“What can we do, Zhong?” she asked, when her host appeared.
“I will go with you to the police post and we will ask for Fa An’s body, and then I will help you fly our friend home, and we will have a memorial prayer service at the—”
“No, you can’t, Zhong. There are police there to keep everyone out. They wouldn’t even let me in, even though I had my papers in order.”
“Then we will have it outside, and they will watch us pray for our friend,” the restaurateur told his guest with gentle resolve.
Ten minutes later, she’d cleaned up and was ready to leave. The police station was only four blocks away, a simple building, ordinary in all respects except for the sign over the door.
“Yes?” the desk officer said when his peripheral vision noted the presence of people by his desk. He looked up from the paper forms that had occupied his attention for the past few minutes to see a woman and a man of about the same age.
“I am Yu Chun,” Mrs. Yu answered, seeing some recognition in the desk officer’s eyes result from her words.
“You are the wife of Yu Fa An?” he asked.
“That is correct.”
“Your husband was an enemy of the people,” the cop said next, sure of that but not sure of much else in this awkward case.
“I believe he was not, but all I ask is for his body, so that I might fly it home for burial with his family.”
“I do not know where his body is,” the cop said.
“But he was shot by a policeman,” Wen put in, “and the disposal of his body is therefore a police matter. So, might you be so kind, comrade, as to call the proper number so that we can remove our friends body?” His manners did not allow anger on the part of the desk officer.
But the desk cop really didn’t know what number to call, and so he called someone inside the building, in the large administration division. He found this embarrassing to do with two citizens standing by his desk, but there was no avoiding that.
“Yes?” a voice answered on his third internal call.
“This is Sergeant Jiang at the desk in the public lobby. I have Yu Chun here, seeking the body of her husband, Yu Fa An. I need to tell her where to go.”
The reply took a few seconds for the man on the other end of the phone, who had to remember…. “Ah, yes, tell her she can go to the Da Yunhe River. His body was cremated and the ashes dumped in the water last evening.”
And, enemy of the people or not, it would not be a pleasant thing to tell his widow, who’d probably had feelings for him. Sergeant Jiang set the phone down and decided to give her the news.
“The body of Yu Fa An was cremated and the ashes scattered in the river, comrade.”
“That is cruel!” Wen said at once. Chun was too stunned to say anything at the moment.
“I cannot help you more than that,” Jiang told his visitors and looked back down at his paperwork to dismiss them.
“Where is my husband?” Yu Chun managed to blurt, after thirty seconds or so of silence.
“Your husband’s body was cremated and the ashes scattered,” Jiang said, without looking up, because he really didn’t wish to see her eyes under these circumstances. “I cannot help you further. You may leave now.”
“I want my husband back!” she insisted.
“Your husband is dead and his body has been cremated. Be gone now!” Sergeant Jiang insisted in return, wishing she’d just go away and allow him to get back to his paperwork.
“I want my husband,” she said louder now, causing a few eyes to turn her way in the lobby.
“He is gone, Chun,” Wen Zhong told her, taking her arm and steering her to the door. “Come, we will pray for him outside,”
“But why did they—I mean, why is he—and why did they—” It had just been too much for one twenty-four-hour period. Despite the night’s sleep, Yu Chun was still too disoriented. Her husband of over twenty years had vanished, and now she could not even see the urn containing his ashes? It was a lot to absorb for a woman who’d never so much as bumped into a policeman on the street, who’d never done a single thing to offend the state—except, perhaps, to marry a Christian— but what did that hurt, anyway? Had either of them, had any of their congregation ever plotted treason against the state? No. Had any of them so much as violated the criminal or civil law? No. And so why had this misfortune fallen upon her? She felt as though she’d been struck by an invisible truck while crossing the street, then had it decided that her injuries were all her fault. Behind one invisible truck was just another, and all the more merciless at that.
There was nothing left for her to do, no recourse, legal or otherwise. They couldn’t even go into her home, whose living room had so often served as their church, there to pray for Yu’s soul and entreat God for mercy and help. Instead they’d pray . . . where? she wondered. One thing at a time. She and Wen walked outside, escaping the eyes of the lobby, which had zoomed in on them with almost physical impact. The eyes and the weight they’d carried were soon left behind, but the sun outside was just one more thing that intruded on what ought to have been, and what needed to be, a day of peace and lonely prayer to a God whose mercy was not very evident at the moment. Instead, the brightness of the sun defeated her eyelids, bringing unwanted brilliance into the darkness that might have simulated, if not exactly granted, peace. She had a flight booked back to Hong Kong, and from there back to Taipei, where she could at least weep in the presence of her mother, who was awaiting her death as well, for the woman was over ninety and frail.
For Barry Wise, the day had long since begun. His colleagues in Atlanta had praised him to the heavens in an e-mail about his earlier story. Maybe another Emmy, they said. Wise liked getting the awards, but they weren’t the reason for his work. It was just what he did. He wouldn’t even say he enjoyed it, because the news he reported was rarely pretty or pleasant. It was just his job, the work he’d chosen to do. If there was an aspect of it that he actually liked, it was the newness of it. Just as people awoke wondering what they’d see on CNN every day, from baseball scores to executions, so he awoke every day wondering what he’d report. He often had some idea of where the story would be and roughly what it would contain, but you were never really sure, and in the newness was the adventure of his job. He’d learned to trust his instincts, though he never really understood where they came from or how they seemed to know what they did, and today his instincts reminded him that one of the people he’d seen shot the other day had said he was married, and that his wife was on Taiwan. Maybe she’d be back now? It was worth trying out. He’d tried to get Atlanta to check with the Vatican, but that story would be handled by the Rome bureau. The aircraft containing Cardinal DiMilo’s body was on its way back to Italy, where somebody would be making a big deal about it for CNN to cover live and on tape to show to the entire world ten times at least.
The hotel room had a coffeemaker, and he brewed his own from beans stolen from the CNN Beijing bureau office. Sipping coffee, for him as for so many others, helped him think.
Okay, he thought, the Italian guy, the Cardinal, his body was gone, boxed and shipped out on an Alitalia 747, probably somewhere over Afghanistan right now. But what about the Chinese guy, the Baptist minister who took the round in the head? He had to have left a body behind, too, and he had a congregation and—he said he was married, didn’t he? Okay, if so, he had a wife somewhere, and she’d want the body back to bury. So, at the least he could try to interview her . . . it would be a good followup, and would allow Atlanta to play the tape of the killings again. He was sure the Beijing government had written him onto their official shitlist, but fuck ’em, Wise thought with a sip of the Starbucks, it was hardly a disgrace to be there, was it? These people were racist as hell. Even folks on the street cringed to see him pass, with his dark skin. Even Birmingham under Bull Connor hadn’t treated black Americans like aliens from another goddamned planet. Here, everyone looked the same, dressed the same, talked the same. Hell, they needed some black people just to liven up the mix some. Toss in a few blond Swedes and maybe a few Italians to set up a decent restaurant. . . .