A Paper Son (31 page)

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 you'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.

When the song was perhaps halfway over the bus stopped again and leaned down to admit a group of passengers. At the front of the group was a short, older man in dark blue clothes and a matching cap—Lucy's phantom. He had Hui's face, I saw. He winked at me and then found a seat, crossed his ankle over his knee, and closed his eyes. Behind him were the two soldiers and their guide, their clothes still torn, still dirty. Their rifles banged against the metal poles and handholds as they came down the aisle. The soldiers found seats, settled their rifle butts on the floor, and closed their eyes. Hui pulled a small red book from his jacket and offered it to the guide, who accepted it with a smile and a deep bow of his head. He opened it and began to read, his lips moving slightly. Behind him were four women, Chinese, all of them identical, wearing matching cheongsams, their hands stained with black ink. They sat in a row, shoulder to shoulder, and folded their hands into their laps. The bus began to move again. The song swelled.

Zhang boarded at the next stop. He came into the back, sat down, and studied the musician's hands as he worked at the strings. Mae came aboard next, walking slowly, painfully on her bound feet, helped along by two of her maids. They were followed by Bing, who looked frail, dried out, the shell of a man. They sat down in the first open seats, ahead of the mahjong players. Li-Yu and Rose came next, walking hand in hand. They sat down near Zhang and joined him in listening to the music.

At the next stop my dad climbed aboard. He dropped his coins into the fare box and tottered down the aisle, leaning heavily on the bus's poles, his breathing laborious. He looked exactly as I remembered him in those final days of his life.

He took the seat next to me. The music diminished to a whisper.

“Hello, Peregrine,” he said.

“Hi, Dad,” I said.

“Give me a minute,” he said, “and then we can talk.”

“Sure,” I said.

The bus continued to plunge through the city. Faint changes of light and color were all I could see through the windows. After a few blocks his breath came back to him.

“So you've been okay?” he said.

“I guess so,” I said. “You?”

“I can't complain,” he said. “But listen. I hear you found out about that swimming pool thing.”

I nodded.

“I'm sure sorry about that,” he said. He looked sad. “It won't happen again.”

“It's okay,” I said. “I'm all right.”

He shrugged. “Maybe so. Still, though.”

“It's okay,” I said again.

We stopped at a light. The musician ended his song and began another, something a little faster. Dad looked up. “Crowded bus today,” he said.

I nodded. Our fellow passengers all wore expressions of peace, their eyes closed or half-closed as they listened to the music, or read. In this shared state of repose they were the embodiment of patience, of contentment; it seemed as though they could abide a bus ride of ten thousand miles, so long as they had the music to listen to, and the book to pass around, and the warmth of the bus's heaters, and the purr of its engine, which seemed now to be coming across a very great distance. We drifted another block or two before my dad spoke again.

“Listen, I've been wondering something,” he said. His brow rippled with thought and he was chewing on the corner of his bottom lip, a habit of his I hadn't thought of in a decade.

“Yeah?” I said.

“I've been wondering how you did it,” he said.

“How I did what?”

“How you went back,” he said. He scratched his head, right fingertips to left temple, another long-forgotten but instantly recognizable tic of his. “My experiences here haven't shed much light on the question.”

“I don't know,” I said. “I don't remember anything.”

“Of course, of course,” he said, almost looking embarrassed he'd asked. When it came to other people his curiosity had always been minimal. He was a man who had only posed questions to his computers, to the potential of the intellectual frontiers he'd explored. “And of course, the circumstances were entirely different. About as different as they could have been.”

I nodded. The
erhu
's song continued, slower again. Our fellow passengers were still silent, motionless; those who had their eyes open were not looking at one another but into space. My dad pointed at the fogged window, and behind it the nebulous shapes of the city filing past. “Strange,” he said. “You can hardly see a thing. We could be anywhere.” We rode together in silence for a few more blocks, and then he leaned forward. “This is my stop,” he said.

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”

He paused. “You take care of yourself,” he said, “and your sister.” He worked his way back up the aisle as the bus slowed and pulled over, and then he was gone. At the next stop Li-Yu and Rose climbed down, and then Bing and Mae at the next. Zhang exited next, followed by the mahjong players and the soldiers and Lucy's phantom. The musician finished his song, packed up his
erhu
, and climbed down at the following stop. A group of teenage girls boarded, shopping bags dangling from their arms. They took seats, chatting noisily. The engines grew loud again; knots of stiffness arose in my hips, my back. I shifted in my seat and wiped away the fog on the window. We were not far from my neighborhood, heading up Van Ness, whose shops and restaurants were lit and bright and busy despite the rain. The bus turned and climbed back up Russian Hill. A block short of my building I reached down and groped for my laptop bag. My hand closed on empty air. I shifted my legs and looked under my seat, and under the seat next to mine, and the one in front of me and the one in front of that. It was gone.