The Leavers(96)

The only phone book the hotel had was five years old. The clerk flipped through the pages. “Guo . . . Guo.” She ran her index finger down the pages. “I don’t see a Polly or Peilan. Here’s a Peng, Pan . . . There are Guos with a P sound for first name, but the addresses are nowhere near West Lake Park.”

“Do you know of any English schools nearby?”

“You want to learn English?” the clerk said.

“Um—sure.”

“My friend goes to an English school near the highway. I can ask her for you.”

“Is that in West Lake?”

The clerk opened a drawer and took out a bus map. “Look, we’re over here.” She pointed to a spot. “West Lake Park is up here.” She traced a line across the city, her finger stopping on a square of green. “You can take this bus, the stop is two blocks away.”

Daniel asked if there was any way he could check the Internet. He could try looking up English schools, use an online translator to convert the Chinese words into English, call around and see if any of them had a Polly or Peilan working there. The clerk said there was an Internet café not too far away, but it wouldn’t be open for another hour or two. “Do you want breakfast?” She gestured to the far corner of the lobby, where there was a group of tables behind a partition, and said breakfast was included in the price of the room.

At the tables were men and women in matching green shirts. Daniel took a seat next to a guy with a stringy goatee, across from a couple talking in Mandarin. A hotel employee came over and asked what room he was staying in, checked a notepad and deposited a tray with a bowl of watery congee, small plates of salted peanuts and pickled vegetables, and a box of soymilk with a tiny straw. Daniel peeled away the plastic wrap on top of the congee and ate a spoonful. It tasted like boiled cardboard.

Nobody else at the table had finished their food. “Are you part of a school?” he asked.

“We’re on tour,” said the woman across the table. “We’re doing ten cities in fifteen days.”

The guy with the goatee looked at Daniel’s congee. “Don’t eat that bowl of hemorrhoids. There’s a bakery down the road. We’re going there after this.”

Daniel laughed. “This congee tastes like ass.” He loved cursing in Chinese, the breadth of options unavailable in English. He had trouble remembering the words for map and computer, but curses, those he knew by heart.

He pushed his tray away and got up. In his preoccupation with finding his mother, he’d forgotten to call someone. “Have a good tour,” he said. He went upstairs and called the second most foul-mouthed person he knew, second to only his mother.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING in that crap hotel?” Leon shouted on the phone.

Following Leon’s directions, he took a bus to a neighborhood on the other side of the highway, walking through streets less populated than the ones in Wuyi Square. Leon lived in a block-shaped building with concrete siding, five doors across each of the four stories, metal railings along the edge of the walkways, one big rectangular grid. Daniel walked through the gravel lot and up the stairs. The walkways were crowded with bicycles, plastic coolers, beach balls, and flowerpots. In front of one apartment was a giant stuffed teddy bear with bright blue fur, crammed into a child-sized lawn chair.

He rang the bell for apartment number nine. A pink tricycle was locked to the railing opposite the door, decorated with stickers of cartoon characters. He heard footsteps, the sound of a latch lifting.

“You’re here!” Leon’s hair was choppy and grayer, his chest and shoulders thinner, but his grin was the same.

“Hi, Leon,” Daniel said, unable to suppress his own smile.

Houseplants hung from the ceilings, on shelves and tables and windowsills, their long green tresses stretching lines down the walls. Daniel followed Leon through the main room to the kitchen, where a woman was reading a newspaper at the kitchen table.

“This is my wife, Shuang,” Leon said.

“Hello, Deming,” Shuang said. “I’m glad to finally meet you.”

A little girl was at the table, too, with Leon’s wide mouth and Shuang’s narrow face. Her legs swung in opposite directions, alternately tapping the metal chair legs in two-four time. She was bent over a coloring book, ponytail swinging as she gripped her blue crayon with concentration.

“Yimei,” Leon said to the girl. “Say hello to your cousin, Deming.”

She looked up. “You’re my cousin?”

“Hi, Yimei,” Daniel said. “What are you drawing?”

“A princess.” She took a sip from a box of apple juice. “She’s eating a sandwich.”

“You had no trouble on the bus?” Shuang motioned to the chair next to her.

“It was easy, no problem.”

“I told Leon to go pick you up in a taxi. I said, he’s come all the way here and you’re making him take a bus? He could get lost.”

“Deming’s good with buses.” Leon leaned against the doorframe. “He lives in New York City. Why take a cab when it’ll be faster and cheaper with a bus?”

Shuang shook her head, but Daniel could see her laughing. “You’ll stay for dinner and sleep in Yimei’s room. She can sleep in our bed.”

“I can?” Yimei said.