A Map for the Missing(54)
He thought wildly for a moment that he could stay in the car and delay meeting her forever. He didn’t want to see his father, didn’t want to face the naked truth of this moment, didn’t want to experience it with her husband.
The man opened the door for Yitian, reaching out a hand.
“I’m Pan Jing. I work for Wang Guifan,” he said. Yitian was surprised by the pressure flitting off his chest. Pan Jing was explaining something else, about how he’d been sent to make sure everything ran smoothly at the hospital, but Yitian was too relieved by the fact that this dull man wasn’t Hanwen’s husband. When she stepped out from behind Pan Jing, Yitian noted she wore less makeup today, a sign, he thought, that something had shifted and eased between them.
They walked underneath the punched-out bulbs of an electrical sign announcing the hefei city no. 3 people’s hospital, into a lobby absolutely crowded with patients queuing up for numbers. People sat directly on the floors, openly crying and, even then, still ignored. He tried not to scrunch up his nose to the smell that hung everywhere, of sour clothes worn for too long, of illness and the cover of bland antiseptic insufficient to the task.
The last time he’d gone to a hospital was with Mali in America, for an appointment with her gynecologist to discuss her difficulty conceiving. The doctor had asked Yitian to step out of the room. It’s just procedure, the doctor said, to interview the female patients alone. To ensure their privacy, you understand.
There were no illusions of privacy in this hospital, four beds squeezed into each room, the visitors around each bleeding into the space around another, doctors discussing loudly the patient’s ailments without any fear of being overheard.
“Well, let’s hurry,” Pan Jing said. “All kinds of people come in here, you know? You could enter this place healthy and leave sick.” His laugh was an exaggerated affair, curling the skin of his forehead and jowls like an elephant’s.
“Imagine, being sick and having to navigate such a place,” Hanwen sighed.
He heard a reproach in her words, that he’d left his father to stumble into a place so unsuited for any type of care. He knew he should have felt fortunate, being with the two of them, striding purposefully toward doctors who could help. He’d once been anonymous, like one of the hundreds waiting anxiously in line, desperate to have someone, anyone, pay attention to him.
Weaving between the visitors, Pan Jing led them to a room on the hospital’s top floor. Yitian had assumed they’d meet a doctor immediately, but instead they entered a sterile conference room. In the center, a table was covered with red cloth, dainty teacups, and name cards as if for an official meeting. His eyes darted immediately to the tented cream cardstock that read the american representative.
“I apologize, sir, that they weren’t able to get your name card properly printed on time. I’ll speak to them about it,” Pan Jing said.
Yitian leaned over to Hanwen, whose assigned seat was next to his.
“What’s all this?” he whispered. He caught Pan Jing’s eyes lingering on them from the room’s opposite corner.
“I’m not sure,” she murmured. “They always care so much about formality. I’ll try to get them to hurry.”
Two doctors entered, flanked on both sides by young nurses. The doctors’ coats showed remnants of stains, yellow and brown spots faded by washing, but all the nurses’ clothes were so perfectly white and pressed that they had the impression of actresses playing nurses, Yitian a movie character awaiting salvation.
The older of the doctors introduced himself as the hospital director and apologized for the lateness. As they went around the table, he kept pushing his eyeglasses up, as if paying rapt attention. He had the face of a beleaguered public servant, the kind of face Yitian imagined Hanwen’s husband would have.
When they reached Hanwen’s position at the table, everyone looked at Yitian instead. He coughed and said, “My name is Tang Yitian. I’m from Tang Family Village. Not too far from here. I live in America now, where I’m a graduate student—excuse me, an assistant professor of mathematics.” When he mentioned the name of his university, the others looked impressed and nodded their heads in recognition. “I’ve come here today because my father has gone missing, and I’ve heard there’s a man here who matches his description.”
“Someone from our hometown, who has gone so far and done such great things, of course we’re eager to help you,” the director said. “Rest assured, you’re in good hands. First, let me tell you a little about our hospital.” Again the eyeglasses went up and down his face.
The director signaled to the man next to him, who extracted a packet of papers from a white envelope and began to narrate the hospital’s history.
Founded in 1912 by a medical missionary from America . . . as a hospital during the war . . . when Hefei City was not yet the provincial capital . . . eight departments . . .
The voice reading the detailed notes droned on. Yitian couldn’t concentrate over the anxiety that began to grip him, a sensation like electricity tingling everywhere through his limbs. He’d left for so long that he’d allowed his father to stray into such a hospital, run by these men for whom concern for status preceded healing and care. When he heard, as if from some distant place, the story of the general whose handwriting was on the hospital’s sign, he became aware of his foot, beating an anxious tap on the floor, faster than the cadence of the director’s speech. What would happen if he simply ran out of this room and then went, one by one, through all the open rooms he’d seen earlier, checking each bed for his father? He could have looked into every part of this building during the time that this presentation continued on. The only thing keeping him seated was his fear that he would not be able to recognize his father in the sterile white of a hospital bed without these guides. In the early days of the summer season, when the first tomatoes ripened, he used to go with Yishou to harvest. They squatted amongst the thick foliage of vines, lifting the heavy leaves until they saw the first ripe tomatoes. Perhaps the feeling would be like that now, the jolt of recognition at his father’s face the same as when he would spot a splash of bright red amidst all the green raw.