A Loyal Character Dancer Read Online Free PDF

speech on China’s economic reform, Comrade Deng Xiaoping had used the metaphor of wading across the river by stepping on one stone after another. When there’s no foretelling the problems ahead, no planning can avoid them. That was the only course Chen could follow now.
     
    Opening his briefcase, he reached for Inspector Rohn’s picture for another look, but the photo he pulled out was of a Chinese woman—Wen Liping.
     
    A haggard thin face, sallow, hair disheveled, with deep lines around her lusterless eyes, whose corners seemed weighed down by invisible burdens. This was the woman in the recent picture used in her passport application. So different from those in her high-school file, in which, Wen, looking forward to embracing her future, appeared young, pretty, spirited, her red armband flashing as she raised her arms to the skies during the Cultural Revolution. In high school, Wen had been a “queen,” though that was not a term used in those years.
     
    He was particularly impressed by a snapshot of her taken at the Shanghai Railway Station: Wen danced with a red paper heart bearing a Chinese character— loyal —in her hand. A long, graceful neck, terrific legs, strands of her black hair curled against her cheek, and a red armband on her green sleeve. She was in the center of a group of educated youths, her almond-shaped eyes squinting in the sunlight, with people beating drums and gongs in a sea of red banners in the background. Underneath the picture was a caption: Educated Youth Wen Liping, graduate of the class of ‘70, the Great Leap Forward High School. The picture had appeared in Wenhui Daily in the early seventies, when high-school graduates from cities, the “educated youths,” were sent to the countryside in response to Chairman Mao’s declaration: It is necessary for the educated youths to receive reeducation from the poor and lower-middle-class peasants.
     
    Wen went to Changle Village in Fujian Province, as a “relative-seeking” educated youth. Soon afterward—in less than a year—she had married Feng Dexiang, a man fifteen years her senior, the head of the Revolutionary Committee of the Changle People’s Commune. There were different explanations for the marriage. Some described her as a too ardent believer in Mao, but others claimed pregnancy was the cause. She had a baby the following year. With her newborn infant bundled on her back, in sweat-soaked black homespun, laboring barefoot in the rice paddies, few would have recognized her as an educated youth from Shanghai. In the following years, she returned to Shanghai only once—on the occasion of her father’s funeral. After the Cultural Revolution, Feng was removed from his position. In addition to her toil in the rice paddy and vegetable plots, Wen started working in a commune factory to support the family. Then their only son died in a tragic accident. Several months ago, Feng had left on board The Golden Hope.
     
    Little wonder, Chen observed, that her passport picture looked so different from those in her high-school file.
     
    The flower falls, the water flows, and the spring fades, / It’s a changed world.
     
    Twenty years gone in a snap of one’s fingers, Wen had graduated from high school just two or three years earlier than he. Chief Inspector Chen thought now that he had comparatively little to complain about in his life, despite this absurd assignment.
     
    He glanced at his watch. Still some time before the airplane arrived. At a phone booth, he dialed Qian Jun at the bureau. “Has Detective Yu called in?”
     
    “No, not yet.”
     
    “The flight is delayed. I have to wait for the American and then accompany her to the hotel. I don’t think I will make it back to the bureau this afternoon. If Yu calls, tell him to reach me at home. And see if you can also speed up the report on the autopsy of the body in the park.”
     
    “I will try my best, Chief Inspector Chen,” Qian said. “So you’re conducting that