Fucking PACT, she says softly, and Bird is speechless. He can’t remember ever hearing an adult swear.
You know, she says, after a minute or two. It’s possible some library might have a copy of that cat book still stored away. A big library, like the university’s. Sometimes they can get away with keeping things we can’t. For research purposes. But even if they did, you’d have to ask for it at circulation. Present credentials and a reason for requesting access.
Bird nods.
Good luck, she says. I hope you find it. And Bird? If there’s anything I can help with, just come back and I’ll try.
He is so touched by this that it doesn’t occur to him until much later: to wonder how she knows his name.
When his father gets home, Bird decides, he will ask. He’ll ask him to look at work for a copy of the book. He is certain that somewhere in the university library is a book of Japanese folktales with this story in it. They still have thousands of Asian texts, he knows, because every so often, there are petitions to purge all of them—not just those from China and Japan and Cambodia and other places, but those about them, too. The news calls China our greatest long-term threat, and politicians fret that Asian-language books might contain anti-American sentiments or even coded messages; sometimes angry parents complain if their children choose to study Mandarin, or Chinese history. I sent him to get an education, not to be brainwashed. Each time it makes the college paper, then the news; a congressman or sometimes a senator delivers an impassioned speech about universities as incubators of indoctrination; the provost issues another public statement in reply, defending the library’s collection. Bird has seen it in the newspaper as his father turns the pages. If we fear something, it is all the more imperative we study it thoroughly.
He’ll ask his father just to check. Just to see if this book still exists, and if it does, if he’ll bring it home so Bird can see it. Just for a day. He doesn’t need to tell his father about the letter, or about his mother. It’s just a book he’s interested in; it’s just a story, just a folktale about a boy and some cats, surely there’s no harm in it. It’s not even Chinese, after all. When his father gets home, he will ask.
But his father doesn’t come, and he doesn’t come, and doesn’t come. They don’t have a telephone; no one has a landline anymore, the dorms ripped out all those wires years ago, so all Bird can do is wait. Six o’clock arrives, then seven. They’ve missed dinner; in the dining hall the workers will be lifting the pans from the steam baths, tipping dried-out leftovers into trash cans, scouring the stainless steel clean. Through the window Bird watches the lights of the dining hall turn off, one by one, and a thin tentacle of dread slithers through him. Where is his father? Could something have happened? As eight o’clock ticks by, he thinks suddenly of his trip to the library that afternoon, of the computer at school blinking No results. Of Mrs. Pollard, clicking her pen over his shoulder; of the librarian pocketing her mysterious note. Of the policeman at the Common, tapping his baton against his palm. Of Sadie, and her mother, asking questions, nosing into dark corners. There is always someone watching, he realizes, and if someone has seen him, might his father be blamed, might his father—
It’s almost nine when he hears the stairwell door creak open and slam shut—the elevator still not working, after three days—then footsteps in the hall. His father. Bird has a sudden impulse to run to him, the way he did as a small child. When his arms barely circled his father’s knees, when he still thought his father was the tallest man in the world. But his father looks so tired, so sweaty and defeated from all those stairs, that Bird hesitates. As if he might knock his father down.
What a day, his father says. The FBI came in just after lunch.
Bird flashes hot, then cold.
They’re investigating a professor over at the law school. Wanted a list of every book she’s ever borrowed. And then, once they had the titles, they wanted to take every single one. Took me six and a half hours to pull them all. Four hundred and twenty-two books.
Breath rushes into Bird; he hadn’t known he was holding it.
Why did they want them, he asks cautiously.
It is a question he would not have asked a week ago; a week ago, he would not have found this ominous, let alone unusual. Maybe, he thinks suddenly—maybe it isn’t unusual at all.
His father sets his bag on the floor, drops his keys with a clatter on the counter.
She’s writing a book on the first amendment and PACT, apparently, he says. They think she might be funded by the Chinese. Trying to stir up unrest over here.
Slowly he pulls the noose of his tie free from his collar.
Is she? Bird asks.
His father turns toward him, looking more tired than Bird has ever seen. For the first time he notices the gray threading through his father’s hair, the lines etched from the corners of his eyes, like tear tracks.
Honestly? his father says. Probably not. But that’s what they think.
He checks his watch, then opens the cupboard, which contains nothing but a half-empty jar of peanut butter. No bread.
Let’s get some dinner, he says to Bird.
They hurry down the stairs and out to the pizza place just a few blocks away. Bird’s father doesn’t care for pizza—too greasy, he tells Bird, all that cheese—but it is late and they are hungry and this is the closest place, open until nine.
The man behind the counter takes their order and slides four slices into the oven to heat up, and Bird and his father lean against the sticky wall, waiting. His stomach is growling. Cool dark air wafts in through the propped-open door, and the handful of notices taped to the store’s window flutter in the breeze. Found cat. Guitar lessons. Apartment for rent. Down in the corner, right above the health inspection sticker, a star-spangled placard: god bless all loyal americans. The same placard nearly every store displays, sold in every city, proceeds benefiting neighborhood-watch groups. The few stores that don’t hang it are viewed with skepticism. Aren’t you a loyal American? Then why the fuss over a little sign? Don’t you want to support the neighborhood watch? The huge steel oven ticks and steams. Behind the counter, the pizza guy rests one elbow on the cash register, scrolling on his phone, smirking at a joke.
It is 8:52 when the old man comes in. An Asian face, white button-down and black pants, silvering hair neatly clipped. Chinese? Filipino? Bird can’t tell. The man sets a folded five on the counter.
Slice of pepperoni, he says.
The pizza guy doesn’t even look up. We’re closed, he says.
You don’t look closed. The man glances over at Bird and his father, who half steps in front of Bird like a screen. They’re here, he says.
We’re closed, the pizza guy repeats, louder. His thumb flicks upward across the phone, and an endless river of pictures and posts whizzes by. Bird’s father jostles him on one shoulder. The same jostle as when they pass a policeman, or roadkill in the street. It means: Turn around. Don’t look. But this time Bird doesn’t turn. It’s not curiosity; it’s a need. A morbid need to know what’s been crouching behind him, unseen.
Look, I just want a piece of pizza, the old man says. I just got off work, I’m hungry.
He slides the bill across the counter. His hands are leathery and tough, the fingers knobbled with age. He looks like someone’s grandfather, Bird thinks, and then the thought arrives: if he had a grandfather, he might look like this man.
The pizza guy sets his phone down.
You don’t understand English? he says calmly, as if commenting on the weather. There’s a Chinese restaurant over on Mass Ave. Go get yourself some fried rice and spring rolls, if you’re hungry. We’re closed.