The Boat Rocker

by Ha Jin

  I said, “Before I respond to your offer, can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.”

  “When did you meet Haili?”

  He looked astonished, then relaxed, a smile playing on his face, whose lumpiness made me see why a face could be called a “mug.” “About three years ago in Beijing,” he said. “She was introduced to me by a mutual friend who had just returned from Melbourne. You want to find out whether your ex and I began to fool around when you two were still married. Right?”

  I nodded.

  He went on, “I got to know her long after your divorce. She was introduced to me as a wealthy lady, the wife of a New York banker. To be honest, I was fascinated by her. What a lovely woman, sharp-witted and beautiful, vivacious, warm, outgoing, so different from some women who had just come into money and were greedy and unscrupulous. A woman like Haili can always make a man feel good and proud. That’s why I started to collaborate with her on her projects. Now, enough of this. Tell me if you’re willing to accept my offer.”

  I felt a rush of anger but lowered my voice to say, “This is America, not China, where you can bulldoze small potatoes like me at will. Here people go by rules, and reporters publish the truth. You lied to the public, so you must admit your fault. That’s the only way to stop my so-called smear campaign—by conducting yourself so that no one, not me, not the Chinese newspapers, can say anything negative about you. Once you’ve apologized, people will forgive. But I can’t issue the apology for you. So to your fabulous package deal I have to say no.”

  Gu looked thoughtful. “I understand what you’re saying, and if I were an American, I would apologize in a heartbeat so that I could put the whole thing behind me. But I have my career and life in China, and apologizing is not viewed in the same way there. If I repented publicly, my enemies would pounce and destroy me with the ammunition you’ve supplied. So I can’t afford to admit any misconduct. It’s the same with Jiao Fanping. We must protect our reputations and have no choice but to push ahead.”

  “But I too have to protect my reputation,” I countered. “I can’t allow you to influence my work.”

  “You’re an obstinate man, Danlin. Bear in mind that you’re not naturalized yet. You have a green card and some fire in you, but you’re still under China’s authority, and we can handle you as we see fit.”

  I considered telling him about my brand-new U.S. citizenship but resisted the impulse. If they’d known I was naturalized, they could have attacked me as an American, a foreigner who had ulterior motives against China. Instead I asked, “Then why did you come all the way to New York? Why meet with me, an obscure reporter, at such a place?”

  “This isn’t all about you. I came here mainly to see friends and to enjoy myself.” He smirked almost in contempt. “You know, I was once a visiting scholar at Harvard’s Yenching Institute. That was the happiest year in my life—I spent a lot of time in the libraries there. So I too love America, in my own way. I follow the NBA games, sometimes into the wee hours of the morning in Beijing. When Michael Jordan retired, I fell into a depression for months.”

  “Then enjoy the sightseeing and the ball games.” I stood up, dropped a ten-dollar bill on the table, and stalked out of the bar.

  TWELVE

  My book was scheduled to be released in five weeks. Once it was out, Gu could have it panned by his critics. He had the power to cripple the book. The more I thought about it, the more agitated I became.

  With Kaiming’s approval, I went ahead and wrote my next column about my meeting with Gu as a follow-up to the pieces I’d done before. I quoted from our conversation, including his offer—his bribe—and my refusal. I commented: “This is how the literary apparatus in China works today. You must have connections and you must bribe those who review your books and bribe the officials and bribe the pseudoscholars who attend your book events. No wonder conferences are held nonstop in Beijing and other major cities to celebrate all the potboilers and propaganda pulp just published. I bet that for each appearance at a conference, a critic or cultural official receives a hefty bonus in a red envelope. Ordinary people like you and me, without pull or resources, have no chance of surviving in such a game.”

  My new column triggered a whirlwind online. Some people posted their comments directly on my column, and heated discussions continued on Literary City and other sites. Some participants must have been failed or would-be writers, probably many housewives among them who had a lot of time on their hands. They condemned Gu Bing and Chinese writers and critics at large, lumping them together as a corrupt group who lived off taxpayers, salaried by the state so that they could write full-time and party at will. (In fact, only hundreds of writers took salaries from China’s Writers’ Association now, and the majority, especially the young people, had to support themselves.) Still, angry commenters indiscriminately called the Chinese writers “parasites” and “idle elements of society.” Some demanded that the Writers’ Association be disbanded. Some asserted that Gu must be Haili’s paramour and urged me to uncover their true relationship. “Who is this Yan Haili, anyway?” one asked. “A debut novelist nobody ever heard of. Why would that brazen editor in chief fly all the way to New York City to help her? She must be his bedmate as well as a business partner. Obviously both of them are barefaced con artists. Women from mainland China are getting increasingly shameless. Some of them don’t think twice before selling their thighs, and some have simply become professional home wreckers.” I could tell that this reader, who used traditional, complex characters rather than the simplified script developed by the Communists, must be from Taiwan or Hong Kong. Another remarked, “Beyond question Yan Haili is totally Americanized, obsessed with money and notoriety. I lived in New York during the attacks, and a neighbor of mine, an American woman, gave radio interviews, saying she had nearly been killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11 and escaped from the first collapsed tower just in time. But I saw her at home that day—she had a tiff with our building super, then went out for lunch with her former boyfriend. I can’t see why people would lie about their involvement in the tragedy, as if it’s glorious to be part of it.” A third person wrote: “Most of you Chinese are just hypocrites whose words and deeds don’t match. The whole world saw the girl at Peking University speaking against the U.S. to Bill Clinton’s face when he delivered a speech on campus, but guess what she did later on? She married a white American man and is living outside Honolulu now. Recently she gave birth to a baby boy, an American citizen. Many Chinese women from the mainland are like that, two-faced, selfish, moneygrubbing, and opportunistic. Some are downright Communists or their fellow travelers.” That sort of denunciation bothered me, because never had I intended to denounce Haili as an example of Chinese women who’d gone bad in America. She was just a petty crook.

