“But how I can let her go to him, only to be abused for the rest of her life.”

“No, I don’t think that she will let Feng go on abusing her. The last few days have made a difference. Resurrected-that’s your word. She has gotten on a new footing, I believe.” Chen added, “Besides, Inspector Rohn will be in charge there. She is going to act in Wen’s interests. I will make sure of it.”

“So we are coming back to where we started. Wen has to leave.”

“No. We have a better understanding of the situation. So I’ll try to explain to Wen, and she can decide for herself.”

“All right, Chief Inspector Chen,” Liu said. “You talk to her.”

Chapter 30

Chief Inspector Chen and Liu Qing emerged from the study and entered the living room, where Inspector Rohn and Wen were sitting, waiting in silence.

On the dining room table, however, Chen noticed a difference. There was an impressive array of dishes, among which a gigantic soy-sauce-braised carp lay with its head and tail sticking out of a willow-patterned platter. Possibly it was the very one dangling from Liu’s hand not too long ago. It could not have been easy to prepare a live carp of this size. The other dishes looked tantalizing too. One of them, the pinkish river shrimp stir-fried with green tea leaves, seemed to be still steaming.

There was a plastic apron on the chair by Inspector Rohn. She had probably helped in the kitchen.

“Sorry to keep you waiting so long,” Liu said to Wen. “Chief Inspector Chen wants to have a talk with you.”

“Haven’t you spoken to him?”

“Yes, but it’s up to you to decide. He says you should have a full picture of the situation. It may be very important,” Liu said. “He also has to hear the decision in your own words.”

That was not what Wen had expected to hear. Her shoulders shook uncontrollably, then she said without raising her head. “If you think that it is important.”

“Then I’ll be waiting for you in the study upstairs.”

“What about your carp? The fish will get cold. It’s your favorite.”

It was something small, yet enormous, Chen observed. Wen actually thought about Liu’s favorite dish at such a moment. Did she realize that this could be the last meal she was going to cook for him?

“Don’t worry, Wen. We will warm it up afterward,” Liu said. “Chief Inspector Chen has promised that he will not force you to make any decision. If you decide to stay, you will always be welcome here.”

“So let’s have a talk, Wen,” Chen said.

As soon as Liu left them, Wen broke down. “What has he said to you?” Her voice was barely above a whisper as she took in deep breaths.

“The same as he has said to you.”

“I’ve nothing to add,” Wen said stubbornly, her face covered in her hands. “You can say whatever you want.”

“As a cop, I cannot say whatever I want to the police bureau. I have to explain why you refuse to leave, or people will not let the matter drop.”

“That’s right, Wen. We need to know your reason.” Catherine joined in, handing Wen a paper napkin for her tears.

“The fact of your staying with Liu here also calls for some explanation,” Chen continued. “If people don’t understand, they will come down hard on Liu. You do not want anything to happen to him, do you?”

“How can they blame him? It’s my own decision.” Wen choked, burying her tear-streaked face in her hands again.

“They can. As a chief inspector, I know how unpleasant things can get for him. This is a joint investigation by China and America. It is not just in your interest, but also in Liu’s, for you to talk to us.”

“What should I say?”

“Well, start from the time when you graduated from high school,” he said, “so that I’ll have a comprehensive picture.”

“Do you really want to know what I have suffered all these years-” Wen could hardly go on with tears trembling in her eyes, “with that monster?”

“It may be painful for you to talk about it, we understand, but it is important.” Catherine poured a cup of water for Wen, who nodded her thanks.

The two of them seemed to be on better terms, Chen observed. He did not know what they had talked about. Wen’s earlier hostility toward Catherine was largely gone. There was a fresh Band-Aid on Catherine’s finger. She had certainly been helping in the kitchen.

So Wen started to narrate in a mechanical voice, as if she were telling a story about somebody else, her face expressionless, her eye vacant, her body occasionally racked with silent sobs.

In 1970, when the educated youth movement swept all over the country, Wen was only fifteen. Upon her arrival at Changle Village in Fujian, however, she found it impossible to squeeze into the small hut with her relative’s three-generation family. As she was the only educated youth in the village, the Revolutionary Committee of the Changle People’s Commune, headed by Feng, assigned to her an unused tool room adjacent to the village barn. There was no electricity or water, nor any furniture except a bed in the room, but she believed in Mao’s call to young people to reform themselves through hardship. Feng turned out not to be, however, the poor-and-lower-middle-class-peasant of Mao’s theory.

Feng started by asking her to talk in his office. As the number-one Party cadre, he was in the position to give political talks, supposedly in an effort to reeducate young people. She had to meet him three or four times a week, with the door locked, Feng sitting like a monkey in human clothes, his hands pawing at her over the red-covered copy of Quotations from Chairman Mao. And what she had dreaded happened one night. Feng broke into her room from the barn. She struggled, but he overpowered her. Afterward, he came almost every night. No one dared to say anything about it in the village. He had not thought about marrying her, but upon learning that she was pregnant, he changed his mind. He had no child from his first wife. Wen was desperate. She thought about abortion. The commune clinic was under his control. She thought about running away. There was no bus transportation at the time. Villagers had to ride a commune tractor for miles to the nearest bus stop. She thought about committing suicide, but she could not bring herself to do so when she felt the baby kicking inside her.

So they got married under a portrait of Chairman Mao. “A revolutionary marriage,” as reported by a local radio station. Feng did not bother to have a marriage certificate. For the first few months, she was tempting, young, educated, from the big city-something for his sexual satisfaction. Soon he lost interest. After the baby was born, he became abusive toward her.

She realized there was no use struggling. Feng was so powerful in those years. At first, occasionally, she still dreamed of somebody coming to her rescue. Soon she gave up. In the cracked mirror she saw she was no longer what she had been. Who would take pity on peasant woman with a sallow, wrinkled face, and a baby bundled on her back as she plowed with an ox in the rice paddy. She came to terms with her fate by cutting herself off from the people in Shanghai.

In 1977, after the end of the Cultural Revolution, Feng was removed from his position. Spoiled by the power he had enjoyed, he would not work like a peasant. She had to support the family. What’s worse, the perverted monster now had all his time and energy free for abusing her. And a reason, too. Among other things, he had been accused of dumping his first wife and seducing an educated youth. He attributed his downfall to that and wreaked his fury on her. When he became aware of her intention to divorce him, he threatened to kill her and her son. He was capable of anything, she knew. So things went on as before. In the early eighties, he started to stay away from home frequently-on “business,” though she never knew what he was really up to. He earned little. The only things he brought home were toys for his son. After the death of their child, things went from bad to worse. He had other women and came home only when he was broke.