Our Missing Hearts (16)

She sighs and slides the card back into its place in the stack.

There’s another book I wanted to find, Bird says cautiously. Our Missing Hearts.

The librarian’s eyes snap toward him. For a long moment she studies him. Appraising.

I’m sorry, she says curtly. That book I know we don’t have anymore. I doubt you’ll find it anywhere.

With a bang, she pushes the long thin drawer shut again.

Oh, Bird says. He’d known it was unlikely and yet deep down, he’d still nursed a flicker of hope, and it goes out in a small sooty puff.

What did they do with them, he asks after a moment. All those books.

He remembers a picture from history class: heaps of books in a town square, set ablaze. As if she can tell what he’s thinking, the librarian gives him a sideways glance and chuckles.

Oh no, we don’t burn books here. This—this is America. Right?

She raises an eyebrow at him. Serious, or ironic? He can’t quite tell.

We don’t burn our books, she says. We pulp them. Much more civilized, right? Mash them up, recycle them into toilet paper. Those books wiped someone’s rear end a long time ago.

Oh, says Bird. So that’s what happened to his mother’s books. All those words ground up into dingy gray, flushed down into the sewer in a mess of shit and piss. Something goes hot and liquid behind his eyes.

Hey, the librarian says. You okay?

Bird snuffles and nods. Fine, he says.

She doesn’t ask any more questions, doesn’t press him or ask why he’s crying, only pulls a tissue from her pocket and hands it to him.

Fucking PACT, she says softly, and Bird is speechless. He can’t remember ever hearing an adult swear.

You know, she says, after a minute or two. It’s possible some library might have a copy of that cat book still stored away. A big library, like the university’s. Sometimes they can get away with keeping things we can’t. For research purposes. But even if they did, you’d have to ask for it at circulation. Present credentials and a reason for requesting access.

Bird nods.

Good luck, she says. I hope you find it. And Bird? If there’s anything I can help with, just come back and I’ll try.

He is so touched by this that it doesn’t occur to him until much later: to wonder how she knows his name.





When his father gets home, Bird decides, he will ask. He’ll ask him to look at work for a copy of the book. He is certain that somewhere in the university library is a book of Japanese folktales with this story in it. They still have thousands of Asian texts, he knows, because every so often, there are petitions to purge all of them—not just those from China and Japan and Cambodia and other places, but those about them, too. The news calls China our greatest long-term threat, and politicians fret that Asian-language books might contain anti-American sentiments or even coded messages; sometimes angry parents complain if their children choose to study Mandarin, or Chinese history. I sent him to get an education, not to be brainwashed. Each time it makes the college paper, then the news; a congressman or sometimes a senator delivers an impassioned speech about universities as incubators of indoctrination; the provost issues another public statement in reply, defending the library’s collection. Bird has seen it in the newspaper as his father turns the pages. If we fear something, it is all the more imperative we study it thoroughly.

He’ll ask his father just to check. Just to see if this book still exists, and if it does, if he’ll bring it home so Bird can see it. Just for a day. He doesn’t need to tell his father about the letter, or about his mother. It’s just a book he’s interested in; it’s just a story, just a folktale about a boy and some cats, surely there’s no harm in it. It’s not even Chinese, after all. When his father gets home, he will ask.

But his father doesn’t come, and he doesn’t come, and doesn’t come. They don’t have a telephone; no one has a landline anymore, the dorms ripped out all those wires years ago, so all Bird can do is wait. Six o’clock arrives, then seven. They’ve missed dinner; in the dining hall the workers will be lifting the pans from the steam baths, tipping dried-out leftovers into trash cans, scouring the stainless steel clean. Through the window Bird watches the lights of the dining hall turn off, one by one, and a thin tentacle of dread slithers through him. Where is his father? Could something have happened? As eight o’clock ticks by, he thinks suddenly of his trip to the library that afternoon, of the computer at school blinking No results. Of Mrs. Pollard, clicking her pen over his shoulder; of the librarian pocketing her mysterious note. Of the policeman at the Common, tapping his baton against his palm. Of Sadie, and her mother, asking questions, nosing into dark corners. There is always someone watching, he realizes, and if someone has seen him, might his father be blamed, might his father—

It’s almost nine when he hears the stairwell door creak open and slam shut—the elevator still not working, after three days—then footsteps in the hall. His father. Bird has a sudden impulse to run to him, the way he did as a small child. When his arms barely circled his father’s knees, when he still thought his father was the tallest man in the world. But his father looks so tired, so sweaty and defeated from all those stairs, that Bird hesitates. As if he might knock his father down.

What a day, his father says. The FBI came in just after lunch.

Bird flashes hot, then cold.