The day after he returned from the hospital, my father released the bird from its cage and cried again when he did not know I was watching.Įvery single night an elderly woman sits on the end of the sidewalk downtown. He spoke of their white hats, how he could not look into their faces and instead looked at their hats. It was the first time I had ever seen him cry. They taunted him, asking him what he was fed on when he was a boy, if he ever had his food taken from him. I remember him telling my mother that they came at him with their round white hats and smacked him. He had been beaten up at work, but for what I did not know. My father worked for the city, and one day he came home bruised and bloodied. My father once had a pet bird when I was younger, although I do not remember what kind of bird it was. The smokers flee like carrion birds shooed away. They arrive in their white van and white hats and chase the smokers off. On some days a neighbor calls the Chengguan-the Urban Management Enforcement. Men gather outside my apartment building and smoke in the afternoon. I can stroll through the streets and brush by anyone, but a weight presses on me like a singular, enveloping fog that never leaves. Nanjing, the furnace of the Yangtse, is a city so big it swallows.
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