Death of a Red Heroine [Chief Inspector Chen Cao 01] (30 page)

“That will be too much for my wallet, I’m afraid.”

“What do you mean? You’re my greatest friend, and part of my success, too. All on me, of course.”

“I will come,” Chen said, “if I can spare one evening next week.”

Chief Inspector Chen wondered if he would go there even ifhe could spare the time. He had read a report about the so-called special service in some notorious restaurants.

He looked at his watch. Three thirty. There would probably be nothing left in the bureau canteen. The conversation with Overseas Chinese Lu had made him feel hungry.

Then he thought of something he had almost forgotten. Dinner with Wang Feng. In his apartment.

Suddenly everything else could wait until tomorrow. The thought of having her over for a candlelit dinner was making his pulse race. He left the bureau in a hurry, heading for a food market on Ninghai Road, which was about fifteen minutes’ walk from his apartment.

As always, the market presented a scene of crowds milling about with bamboo baskets on their arms, plastic bags in their hands. He had consumed his ration of pork and eggs for the month. He hoped he could get some fish and vegetables. Wang liked seafood. A long line stretched back from a fish stall. Aside from the people standing there, there was also a collection of baskets, broken cardboard boxes, stools, and even bricks—all of them placed before or after the people in line. At every slow forward step, the people would move these objects a step farther. Placing an object in line was symbolic, he realized, of the owner’s presence. When a basket drew near to the stall, the owner would assume his or her position. Consequently, a line of fifteen people might really mean fifty people were ahead of him. At the speed the line was moving, he judged, it would probably take him more than an hour to be waited on.

So he decided to try his luck at the free market, which was just one block beyond the state-run Ninghai food market. The free market remained nameless in the early nineties, but its existence was known to everybody. The service there was better; so was the quality. The only difference was the price, usually two or three times more than the Ninghai.

A peaceful coexistence: the state-run and the private-run markets. Socialism and capitalism, side by side. Some veteran Party cadres were worried about the inevitable clashing of the two systems, but the people in the market were not, Chen observed, as he came to a stop at the colorful display of green onions and ginger under a Hangzhou umbrella. He picked up a handful of fresh green onions. The peddler added a small piece of ginger without charging for it.

Chen spent some time choosing what else he thought necessary for the dinner. Thanks to the advance from the Lijiang publishing house, he could well afford to buy two pounds of lamb, a pile of oysters, and a small bag of spinach. Then, on an impulse, he left the market for the new jewelry store at Longmen Road.

The shop assistant came up to him with a surprised expression. He was an unlikely customer, Chen realized, a cop in his uniform, with a plastic bag of food in his hand. But he turned out to be a good customer. He did not spend much time choosing among the dazzling items on display. He was immediately attracted by a choker of pearls placed on silver satin in a purple velvet box. The jewelry cost him more than eight hundred Yuan, but it would suit Wang well, he thought. Ruth Rendell would probably be pleased, too, with the way he spent the money earned by his translation of her work. Besides, he had to give himself some additional motivation to complete his next translation,
Speaker of Mandarin.

Back in his apartment, he realized for the first time—to his astonishment—how unpresentable a bachelor’s room could be. Bowls and dishes in the sink, a pair of jeans on the floor beside the sofa, books everywhere, gray streaks on the windowsills. Even the brick-and-board bookcase flanking the desk struck him as unsightly. He threw himself into the task of cleaning up.

It was the first time she had accepted his invitation to dine with him—alone, at his place. Since the night of the house-warming party, there had been some real progress in their relationship. In the course of the investigation, he seemed to have been finding more and more things about her, too. She was not only attractive and vivacious, but intelligent—intuitively perceptive, even more so than Chen himself.

But it was more than that. In the course of this investigation, he had raised more questions about his own life. It was time for him to make up his mind—as Guan should have made up her mind, years earlier.

Wang arrived a few minutes before six o’clock. She was wearing a white silk blazer over a simple black dress with two narrow shoulder straps that looked more like a slip. He helped her take off the blazer; her shoulders were dazzlingly white under the fluorescent light.

She brought a bottle of white wine with her. A perfect gift for the occasion. He had a set of glasses in the cabinet.

“What a spick-and-span room for a busy chief inspector!”

“I had the right motive. It’s rewarding to keep the place neat,” he said, “when a friend is coming over.”

The table was set with a white tablecloth, folded pink napkins, mahogany chopsticks, and long-handled silver spoons. The dinner was simple. A small pot of water boiling over a portable gas burner. Around it, paper thin sliced lamb, a bowl of green spinach, and a dozen oysters were laid out on a platter decked with lemon wedges. There were also vinegar-marinated cucumber and pickled garlic in little side dishes. Each of them had a small dish of sauce.

They dipped the slices of lamb into the boiling water, took them out after just a second or two, and dipped them into the sauce, a special recipe he had learned from Overseas Chinese Lu, a mixture of soy sauce, sesame butter, fermented bean curd, and ground pepper strewn with a pinch of parsley. The lamb, still pinkish, was tender and delicious.

