The door to the men’s quarters still does not open. She looks back at her daughter and sees that her attention now seems to be directed at an old man sitting by himself, at the edge of the group. He seems to be awakening from a daydream. She and Rose watch as he sits down on the ground, crosses his legs, and unsnaps a ragged leather case. He pulls out an erhu, places it on his knee, arranges his fingers around the handle of the bow, and begins to play. It is a slow and mournful song, and makes Li-Yu think of a funeral. It reminds her of China, a nation that is already beginning to fade in her mind. When the song is over, Rose calls out to the musician.
“Where are you going?” she asks him, in Chinese.
“Back to China,” he calls, without raising his head to meet her eyes.
“Why?”
“They won’t let us in,” he says.
“Why not?” Rose asks.
The violinist doesn’t answer. He just shakes his head and raises his bow again. He plays another song, sadder than the first. When it is over, Rose opens her bag and withdraws the tube of bamboo and its enclosed stack of papers. Li-Yu expects her to produce a pencil, and perhaps to take some notes, but instead she listens, astonished, as Rose calls one of the guards over and instructs him to deliver the package to the musician. Rose throws it over the fence and it lands neatly in the guard’s hands. Still wearing his bored expression he walks over, sets the tube in the instrument case, and returns to his spot. The musician tips his head, and issues a sort of salute with his bow. Rose returns to her mother’s side.
“You didn’t want your stories?” Li-Yu asks.
Rose shakes her head. “I want him to have them.”
“I would have liked to read some of those,” Li-Yu says.
“I think they probably belong in China,” Rose says. “Besides, I remember them all.” She wanders off again, heading toward the water.
Li-Yu turns her attention back to the door of the men’s building, which has grown maddening in its refusal to swing open. Finally it does, but three grown men emerge, heading for elsewhere. It swings shut again with a definitive clang. A few minutes later she approaches one of the nearby guards. “My son is supposed to be coming out of there,” she says. “We’re going on the ferry.”
“I’m sure he’ll be out soon,” the man says, automatically.
“What’s taking him so long?” she asks.
The man shrugs.
She continues to watch the doorway, a ball forming in her stomach, until she hears the ferry’s horn approaching. Now she can feel panic rising into her throat. She chokes it down and approaches another guard. “My son, Henry Long,” she says. “He’s supposed to be here. He’s supposed to be on this ferry.”
This one is more sympathetic. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll go look.” He heads up the walkway and disappears into the building. The ferry continues to approach. Li-Yu swivels her head back and forth from the doorway to the boat, watching one and then the other. Just as the ferry pulls up to the pier the guard reappears in the doorway, alone. It seems to take him forever to walk down to the pier.
“What did you say his name was?” the guard asks.
“Henry! Henry Long!” she cries. “He’s only ten years old!”
“Spell that for me?”
She does, and he returns to the men’s quarters. The ferry’s doors rumble open, and two members of the crew wrestle a metal ramp into position. Some of the other passengers drag their luggage across it, chattering happily. “Are you coming?” one of the crewmen calls to Li-Yu and Rose.
“Yes,” Li-Yu says, “we’re just waiting for one more. My son.”
The man nods and trots across the ramp, his footfalls reverberating loudly across the metal surface.
After a long minute the guard re-emerges, bringing with him an official, who carries a clipboard. Again it seems to take them an eternity to close the distance between the building and the docks. The guard points at Li-Yu, says something to the official, and returns to the group waiting to board the Gypsy. The violinist begins to play another song.
The official approaches with maddening calmness. “What seems to be the problem?” he asks.
“My son!” Li-Yu yells at him. “Where is my son? Henry Long!”
The man consults the clipboard, shaking his head. “He’s not on my list.”
Li-Yu screams, “He’s here! We came together, just yesterday, right on that ship!” She jabs a finger toward the Crystal Gypsy. “We sailed from Canton! Tell them, Rose!”
“He’s my brother, Henry,” Rose says, her voice cracking. “He’s with us.”
The official looks down at his clipboard. “I don’t have a position on that, ma’am,” he says, disinterested. “He’s just not scheduled for this ferry.”
