A Map for the Missing(51)

“I saw that,” Yishou said.

Yitian looked up, surprised. He’d thought his brother was too engrossed in crunching on his youtiao to pay any attention to them.

“You two were completely made for each other, you know that? No one else would put up with my brother’s weird obsession with stuff like this.” Yishou pointed to Yitian’s stack of notes, which he’d brought with him to eat. He and Hanwen had given up comparing their answers on the test when Yishou’s teasing had made it impossible to concentrate any longer. “But you’re exactly the same as him!” Yishou pointed at Hanwen with his chopstick and laughed.

“Can you be more polite to her, please?” Yitian said, patting Yishou’s arm down.

“Who are you now, my mother? Because you’ve taken the college entrance exam?”

Yitian could not help but be annoyed, though he knew his brother didn’t mean to be rude or malicious. Yitian immediately thought of his father at this moment. Both he and Yishou were two men from the countryside who lacked manners, who liked to drink because there was little other entertainment in their lives. Yitian recalled his brother on the night before the exam, the awkward, ugly rhythm with which he’d read the questions. Yitian did not want to talk to him at this moment; he wanted to be with Hanwen. He turned away from Yishou, who was so drunk that he probably wouldn’t even notice.





Part 3


   旱季


   Dry Season





Eighteen


1993


They kept their telephone under a white doily on a side table in the living room, and Hanwen found herself, over the next day, walking toward it often, lifting the white lace and placing her hand on the receiver, already sure she felt the half shudder of the vibration that came before a ring. She imagined that she would pick up the receiver to the sound of Yitian’s voice. Or it would be the voice of someone from the police chief’s office, which would offer an excuse to call Yitian. But then when the clanging sound of the phone’s bell did peal into the air of the home, she was seized by terror, sure she would say Wei? and there would be the sharp exhalation of breath before Mr. Qian spoke.

“Do you want to go to the zoo this afternoon?” she asked Yuanyuan after Ayi brought him home from school. She’d stayed at home all day and the air of the home was suffocating, as she’d felt it constantly since the dinner that night. Inside the house, there was nothing to do but wait.

The question was enough for Yuanyuan to shout and bounce around the living room, pretending to be a rabbit like the ones he hoped to see. He’d been asking to go to the zoo ever since they’d read a picture book about tigers a year ago, but she’d been there before. Guifan had taken her, when he’d first been assigned to the city. “I know it’s not Shanghai or that famous a city, but there are things to do here, too. It’s a big step up for me,” he said. And she’d nodded and smiled, replied, “You don’t have to explain,” even though she was depressed looking at the tall cement walls around the poor, kept animals, because he’d made an effort, and that was already much more than what most men in his position would do.

She called Yitian’s hotel.

“You’ve heard something?” he asked, right after the greetings, his voice eager and urgent. It was a sensible question, and yet she was disappointed. She’d hoped that some excitement at their reunion would have flooded over his fear for his father, she realized.

“Not yet.”

“Oh.”

“But I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything. Do you want to see some of Hefei while you’re here? I’m taking Yuanyuan to the zoo.”

“The zoo?”

She could hear the hesitation in his voice, so she hurried to say, “If you’re free. I know you’re probably busy seeing other people in Hefei—”

“I don’t have anyone else to see. Okay. The zoo.”

They made arrangements to meet at the front entrance in half an hour. She hurried Ayi to dress Yuanyuan, their only chance of going without her mother to slip out before she woke from her afternoon nap. Then Hanwen would be able to say they’d been in a rush and didn’t want to disturb her, that she had seemed more tired after her fall and they’d wanted to let her have the rest she deserved.



* * *



—

    When they paid twice to enter, once at the ticketing stand at the park gates and again for the zoo inside the park, he looked over at her.

“This isn’t a scam, right?” She could hear, in the tone of his voice, the strain to make a joke, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. She noticed how much more tired he looked, though only a day had passed. The circles under his eyes collected like liquid in tiny balloons and his gaze had the dull quality of someone who’d slept fitfully.

“My mother has made me afraid that everyone is trying to scam me.”

“They are. I hope that you aren’t telling everyone you’re from America?”

“I haven’t become that stupid yet.”

“No scam here. As long as you stay with me, you won’t get into any trouble.” A small thrill ran through her, that she was able to offer this protection to him.

“Ma says not to say stupid,” Yuanyuan shouted at him.