He opened her bottle of wine. They touched glasses before sipping the sparkling white wine under the soft light.

“To you,” he said.

“To us.”

“For what?” he asked, turning the lamb over in the sauce.

“For tonight.”

She was peeling an oyster with a small knife. Her fingers, small, delicate, maneuvered the knife and cut loose the hinge muscle. She lifted the oyster to her mouth. A wisp of green seaweed still clung to its shell. He saw the glistening inside of the shell, its matchless whiteness against her lips.

“That’s good,” she sighed with satisfaction, putting down the shell.

He gazed at her over the rim of his cup, thinking of the way her lips touched the oyster, and then the cup. She sipped at her wine, dabbed at her mouth with the paper napkin, and picked up another oyster. To his surprise, she dipped it in the sauce, leaned across and offered to him. The gesture was terribly intimate.. Almost that of a newly married wife. He let her insert the chopsticks into his mouth. The oyster immediately melted on his tongue. A strange, satisfying sensation.

That was a new experience to him, being alone with a woman he liked, in a room he called his own. They spoke, but he didn’t feel that he had to make conversation. Nor did she. They could afford to gaze at each other without speaking.

It had started drizzling, but the city at night also seemed more intimate, peaceful, its veil of lights glistening into the infinite.

After dinner, she murmured that she wanted to help him clean up.

“I really enjoy washing dishes after a good meal.”

“No, you don’t have to do anything.”

But she had already stood up, kicked off her sandals, and taken over his apron that hung on the doorknob. It was pleasant to see her breezing around effortlessly, as if she had been living here for years. She appeared intensely domestic with the white apron tied tight around her slender waist.

“You are my guest today,” he insisted.

“I can’t just watch you doing everything in the kitchen.”

It was not really a kitchen, but a narrow strip of space with the gas burner and the sink squeezed together, barely large enough for the two to move around in. They stood close to each other, their shoulders touching. He pushed open the small window above the sink. His feeling of well-being—in addition to the effects of the good food and wine—came from a sense of being, not just in a scantily furnished apartment, but at home.

“Oh, let’s just leave everything here,” he said, untying the apron. “That’s good enough.”

“Soon you will have roaches crawling all about in your new apartment,” she warned him with a smile.

“I already have.” He led her back into the living room. “Let’s have another drink—a nightcap.”

“Whatever you say.”

When he came back with glasses, she was rocking back and forth in the rattan chair near the couch. As she sank deep into the chair, her short dress revealed a glimpse of her thighs.

He leaned against the cabinet, his hand touching the top drawer, which contained the choker of pearls.

She seemed to be absorbed in the changing color of the wine in her hand.

“Would you mind sitting by me for one minute?”

“Easier to look at you this way,” he said, smelling the intoxicating scent from her hair.

He remained standing with his glass of wine. A “nightcap.” To translate it into Chinese was difficult. He had learned its romantic connotation in an American movie, in which a couple sipped the last cup of wine before going to bed. He was intoxicated with
the atmosphere of intimacy that had sprung up between them.

“Oh, you’ve forgotten candlelight,” she said, sipping at the wine.

“Yes, I could use it now,” he said, “and
Bolero
on a CD player, too, would be great.”

That was also in the movie. The lovers, while making love, put on their favorite record: the rhythm of ever-approaching climax.

She held a slender finger against her cheek, scrutinizing him intently, as if for the first time. She reached up, taking the elastic band from her ponytail, and shook the black hair loose. It tumbled freely down her back. She looked relaxed, comfortable, at home.

Then he kneeled down on the floor at her feet.

“What’s that?”

“What?”

His finger touched her bare foot. There was a sauce stain on her small toe. He rubbed it off with his fingers.

Her hand slid down and grasped his. He glanced at her hand, at her ring finger. There was a lighter band of flesh below the joint where she’d once worn a wedding band.

They remained like that, holding hands.

Gazing at her flushed face, he felt he was looking into an open, inviting book. Or was he reading too much?

“Everything’s so wonderful tonight,” she said. “Thank you.”

“The best is yet to be,” he said, echoing a half-forgotten poem.

He had been waiting for this moment a long time.

The soft light silhouetted her curves against the sheer fabric of her dress. She looked like another woman, mature, feminine, and seductive.

How many different women could there be inside her, he wondered.

She rocked back, away from him, and touched his cheek with the palm of her hand. Her palm was light as cloud.

“Is your mind on the case again?”

“No. Not at this moment.”

It was a true answer, but he wondered why he had been so occupied with the case. Was it because of the raw human emotions involved? Perhaps his own personal life was so prosaic that he needed to share the passion of others. Or perhaps he had been yearning for a dramatic change in his own life.

“I have to ask you a favor,” she said.

“Anything,” he said.