When Red is Black

that he was startled. He pressed the off button on his computer. He did not know how long she had been in the bathroom. There was not even a real bathtub, only a tiny space partitioned out in concrete with a shower head above, but she must have taken her time there. That was not surprising. A hot shower was still a luxury for most Shanghainese. He looked up to see her walking, barefoot, over to his desk. She was wearing his gray terry robe, which she might have noticed in the apartment at any time. The robe parted as she bent to look over his shoulder. He caught a glimpse of her breasts, her face flushed with the heat, her hair glistening with the beads of water, and he thought of several lines by Li Bai, a well-known Tang dynasty poet. They were from a poem that Yang had included in his manuscript:
     
    The clouds eager to make
    your dancing costume, the peony,
    to imitate your beauty, the spring breeze
    touching the rail, the petal glistening with dew. . . .
     
    But he remembered having quoted them the first time White Cloud and he had met, when they danced together in that private karaoke room, she wearing a dudou, an ancient Chinese halter-like garment that had suddenly become popular, his hand touching her bare back. That might not be an appropriate scene to remind her of, so he did not recite these lines aloud now.
     
    Li Bai, something akin to the Tang palace poet, had gotten into political trouble because of the poem. According to later critics, the imperial concubine was not pleased with the idea of being appreciated by a poet on behalf of the emperor. But the same later critics were laudatory of the poetry. The lesson seemed to be that a poet should never become involved in politics.
     
    “What are you thinking?” she said as she stood behind him, drying her hair with a towel.
     
    “It’s not easy for people to forget what happened during the Cultural Revolution,” he said. His gaze fell upon her slender ankle. No tattoo there, her red-painted toenails like fresh petals. Could he have imagined that tattoo the other day? “Nor is it easy for people not to judge from their own perspectives.”
     
    “What do you mean, Chief Inspector Chen?”
     
    “People cannot wipe out the impression of Red Guards that they formed during the Cultural Revolution.”
     
    “Yes, I, too, was surprised that most of them seemed to be so biased against her, even some who hardly had any personal contact with her.”
     
    “Well, there is a Chinese proverb, When three people start talking about seeing a tiger on the street, everybody else in the city believes it.” He added abruptly, “One of your interviewees, Mr. Zhuang, mentioned Doctor Zhivago. Do you have his phone number?”
     
    “Yes. Is it important?”
     
    “I don’t know, but I think I’ll look into it.”
     
    “Here it is,” she said, handing him a small piece of paper.
     
    “Now I have something else for you to do, White Cloud, but you looked a bit tired today.”
     
    “I slept late. That’s nothing. The hot shower has helped.”
     
    He explained to her the problem he was having with the marketing section of the business proposal.
     
    “Oh, I happen to have read an introductory book on marketing. A very good introduction, concise yet comprehensive. I may have given it to a friend, but I can find it in the library.”
     
    “Your major is Chinese, right?”
     
    “The government still assigns jobs to college students, but there are no good jobs for Chinese majors,” she said. “No joint venture company will hire someone capable only of reading classical poems.”
     
    “The water flows, flowers fall, and the spring fades. / It’s a changed world.”
     
    “Why did you recite those lines from Li Yu?” she asked.
     
    “I am thinking of my college days, when the government assigned me to my job in the police bureau. I was interested in nothing but poetry then.”
     
    “But you have a marvelous job, Chief Inspector Chen,” she said, tugging at the robe belt tentatively. “I’m going to change. I’ll bring the book over today if I can get it. Don’t worry.”
     
    Her departure made it possible for him to refocus on the homicide investigation. He decided to take a short cut, using his connections. Internal Security had not been helpful in providing essential information, so he would have to try to find out what they needed to know in his own way. He had a friend, Huang Shan, who was the director of the foreign liaison office