“But he’s only ten! He’s my son!”
He flips to another sheet on his clipboard, and then another. “There appears to be an irregularity,” he says. “But we have your sister’s address—we’ll contact you there.”
“We have to go,” calls the crewman, from inside the ferry’s doorway.
“Please!” Li-Yu shouts. “Just one more minute!” She turns back to the official, and when she speaks her voice seems disembodied, as if emerging from a louder and more desperate version of herself. “He’s only a boy!” she shouts. “He can’t stay here alone!”
“He’s hardly alone, ma’am. I’m sorry. I understand your concern, but there’s nothing else I can do. You should board the ferry, and you’ll be contacted.”
Li-Yu squats down and buries her head in her knees and wraps her arms over her head. The official is saying something about the infirmary, but all she can hear are the ferry’s engines idling and the faint voice of the erhu. And then something bursts within her and she is up again, running toward the door of the men’s quarters with an energy that seems not her own, but she has only taken a few steps when there are arms around her. A dark woolen blue falls over her eyes and shuts out the light, and then a wailing rises from somewhere far away and obliterates the engines and the song and all else.
FIFTEEN
I saved my file and shut my laptop. Rain slapped at the windows. Lucy reclined on the couch, watching a sitcom I didn’t recognize, in which a couple was arguing about someone’s company picnic. Eva sat next to her, her head back and crooked to the side, her mouth open, her eyes closed. I checked my phone. It was ten o’clock. Annabel hadn’t called.
“I believe her,” Lucy whispered, when she saw me looking up. “There’s something in the front that looks like a table of contents. If we can get Annabel on the case, we might be able to figure out what’s going on here.”
“And then what?”
“Where’s Annabel?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Let’s go to Chinatown,” she said. “The restaurants down there are open all night.”
“It’s pouring out,” I said.
“You noticed?” she said.
Eva had awakened and was watching us now. “You’re finished writing?” she asked me. I stood up and headed into the kitchen. She crossed the room and slid back into my desk chair. I yanked the cap off a beer and dropped into the couch spot Eva had just vacated.
“Maybe you should call her,” Lucy said.
“I don’t think so,” I said. I gulped down beer. On TV someone fell down and canned laughter erupted. My phone rang. I dug it out of my pocket to find Annabel’s name on the screen.
“Hey,” I said. “Are you home yet?”
“No,” she said. “I’m still here.”
“But it’s late,” I said. “You’re not going to be—”
“I’m staying overnight,” she said.
“But the book . . . .”
“The roads are a mess, Peregrine,” she said. “I’ve had a couple of glasses of wine, I’m sleepy, and it’s pouring down rain. I can’t very well translate anything if I end up under the wheels of a semi on I-80, can I?”
“Eva thinks it might be the book from my story,
” I said.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
I explained to her about the missing pages, and reminded her about the soldier’s gift.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “That’s why I really need to see you.”
“You’ve made that clear,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I hung up and dropped my phone on the couch next to me. “She isn’t coming,” I said.
“I gathered,” Lucy said. “You must have some Chinese neighbors or something.”
“It’s ten at night,” I said. “It’s way too late to go out racial profiling.”
On the screen a thin woman in a sweater stood in a clean sunny kitchen, extolling the virtues of her laundry detergent while her children played at the table behind her. At my desk Eva put her hands in her lap and said something I couldn’t make out.
“Well, let’s take it down to Chinatown,” Lucy said. “I also happen to need some food.”
“Be my guest,” I said. I turned to Eva. “What did you say?” I asked. She had her face down and she might have been talking to herself.
“What happens next?” she asked. I thought I caught a tremor in her voice.
“What, you want me to walk down there?” Lucy said. “You won’t drive?”
“No, I won’t.” I turned back to Eva. “I’ve been writing for hours,” I said. “Can’t that be enough for one night?”
“Okay, to hell with the research,” Lucy said. “But I’m still hungry.”
“So forget about the writing,” Eva said. Her voice sounded quiet, unnatural. “Just tell me. Have a conversation.”
“Sorry, but story time is over. I’m off the clock.”
