Lus’ help, Chen set up the folding table and chairs. When he was alone, Chen ate at the desk. But he had bought the space-saving set for occasions like this.
    The dinner turned out to be a great success. Chen had worried about his capability as a chef, but the guests finished all the food rapidly. The improvised soup was especially popular. Lu even asked him for the recipe.
    Rising from the table, Ruru offered to wash the dishes in the kitchen. Chen protested, but Lu intervened. “My old woman should not be deprived of the opportunity, Comrade Chief Inspector, to display her female domestic virtue.”
    “You chauvinistic men,” Wang said, joining Ruru in the kitchen.
    Lu helped him clear the table, put the leftovers away, and brew a pot of Oolong tea.
    “I need to ask a favor of you, old pal,” Lu said, holding a teacup in his hand.
    “What is it?”
    “I’ve always dreamed of starting a restaurant. For a restaurant, the heart of the matter is location. I have been looking around for a long time. Now here’s the opportunity of a lifetime. You know Seafood City on Shanxi Road, don’t you?”
    “Yes, I’ve heard of it.”
    “Xin Gen, the owner of Seafood City, is a compulsive gambler— he plays day and night. He pays no attention to his business, and all his chefs are idiots. It’s bankrupt.”
    “Then you should try your hand at it.”
    “For such an excellent location, the price Xin is asking is incredibly cheap. In fact, I don’t have to pay the whole amount, he’s so desperate. What he wants is a fifteen percent downpayment. So I just need a loan to start with. I’ve sold the few fur coats my old man left behind, but we’re still several thousand short.”
    “You couldn’t have chosen a better time, Overseas Chinese. I just got two checks from the Lijiang Publishing House,” Chen said. “One’s for the reprint of The Riddle of the Chinese Coffin and the other’s an advance for The Silent Step .”
    But it was not really a good time. Chen had been contemplating buying some more furniture for the new apartment. He had seen a mahogany desk in a thrift shop in Suzhou. Ming-style, perhaps of genuine Ming dynasty craftsmanship, for five thousand Yuan. It was expensive, but it could be the very desk on which he was going to write his future poems. Several critics had complained about his departure from the tradition of classical Chinese poetry, and the antique desk might convey a message from the past to him. So he had written a letter to Chief Editor Liu of the Lijiang Publishing House, asking for the advance.
    Chen took out the two checks, signed the back of them, added a personal check, and gave all of them to Lu.
    “Here they are,” he said. “Treat me when your restaurant is a booming success.”
    “I’ll pay you back,” Lu said, “with interest.”
    “Interest? One more word about interest, and I will take them back.”
    “Then come and be my partner. I have to do something, old pal. Or I’ll have a crisis with Ruru tonight.”
    “Now what are you two talking about—another crisis?”
    Wang was returning to the living room, Ruru following her.
    Lu did not reply. Instead he moved to the head of the table, clinked a chopstick against a glass, and started a speech: “I have an announcement to make. For several weeks, Ruru and I have been busy preparing for the opening of a restaurant. The only problem was our lack of the capital. Now, with a most generous loan from my buddy Comrade Chief Inspector Chen, the problem is solved. Moscow Suburb, the new restaurant, will be open soon—very soon indeed.
    “From our newspapers, we learn that we’re entering a new period in socialist China. Some old diehards are grumbling that China is becoming capitalist rather than socialist, but who cares? Labels. Nothing but labels. As long as people have a better life, that’s all it is about. And we’re going to have a better life.
    “And my pal, too, is most prosperous. He has not only received promotion—a chief inspector in his early thirties—but also he has this wonderful new apartment. And a most beautiful reporter is attending the house-warming party.
    “Now the