Death of a Red Heroine

morning light, she appeared pale, with dark rings visible under her eyes. He did not know when she had left his room.
    She was wearing a rose-colored Qi skirt, the slits revealing her slender legs. A small straw purse hung from her shoulder, and a bamboo briefcase was in her hand. An Oriental among the Occidentals. She was about to leave with the American delegation.
    As he gazed at her in a flood of morning light, he was awash in gratitude.
    She did not disengage herself immediately. As soon as she was free, he asked, “Will you call me when you get back to Beijing?”
    “Of course I will.” She added after a pause, “If that’s all right with you.”
    “How can you ask that? You have done such a lot for me—”
    “No, don’t. You’re under no obligation.”
    “Then we’ll see each other in Beijing,” he said, “in October. Maybe earlier.”
    “Remember the poem you recited for me in the North Sea Park that afternoon?”
    “That afternoon, yes.”
    “So it’s just a couple of months.”
    A small American woman with a slight limp came shuffling toward her.
    “Are we done with what we have come for?”
    “Yes, I’m done with what I came for,” she said, looking at him before she turned to join the delegation members.
    Outside, it was a bright, shining morning. A gray mini-van awaited the delegation on Nanjing Road. She was the last to get into the van, carrying a leather suitcase for someone. As the car started moving, she rolled down the window and waved her hand at him.
    He watched as the van pulled out I’m done with what I came here for . That was what she had said.
    What had he come here for? He wished he could say the same, but he couldn’t.
    It had happened. It might never happen again. He did not know. He did know, however, that there was no stepping twice into the same river.
    But he had to run back into the hotel. Some representatives were leaving. As the host, he had to say good-bye to them and bestow various gifts on behalf of the Shanghai Police Bureau. Smiling, shaking hands with one representative after another, he realized that his responsibilities at the Guoji Hotel had been designed to get him out of the way.
    “The order of the acts has been schemed and plotted, / And nothing can avert the final curtain’s fall.”
    By noon, he was free to go downstairs to the newspaper stand in the lobby. There were several people gathering in front of it, reading the newspaper over each other’s shoulders. As he walked toward them, he saw a headline printed in red:
    CORRUPTION AND CRIME UNDER WESTERN BOURGEOIS INFLUENCE
    There was a full page editorial in the People’s Daily about Wu’s case.
    What struck Chen as most absurd was that Guan’s name was not even mentioned. She was just one of the unnamed victims. The homicide was treated as an inevitable effect of Western bourgeois influence. Chief Inspector Chen’s name was not mentioned either, which was probably well-meant, as Party Secretary Li had explained. But Commissar Zhang was cited as a representative of the old high cadres determined to push through the investigation. Zhang’s commitment was seen as the Party’s determination.
    It is not people that make interpretations, but interpretations that make people.
    The editorial concluded impressively, authoritatively:
Wu Xiaoming was born of a high cadre family, but under Western bourgeois influence, Wu turned into a criminal. The lesson is clear. We must always remain alert. The case shows our Party’s determination to fight corruption and crime caused by Western bourgeois influences. A criminal, of whatever family background, will be punished in our socialist society. Our Party’s pure image will never be soiled.
    Chief Inspector Chen did not want to read more.
    There was another piece of news, shorter, but also on the front page, about the conference, with his name listed as one of the important cadres who attended it.
    He became aware of other people talking in front of the newsstand. They were engaged in a heated discussion.
    “How easily those HCC can make tons of money,” a tall man in a white T-shirt said. “My company needs to apply for a quota for textile exports every year, but it is very difficult to get one. So my boss goes to an HCC, and that S.O.B. just picks up the phone, saying to the minister in Beijing, ‘Oh, dear Uncle, we all miss you so much. My mother is always talking about your favorite dish . . . By the way, I need an export quota; please help me