Death of a Red Heroine

on the case again?”
    “No. Not at this moment.”
    It was a true answer, but he wondered why he had been so occupied with the case. Was it because of the raw human emotions involved? Perhaps his own personal life was so prosaic that he needed to share the passion of others. Or perhaps he had been yearning for a dramatic change in his own life.
    “I have to ask you a favor,” she said.
    “Anything,” he said.
    “I don’t want you to misunderstand.” She took a deep breath, then paused for a moment. “There’s something between us, isn’t there?”
    “What do you think?”
    “I knew it when we first met.”
    “So did I.”
    “I had been engaged to Yang, you know, before I met you, but you have never asked me about it.”
    “Nor have you ever asked about me, have you?” he said, gripping her palm. “It’s not that important.”
    “But you have a promising career,” she said, with the emotion visibly washing over her fine features. “That is so important to you, and to me, too.”
    “Promising career—I don’t know—” Those words sounded like a prelude, he could tell. “But why start talking about my career now?”
    “I’ve had all the words ready to say, but it’s harder than I thought. With you here, being so nice to me, it’s more difficult . . . a lot more difficult.”
    “Just tell me, Wang.”
    “Well, I went to the Shanghai Foreign Language Institute this afternoon, and the school demands compensation for what they have done for him, for Yang, you know—compensation for his education, salary, and medical benefits during his college years. Or I won’t be able to get the document for my passport. It’s a large sum, twenty thousand Yuan. I wonder whether you could say something to the passport department of your bureau. So I could get one without the document from the Foreign Language Institute.”
    “You want to get a passport—to go to Japan?”
    That was not at all what he had expected.
    “Yes, I’ve been applying for it for several weeks.”
    To leave China, she needed a passport. So she had to present an authorized application with her work unit’s approval. And her marriage to Yang, even though only a nominal one, necessitated some document from Yang’s work unit, too.
    It might be difficult, but not impossible. Passports had been issued without work unit authorization before. Chief Inspector Chen was in a position to help.
    “So you are going to him.” He stood.
    “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    “He has obtained all the necessary documents for me to join him. Even a job for me at a Chinese TV station in Tokyo. A small station, nothing like here, but still something in my line. There’s not much between him and me, but it’s an opportunity I cannot afford to miss.”
    “But you also have a promising career here.”
    “A promising career here—” Wang said, a bitter smile upon her lips, “in which I have to pile lies upon lies.”
    It was true, depending on how one chose to perceive a reporter’s job in China. As a reporter for the Party’s newspaper, she would have to report in the Party’s interest. First and foremost, the Party’s interest. She was paid to do that. No question about it.
    “Still, things are improving here,” Chen said, feeling obliged to say something.
    “At this slow pace, in twenty years, I might be able to write what I want to, and I will be old and gray.”
    “No, I don’t think so.” He wanted to say that she would never be old and gray, not in his eyes, but he chose not to.
    “You’re different, Chen,” she said. “You really can do something here.”
    “Thank you for telling me this.”
    “A candidate for the seminar of the Central Party Institute, you can go a long way in China, and I don’t think I can be of any help to you here.” She added after a pause. “For your career, I mean. And even worse—”
    “The bottom line is—” he said slowly, “you’re going to Japan.”
    “Yes, I’m going there, but there will be some time—at least a couple of months—before I can get the passport and visa. And we’ll be together—just like tonight.” She raised her head, putting a hand up to her bare shoulder, lightly, as if to pull one strap down. “And some day, when you’re no longer interested in your political career here, you may want to join me there.”
    He turned to look out of the window.
    The street was now alive with a surf of colorful umbrellas. People hurrying along in different directions, to their