A Loyal Character Dancer

there. I’ll just be a moment.” She went to wash and change.
     
    While waiting, he dialed Yu, but got only Yu’s voice mail. He left a message and his cell phone number.
     
    She emerged, wearing a white shirt, light gray blazer, and a slim matching skirt. Her hair was pinned back.
     
    He suggested they take a taxi to the cemetery. She wanted to take the bus. “I would like to spend a day like an ordinary Chinese person.”
     
    He did not think she could really succeed. Nor did he like the idea of having her bumped about in an overcrowded bus. Luckily, a few blocks from the hotel, they saw a bus with a sign saying cemetery express. The fare was twice as much, but they got on without any trouble. The bus was not so much packed with passengers, as with what they carried—wicker baskets of cooked dishes, plastic bags of instant food, bamboo briefcases probably laden with paper “ghost” money, and half-broken cardboard boxes bound around with strings and ropes to keep their contents from spilling out. They squeezed into the seat just behind the driver, which afforded them the small space underneath the driver’s seat in which to stretch their legs. She handed the driver a pack of cigarettes—a souvenir of her status as a “distinguished guest” at the Peace Hotel. The driver grinned back at them.
     
    Despite the open windows, the air in the bus was stuffy, and the seat’s imitation leather covering felt hot. There was a mixed smell of sweating human bodies, salted fish, meat soaked in wine, and every other offering imaginable. Nevertheless, Catherine appeared to be in high spirits, chatting with a middle-aged woman across the aisle, examining other passengers’ offerings with great interest. Above the cacophony of voices, a song was broadcast via invisible speakers. The singer, popular in Hong Kong, warbled in a high-pitched voice. Chen recognized the lyrics: a ci poem written by Su Dongpo. It was an elegy for Su’s wife, but it could be read in a more general way. Why had the cemetery bus driver chosen that particular ci for the trip? The market economy worked everywhere. Poetry, too, had become a product.
     
    Chief Inspector Chen did not believe in an afterlife but, under the influence of the music, he wished there were one. Would his father recognize him, he wondered. So many years—
     
    Soon they were in sight of the cemetery. Several old women were coming toward them from the foot of the hill. Wearing white towel hoods, they were clothed in dark homespun, even darker somehow than the ravens in the distance. This was a scene he had witnessed during his last visit.
     
    He grabbed her hand. “Let’s go quickly.”
     
    But it was difficult for her to do so. His father’s grave was somewhere halfway up the hill. The path was overgrown with weeds. The paint on the direction signs had faded. Several steps were in bad repair. He had to slow down, pushing his way through the overhanging pines and rambling briars. She nearly stumbled.
     
    “Why are some characters on the tombstones red, and some black?” she asked, as she picked her way carefully among the stones.
     
    “The names in black indicate those already dead, and the names in red indicate those still alive.”
     
    “Isn’t this bad luck for the living?”
     
    “In China, husband and wife are supposed to be buried together under the same tombstone. So after one’s death, the other will have the tombstone erected with the couple’s names both engraved on it—one in black, and one in red. When both of them pass away, their children will put their coffins—or cinerary urns—together and repaint all the characters in black.”
     
    “This must be a time-honored custom.”
     
    “Also a disappearing one. The family structure is no longer so stable here. People get divorced or remarried. Only a handful of old people still follow this tradition.”
     
    Their talk was interrupted as the black-attired old women reached them. They must have been in their seventies or even older, though they shuffled their bound feet steadily forward. He was amazed—such old people, moving with such difficulty, on such a hazardous mountain path. They were carrying candles, incense, paper ghost money, flowers, as well as cleaning implements.
     
    One of them wobbled over on her bound feet, pushing a paper model of a “ghost” house at him. “May your ancestors protect you!”
     
    “Oh, what a beautiful American wife!” another exclaimed. “Your