A Map for the Missing(23)

“He left”—Yitian still found it difficult to find the words to describe what had happened—“he left our home a week ago and still hasn’t returned.”

“Did you have an argument?”

In a sense, the answer was yes. But that had been so many years ago. Not the kind of heated domestic dispute that this officer probably meant.

“No,” his mother picked up the silence. “We never argue.”

“So you didn’t argue, and he left on his own?”

The tone of the officer’s voice made Yitian feel he was the stupid one. He looked expectantly at his mother, hoping she would answer again, but now she’d shrunk into the chair, her body caving convex into its back.

“No one took him?” The officer leaned forward, directing his words at Yitian’s mother.

“No,” she replied at last. “He just walked out.”

“And he didn’t say where he was going?”

She shook her head.

“She had an idea,” Yitian said. “We think he might have gone to the army barracks where he used to serve. That’s the only place outside this area he’s ever lived.”

The officer slapped his palms on the desk, causing the single sheet of paper there to shudder. “Well, this is an easy case! Go visit the army barracks. I’m sure you’ll find your father, waiting for you there!”

“You wouldn’t go with us? Or help contact them?”

“How would that help? That’s not in our jurisdiction.”

“I thought that was what the police did—”

“Look, there’s no reason for us to help you, unless you have some other information you’re not telling us about. From what you told me, it seems that he left of his own volition. There wasn’t any violence, right? So where’s the crime? Maybe he just went to see an old friend and forgot to tell you. You know, it’s normal for people at his age to forget things. Why don’t you go back home, wait a few days? He’ll probably show up any day now.”

The police officer yawned. His mother looked newly afraid. She said quietly, “Maybe the officer is right. Maybe your father did just forget to tell me he was going somewhere.”

“What are you saying? Ba’s memory was never bad.” He turned back to the officer. “You’re just not going to do anything?”

This time the officer didn’t even bother to look at Yitian. He reached into his pocket and fished out a pack of cigarettes.

“If you don’t want to help me, that’s fine. I have a friend at the Hefei City office who I’m sure will help. I’m sure my friend would also like to know how the town governments are managing complaints from the people. I only came here first because I remembered how reliable and helpful the local police were when I was a boy.” The firmness of his own tone surprised him. He felt oddly buoyed by a sense that if he could just stay busy enough, press hard enough, it would make up for all the other failures in his obligation to his father.

The officer stared defiantly at Yitian for a moment, then cursed. “Fine. Let’s file a report.” He extracted a form from the desk, then reached to fill an ink pen so angrily that dark liquid splattered upon his desk and hand.

“What will the report do?” Yitian asked.

“Your name?” The officer’s hand hovered over the first rectangle of the form. Yitian sighed and gave it. He’d been so eager to ask for help at the station, but now he saw the form would only get filed away deep in some cabinet, never to be looked at again. He’d become just another victim of the gauntlet of bureaucracy that would give the appearance of action.

“And your national identification number?”

Yitian read the number from his hukou booklet.

“Not your hukou number. Your national identification number,” the officer said.

“I don’t have that. I just have my hukou booklet.”

“Well, then, I can’t help you.” The officer threw down the pen triumphantly.

“Can’t you just use the hukou booklet? Why does it matter?”

“You don’t have a national identification number? What do you mean?”

The last time Yitian had lived in this country, there hadn’t been any such thing.

“Just use mine, here.” His mother shuffled through a rubber-banded packet of documents she’d brought.

The officer didn’t reach out to take her laminated card. His eyes narrowed on Yitian.

“According to our country’s 1984 Identity Card Provisional Bill, all citizens must have national identity cards. It’s a crime not to have one, you know. I can have you fined.”

“What do you mean, a crime?” His mother stood up. “We’ve come here to report a disappearance to you, to tell you that my husband is missing, and you have the balls to say that we’re the ones who’ve committed a crime?”

“Aunt, please calm down.” His voice, directed at Yitian, was much sterner. “All citizens must have valid identification cards. Where have you been living, anyway, that they let you get away with this since 1984?”

Yitian had been deliberately avoiding the fact that he lived in America. The only identity card he’d kept track of in the past few years was his green card, which, even now, was displayed in the clear display flap of his wallet, always ready to be shown in case he was asked. Until two years ago, he and Mali wouldn’t ever have believed they’d get these documents. The Americans didn’t want them to be citizens. But then came the massacre at Tiananmen. He sat with Mali in front of their small TV every evening for an entire month, wondering how the place he’d once known as a home had become a half-gray image inside a square box, translated to them through a white news anchor’s voice. They squinted to see if there was anyone they knew amongst the students who had come from all over the country to participate—students who were rushing to pack train cars to the brim, sleeping in aisles and hanging out the windows to go to Beijing to be with the protesters. They gathered with other Chinese Americans and protested on the streets; even Steven Hsiung had approached him and said, “It looks like our country is finally changing.” Our. On the day the tanks came, Yitian held Mali’s hand as she cried watching the footage. “It’s so close to my home,” Mali said. He said, “I would have gone, if we were still there.” He had a feeling he’d escaped a fate he had no right to leave behind.