A Map for the Missing(13)
Yitian was so surprised that, as he rose to stand, he tripped backward against a stone in the courtyard, one he usually knew to avoid. He wanted to greet his father, but his mouth wouldn’t open, his tongue sticking like sucked candy to its roof. Just a moment ago, he’d been lazily watching the sunrise and planning what subject he would study for the day in the reverie he’d entered ever since the gaokao’s announcement.
His father had sent word that he would return to the village to attend the funeral for Yitian’s grandfather, which had been delayed for his arrival. His mother had been busy with the funeral arrangements and hardly had time to do her usual preparations—pickling the mustard stems and cabbage his father liked, sunning and beating the blankets clean so that the bed would be fresh when he arrived. The neighbors commented that they didn’t know how she was managing to plan a funeral all on her own, but Yitian never heard her complain.
After the initial commotion settled, Yitian looked more closely at his father. He was still broad shouldered, face scruffy and eyes sharp with pride, but something about his outline was changed—he appeared shorter, less imposing than Yitian remembered him to be. His father’s heavy gait, which once had seemed to be making the very earth’s foundation more solid with each step, now shivered upon the ground. It took some inspection before Yitian could place its source, but at last he saw that one of his father’s legs bent, like a knot in a twig, behind the other.
“Did something happen, Ba?” he asked, pointing. These were the first words he said upon his father’s return.
His father waved his hand dismissively and walked into the home. It was impossible not to notice the limp now, his right leg seeming to catch for the briefest of seconds on every step. Yishou rushed to his side to support him.
His father pushed him away. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said. “Just bring my stuff in.”
As he slurped noodles at the table, his father explained that his brigade had been sent to help stem a flood at a dam near the barracks after a sudden storm. A boulder had fallen on his leg while they’d been moving rocks to stop the breach, leaving a gash above his knee.
“Why didn’t you write to tell us?” his mother asked.
His father waved away the steam blowing into his face from the bowl. Yitian’s mother had hurried to make a bowl of noodles and eggs, a meal respectful enough for the occasion.
“Write? Do you think I have nothing better to do than write you all about every small thing that happens out there? Things like this are common, you know. I didn’t think it was going to be a big deal. I just poured baijiu on it to disinfect the wound.” It did work for a while, he explained. But a couple of weeks later, the pain returned in a new form. It began in his groin now, a hot sensation that radiated from his crotch outward whenever he walked.
“They couldn’t stop laughing at me because I kept grabbing my balls! Everyone kept asking if my nuts were too full. Eager to empty them?” He laughed. “I thought maybe it was just something that happened to men when they get older.” So he hadn’t said anything when the pain kept him up all that evening. He wouldn’t have gone to the doctor at all, if he hadn’t fainted that day during morning stretches, right as the entire brigade was kicking their legs back and forth in unison. At the military hospital, the doctor told him the wound had become infected.
“They gave me antibiotics, but they said it was only the last thing they’d try. If that didn’t work, they would have had to amputate the leg.”
“Heaven is good to us,” Yitian’s mother exclaimed.
His father didn’t respond. He didn’t believe in the superstitions and religions of the village, as Yitian’s mother did, thinking them the foolish ways of women whose minds twisted out of restlessness.
“One of the other soldiers gave me some opium to deal with the pain. I don’t know where he got it from. I saw clouds forming in my vision. I couldn’t even understand what the doctor was saying when he was talking to me. But when I woke up, I still had my leg. I was just thinking about what I would do when I got your letter about grandfather’s death. That’s why I was delayed.”
“So you’re staying here for good?” Yishou asked.
“They said there will be some monthly subsidy since I was injured while stationed. And then back to farming for me, I suppose.” He moved his leg out from under the table and propped his heel up on the other end of the bench.
“So now you understand why I didn’t write? How could I have time to even think of such a thing?”
Yitian, who sat on the bench nearest his father, recoiled at the smell of food on his breath.
His father noticed his reaction. “Have I said something that bothered my sensitive scholar son?” He laughed, swirling his bowl.
Yitian kept his gaze directed downward. He was sure his father didn’t know the particular reason for his response, or he would have been teased even further. Luckily, his father didn’t press the issue this time, instead occupied with asking Yishou how the harvest had been that year.
* * *
—
All his father’s previous visits were during the New Year furloughs. Expecting those, Yitian had time to prepare himself for this arrival. He could steel himself, so that he knew not to speak whenever his father did, and to wait for his father to take the first bite of food before anyone else would be allowed to. This time, his body was more confused. He was still half stuck in the freedom with which he lived when his father was not home.