4

The next morning, a Saturday, Mama doesn’t go to work, but she doesn’t sleep in either. I make rice porridge for us, and while we’re eating, Baba comes out of Bao-bao’s room dressed in a short-sleeved, white button-front shirt and black trousers. I watch with enormous relief as he plugs in an electric razor, shaves, and combs back his hair. He’s mostly steady on his feet. I try to catch Mama’s eye to see if she notices the change in him, but she stays focused on her bowl.

My flash of optimism drains out of me as I look between the two of them. Mama has always seemed so mindful of Baba in the times I’ve seen them on the holidays—asking him to taste this or that as she was cooking, telling him to put a scarf on. And he was always agreeable to her plans. They got along well. But now they seem like two strangers occupying the same space.

“Baba. Eat something!” I ladle up the porridge for him and hold it toward him.

He shakes his head and perches on the edge of the bed like he’s waiting for something. His hands are folded in his lap and after a moment they begin to tremble.

“Na, where’s the baijiu?” he asks me.

Mama glances up at Baba, taking in the sheen of moisture on his forehead and the tight clasp of his hands as he tries to stop the shaking. She flicks her wrist at me to go ahead and get it. I dig out the bottle from my bag and hand it to Baba. After yesterday and last night, it’s been drunk down to a third. Baba takes a long swig and closes his eyes, letting the alcohol take effect. After several moments he hands the bottle back to me.

“Put it away now,” he says. “We have to go.”

My eyes widen. “Where are we going?” I ask eagerly, pleased that we’re getting out of the apartment, that we’re going somewhere. Together.

He doesn’t answer. Mama gets up and nosily chucks her bowl into the plastic tub for washing dishes. She finds a white blouse and pulls it on over her tank top.

“Come on,” she says, picking up her purse. “We have to get your brother.”

My mouth falls open in confusion, but in half a second I catch on to what she means. I don’t know why I haven’t wondered where Bao-bao’s body is before now. Hospital, morgue, cemetery? I guess I had so many questions about his death that where he ended up was the least of them. Yeye and some old folks from the village are the only people I’ve known who’ve died. I don’t know what happens to the dead in the city.

Outside, the morning sky is hazy, with the ball of sun in soft focus over the rows of apartment complexes. Except for a group of ladies doing tai-chi, the plaza of the Glorious Towers is empty as we cross the expanse of concrete. We’re halfway across when a woman comes in through the front gates, her short boots echoing with each step.

I see that she’s young, not much older than me, dressed as if she’s just coming in from a night out. Her long hair is messy and loose, and heavy makeup is smudged around her eyes, but her lips are bare. The short black dress she wears is studded with metal grommets along the side, and the neckline hangs sharply off one shoulder, revealing a large red-orange tattoo blooming across her pale skin.

Her stride is languid and confident. I see her eyes drift over me, move off, and jump back, suddenly alert. Her mouth parts slightly and she gazes at me steadily with a look I can’t decipher. Mama and Baba, with their heads bent, don’t take any notice of her since she passes with a wide berth. But she is close enough that I can see that the flaring tattoo, which I thought was a flower, is actually a nine-tailed fox.

I glance back once more as we exit the gate, but Mama picks up the pace. We walk several blocks while the city begins to wake up. Soon Mama has no choice but to slow down because Baba is dragging behind, patches of sweat showing up on the back and under the arms of his shirt. We have to stop so he can mop his face and smoke a cigarette. Mama doesn’t say anything, but her face is cramped, anxious and miserable, and I sense the intensity of her impatience.

The bus takes us to the north edge of the city, and we get off at Farewell Row. Mama charges ahead, but I look left and right at the hearses parked in the potholed street, at the funerary shops selling firecrackers, incense, and wreaths. In the windows of several shops, women hunch over tables, scissoring and pasting elaborate three-dimensional papercuts of everything from oxen and gold mountains to refrigerators, cars, and Gucci purses.

Baba’s lips are trembling when we arrive at the small brown brick storefront of Feng’s Crematorium. An exhaust pipe rises up through the roof near the back of the building, expelling plumes of smoke. I flinch, registering that Bao-bao has been burned up, transformed into dust and smoke. With Yeye, there was an elaborate procession through the village with music and wailing, seven days of rites, endless offerings and gatherings. I suppose we’ll take Bao-bao to the village and do the same, only without the coffin.

Inside, a large desk claims the center of the room, with shelves on three walls holding urns of every shape and color with price cards propped against each one of them. Mama tells Mr. Feng, a tall man with thin lips, that she has come to pick up Bao-bao’s ashes.

“You want to take them?” Mr. Feng’s forehead crinkles up. “You should have told me beforehand. It’s not customary. Parents aren’t supposed to show respect to their child!”

Mama clutches her hands against her middle and dips her head, but her jaw is set stubbornly. “That may be so, but times are changing,” she says quietly.

Mr. Feng shakes his head. “The unmarried sons are left with us and we take care of . . . burying the ashes.” He seems awfully keen for Mama to leave Bao-bao here. I wonder if he has already buried him.

“We want to take him home!” Baba bellows, his voice booming off the walls of the small shop. He pivots to scan the urns, his eyebrows furrowed in a way that seems almost belligerent.

He moves toward a blue and green cloisonné urn with an intricate design of orange carp swimming among water lilies. An upraised white oval on the side marks space for an image of the deceased. Over his shoulder, I see the price card is marked 300 yuan. I expect him to move away, so when he picks up the urn and passes it to Mr. Feng, a strangled noise escapes me.

Three hundred yuan is almost a month’s tuition at my school! My eyes dart to Mama. Her expression is stony, and I can’t tell if she’s appalled at the extravagance or if she’s simply brooding over Bao-bao and just doesn’t care.

While Mr. Feng is in the back, Baba searches his wallet for the money. He doesn’t have enough and Mama has to dig into her bag for the rest. As I watch them count out the bills, I suddenly realize that with Bao-bao gone there will be no more private school tuition to pay, no more extra class fees, no more gifts for teachers. At least Mama and Baba’s constant money worries will ease up now.

Of course Mama and Baba are not concerned about this. They only smooth out the bills and have them ready when Mr. Feng returns.

***

When we get back to Glorious Towers, the young woman from earlier this morning passes through the stairwell door from the sublevel. She has changed her clothes, now wearing jeans and a fitted brown leather vest. A professional camera bag is slung on her shoulder and her hair is pulled back in a tight, high ponytail.

She hesitates in the doorway when she sees us approaching. Her eyes flick to each of us, lingering on me again so that I’m almost expecting her to speak to me. But instead, her gaze shifts to Bao-bao’s urn cradled in Mama’s arms. She moves aside and holds the door open for us with her head tilted forward in a way that seems solemn and reverential. I’m the last to go through, and as I pass, she lifts her head and draws her eyebrows up and back in acknowledgement of my blatant stare.

I have to look away to watch my footing on the steps in the dark stairwell. When I get to the bottom of the flight, I glance back up to the door. The woman is gone and the door is closing, but I already have it in my mind that maybe she knew Bao-bao.