A Paper Son by Jason Buchholz Page A

seems to discover the cloth bundle of supplies in his hands. He pushes it into his sister’s hands, turns, and runs into the building, ignoring Li-Yu’s shouts.
    ***
    I emerged from my room, vague thoughts of food on my mind. It had grown dark and rain assailed the windows. Eva was asleep on the couch, lying on her side, her face buried in the crease between the seat cushions and the back, her clasped hands sandwiched between her thighs. The volume was off, but the television had been left on, tuned to a newscast. A Cadillac slid sideways across a flooded intersection, its headlights sweeping uselessly across the storefront windows. I decided I wasn’t that hungry.
    I climbed into the shower and immediately heard the strange song of that violin again. I turned the water off and on, off and on, and the music fell away and returned, fell away and returned. It had to be something in the pipes, I decided. I’d talk to the manager about it soon. I angled the stream out and over me so that it fell quietly against the far wall, and I crouched down, out of the water so I wouldn’t hear the sound of it hitting me. I let it slant over me and I closed my eyes and listened as the music and the mist fell down around me.
    ***
    It is late afternoon by the time they arrive back in Xinhui. Rose follows her mother and brother into the house, the prized bundle of paper and pencils hidden behind her back. She has learned how to stand behind things—other people, the pillars that support the house’s joists, furniture—and so to be virtually invisible. She trails Li-Yu into the house, catches sight of Mae’s face, and though she is cold and wet and tired, she stops and backpedals through the door. She pulls it shut behind her and she is alone on the stoop. Since that morning the rain has lessened, but large wet clumps of mist now drift back and forth through the village, like watchmen on patrol. She heads out into the road, looks one way, and then the other. There is nowhere for her to go in the village—everybody would notice a girl, especially her, walking alone. But she has to vanish, before the door swings open and her mother calls for her, or Mae shouts at her. She darts to the corner of the house and circles it, heading for the back reaches of the property. She runs down the length of the wall, across a small clearing, and past the servants’ house. At the very back of the property, beneath the branches of two barren trees, there is a collection of sheds and small storage buildings. She ducks into the largest of the sheds and stops, her heartbeat sounding in her ears. It is dim and smells come to her before images can—first there is dirt, and then metal, and then the fainter scents of oil and rust. Her eyes adjust and the contents of the shed come into focus. There are bits of discarded furniture, too broken to mend, metal pails, stacks of wooden crates and lids. One corner has been reserved for tools. Here perhaps twenty long bamboo handles rest neatly, their top ends against the wall, their shafts lined up and parallel like the planks of a leaning section of fence. Rose hears footsteps approaching outside, through the mud, and she plunges into the triangular space between the handles and the wall. There is just enough room for her. The floor is hard-packed earth, but the roof and walls have been made well, and it is dry. Rose crawls into the corner of the room, far beneath the leaning handles, deep into the triangular fortress. She lies on the ground, trying to quiet her breath, listening. The footsteps continue past the shed without pausing at the door, but she stays there, curled up in the corner for several minutes, before sitting up.
    Now she takes Henry’s gift and slowly unties the knot, running her finger along a line of stitching as she lets the cords fall away. She pulls out a pencil and a piece of paper, carefully sets the bundle on the dirt floor, and glances around for