Qiu Xiaolong - Death of a Red Heroine

The noodles were good, the room clean, Qinqin already dressed for school, carrying a chicken sandwich with an apple in a sealed plastic bag. How could she have managed to do so many things in such a short while, he wondered.

And things were not easy for her, not just at home. She worked as an accountant in a small, plain restaurant called Four Seas, tucked far away in the Yangpu District. She had been assigned the job after coming back to Shanghai with him. In those days, the Office of Educated Youth assigned jobs, and decisions were made regardless of an applicant’s education, intentions, or location. There was no use complaining since the office had a hard time dealing with the millions of ex-educated youths who’d returned to Shanghai. Any job opening was a blessing. But she had to make a fifty-five-minute bike ride from home to the restaurant. A tortuous journey, riding three or four bikes abreast in the rush-hour traffic. Last November she had fallen after a night’s snow. She had needed seven or eight stitches, though the bike was hardly damaged, apart from a dent in the mudguard. And she was still riding the same old bike, rain or shine. She could have asked for a transfer to a closer restaurant. She didn’t. Four Seas had been doing quite well, providing many perks and benefits. Some other state-run restaurants were so poorly managed that the profits were hardly enough even to maintain the employees’ clinic.

“You ought to eat more,” she said.

“I can’t eat much in the morning, you know.”

“Your job is tough. No time for lunch today again, I am afraid. Not like mine in the restaurant.”

That was one disadvantage of being a cop, and an advantage of working at her restaurant job. She did not have to worry about her meals. Sometimes she even managed to bring home restaurant food-free, delicious, specially cooked by the chef.

He had not finished the noodles when the telephone started ringing. She looked at him, and he let it ring for a while before picking it up.

“Hi, this is Chen. Sorry about calling so early.”

“That’s all right,” he said. “Anything new-any change?”

“No,” Chen said. “Nothing new. No change in our schedule either, except that Commissar Zhang wants to meet you sometime this afternoon. Say before four o’clock. Give him a call first.”

“Why?”

“Commissar Zhang insists on doing something himself, he wants to conduct an interview. And then he would like to compare notes with you.”

“It’s no problem for me. I can set out earlier. But do we have to do this every day?”

“Perhaps I’ll have to. Since it’s the first day, you just do whatever the commissar wants you to.”

Putting down the phone, Yu turned to Peiqin with a sigh.

“You’ve got to take Qinqin to school today, I’m afraid.”

“No problem,” she said, “but you are doing too much for too little.”

“You think I don’t know? A police officer makes four hundred and twenty Yuan a month, and a tea-leaf-egg vendor makes twice as much on the street.”

“And that chief inspector of yours, what’s his name-still single, but he’s got an apartment.”

“Perhaps I was born a mistake,” Yu was trying to sound humorous. “A snake can never become a dragon. Not like the chief inspector.”

“No, don’t say that, Guangming,” Peiqin said, starting to clear the table. “You’re my dragon. Don’t ever forget that.”

But Yu felt increasingly disturbed as he stuffed the newspaper into his pants pocket, walking toward the bus stop on Jungkong Road. He had been born in the last month of the dragon year, according to the Chinese lunar calendar, supposedly a lucky year in the twelve animal cycle zodiac. According to the Gregorian calendar, however, the date was early in January of 1953, therefore the beginning of the snake year. A mistake. A snake’s not a dragon, and it could never be as lucky. Not as lucky as Chief Inspector Chen. When the bus came, however, he was just lucky enough to get a seat by the window.

Detective Yu, who had entered the police force several years earlier than Chen and solved several cases, did not even dream of becoming a chief inspector. A position within his reasonable reach would be that of a squad leader. But that, too, had been taken away from him. In the special case squad, he was only the assistant to Chief Inspector Chen.

It was nothing but politics that Chen had been promoted because of his educational background. In the sixties, the more education one had, the more political unreliability one represented- in Chairman Mao’s logic-as a result of being more exposed to Western ideas and ideologies. In the mid-eighties, under Comrade Deng’s leadership, the Party’s cadres-selecting policies had changed. That made sense, but not necessarily in the police bureau, not in Chief Inspector Chen’s case. However, Chen got the position, and then the apartment.

Still, Yu was ready to admit that Chen, though not that experienced, was an honest and conscientious police officer, intelligent, well-connected, and dedicated to his job. That was a lot to say about someone in the bureau. He had been impressed by Chen’s criticism of model myths the previous day.

He decided not to have a confrontation with Chen. A futile investigation would probably take two or three weeks. And if the case could be solved through their efforts, so much the better, of course.

The air grew more and more stuffy in the bus. Looking out the window, he realized that he was sitting there like a sentimental fool, feeling sorry for himself. When the bus arrived at Xizhuang Road, Detective Yu was the first one out the door. He took a shortcut through the People’s Park. One of its gates opened out to Nanjing Road, Shanghai’s main thoroughfare, almost an extended shopping center in itself, stretching from the Bund to the Jian’an Temple area. The people were all in high spirits. Shoppers. Tourists. Peddlers. Messengers. A singing group was performing in front of the Helen Hotel, a young girl playing an ancient zither in the middle. A billboard in big Chinese characters exhorted Shanghai residents to promote good hygiene and preserve the environment by refraining from littering and spitting. Retired workers were waving red flags at corners, directing traffic and admonishing offenders. The sun was out, gleaming on the grated spittoons built into the sidewalks.

Detective Yu thought that he was merging with all of them. And he was their protector, too. But that, he admitted, was wishful thinking.

The First Department Store stood in the middle of Nanjing Road, facing the People’s Park across Xizhuang Road. As always, the store was crowded, not only with local people, but also with people from other cities. Yu had to squeeze through the throng at the entrance. The cosmetics section was on the first floor. He stood close to it, with his back against a column, watching for a while. A lot of people flocked around the counters. Large pictures of beautiful models greeted the young shoppers, their varied body language all the more alluring under the bright lights. The youthful saleswomen were demonstrating the use of the cosmetics. They, too, looked quite attractive in green-and-white-striped uniforms, the ceaseless play of the neon lights shimmering around them.

He took the elevator up to General Manager Xiao Chi’s office on the third floor.

General Manager Xiao greeted him in a spacious office, where the walls displayed an impressive assortment of awards and gold-framed pictures. One of them, Yu noticed, was Guan shaking hands with Comrade Deng Xiaoping at the Tenth Conference of the Party Central Committee.

“Comrade Guan was an important cadre of our department store. A loyal Party member,” Xiao said. “A big loss to the Party, her tragic death. We will do whatever possible to assist your investigation.”