When Red is Black

back into the glitter and glamour of the city in the thirties. Like visitors to the New World would someday be, he was “drunk with money, dazzled with gold.”
     
    When the phone finally rang, waking him from the scene of a French girl dancing a modern dance, her bare feet flashing like snow on a red-carpeted stage inside a postmodern shikumen house, he felt disoriented as he abruptly returned to reality. The caller was Yu. He had not made much progress in the investigation, he reported. Chen was not surprised. Not that he did not have a high opinion of Yu’s ability. Investigations took time.
     
    “I don’t know if the interviews will lead to anything,” Yu said.
     
    “We may at least learn something more about Yin.”
     
    “That’s another thing. Her neighbors seem to have known very little about her. She was a writer, she had published a book about the Cultural Revolution. That’s about it. Otherwise, she was an outsider in the building.”
     
    “What about her colleagues?”
     
    “I’ve talked to her department head. I got nothing really informative from him. As for the file provided by her school authorities, it contains little except a bunch of official clichés.”
     
    “Anybody would be nervous discussing a dissident writer,” Chen said. “The less said, the better. It’s understandable.”
     
    “But to substantiate the insider-murderer theory, and to rule out people who knew her at the college, I would have liked to have interviewed some of her colleagues.”
     
    “My guess is that they will not say much either, but it’s too early to exclude any possibilities.”
     
    At the end of the conversation, the clock said one thirty.
     
    But for the translation project, Chen thought as he made a cup of soybean milk for himself, it might have been a good idea for him to visit some of the scholars who had known Yin or Yang. Instead, he picked up the phone and dialed Professor Zhou Longxiang, who had worked at the same college as Yin. Chen had once consulted Zhou about classical Chinese poetry, and had since kept in touch.
     
    Professor Zhou, apparently lonesome after his retirement, was glad of Chen’s call. He launched into a lecture about the death of poetry for fifteen minutes before Chen was able to bring the conversation to the subject of Yin. At once Zhou’s voice showed irritation. “She was a shameless opportunist, that Yin Lige. I should not speak ill of the dead, I know, but when she was a Red Guard, she showed no mercy at all toward others.”
     
    “Perhaps she was too young then.”
     
    “That’s no excuse. What a disaster of a woman! She brought nothing but trouble to people close to her. Including Yang, who was a fine scholar.”
     
    “That’s a very interesting point, Professor Zhou,” Chen said. “As you are not superstitious, please enlighten me.”
     
    “It’s simple. But for the affair with her, he would not have been subject of criticism meetings at the cadre school,” Zhou said. “Karma. By her actions during the Cultural Revolution, she brought her troubles upon herself.”
     
    It was a cruel thing to say, whether one was Buddhist or not. The old professor’s opinion must have been fixed there and then in the furnace of the Cultural Revolution. It did not throw much light on the investigation, but it reconfirmed the impression of her unpopularity even among her colleagues.
     
    Looking at his watch, Chen told himself he could not afford to make many phone calls like that. Then he had an idea: he might try an approach of a different sort. It would be something else for White Cloud to do. It was surprising that she kept floating into his mind like a cloud that hovered over his work, and not just the translation work. He was not without a touch of self-satisfaction as he thought a little more about it. He could send her to talk to Yin’s former colleagues. He was, as in the proverb, A general who makes plans in his tent, and determines the outcome of a battle thousands of miles away. Even on his vacation, he was still able to contribute to the investigation.
     
    A few minutes before four, White Cloud returned carrying two plastic bags. She had changed her clothes, and wore jeans and a leather jacket over a low-cut white sweater. On her feet were a pair of short, shiny black boots.
     
    “I’ve got something for you.” She put one of the plastic bags on the desk.
     
    “You’ve been really quick. Thank you so much. I know I can count on you,