“I’m ordering Chinese food,” Lucy said. “If someone wants something, speak now.”
“I was just wondering . . .” Eva said, her face still hidden, and now I was sure of it—there was some just-contained urgency in her voice. I could tell she wanted to say more, but she let it go, and I decided I didn’t give a shit what she was wondering.
We ordered pork chow mein, chicken and black mushrooms, black pepper beef. Lucy vowed to interrogate the delivery guy about the book, but he turned out to be a Mexican kid. Lucy asked him if he spoke Chinese anyway. He laughed, handed us a few soaking wet plastic bags and hurried away.
When I’d eaten and had another beer or two I took a notebook and went to my room. The window hummed with rain. Muffled indecipherable voices came through the wall. I climbed into bed, my back against the headboard, my notebook propped on my legs, but I fell asleep before I’d written a single line. I dreamed I was walking out on the streets of my neighborhood. Dirty water flooded up out of the sewer grates, surged up the hills, and rejoined puddles in the intersections and potholes. Everywhere the rain leapt up and climbed back into the sky.
***
The next morning I awoke, retrieved the notebook, uncapped my pen, and stayed there in bed, trying to find a way into the next episode. I wrote a few lines about Li-Yu being pulled onto the ferry, but her desolation seemed inauthentic, her performance melodramatic, overwrought. I tried to enter the scene through Rose, to see through her eyes the images of her hysterical mother, the island receding, and the listless deportees waiting in the Gypsy’s shadow, but I had no sense of how she felt, so it all felt like simulacra. I jumped forward in time, perhaps a few days, to a room at her sister’s house in Chinatown with bare floors, sparse furnishings, where Li-Yu sat in a wooden chair, waiting, her panic writhing inside her. It was little more than a still image, a drawing; I couldn’t get it to move or breathe. I scribbled everything out and tried to see Henry instead, but nothing came. There were no images around him, no snippets of conversation, no faces or sounds or smells or any of the other things I could use as a way into him. He had vanished, not only from his mother and sister, but from the story. I arose, got dressed, and headed for the living room, still carrying the notebook.
Eva was sitting on the couch, dressed as if she were about to leave, her bag on her lap. Lucy sat at my computer.
“What’s that?” Eva asked, eyeing the notebook.
“No Annabel yet?” Lucy asked.
“It’s nothing,” I said. “No,” I said.
“What do you mean, nothing?” Eva asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “Scribbles.” I held up my page of scratched-out false starts.
Eva was sitting very still, very straight. She glanced at the sheet and then looked away, as though braced for a blow. “What did those say?” she asked.
“Not much. I wrote some notes and I crossed them out.”
“Is she still pissed at you?” Lucy asked.
“What did they say before you crossed them out?” Eva asked, seeming to address a spot on the couch’s arm.
I shrugged, not that she was looking at me. “Here, have a look for yourself,” I said. I threw the notebook toward the couch. The pages fluttered and it landed like a wounded bird next to her. I circled the counter and went about making coffee. “Who said she was pissed?” I asked Lucy.
“I was sitting right next to you when she hung up on you last night,” Lucy said.
“She didn’t hang up on me.”
“Okay,” she said, her eyes still on the computer screen. “So is she still pissed?”
“Why did you cross these out?” Eva asked.
“Because I didn’t like them,” I said, working to control my impatience. “You’re asking a lot of questions for somebody who’s continuing to withhold the star witness.”
Lucy looked at me and Eva, me and Eva, and then back to the computer, and muttered something.
“What?” I said.
“You all should play nice,” she said.
Eva set the notebook on the couch next to her, took a deep breath, and leaned forward, her arms crossed against her chest, and scanned the room as though seeing it for the first time. She looked as though she’d just tasted something bitter. With one palm she reached down and pushed against the edge of the coffee table, as though testing its solidity.
“What the hell is with you?” I asked her.
“I’m getting that book translated this morning, that’s what’s with me,” Lucy said. “I didn’t haul across the country to wait out your lovers’ quarrel.”
“It’s not a quarrel, and I wasn’t even talking to you,” I said.
