A Map for the Missing(5)

“Where do I go, boss?” the driver asked.

They’d reached the end of the road, but still Yitian had not seen the roof with cracked tiles that always told him where to turn.

“I must have missed it,” he said. “Can you turn back?”

At each alley opening, he saw only layers and layers of neat eaves, all unbroken, all well kept. All the while, the meter’s glaring red digits trickled up.

“Just let me out here. I’ll walk,” he said.

His shoes slipped against the snow as he trudged through each of the alleys. He began to wish that he had allowed Mali to pack him more clothes when she’d asked. The wind insinuated itself between the layers of fabric covering him and rendered the protection useless. He hadn’t experienced cold like this in years, out there in California where there was never any real winter. Even here, a winter storm this fierce was rare and seemed to write a foreboding into his father’s disappearance. He hoped that, wherever his father had gone, he was wearing his thickest clothing and had found a way to be indoors.

At last he saw it. He’d missed the turn before because there wasn’t any broken roof to be found. The single-story brick and mud home of his childhood had been heightened, covered with concrete, and whitewashed. He’d walked by this house two or three times, but only now could he recognize the older structure hiding beneath. It stood apart, the kind of home villagers could walk by and point at, whispering under their breath, “Now, those people—they’re rich.”

The thought made him proud. It was the money he’d sent back twice a year that had built it. Even when he and Mali had first moved to America and partitioned out each week’s spending down to the smallest change, he’d mailed a check to his mother. Sometimes the amount had seemed hardly worth the postage required; other times, Mali showed him how little they had for themselves and pleaded with him to keep a little more. She held out her palms, upside down, open-faced, to say, nothing. He hadn’t known how to respond. He couldn’t make sense of care as a thing that had to be compared and doled out in portions between those he loved.

He hesitated, shivering at the door with his hand on the knocker. He leaned his head close to the new wood, half expecting to hear his father’s booming voice emanating from within, once again drunk too early in the day. He would step out the door, shaking off the dregs of alcohol, and tell Yitian this thing about a disappearance had all been a joke, made up because he’d finally forgiven him and wanted to lure him home. Then his mother would emerge, too, brushing her hands on her apron and apologizing for her part in the deception. They would embrace and agree that the trick had been worth the cost.

No sound came from behind the wood. He pushed upon the iron ring at last. The door yawned open.

“Is anybody home?” he called into the empty courtyard. He was surprised to hear his voice coming out in their old dialect, through no effort of his own.



* * *



—

His mother’s body had rounded out, thickening in the middle and through the chest, bones parting and relaxing to make space for new flesh. Her head bobbed near his shoulders as she patted his arms by way of greeting, as if only the evidence of her hands upon his body could make his physical presence certain. She was shorter than he remembered, though this new image was much closer to how he always thought she should look, the firmness of her body matching the strength of her movements and speech.

“What happened to you!” was the first thing she said. “I thought you were coming days ago!”

“The flight here is long, Ma.”

“Did you eat? I killed a chicken last night because I thought you would be back already. I’ll warm the food up. How much did you pay for the taxi?” She rushed about the house, boiling water, taking his bag from the floor into the bedroom, each time she walked away from him returning in mere seconds with another question.

Where to begin? There was his father’s disappearance, but there was also this—his mother, her solidity in front of him, for the first time in years.

He walked around the house as she boiled water for tea. The familiar air came back to him, the scent of garlic and dust and work. The rooms were as neat as she’d always kept them. The walls were still lined with shelves of clay pickling jars, hanging knives and cutting boards, old calendars that stretched as far back as the eighties. A fraying poster in the center of the room showed mountain scenery, magically blurred, from a place they’d never go. He was struck, now, by the house’s frank utility, so different from his American home that valued privacy and separation. He’d been so confused the first time he’d heard that American phrase, living room, because all the real parts of living, of a life—the cooking, eating, sleeping—seemed to be pushed elsewhere behind yet another wall or door. The real living room, though they would never have called it that, was this room, in this old home.

He sat down with his mother to drink the tea. At this table in the center of the room, he felt short against the high wooden surface. She sat stiffly on the wooden bench, refusing to allow herself to relax into the room. He realized suddenly that, for the past few days, his mother would have been living alone in this house, the first time she’d ever been alone in her life.

“Ba—” he began. Immediately her eyes welled. “Have you heard anything new?”

She shook her head. “Everyone in the village knows. They’ve told people in the township. I’ve tried to spread the word. No one has heard anything.” She worried the string of her apron. “What did your father do to deserve this?”