A Map for the Missing(86)

The sounds of snores already filled his dormitory when he returned an hour later. He climbed up into his bunk. Jianguo still wasn’t back, and Yitian hoped that perhaps his bunkmate had taken the girl he danced with out on a walk.

His body still felt sweaty from the dance, and he lay awake for some time with the heavy sensation of the blanket pressing upon his sticky skin. He was surprised that when he thought again of Mali, he felt himself growing hard. He felt even more uncomfortable now than before, and kicked the blankets aside, despite the cold. He lay like this, ignoring the chill creeping up his bones, until the cool air softened him.





Thirty-two


DECEMBER 1984


Yitian was relieved when the bell rang to signal the end of class. He stopped speaking midsentence and dropped the piece of chalk, which had almost crumbled entirely in his fingers during the course of his lecture. The cloud of dust he clapped up hung in the air momentarily before dissolving.

No matter how many times he taught, he would always feel relieved when class ended. When he first began teaching, he’d stammered through lectures, which felt longer than the hour they actually were. The rows of open-faced students staring up at him looked completely puzzled. In the year that had passed, he’d learned that the speed at which his mind worked was not the same as others’, so it was necessary to show all the intermediate steps that he could navigate through intuitive jumps. Slowly, the expressions on students’ faces had eased.

“Professor Tang,” a student called through the din of the others packing up their book bags. His head jerked up. He still wasn’t accustomed to being referred to this way.

“When you derived the function of growth, I didn’t understand why you had to take the inverse of the matrix . . .”

He was teaching the mathematics curriculum for economics majors this semester. The students were demanding and unafraid to challenge him when they thought he’d made an error. At nineteen, he’d been shy, preferring to spend hours in the library rather than ask a professor a single question.

He hurried through a response to the student. Normally, he would have taken more time, but today, his department chair had asked him to come to his office as soon as class got out. He liked the chair, Professor Wu, who’d supervised his thesis. Whenever Yitian went to his office with questions that he was sure were basic, Professor Wu acted as if they were in fact some deep principle about the complex numbers. But Professor Wu never called him into his office, and there could surely be no good reason it was happening now. The possibilities ran through his mind: some student had finally gone to complain about him for his bad teaching, there was no more funding for his position; perhaps this was the day he would be fired.

But he was admitted immediately into Professor Wu’s office and met with a smile.

“I won’t keep you with any small talk,” Professor Wu said. Yitian sat hunched in the stuffed leather chair across from the desk, his hands already sweaty as they gripped the armrests. “I called you in here today to tell you some good news. The university will be able to send some students as visiting scholars to a university in the United States. They asked us for recommendations, and I’ve nominated you.

“It’s only a yearlong visiting scholarship, at this point. But all the students we’ve sent in the past have managed to extend the term. Then you can get a foot in the door and apply for a doctoral degree at an American university.”

Yitian struggled to reorient himself. His classmates, particularly those who’d grown up in big cities like Beijing or Shanghai, had spoken of going abroad as early as their first year in college. They talked of Japan, Australia, England—but America was considered the best of all. He kept quiet during these conversations, because already he felt like he was testing fate by making it to Beijing all the way from his small village. Only at night, when all the boys of his dormitory were asleep, would he sometimes allow himself to dream of what America might be like. He imagined cloudless skies that shone so much they would appear to be white and people who spoke kindly to one another at the store while waiting patiently in line. Tall buildings neat against the blue air. On college campuses, students would walk out of a history lecture discussing the topics with one another fearlessly and wouldn’t sleep six to a room.

“Is there a test I need to take?”

Professor Wu’s mouth opened in surprise, then closed. “Forgive me—sometimes I forget where you’re from. There’s no test. We’ve submitted your name. All you need to do is fill out a form with your personal information. One of the department secretaries will help you.”

“But how will they know that I’m smart enough to go to their university?”

“The fact that we’re endorsing you will be evidence enough. They’ll put you through a review process, of course, but there shouldn’t be any problem now that we’ve recommended you. They unofficially reserve a few spots for students from our university every year.

“You should be pleased,” Professor Wu said after some time. “This is a good university, one of the best in the world.” He repeated the name, but Yitian shook his head. He’d never heard of it.

“Is it as good as ours, professor?” Their university was the only one his parents knew existed, and one of the few that he’d known of himself before enrolling.

Professor Wu laughed. “Much better than ours. In fact, once you go abroad, I think you’ll find that most people haven’t even heard of our university. We don’t stay here because it’s a famous university. Many of us could go elsewhere in the world if we wanted. We stay here . . .” He sighed. “We stay here because we believe in this country.”