A Map for the Missing(105)

He lifted her feet out of the old wooden tub. The water’s warmth returned some firmness to them, so they felt heavier and more powerful in his hands now, more like her strong feet that he remembered from before. He dried them in a towel, and then she rose and they both prepared for bed.





Forty



He wanted to ask for only one thing, and that was forgiveness. This was his single clear thought as he walked the road that led out of his village.

The night before had been sleepless, as many had become. Beside him his wife breathed softly as she slept. Sleeping here was never easy since he returned from the army barracks—it was too silent. He was accustomed to the collective sounds of all the men snoring or taking up space with their demented sleeptalk, the constant noise leaving little room for his own thoughts.

That night, lying in bed, the faces of his sons kept coming to him, as they did often now. One of his sons, Yitian, had gone to Beijing, but where was the other one? Last he could remember, Yishou had gone to Hefei City to help his younger brother take a college entrance exam. But what had happened after that? He had not heard from Yishou for a very long time.

Because he could not sleep, he rose from bed and paced the room while thinking about this question, not noticing when dawn came and his wife rose. She made breakfast while he sat at the kitchen table, and when she asked, What are you thinking about, he answered, Nothing. All the while, in his mind, he tried to remember where Yishou was. He followed the path of his son through the places he always went: the fields, the other village where he had a woman he would marry, and then there was always a sudden wall, hard as brick, that he came to and couldn’t think past.

They had gone to Hefei together, and then what?

All throughout breakfast he muttered this question to himself. Only afterward, when his wife had gone out, did the answer occur to him. He had done something wrong. To both of his sons. That was why they never spoke to him anymore.

He did not know what his mistake was, or why they had ignored him for so long. It did not matter anymore; the only thing that mattered was that he needed to fix it. This was what he thought of as he pulled on his cloth shoes and packed a small plastic knapsack and tied it over his wrist. Whatever he’d done, he would go make it right. He just needed to find his sons first.

原谅我, he would say to them, as he dropped to his knees.



* * *



—

He walked for a few hours until he passed through a village he’d never seen before. Here, he saw Yitian for the first time, in the corner stand of a marketplace on a busy selling morning. There was dust all around the stalls from the movement of people and live animals, but there was the clear face of his son, looking as serious as he always did, handing a seller some money. When he tried to follow his son, however, Yitian had already disappeared.

No matter, he would see him again, later on his journey. The appearance meant he was on the right track.

He rested that night, and the next, under the thatched roof of an old abandoned cowshed that he passed. He remembered a time when there were those who lived in these sheds, always the poorest people in a village, but he hadn’t seen something like that in a very long time. What had happened to all of them?

He did not sleep long that first night, or the next. The cold kept awakening him, even despite his jacket, and he was determined to get to his destination quickly.



* * *



—

Where is forgiveness? How far is it, and how long must I walk until I reach there? On the third day, he arrived at Five Groves Township. He remembered the place from the stories that his own father used to tell about the library there. His father, whom he missed all the time, too. He had not been kind to his father, but now he couldn’t think of anything so important that it could be worth the silence.

He stopped a woman to ask where the library was, and she walked with him to a shop to which she said all the books had been moved.

“My father would have loved this place,” he thought. “And so would have Yishou.” Inside, there were two children running around among the stacks of books, and an old woman, slow on her feet, chasing after them.

“Are you looking for any book in particular?” she asked.

“The Twenty-Four Histories.” Unlike everything else, the memory of this book’s name came to him easily.

“I’ll call my husband to look,” she said.

While her husband came and opened a cabinet, he chatted with the two shopkeepers.

“This book is for my son. I’m going to Hefei to see him. He loves to read. Always has his head buried in some book.”

“Then he must be doing well. Did he go to college?”

“Oh, yes. Well, he was accepted. But he stayed in the village instead.”

“He stayed in the village? That was a mistake! All the rich people now, they went to college,” the old lady said.

He was offended, but did not tell her so. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew him. He’s the best farmer in the whole village. We never go hungry with him working for us.”

“Say what you want,” the old woman said. “No farmer will ever be able to earn as much money as a college graduate. Not in these times we live in.”

He opened his mouth to retort, but decided against it. He had the sensation that he’d had this conversation before, in a different place and time, but could not say with whom or when it had happened.