“It’s a quarrel. You men are just too stupid to know when you’re in the middle of one. I’m taking it to Chinatown.”
“Let’s just wait,” I said. “I’ll call Annabel in a little bit.”
“I’m taking it to Chinatown. You can come with me or not.”
“Would you just hold on for a fucking second?” I said. “I’ll call her. Let me drink a cup of coffee first, okay?”
“Sure,” she said. “Here’s me holding on.” She stood from the desk, collected the book from the table, flipped me off, and went out the door.
Fine, I thought. There were too many people in this apartment anyway. I watched the coffee drip into the carafe and as soon as there was enough for a half-cup I poured it into a mug. I sat down at my desk and started poking through my e-mail inbox. Eva was still on the couch, studying the lines I’d crossed out. I didn’t notice her rising, but suddenly she was standing at the edge of my desk. She tapped the notebook and its scribbled-out lines. “You were trying to write last night,” she said. Her voice sounded shaky, and she still wouldn’t look at me. Though we were a foot apart it seemed as if she couldn’t quite find me.
“This morning,” I said. “Tell me where your mom is and then maybe I’ll write some more.”
She traced one of the crossed-out sentences with her fingertip, as though trying to feel hidden meanings in the layers of ink. “This hasn’t happened before,” she said.
“What hasn’t?”
“False starts,” she said.
“I don’t get what the hell’s going on here,” I said. “I erased a few lines, and y
ou’re acting like it’s the end of the world.”
“Maybe it is,” she said, quietly.
“Okay,” I said. “Then maybe it is.” I packed up my computer, grabbed my things, and headed out the door. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I didn’t want to be at my apartment anymore. Outside the storm had reached a ferocious pitch, and I was soaked before I’d gone a half-block. The inside of my car smelled like a swamp. A faint sheen of green sat atop the dashboard. It was probably the reflection of the traffic light on the corner but it wasn’t hard to imagine that it was a layer of algae.
The engine wouldn’t turn over. I tried the starter four or five times and then yanked the keys out and threw them on the dash. I sat there a minute, listening to the rain hammer against the roof. A Muni bus, its colors and shape distorted by the sheet of water sliding down my windshield, appeared over the crest of the hill in front of me. Its headlights pushed weakly into the storm. I watched it descend a block, and then another half-block, and then on impulse I grabbed my bag and ran across the street to the corner bus stop.
I paid my fare and headed for the back corner. There was no one else aboard. The heater was on high and the windows were opaque with fog. I tucked my bag beneath my legs, smeared a hole in the foggy window, and watched my apartment building approach. Just as we passed by the lights of the lobby flickered and went out—another power outage. I thought of Eva sitting up there in the dark, with my notebook. She’d probably just go back to sleep. I took my coat off and laid it across my lap like a blanket. I didn’t know exactly where the bus was headed, but it didn’t matter. It would make its way downtown, eventually, weave through the empty Sunday streets of the financial district, swing through the transit terminal, and make its way back along some northern circuit. Maybe I’d get off at some point. Maybe I wouldn’t.
We turned and descended to the Embarcadero without stopping. Finally, when we were just across from Pier 23, the bus pulled over and leaned down to admit a passenger. I smeared another porthole in the foggy window and saw that the warehouse’s doors were closed. No light came from the windows that flanked the doorway. The bus righted itself and pulled back into the lane while the passenger, a shapeless mass of raincoats, fed coins into the box in the bus’s darkened entrance. He turned and the cabin’s light revealed him to be our Berkeley erhu player, his instrument case under his arm and rain dripping from his jacket. I should have been struck by the infinitesimal chances of his appearance here, but I was mesmerized by the way he moved. He seemed to float; under his dark layers of clothes there was no visible movement, no stride, no sway. If he recognized me he didn’t show it. He came to the back of the bus and set his case on the floor. After removing and folding his jacket he opened the latches, removed the instrument, sat down, and settled it on his knee. He closed his eyes and began to play. The sound of the engine fell away, as though making room for the song. The bus’s heaters had driven through my wet clothes by then, and a uniform warmth now enveloped me. I didn’t want to move. We had taken a couple of turns and I no longer knew where we were.
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