Death of a Red Heroine

destinations, and then, perhaps, to new ones. He had been telling himself that Wang’s marriage had failed. No one could break up a marriage unless it was already on the rocks. That a man had left this woman in the lurch was a proof of it. But she still wanted to go to that man. Not to him.
    Even though it might not be so for tonight and, perhaps, for a couple of months more.
    That was not what he had expected, not at all.
    Chen’s father, a prominent professor of Neo-Confucianism, had instilled into his son all the ethical doctrines; it had not been a useless effort.
    He had not been a Party member all these years for nothing.
    She was somebody’s wife—and still going to be.
    That clinched it. There was a line he could not step over.
    “Since you are going to join your husband,” he said, turning to look at her, “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to see each other—this way, I mean, in the future. We will stay friends, of course. As for what you asked me to do, I’ll do my best.”
    She seemed stunned. Speechless, she clenched her fists, and then buried her head in her hands.
    He shook a cigarette from a crumpled flip-top pack and lit it.
    “It’s not easy for me,” she murmured “And it’s not just for me either.”
    “I understand.”
    “No, you don’t. I’ve thought about it. It is not right—for you.”
    “I don’t know,” he said. “But I will do my best to get your passport, I promise.”
    That was the only thing he could think of saying.
    “I know how much I owe you.”
    “What’s a friend for?” he said, as if an invisible record of clichés had dropped onto the turntable of his mind.
    “Then I’m leaving.”
    “Yes, it’s late. Let me call a taxi for you.”
    She lifted her face, showing glistening tears in her eyes. Her pallor made her features sharper.
    Was she even more beautiful at this moment?
    She bent to pull on her shoes. He helped her to her feet. They looked at each other without speaking. Presently a taxi arrived. They heard the driver honking his horn in the rain.
    He insisted that she wear his raincoat. An ungainly black police raincoat with a ghostly hood.
    At the doorway, she halted, turning back to him, her face almost lost under the hood. He could not see her eyes. Then she turned away. Nearly his height, she could have been taken for him in the black police raincoat. He watched the tall raincoat-wrapped figure disappearing in the mist of the rain.
    Zhang Ji, a Tang dynasty poet, had written a well-known couplet: Whistling to himself, Chen opened the top drawer of his file cabinet. He had not even had a chance to take out the pearls, which shone beautifully under the light. “Returning your lustrous pearls with tears in my eyes, / Lord, I should’ve met you before I married.”
    According to some critics, the poem was written at the moment when Zhang decided to decline an offer from Prime Minister Li Yuan, during the reign of Emperor Dezhong in the early eighth century. Hence there was a political analogy.
    There’s nothing but interpretation, Chen thought, rubbing his nose. He did not like what he had done. She had made herself clear. It could have been the first night that he had longed for, and there would have been more. And he would not have placed himself under any obligation.
    But he had said no.
    Maybe he would never be able to rationalize his reaction, not even to himself.
    A bicycle bell spilled into the silence of the night.
    He could be logical about other people’s lives, but not about his own.
    Was it possible that his decision was precipitated by the report he had read in the afternoon? There seemed to be a parallel working in his subconscious mind. He thought of Guan’s willingness to give herself to Lai before parting with him, now of Wang’s offer before leaving to join her husband in Japan.
    Chief Inspector Chen had made many mistakes. Tonight’s decision might be another he would come to rue.
    After all, a man is only what he has decided to do, or not to do.
    Some things a man will do; some things a man will not do. It was another Confucian truism his father had taught him. Maybe deep inside, he was conservative, traditional, even old-fashioned—or politically correct. The bottom line was no.
    Whatever he was going to do, whatever kind of man he was going to be, he made a pledge to himself: He was going to solve the case. That was the only way he, Chief Inspector Chen, could redeem himself.

Chapter 19
    F inally Detective