  I estimated, by the form of the characters, that there were more than a hundred messages from mainland China. This meant that people there had been following the case as well, and it would no longer be easy for the three to persist in their scheme. Many readers called on Haili and Gu Bing to make a clean breast publicly. One urged Gu to “finish himself” and step down from his position before being dismissed.

  Both Haili and Gu remained silent in the face of the barrage, declining to respond to the questions raised by journalists. According to reporters, Haili wouldn’t even answer the phone.

  Contrary to my expectations, a few days later her publisher, Jiao Fanping, granted another interview to a widely read biweekly based in Shenzhen. He insisted that he’d been negotiating with many foreign publishers over the final terms of the contracts, but for now he wouldn’t go into detail. “There’s not a shadow of doubt in my mind,” he stated, “that this book is becoming an international best seller. I am proud to have launched it and can’t wait to share it with readers.”

  Jiao’s nonchalance mystified me.

  —

  THE CHINESE CONSULATE rejected Katie’s visa application again. She was crushed—she had plan
ned a trip to China during the winter break. Without interviews from AIDS victims in Henan province, she wouldn’t be able to substantiate a central part of her book. The consulate had told her that they were still assessing her attitude toward their country, which outraged Katie. She loved China, she insisted, or she wouldn’t have spent so many years studying the medical conditions in its countryside.

  I half-joked, “Maybe we should break up for a while so they can issue you a visa.”

  “You promised to go with me to Henan,” she said.

  “I’d be happy to if I could get a visa.”

  But we both knew that was unlikely now. Katie would still be able to get around without me; she spoke decent Mandarin and had connections with some faculty members at Henan University. We were seated on the sofa, and I put my arm around her and kissed the little mole below her temple.

  “Don’t worry too much,” I said. “We’ll figure out a way.”

  She leaned against me and closed her eyes. Her copper hair was shiny in the fluorescent light. “You know,” she said, “last night I dreamed we had two kids.”

  “What were they like?” I got excited.

  “Two girls, twins, both had big mouths like yours.” She smiled, blinking her eyes.

  “And they have large hands and feet like yours too,” I said, fingering her earlobe.

  We both laughed. Despite our laughter, I knew she was deeply ambivalent about starting a family. Her younger brother had Down syndrome, and she had seen how much sacrifice being a parent could entail. I felt her fear bordering on neurosis. Sometimes in the middle of the night she would press her face to my chest and murmur almost tearfully, “Don’t leave me! Promise you will stay with me forever.” But when she got up in the morning, she seemed to have no memory of what she’d said. I couldn’t promise her anything, nor would I mention what she had babbled in her sleep. Once when she got tipsy, I tried to entice her to say those pathetic words again, but she only muttered, “You’re just using me. I won’t cater to your ego. When you’ve washed your hands of Haili completely, I’ll tell you my true feelings.” That stopped me from trying to get inside Katie’s heart again.

  In appearance, Katie was confident, calm, cheerful. It was sometimes hard to guess what she was thinking. She once confided to me that if her parents had sent her brother to a special-care place, their life would have been much better and they might not have talked about divorce, as they did every day. Lawyers, alimony, Social Security benefits, insurance. Yet even though they had grown “allergic to each other,” they wouldn’t file for divorce, because they both loved their son and were determined to look after him at home. Now the boy was almost twenty, thinking about girls all the time.

  I was sure that Katie was fond of me. She might agree to marry me if I proposed, but I could not imagine a childless marriage. What was the point in living together for decades without raising a family? If I decided never to have children, I’d break my parents’ hearts—and they might even disown me, so I was reluctant to consider marrying Katie. Eventually I might have kids, but doing so felt like an obligation—something I owed my parents. (My father used to harp at me, “You mustn’t let our name die out.”) Right now I was still fearful of married life. In the back of my mind often echoed the lyrics of a popular song: “Why do I have to continue my bloodline? / Why can’t I live an easy life / And die alone at my own pace?”

  Once in a while Katie would get a little jealous if I spoke with another woman on the phone for long. At the moment she felt insecure, uncertain whether she’d be able to live in New York permanently. She often said with a touch of self-mockery, “I might decamp any day.” I doubted that would happen. She enjoyed the city’s nightlife and went out to bars with her friends at least twice a week. I went with them one evening and was unnerved by the way she splurged on drinks, each of which cost more than the lunches I bought on workdays. I could hardly imagine her in a sleepy college town. She loved cities, in part because she had spent most of her childhood on military bases and had no true hometown. Perhaps only in a big city could she feel comfortable.

