The Leavers(99)

“Are you sure?” Daniel said. “She’s about average height and weight, with a loud voice and a mole on her neck.” She could have lost weight or gained it, gotten plastic surgery for all he knew. But this was the last building, their final chance. “Her last name might not be Guo, but her first name is Polly, or Peilan?”

“Nope.”

“She’s married to a man that owns a textile factory? She works in an English school?”

The guard returned his book. “Told you. Nope.”

“Okay,” Leon said. “Thank you.”

They walked down the sidewalk. “Well, we tried,” Daniel said.

“We tried.”

“Let’s go home now.”

“You hungry? I know a restaurant we can stop at. Not in this neighborhood, the food is too fussy here. But this place, they have soup with lamb, and the noodles are handmade.”

“Can’t wait,” Daniel said. “I’m getting hungry now.” He hadn’t booked a return plane ticket, but he could find one that left in a few days. Leon and Shuang were nice to him, but he didn’t want to push it. You couldn’t show up out of nowhere and expect to be treated like a real son.

Compared to downtown, the sidewalks by West Lake were spotless. There was no gum or litter marring their path, no mysterious orange puddles or booby traps of dog poop like in New York. A pebble rolled down the sidewalk, its trail unobstructed, and Daniel kicked it, watching as it veered to the right.

“Stop,” Leon said.

Daniel saw a gap in a hedge and a short path that led to a wider lot. Beyond that was a building. When he craned his neck up, he saw a beige high-rise. Rows and rows of balconies.

“We must have missed that one,” Leon said.

They turned onto the path. In front was a security guard, dressed in black pants and a dark gray shirt. He was putting a cigarette out into a metal ashtray.

They asked the same questions they’d been asking all afternoon. The guard shook his head. No Polly Guo in the building. No Peilan.

“No Peilan?” Leon repeated, like he couldn’t believe it.

“She’s an English teacher. Director of an English school.”

“Oh! You should have said that. I know the teacher lady you’re talking about.”

“Polly,” Leon said.

“Polly Lin.”

“You said there’s no Polly in the building,” Daniel said.

The guard lifted a telephone receiver and pressed numbers on a hidden keypad. “I’ll ring the apartment for you.”

Leon paced along the path. The back of his T-shirt was covered in sweat. The guard put the receiver down and said, “He’s coming down to meet you.”

“He?” Daniel asked.

“Yong. Polly’s husband. She’s not home right now.”

Leon raised his eyebrows. The guard lit another cigarette. Daniel needed a drink of water, but they had run out, their bottles empty. He didn’t know what he was going to say to his mother’s husband.

Five minutes later, the front door of the building opened and a man emerged, dressed like a gangster, black suit jacket over black button-down shirt, dark sunglasses. As he came closer, Daniel noticed his silver cufflinks and jade ring.

The man nodded at Leon and Daniel. “I’m Yong.” His voice was gravelly yet soft, his hair a shade of jet black that only occurred out of a dye bottle. The wrinkles on his face put his age a little north of Leon’s. “Can I help you?”

“My name is Deming. I know your wife—from New York. This is Leon.” He was unsure of what to say next. Yong wasn’t big, but looked like he could be a scary guy, if you insulted him or said the wrong thing. If Mama had never told her husband about him, he might be putting her in danger, putting himself in danger, by revealing who he was.

Yong took off his sunglasses and studied Daniel’s face. “What did you say your name was again?” Two of his teeth had gold caps.

“Deming . . . Guo.”

“Oh, you’re her son! You look so much like her. I can see it, the nose, the mouth, the jawline! How incredible. She mentioned she spoke to you recently and you lived in New York?”

Daniel caught Leon’s eyes and laughed. “Yes, I’m here visiting.”

“She’s going to be so upset when she finds out she missed you.”

“Where is she?”

“Beijing. The school she works for is looking to expand their branches, so she’s traveling to research the markets. There’s a conference there this week on education, so she’s there for that, as well.”

“I’ve been trying to call her for days. I’ve left her so many messages.”

“Her cell phone was stolen on the train. She called me from the hotel yesterday.”

“When is she coming back to Fuzhou?”

“This weekend.” Yong passed his cell phone to Daniel. “This is the name, the Conference for English Educators. At the Park Hotel.”

Daniel gave the phone to Leon to translate. “I can’t read Chinese,” he said.

THE NOODLES AND LAMB were as delicious as Leon promised, especially washed down with cold beers. When they returned to the apartment, Yimei and three other kids were riding their bikes around the parking lot. Shuang and another woman sat in lawn chairs, drinking cans of iced tea.