Death of a Red Heroine

hand a white basket full of fallen petals.
    And he turned to find Peiqin scrubbing the pots over the sink under the glaring light. It was hotter there. He could see the perspiration on her brow. Humming a tune, though off-key, she stood on tiptoe to put the dishes back in the makeshift wall cabinet. He hurried over to help. After closing the cabinet door, he remained standing close behind her, slipping his arms round her waist. She nestled back against him and made no attempt to stop him as he slid his hands up her back.
    “Strange, isn’t it,” he said, “to think Chief Inspector Chen should come to envy me.”
    “What?” she murmured.
    “He told me what a lucky husband I am.”
    “He told you that!”
    He kissed the nape of her neck, feeling grateful for the evening.
    “Go to bed now,” she said smiling. “I’ll join you soon.”
    He did, but he did not want to fall asleep before she came to bed. He lay there for a while without turning off the light. Out in the lane, all sorts of vehicles could be heard moving along Jingling Road, but once in a while came a rare minute when all the traffic faded into the night. A blackbird twittered nostalgically in the maple tree. His neighbor’s door slammed closed across the kitchen area. Somebody gargled at the concrete common sink, and he heard another indistinct sound like swatting a mosquito on the window screen.
    Then he heard Peiqin snapping off the kitchen lights, and stepping lightly into the room. She changed into an old robe of shot silk that rustled. Her earrings clinked into a dish on the dresser. She pulled a plastic spittoon from under the bed and put it in the corner partially sheltered by the cabinet. There was a gurgling sound. Finally she came over to the bed and slid under the towel blanket.
    He was not surprised when she pressed herself against him. He felt her moving the pillow to a more comfortable position. Her robe fell open. Tentatively, he touched the smooth skin on her belly, feeling the warmth of her body, and pulling her knees against his thighs. She looked up at him.
    Her eyes mirrored the response he had expected.
    They did not want to wake up Qinqin.
    Holding his breath, he tried to move with as little noise as possible; she cooperated.
    Afterward, they held each other for a long time.
    Normally he would feel sleepy afterward, but that night he found his mind working with intense clarity.
    They were ordinary Chinese people, he and Peiqin, hardworking and easily contented. A crab dinner like tonight’s could make them happy, excited. In fact, little things went a long way for them: a movie on the weekend, a visit to the Grand View Garden, a song on a new cassette, or a Mickey Mouse sweater for Qinqin. Sometimes he complained like other folks, but he counted himself as a lucky guy. A marvelous wife. A wonderful son. What else mattered that much on this earth?
    “Heaven or hell is in one’s mind, not in the material things one has in the world,” Old Hunter had once told him.
    There were a few things, however, Detective Yu would like to have. A two bedroom apartment with a bathroom, for instance. Qinqin was already a big boy who needed a room of his own. He and Peiqin would not have to hold their breath making love. A propane gas tank for cooking instead of coal briquettes. And a computer for Qinqin. His own school years were wasted, but Qinqin should have a different future . . .
    The list was quite long, but it would be nice to have just a few of the items at the top.
    All of these, it had said in People’s Daily , would come in the near future. “Bread we will have, and milk, too .” So said a loyal Bolshevik in a movie about the Russian Revolution, predicting to his wife the marvelous future of the young Soviet Union. It was a movie seen many times in his high-school years—the only foreign movie available at the time. Now the Soviet Union was practically gone, but Detective Yu still believed in China’s economic reform. In a few years, maybe, a lot would improve for the ordinary Chinese people.
    He dug out the ashtray from under a heap of magazines.
    But those HCC! That was one of the things making life so hard for the ordinary Chinese. With their family connections, HCC could do what other people could not dream of doing, and rocketed up in their political careers.
    A typical HCC, Wu must have thought the world was like a watermelon, which he could cut to pieces as he pleased, spitting other people’s lives away like