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These past months had been especially strange for Hulan. Her family had literally been ripped apart. Her father had died under bad circumstances when Hulan exposed him as a smuggler, conspirator, and killer. The press—regulated as it was by the government—had made the story headline news. There had been features about Hulan’s parents, her grandparents, even her great-grandparents—all of them shown in a bad light. But for a time the government had seen in Hulan’s own story a politically advantageous message, so her life had also been examined. Photographs had been dredged out of newspaper files as well as government records showing Hulan at various crime scenes, at political rallies from her youth, even as the baby daughter of one of Beijing’s then-most promising couples. Hulan had been compared time and again to her namesake—Liu Hulan, martyr for the Revolution.
Hulan had thought that this interest would pass. But instead of dwindling, the coverage had swung in another direction thanks to Bi Peng, a reporter for the People’s Daily. In a country that loved puns, Bi Peng was well known for his name. Bi was just a family name, but the tone sounded like bi, the word for pen. What he wrote about soon spread across the country. Now, to Hulan’s growing embarrassment and anger, several newspapers and magazines had run photographs of her as one of Beijing’s elite class—a Red Princess. Here was Hulan in a grainy photograph copied from a security tape dressed in a fuchsia silk cheongsam and dancing at the Rumours nightclub with an American. This showed her decadence as clearly as if she’d been caught buying silk lingerie at one of Beijing’s new department stores.
But all this was just propaganda. Hulan remembered that night at Rumours perfectly well. She had not been there for fun, but rather to investigate a crime. The American in the photo was David Stark, an assistant U.S. attorney, who had come to China to help solve that case. The two of them had been successful and had been hailed as heroes. But it wasn’t safe for anyone in China to climb too high. Bi and other reporters had turned her relationship with David into a national scandal. Could the same Liu Hulan who had been treated as a brave woman now have succumbed to the depravity of the West in the f
orm of this American man? Couldn’t she say bai bai—a mutant Mandarin-English phrase meaning to say “bye-bye” to lovers—to this foreign attorney? Hadn’t Inspector Liu read China Can Say No, the book that stressed the importance of just saying no to American imperialism, materialism, and sexism?
None of this should have surprised Hulan. All the world over, the press liked to build people up, then bring them down, then build them up again. The only difference between the rest of the world and China was that here the government helped to color what was said.
At the iron gates to the Ministry of Public Security compound, Investigator Lo flashed his identification and the car was waved through. Lo dropped Hulan as close to the entrance as possible, then drove away to find a parking spot in the shade. Hulan hurried inside, walked across the lobby, and climbed the back stairs to her office.
Like most public buildings in Beijing, this one had neither heat nor air conditioning to protect the inhabitants from the vicissitudes of the weather. In winter she worked with her coat on. In summer she wore simple silk dresses or linen shifts and used old-fashioned methods of conserving cool air. She kept her windows open at night so that the room would cool down, then closed them first thing in the morning to keep the hot air out for as long as possible. In the late afternoons, when she couldn’t stand it anymore, she cracked the windows again. On the very hottest days she draped wet cloths on the window openings and hoped for a breeze.
Hulan settled in at her desk, opened a file, and tried to concentrate, but she found her mind wandering. Her caseload was, to her mind at least, uninteresting. During these last months she’d been assigned to several murder cases. They’d been easy to solve, with nothing for her to do but fill out the paperwork, deposit the prisoners at the jail, and turn up in court when the prosecutor called. That she knew all this was Vice Minister Zai’s plan to keep her safe didn’t make her feel any better about it.
A few hours later, the mailboy came by with a stack of envelopes. She went through them quickly. One held an inter-office report from Pathologist Fong. She didn’t need to read it, as the entry wound on the body at the temple pretty much told the story on that case. There were a couple of forms to be signed and sent back to the prosecutor’s office. Again, nothing interesting on cases she could barely remember. But when she saw the return address on the last envelope, her breath caught. She set it down on her desk and swung around to look out the window. Memories flooded back. A destitute village on a scorched plain. Pigs crying at slaughter. The smell of the red soil. The searing brightness of a brutal sun. And then other images—girls in pigtails berating a man until he broke down and confessed. People being beaten. Blood running as freely as sweat. Her heart pounding, Hulan picked up the envelope and tore it open.
