Free A Loyal Character Dancer by Qiu Xiaolong

up, and she realized he was taller than the other people in the lobby. He had a high forehead, penetrating black eyes, and his expression was intelligent. Dressed in a black suit, he looked more like a scholar than a policeman, an impression enhanced by the information she had just read.
     
    “Good morning, Chief Inspector Chen.”
     
    “This is for you.” Chen handed the flowers to her. “There were so many things happening at the bureau yesterday, I forgot to prepare a proper welcome bouquet for you in my rush to the airport. For your first morning in Shanghai.”
     
    “Thank you. It’s beautiful.”
     
    “I called your room. No one answered. So I decided to wait for you here. I hope you don’t mind.”
     
    She didn’t mind. The flowers were a surprise, but as she stood beside him in her plastic slippers, with her hair in such a mess, she couldn’t help a feeling of annoyance at his formal courtesy. This was not behavior she expected from a colleague, and she didn’t quite care for the veiled reminder that she was “just” a woman.
     
    “Let’s go up to my room to talk,” she said.
     
    As they entered her room, she gestured for him to sit and picked up a vase from the corner table. “I’ll put the flowers in water.”
     
    “Have you enjoyed a good night’s sleep?” Chen asked, glancing around the room.
     
    “Not really, but it should be enough,” she said. She refused to be embarrassed by the disarray of the room. The bed was not made, her stockings were thrown down on the rug, pills were scattered on the night stand, and her rumpled suit had been tossed over the back of the chair. She made a curt excuse, “Sorry, I had to pick up a fax.”
     
    “I should have given you notice. My apologies.”
     
    “You are being very polite, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen,” she said, trying to keep the sarcasm from her voice. “Last night you were up late too, i imagine.”
     
    “Last night, after I left you, I discussed the case with Superintendent Hong of the Fujian police. It was a long discussion. Early in the morning, my assistant, Detective Yu, phoned me. He explained that at his hotel, there’s only one telephone at the front desk, and after eleven o’clock the night manager locks up the telephone and goes to bed.”
     
    “Why lock up the phone?”
     
    “Well, a telephone is a rare commodity in the countryside,” Chen explained. “It’s not like in Shanghai.”
     
    “Is there new information this morning?”
     
    “About your question concerning the delay in our passport approval process, I’ve got an answer.”
     
    “What is that, Chief Inspector Chen?”
     
    “Wen would have received her passport several weeks ago, but she did not have her marriage certificate. No legal document to prove her relationship with Feng. She moved in with Feng in 1971. Government offices were all closed at the time.”
     
    “Why were the government offices closed?”
     
    “Mao labeled a lot of cadres as ‘capitalist roaders.’ Liu Shaoqi, the head of the People’s Republic, was thrown into jail without a trial. The offices were shut. The so-called revolutionary committees became the only power.”
     
    “I’ve read about the Cultural Revolution, but I did not realize that.”
     
    “So our passport people had to search the commune records. It took time. That’s probably why the process has been so slow.”
     
    “Probably,” she echoed, tilting her head slightly to one side. “So in China, every rule is to be strictly followed—even in a special case?”
     
    “That’s what I learned. Besides, Wen only initiated her application in mid-February, not in January.”
     
    “But Feng told us she applied in January—mid-January.”
     
    “That’s my information. Even so, it has taken a long time, I have to admit. There may have been another factor. Wen does not have any guanxi in Fujian. This word may be translated as ‘connections,’ only guanxi means far more than that. It’s