Inked

was afraid to.
    We left the apartment. No weapons. Too dangerous, Jean had said, in case we were stopped and searched. No sign of Ernie on the second-floor landing, either, and it was quiet behind the white curtain. I wanted to poke my head in and ask after the boy—tell him to stay home today—but when I drew near, Jean grabbed my arm and pulled me away.
    “He would have already left by now,” she murmured.
    Temperatures had risen with the sun. It was muggy outside, so humid that a haze filled the air, as hard to breathe as soup. I sucked as much into my lungs as I could, and it still was not enough. No one else seemed to have trouble. The street was already active; folks getting their day started before the heat became unbearable. I saw no zombies. Instead, boys clutching books raced down the street, some kicking balls to each other—nearly hitting an elderly Chinese man practicing qigong on the sidewalk alongside a European woman of a similar silvered age. A duet of violins played from an open window, music nearly lost beneath the chatter of Mandarin and German—voices buzzing around a shed where a slender Chinese man boiled nothing but water in giant cauldrons, ladling it into tin kettles and thermoses held by women and children. Money changed hands, and laughter sparked the air.
    Buildings grew from each other like the trunks of bound trees—an organic growth, spurred by human pressure—bits and pieces added on, brick and scrap-yard patches that jutted into the sidewalk, replete with grass and delicate vines growing from tin roofs. Cook fires burned in the street. I saw a gaunt, brown-haired woman vomiting against a wall, the young fellow with her staring at her puke as though he was more sorry about the wasted food than her illness. Ahead of us, an older Chinese man pulling a cart stopped to ring a bell, and then stooped with a groan to pick up a wooden bucket that was shaped like a pumpkin—one of many that had been left at the side of the road. He emptied its contents into an enclosed stone container built into his cart. A terrible stench burned my nostrils. I made a small sound. Jean raised her brow. “Mr. Li handles the honey pot waste. He resells it to farmers for fertilizer.”
    She waved at him and he smiled—though he gave me a disconcertingly sharp once-over. And then leveled that same piercing look at Jean. If she noticed—and I thought she must have—she showed nothing. Simply continued walking at a brisk pace that made my leg muscles burn. Few greeted her. Caution, perhaps, or disdain; or simply because they did not give a damn. But not, I thought, because she was unknown.
    We split up at the checkpoint. A bored young Japanese soldier waved through Jews with little more than a glance at the passes, though I half-expected him to pull me aside. Instead, I watched him slap a baton against the shoulders of a Chinese man—and order a strip search, right there on the bridge in front of everyone.
    The man did not fight or protest. He stood very still as his clothes were torn away and thrown into the river. When a baton prodded the crease of his buttocks, he did not flinch. Nor did he make one sound when that same baton smashed against his lower back, driving him to his knees.
    The soldiers laughed, though one of them looked away, his smile forced. The checkpoint guard said a sharp word to the Chinese man, planting a boot on his back to hold him down when he tried to rise. I did not need to speak Japanese or Mandarin to know what he was ordering, and was unsurprised when the man on the ground began crawling across the bridge. I held my breath, hoping he would make it without a bullet in his ass. I finally understood, in that moment, the predicament my grandmother was in. She probably saw this, and worse, every day. Unable to lift a hand. Just as I was unable—unwilling—to step in. I had a job to do here. Like my grandmother had said, there was a bigger picture.
    He made it, though. I was waved through several minutes later. Jean had gone ahead of me, and I saw her deep in the crowds of rickshaw pullers and hawkers. The naked Chinese man stood nearby, carefully not looking at her. Just as carefully not seeming to touch her as she passed near him to approach me. But I saw their hands brush, and he turned instantly to walk in the opposite direction; quickly, one hand pressed against the small of his back, but utterly shameless about his nudity.
    “I assume he’ll be able to buy new