A Map for the Missing(6)

“We’ll find him.” His reassurance sounded false, even to his own ears. He knew nothing about the person his father had become in these years. He didn’t know how the country operated now. There wasn’t anything he could do in a practical sense, and he wondered why he’d come, what he’d thought he’d be able to help with. The few hours he’d been back had already made it clear to him how much the boundaries of the place had expanded, creating more anonymity and spaces where one could become lost.

“I’ve been trying to make a plan. Can we go to the police first?” he asked.

“The police!”

“We could file a report. They could help us.”

“Do you think that’s what they do? If you went in there without a problem, you’d be sure to leave with one. You’ve really spent too much time in America.”

“Don’t you think they might be able to call other towns, at least?”

She scoffed. “What do you think they’re up to in there? Making phone calls, doing work?”

“Do you have any other ideas?” When she didn’t reply, he said, “I think we should go to town and file a report, if nothing else. At least they’d be able to get a record of it down. You never know. Do they still have that truck in the team office?”

“If you go around calling it that, people will laugh at you. It’s the village office now.”

He felt so patently aware of his unbelonging. He was about to ask her what other names were new, how else he could hide his foreignness, when he was interrupted by the sounds of footsteps in the courtyard. He jumped up from his bench. Mali had been right. It had only been a matter of time before his father would return.

“Why, it’s you!” A man, diminutive and bouncy on his toes, poked his head around the doorway. He was much shorter than Yitian’s father, his voice loud in the same way his father could be but with gregarious ease rather than the sternness of one who demanded to be heard.

“Oh,” Yitian said. He swallowed his heartbeat and crossed his arms over his chest, hoping that no one would notice the anticipation that had animated his entire body. Moments like this were rarer now, but each one overtook him suddenly and with certainty—the way a particular man held tension in his shoulders at the gas station; driving down the highway, how a construction worker leaned against his truck and his chin cast a shadow upon the prickled skin of his neck. He’d see, in seconds, the flash of a vision of his father, hunched over a weed he picked at in the ground, how he held his limp leg when he leaned against his wall for a minute of rest. A shudder would run through Yitian’s body. An accidental gesture enough to return him to an earlier time completely.

Still, this man’s face was familiar. Yitian concentrated, trying to place the features he sensed underneath the aged skin.

“You remember me, don’t you?”

“Don’t be silly! How could he forget his Second Uncle?” his mother said.

That was it. There, obscured by wrinkles, was the mischievous face he’d once known, belonging to one of his father’s only friends, if he could be called that—Second Uncle Tang. Yitian had mostly seen his features lit dimly by lamplight on evenings when Second Uncle played cards or drank with his father, their laughs boisterous throughout the home where all the other occupants tried to step around them. During the daytime, Second Uncle had always been mysteriously missing. Their nickname for him was “Idon’tknow” for the words his wife said whenever the team came looking for him.

“Someone mentioned an out-of-towner bringing a nice suitcase through the snow. I came to ask your mother if she knew anything.”

His mother brought out tea and sunflower seeds for them, then settled herself on a three-legged stool by the doorway, rubbing her kneecaps. She never sat at the table when male guests came.

“I can’t believe it. Our most famous villager, Tang Yitian, returning home. You must be back because of what happened with your father, right?” Second Uncle shook his head. “What a strange thing . . .”

“Do you have any ideas?” Yitian asked. “You must have seen him the most, other than Ma.”

“To be honest, we hadn’t seen each other as much these past few years. He’d become—” he hesitated and looked toward Yitian’s mother.

“Lonely,” she finished. “He liked to be alone more, now.”

Of all the words she could have used, lonely was a strange choice. The idea of loneliness implied a need for others. His father had never even demonstrated a feeling much simpler, that of regard. He played cards and drank with Second Uncle because they were activities he enjoyed. If he greeted neighbors passing in the alleyway, that was only because this was their instinct in the village.

“It doesn’t sound like Ba to be lonely.”

“People change,” Second Uncle shrugged. “Look at me—I wasted so many years of my life before! Drinking, playing cards. I could have had a different life. But you,” he waved his hands at Yitian, “you always knew what to do with your life. Your father was wrong about you, you know. We can all see that now.”

Yitian demurred.

“Always so humble. You bring us all to shame, Tang Yitian.”

Yitian could see that his mother’s back had straightened with pride.

“Your mother had an idea,” Second Uncle said. “Didn’t you?”