A Map for the Missing(97)

“Wei?” The voice of the man who picked up was gruff and irritated.

“I’m looking to speak with Tang Yitian.”

“Who’s calling? Are you his wife?”

She slammed the phone back into its cradle. If Guifan left her without any notice, would she feel a shock like this?

Her mother was staring at her, brows furrowed, lips frowning. “Hanwen, I spoke with you about this, didn’t I? You can’t keep—”

Hanwen held up her palm to her mother. Not with anger. She was only tired, so tired, of the assumptions and the advice, and then she, expected to absorb it all like a sponge. She pressed her other hand to her eyes.

“I know, Ma. I know.”



* * *



—

And then he called back. Late that afternoon, the sun setting, when she was already imagining him on a train ride, his head propped against the window, watching the light dim over his old country and glad to be riding away from her forever.

“Hanwen?”

“Where are you?”

“I’m back at my village. Listen, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you—”

She could hear the tremor in his voice, that he didn’t know what to say.

“I heard some news. From the police chief.”

It was a relief, however temporary, to read the words from the paper to him, to hear him say, “I know Five Groves! That’s only two townships away from here. Do you think he might have been on his way home?” His voice fell. “But this happened eight days ago.”

“At least there might be some news, right?” she said as gently as she could. “Perhaps it will give you some other clue.”

“I’ll go first thing tomorrow. It’s amazing that the shopkeeper helped my father. It reminds me of how people used to be in our village. Willing to help a stranger.”

“Yes, they were.”

“Hanwen?”

“Yes?”

“I was going to call you earlier today when I left. I’m sorry I didn’t. I should tell you. I made plans to return to America in two days. I’m supposed to leave Anhui tomorrow.”

So she’d shaken him so much the previous night that he’d decided even to give up his search. “But what about your father?”

“Am I really helping, by staying here longer? I didn’t realize how much bigger everything had become. I don’t know anything about this place anymore, Hanwen. The last thing I am is helpful.”

“I see,” she said. “Then I hope this shopkeeper has some news for you. If she does, will you stay longer?”

He paused. “I really don’t know.” Those words again, unfamiliar in his voice. She could picture him with his hands spread over his eyes and forehead, trying to puzzle this question out. When she’d sat on the embankment with him and he paused over a question, she knew it would only be moments before the breaking of understanding on his face. Once when it hadn’t come, he’d risen from his spot on the embankment, collected the cold river water in his hands, and thrown it onto his face.

“You’ll figure it out, Yitian. Whatever it is. I know you will,” she said now. As soon as she said this, she believed it utterly for him. He’d always come to some solution.

He didn’t reply.

“Well. Goodbye then,” she said. She didn’t know how to state the logical implication that they wouldn’t see each other before he left. Perhaps never again.

“Hanwen,” he spoke abruptly, just as she was about to drop the receiver, “thank you for everything. Really. Even if I don’t learn anything new from the shopkeeper. You’ve been a big help to me.” He inhaled. “You’ve always been a big help to me.”

“Of course, it was nothing. It’s what friends do for one another.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Goodbye.”

She closed her eyes. She wanted to remember the sound of his voice as he said these last simple words.

“Goodbye.”

After she put down the phone, she sat there for a long while. Her mother and Ayi both came and spoke to her, words that came to her like a low hum in the background. She didn’t respond, and they both left. Her feet and hands grew cold and her back ached as she sat perched on the sofa arm.

The night before, after they’d risen from the bed, they’d dressed, her discomfort made stark by the gangly motions of limbs being stuffed back into clothes. They sat across from one another, she on the edge of the bed, he on the edge of the table. Neither of them had been ready to leave the room but she wasn’t sure of what else there was to say.

At last, he said, “I thought we’d never speak to each other again. Why didn’t you ever reply to any of my letters?”

“It was too hard,” she said. “It had all been so easy for you. I didn’t want to hear about your life in college with all the freedom that we’d dreamed about together. You’d gotten everything we wanted and I had nothing.”

“I thought that you didn’t want to talk to me all those years. I was scared to write you.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. And then, because there was no longer anything to lose in being completely honest with him, “Did you know that I think of you as a hero? We used to read all those old stories, remember? The hero has a dream, and he goes on a quest for it. He has some obstacles, sure, but in the end, he always makes it. You know the whole time he’s going to make it. I remember how nervous we were in those days, studying, but when I think back, I ask myself, why were you nervous? I knew you’d be fine. That wasn’t what it was like for me. I had a feeling that I wouldn’t make it, and I was right. You got what you wanted, but for me—in the end, I had to find a different way.”