CHAPTER SIXTEEN

IN THE AIR

The coroner had the window seat. Lily sat beside him, her head buried in a fashion magazine she’d bought at the airport. As soon as the plane levelled off, he leaned his forehead against the cool Plexiglass — and drank it in.

China.

Home.

Bands of colour melded into the patterns of intricate tapestries — then into rainbows. Hills became the contours of women’s bodies. Space became infinite and soft. Things that do not meet, met.

Then clacking. Clacking. An express train slowing as it passed through a local station. Then him, seated on the express train, looking at the platform across the way through the windows of the stationary local train.

A young man and a woman. Standing on the platform. Holding hands. She facing the tracks, he turned away — peeing through the boards. Simple. Just holding hands and peeing.

“Are you done?” she asked.

He looked up into her round, calm face, into her coal black eyes and nodded.

“Then button up, the train’s ready to go.”

“Is it far?” His voice was surprisingly young.

“Beyond the mountain,” she said and smiled.

“That far?”

“It’s not far, dear. In fact, it’s always been very near.”

He wanted to look at her but found himself looking at his hand. And her hand. And recognized it — his mother’s hand. He looked up into his mother’s proud face and grinned.

“You know the way?”

“I do.” She touched his forehead and brushed away his hair. “Do you?”

He felt himself smiling and crying at the same time. He took a deep breath then said, “I do.”

Then he let go.

Lily saw Grandpa’s tears running down the windowpane. She heard him mumble. She heard him take a deep breath then let out the air in one long single line of life. In the reflection, deep in the double Plexiglass windowpane, she saw the smile on his lips. She felt his hand. It was cold and so very still.

When the plane landed in Beijing, she sat beside the dead man until everyone left their seats. A steward came down the aisle to them. “Is he all right?”

Lily looked at the young man. She didn’t know how to answer his question.

* * *

Within six hours Lily had the basic information on the telephone number and was back on a plane to Xian. This time it was she who stared out the window at the terrifying, intense beauty of China from the air.

A small porcelain vase with a sealed top sat on her lap.