When Red is Black

him; she reclined in the adjustable bed, looking more relaxed than he had seen her in weeks.
     
    “I’m really fine,” she said. “They’ve been running one test after another. You don’t have to come every day. And don’t bring me anything more, I already have so many gifts.”
     
    It was true. There were so many things on top of the nightstand that it was almost like a display at an expensive food store: smoked salmon, roast beef, white bird nest, American ginseng, pearl powder, black tree ears, and even a bottle of Russian vodka.
     
    Chen thought he could guess from whom this array came.
     
    “No, they’re not from Overseas Chinese Lu alone,” his mother said, shaking her head, as if in disapproval of something invisible in the air. “Some are from a certain Mr. Gu. I had never met him before he came to see me here. He must be a new buddy of yours, I guess. He insisted on calling me aunt, like Lu does. He also summoned the head of the hospital to my room, and right in front of me, he pushed a bulging red envelope into his hand.”
     
    “He’s incorrigible, that Mr. Gu.”
     
    But he was not completely surprised. White Cloud would have kept her real boss informed of everything concerning Chen, but Gu should have mentioned his visit over lunch.
     
    “Since then the doctors and nurses have been extraordinarily nice to me. They moved me here. This is a much better room, normally for high cadres, they said,” she told him and shook her head. “You must be somebody nowadays, son.”
     
    “No, not me, but Mr. Gu. I’ve been doing some translation for him.”
     
    “Really!” She appeared to be in better spirits and there was amusement in her voice as she said “Perhaps I’m too old to understand things in today’s world, but since when have you had a secretary working for you at home?”
     
    “She’s no secretary.” He had foreseen that his mother would mention this. In her eyes, he must have strayed far enough from his father’s path. Now the news that he had a “little secretary” would only confirm her opinion. “She is just a temporary assistant for the translation project.”
     
    “She is young, clever,” his mother said. “And she makes a very good home-made chicken soup.”
     
    “Yes, she is very capable.” He doubted that the soup had been made in White Cloud’s home. She bought the soup from a restaurant with Gu’s money, probably. But he decided not to correct his mother.
     
    “And she’s a university student. She likes your work, she has told me.”
     
    He realized that his mother was already launched in a different direction. It should not have surprised him. “Yes, she’s a Fudan University student,” he said. He was not about to disclose that he had first met White Cloud when she was working as a K girl in a private room of the Dynasty Club.
     
    Fortunately, his mother was still too weak to push this topic any further. He decided to leave well enough alone. If she wanted to cherish hopes, in spite of everything, especially in her present frail health, why not let her?
     
    He did not like Confucianism, despite his late father’s influence. Like many other people of his generation, Chen believed that Confucian ideology had caused rather than solved problems in the course of the history of Chinese civilization. Still, the chief inspector considered it only human nature to be a filial son. That was the least a man should do—to provide for his parents in their old age, and, whenever possible, to make them happy.
     
    He shuddered to think of those who refused to pay the deposit for their parents at the hospital. And for those who were unable to do so. It was not their fault, of course. Chen was able to do so, in the last analysis, because of his Party cadre position.
     
    Someday, he might be able to make his mother happy in that particular aspect, but his first priority must be to do a good job as a chief inspector of police. In the Confucian ethical system, responsibility to one’s country was more important than to one’s family.
     
    As for White Cloud, she was just a temporary assistant, as he had told his mother. He did not know whether the future would ever throw her into his path again. There was no predicting with Mr. Gu, of course. Two lines came to mind: Waving my hand lightly, I’m leaving, / leaving, carrying not a cloud with me.
     
    He thought he had forgotten this poem by Xu Zhimo, and he wondered whether it had come back to him now