When Red is Black

them.
     
    She was genuinely pleased with the outcome of the investigation and with the part she had played. “So everything is finished,” she said, turning to him with a bright smile, her hands still stuffing tofu with ground pork.
     
    “There is still a lot to do to wrap it all up.”
     
    “Imagine I—imagine both of us—having done something for Yang,” she said. “Yin was his only comfort in his last days. Now her murderer has been caught. In heaven, if there is a heaven, Yang must be pleased.”
     
    “Yes, the conclusion. . .” Yu found it hard to complete his sentence— that his grandnephew killed the woman he loved.
     
    “Can you take out his poetry collection for me? It is in the second drawer of the chest.”
     
    “Of course. But why?”
     
    “I think I have just gained a new understanding of Yang’s poetry while I was busy cooking,” she said. “Sorry, my hands are not clean. But when you bring the book here, I have something to tell you that is related to the case.”
     
    Yu came back with the poetry book in his hand.
     
    “Please find the poem titled ‘A Cat of the Cultural Revolution,’” she said. “Can you read it to me?”
     
    He started reading in a low voice, still totally mystified. At times, Peiqin could be too wrapped up in books, just like Chief Inspector Chen. Fortunately, she did not have too many idols like Yang. And there was no one else in the kitchen area just then.
     
    My fantasy came true / with the Cultural Revolution / of being a cat, jumping / through the attic window, stalking / on the dark roof, staring / down into the rooms now peopled / with the strangers wearing / the armbands of “Red Guards.” / They had told me “Go away, / bastard, you hear!” I heard, / only too glad to come / to the roof, where I found, / for the first time, that starlight / could shine so long in solitude, / and that Mother had changed / beside the Red Guards, her neck / bent by a blackboard like / a zoological label. I couldn’t tell / the words written on it, but I knew / she’s in no position to stop / my leaping into the dark night.
     
    Morning brought me down / brandishing a slate, Mother sprang back / at the sight, as if the slate too / were designed for her swollen neck. / I couldn’t help shouting / in a voice I had learned overnight, / “Go, and fetch a bowl of rice / for me, you hear!” Away she / scampered. A mouse scuttled / in the debris of a night’s “cultural revolution.” And / I decided, not being human enough / to be a Red Guard, to be / felinely ferocious. Back / from a visit to the dentist / one day, I caught her squealing, “No, / your teeth are sharp.” “Alas, / she was born under the star of the mouse,” a blind / fortune-teller said, sighing / by her deathbed. “It was / predestined, according / to the Chinese horoscope.” / I ran out wild. There were / nine lives to lose, and I jumped / into the jungle.
     
    I see a paw-print / on this white paper.
     
    “ Yes, it’s about the Cultural Revolution,” Yu said, after reading the long poem aloud.
     
    “Now that I have learned more about his life,” Peiqin said, “I’m sure the narrator must have been based on Hong, the child of a ‘black’ family. Her family was persecuted by the Red Guards. Those kids suffered terrible discrimination. They were regarded as ‘politically untrustworthy,’ with no future in socialist China. Some of them could not help seeing themselves as less than human because they could never become Red Guards.”
     
    “Yes, that’s why she denounced her parents, I was told.”
     
    “I can really relate, because I had a similar experience and harbored secret resentment against my parents,” she said in a trembling voice before she controlled herself. “What a poem! It represents the dehumanization of the Cultural Revolution from a child’s perspective.”
     
    “Yes, the Cultural Revolution caused many tragedies. Even today, there are people who have not been able to move out of its shadow, including Hong, and perhaps Bao too.”
     
    “Yang left a novel manuscript, didn’t he?”
     
    “It’s in English. According to Chief Inspector Chen, it is a novel like Doctor Zhivago, about the life of a Chinese intellectual in Mao’s years, but Internal Security has already snatched it.”
     
    “You could have made a copy.”
     
    “We didn’t have time. The minute we entered the bureau, Internal Security was there. They already seemed to know