When Red is Black

English-Chinese dictionary had been compiled five or six years earlier, when a large number of these concepts had been far from common in China. So he’d better read some articles or books about marketing, not necessarily to get the exact meanings, but to able to convey roughly corresponding ideas in translation.
     
    He skipped the marketing section and moved on to the part about the restaurant business in the New World. That section proved to be both pleasant and absorbing.
     
    Around one, White Cloud arrived. She looked tired, even slightly haggard, with noticeable black circles under her almond-shaped eyes. Perhaps she had studied late the night before, as her day had been filled with her little secretary responsibilities.
     
    She took off her jacket and draped it over the sofa. At once she noticed the change in the temperature of the room. She turned to him with a broad grin.
     
    “Thanks for your suggestion to Gu,” he said.
     
    “You should have had these things long ago. Don’t be so hard on yourself,” she said. “Oh, here is a tape of my interview with some of the staff members at the university.”
     
    “You are a great secretary, White Cloud.”
     
    “Little, not great,” she giggled.
     
    He would have liked to listen to the tape at once, but her presence in the room made it difficult to focus on the investigation.
     
    “Can I take a hot shower here?” she asked abruptly.
     
    “Sure. But the installer was just here. I have not yet cleaned up.”
     
    “You don’t have to worry about that,” she said.
     
    Kicking off her shoes, she went into the bathroom with her bag and turned back with a smile before closing the door after her. He wondered whether this was a calculated gesture, inviting intimacy. Listening for the sound of the shower, he tried not to read too much into her status as a little secretary.
     
    He began playing the tape. Its contents were not exactly interviews, more like a collection of various people’s observations. It was little wonder, since she had neither the authority nor the training of a cop. In fact, it was surprising that the interviewees had talked to her.
     
    The first interview was of a senior professor at the college where Yin had taught: “She was an opportunist. Why do I say so? First, she saw an opportunity by becoming a Red Guard! And all of us turned into the targets of her ruthless revolutionary criticism. When her luck at being a rebel changed, she saw her opportunity in being with Yang. He was a brilliant scholar. Like a gold mine undiscovered. Like buying valuable stocks at the bottom. Sooner or later the Cultural Revolution would end, she must have foreseen that. Only she carried the romantic drama too far—at his expense. Still, she did not really lose, did she? The book, the fame, the money, what-not!”
     
    The next one was of a retired lecturer named Zhuang who had worked with Yang for several years and met with Yin a few times: “He was just too bookish. Even in those years, he remained so idealistic, still reading and writing, something like Doctor Zhivago, I think. As for her, she was already a plain spinster, with problems in her political dossier. That was her last chance, and of course she scrambled to take it.”
     
    The third was of a middle-aged researcher whose last name was Pang, who had read Yin’s novel, but had had little personal contact with her: “As a writer, she was not so talented. If the book attracted a lot of attention, it is more because of its autobiographical nature. Now that’s another shame. No big deal if the book was merely about herself. No, she was nobody without him. So the appeal really came from him. ...”
     
    In these interviews, White Cloud did not pose questions. As she was not a cop, it was clever of her not to try to sound like one. But in the interview with Pang, she did ask “So you don’t believe she fell in love with him at the time; but didn’t she, too, take a great risk by having an affair?”
     
    “I’m not saying that she did not care for him at all—she did, in her way,” Pang answered. “But I would say that, as far as she was concerned, there must have been other considerations involved.”
     
    Generally, Chen reflected, that might be true—must be true.
     
    It was difficult to draw a clear-cut line anywhere, yet not so difficult for others to make comments.
     
    When he heard the slow turning of the bathroom doorknob, he had been so absorbed in his thoughts