  At any rate, she’d have to work hard for another year to get tenure, even if everything went well. Perhaps after that she would consider settling down. Despite her lovely, carefree appearance, the more I got to know her, the sadder her life seemed to me. Imagine, a pretty young woman had decided to close up her womb for good. It made me feel as if we were approaching the end of the human race.

  —

  MEANWHILE, something momentous happened to me. A popular news website in China, Harmonious Times, published a list of candidates for the one hundred top Chinese public intellectuals of 2005. My name was on the long list, surrounded by famous names. The nominations were a grass-roots effort by netizens, though the website had provided these guidelines: first, the nominees must be accomplished in their fields; second, they must have participated, in both words and deeds, in public affairs and thus have helped to advance social improvements; third, they must possess a critical spirit that embodies the principles of truth, justice, and equality. Although 159 names were on the nominees list and there’d be a vote by the public, my nomination surprised and overwhelmed me.

  Among the nominees, I was the most obscure and was certainly one of the youngest. How could I be ranked among those economists, historians, jurists, environmentalists, sociologists, educators, passionate social activists, celebrated writers? Some of the nominees were exiled dissidents in North America and Europe, and some had served prison terms for speaking against the authorities. Four or five had recently died; one was buried in Manitoba, though a small cenotaph had been erected for him in his hometown in Hubei province by his siblings and friends.

  My colleagues all congratulated me, and a few shook my hand, saying I’d surely get enough votes to be on the final list. “This is stupendous!” Lucheng said, rubbing his stubbly jaw with his palm. “Think about the odds—out of 1.3 billion Chinese, you got nominated. Amazing. You’re already famous, Danlin.”

  “Must be a fluke, my good luck,” I said modestly.

  “Congratulations, Danlin.” Kaiming clapped me on the shoulder. “Keep speaking out. The Chinese people are on our side.”

  I realized that my exposés must have reached a wider audience in our homeland than I’d thought. In recent years I had published a good number of columns on corrupt officials, celebrities, historic events, the victims of Tiananmen, the wives who would travel long distances to visit their imprisoned husbands who were political dissidents, and immigrants in North America. I had interviewed the Dalai Lama for The Global Weekly, a Chinese-language magazine published in New York, and later the piece went viral online. I’d been the first Chinese in forty years to interview the Tibetan leader, and my article made it clear that the Dalai Lama had never sought independence for Tibet—what he wanted was more tolerance for its religion and indigenous culture and more autonomy for its citizens. My interview ignited animated discussions among the Chinese, who’d been told from the time they were children that the Dalai Lama was a reactionary, a CIA puppet hostile to China.

  I had also published a lengthy piece on the soaring real estate prices in Chinese cities. I pointed out that the continuous increase had been caused by the state’s complete monopoly of land—the government sold the land to developers at exorbitant prices, which were eventually passed on to housing consumers (who were allowed to use the land for only seventy years). As a result, real estate had become the linchpin of the government’s revenue, a hotbed of corruption and exploitation where investors, in collusion with officials, made profits. “Who has authorized the state to own all the land and to jack up the land price at will?” I asked. “And who is the state? Who has empowered it to fleece the common citizens? Confucius said: ‘A rapacious government is more destructive than a preying tiger.’ If we continue to let the state rip us off, we will be eaten up by this insatiable beast sooner or later. Who has raised this animal? Why do we have to feed it and let it grow into a monster
? Are there ways we can tame and control it? I believe a state should be more like a guard dog than a preying tiger and must be obedient to its citizens.” Again, that article prompted a vigorous debate, and people even argued about whether private ownership of land should be reinstated in China—this would be an effective way to curb the rampant corruption, some insisted, though I wasn’t sure that could be the ultimate solution. If private ownership of land was to be allowed, there would have to be regulations to forestall speculation. Now, with this nomination, I could see that people had read my writings and given thought to them.

  How grateful I felt to the marvelous Internet technology, which seemed like it would be China’s deliverance and absolutely insuppressible. I kept singing of it to myself: with the Internet you can penetrate the barriers of censorship to reach tens of thousands of readers within hours; with it you no longer have to rely on the conventional means of communication monopolized by the state—you can raise noise and disseminate truth, making it known to the multitude terrified by power and expressing the thoughts many hold in their hearts but dare not articulate. It can give every individual a voice and every tyrant a shudder. It makes every computer a potential radio station.

  All day I received notes of congratulation. One of them, to my surprise, was from Niya. She wrote: “Congrats on your nomination for a top public intellectual! See, it pays to make others squirm. I am impressed nonetheless.”

  I just replied, “Thanks.”

  I had no idea how to read her. She didn’t seem stupid. Why would she become embroiled with Love and Death in September? However grateful to Haili she might be, she needn’t follow her with such blind devotion. Did Niya despise me at heart? Did she write to mock and provoke me? Or to sound me out?