“Inspector Liu Hulan,” Hulan read, “I am Ling Suchee. I hope you remember me from your days at the Red Soil Farm.” Hulan remembered. How could she not remember? In 1970, at age twelve, Hulan had been sent to the countryside to “learn from the peasants.” Now, sitting in her stifling office, Hulan was transported back across the years to when she was that young girl. Suchee had been her best friend. In those days of severity they had built a teasing relationship. With great affection Hulan had called Suchee her maor ye, or country bumpkin. Suchee had called Hulan bei kuan, literally meaning “north-wealth”—or a person of wealth from the north. Suchee had been funny, strong, and honest, while Hulan had been somber, had covered her city ways with false courage, and had already learned the political advantages of not always telling the truth. But for all of Hulan’s so-called sophistication, Suchee had gotten them out of trouble more than once.
Hulan looked back at the characters on the page. “Today, on June 29 of the Western calendar, my daughter Ling Miaoshan died.” Reading the circumstances of the girl’s death, Hulan’s hand instinctively went down to the early swell of her own pregnancy. “My daughter worked for an American company. It is called”—and here the crude characters gave way to even cruder print letters—“Knight International. I see and know things, but no one will listen to me. My daughter is dead. My daughter is gone from me. You once said you would help me if I ever needed it. I need your help now. Please come quickly.”
Hulan ran a finger over the characters of Ling Suchee’s name. Then she checked the date and realized that Miaoshan had died only five days ago. Taking a deep breath, she put away the letter, left her office, and went up a flight of stairs to Vice Minister Zai’s office. He smiled when she came in and motioned for her to sit.
“I have sent Mama to Beidaihe,” she said.
“This is good. I will go and see her on the weekend.”
“I will also be leaving the city.”
Vice Minister Zai cocked an eye.
“I am going to Da Shui Village.”
Hulan saw a flicker of worry cross her mentor’s face as he realized this would be a personal conversation. It was said that there was no such thing as a wind-proof wall in China and that no one could ever be sure who was listening or not. People also said that things had relaxed, that there was too much going on—meaning that everyone, including the generals in the army, were trying to get rich—for so much time and effort to be given over to observation. But only a fool would take the risk that this was so. Even assuming the unlikely possibility that there was no electronic surveillance in the building, any of Vice Minister Zai’s assistants or tea girls could be made to repeat conversations they’d heard if push came to shove. Knowing this and knowing that their private lives had long been a matter of government record, Hulan and Zai attempted to continue their conversation. There was no mistaking the concern in Zai’s voice as he asked, “Do you think that is wise?”
“Do you think I have a choice?” Her tone was sharp.
“You of all people have choice,” he reminded her.
She chose to ignore this, saying, “The daughter of Ling Suchee has died. She is skeptical of the local police bureau’s official version of the case. Her suspicions are probably just her grief speaking, but I can go to her as a friend.”
“Hulan, the past is behind you. Forget about it.”
She sighed. “You have read my personal file. You know what happened out there. If Ling Suchee asks for my help, then I must go.”
“And if I forbid you?” he asked gently.
“Then I will use my vacation time,” she said.
“Hulan—”
She held up a hand to stop him from continuing. “I will come back as soon as I can.” She stood, crossed the room, then hesitated at the door. “Don’t worry, uncle,” she said, ironing the tension out of her voice. “Everything will be fine. It may even do me good to get out of the city for a while.” She paused, thinking he might add something, but they both knew her words had many meanings and some of them might even be right. “And please, do visit Mama. Your companionship helps her.”
A few minutes later she stepped out into the ministry’s courtyard. Heat radiated up from the asphalt. Investigator Lo started the car, and as he pulled out of the compound she felt sweat trickle between her breasts down to her stomach, where her and David’s child grew. She brushed her palm across her brow and thought of what Uncle Zai had said. “The past is behind you.” But he was so wrong. The past was never far from her. It was with her every day in the crippled form of her mother. It was in the joyous voices and rhythmic drums of the yang ge troupe. It was in the blurry photographs that she saw in the newspapers. It was in the scratchy writing on a cheap paper envelope. She carried within her the future, but what kind of a future would any of them have if she didn’t drive the past away forever?
2
DAVID STARK’S HAND REACHED FOR THE RINGING PHONE. At five in the morning, the call could mean one of two things. Either a case had broken and an agent wanted David to come down and look at the scene, or Hulan was calling.
