When Red is Black

years past, I wore a ‘Black Capitalist’ blackboard around my neck, and Yin wore a Red Guard armband on her arm. So he imagines I must have harbored resentment all these years, until now. But that’s nonsense. For me, a lot of things are long gone—with the wind, the political wind. A man of my age cannot afford to live in the past. She was a Red Guard, but there were millions of them. Most of them suffered too, as she did. There’s no point singling her out.”
     
    “Let me tell you something, Mr. Ren. I totally understand your point. My wife’s father was also a capitalist. Things were not fair for him in those years, or for her either,” Yu said. “But that does not mean she’s resentful today.”
     
    “Thank you for telling me this, Comrade Detective Yu.”
     
    “Now let me ask you a question, the same question I ask everyone in the building. What was your impression of Yin?”
     
    “There’s not a lot I can tell you, I am afraid. Our paths hardly ever crossed, even though we lived in the same shikumen building.”
     
    “Never crossed?”
     
    “In a shikumen house, you either mix with your neighbors all the time, or barely at all. In my case, I used to be so black, politically black, that people avoided me like the plague. I do not blame them. No one wanted to bring down trouble upon themselves. Now that I’m no longer so black, I’ve gotten used to being alone,” Mr. Ren said with a bitter smile. “She kept apart too, for her own reasons. It could not have been easy for her, a single woman, only in her late-forties, to have shut herself up in her memories, like a clam. No light ever came through.”
     
    “Like a clam; that’s interesting.”
     
    “Yin was different because she hid herself in a shell of the past, or, to be more exact, like a snail, because her hiding place might have been her unbearable burden too. Most of the neighbors are biased against her because of her standoffishness.”
     
    “Did you ever talk to her, Mr. Ren?”
     
    “I did not have anything against her, but I did not go out of my way to talk to her. She did not talk to others either.” Mr. Ren added, after a pause, “If there’s another thing in common between us, neither of us cooked much in the common kitchen. She might have been too busy writing. As for me, I am something of a frugal gourmet.”
     
    “A frugal gourmet?” Yu said. “Please tell me more.”
     
    “Well, the Red Guards took away all my personal property at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. This must have happened to your wife’s family too. A few years ago, the government gave me some compensation for my loss. Not much, as the compensation was based on values at the time of confiscation. My children do not need the money, and I can’t take the compensation to my coffin. I have a weakness—I have to confess—for good food, especially for inexpensive Shanghai specialties. So I eat out as much as I can. Besides, it’s too much for an old man, to start a fire in a coal briquette stove every morning.”
     
    “My wife also starts a fire in a coal briquette stove every morning; I know what you mean. I am curious, Mr. Ren. About a year ago, you could have moved out, but you declined your son’s offer to buy you a new apartment in an upper-class area. Why?”
     
    “Why should I move? All my life I have lived here, and everything here is tinged with memories. A leaf must fall where its roots lie. My roots are here.”
     
    “But the new apartment building would be far more comfortable, with gas, bathrooms, and all the other modern conveniences.”
     
    “I am quite comfortable in my way. For a frugal gourmet, this is a super location, close to a number of wonderful restaurants. In walking distance. Perhaps that’s something you have already learned. The morning Yin was murdered, I was at a noodle restaurant called Old Half Place. I go there two or three times a week. There is a group of old customers like me. Some go there every morning. Old Half Place is one of the few remaining state-run restaurants that has kept up food quality without raising prices. Delicious and yet inexpensive. You really should go there.”
     
    “Thanks for the suggestion, Comrade Ren. If you think of anything to tell me about Yin, call me.”
     
    “I will. Try the noodles there if you have time this weekend.”
     
    As the old man left the office, Yu looked at his watch and was thinking about telephoning Chief Inspector Chen, another