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.