by Ha Jin
“We need nine of them according to what I heard,” the young woman whispered, her eyes still fixed on the applicant’s lips, rouged so heavily they looked purple.
Jinli thought she would be asked to take an English test for the job, so she began listening to the BBC and Voice of America for at least three hours a day and reviewing a volume on TOEFL. Even when she was washing laundry, she’d keep the radio on. She returned to the bureau on Thursday afternoon and was referred to a section director. The official was a large man, fiftyish, with a bald patch on his crown. He listened attentively to her describing herself and her qualifications for working with foreigners. She grew excited, a bit carried away in her enthusiasm, and even said, “I lived in New York for four years and visited many places in America. As a matter of fact, I have lots of connections there and can help our city in some ways. I have an international driver’s license.”
The man cleared his throat and said, “Miss Chen, we appreciate your interest in the job.” She was taken aback by his way of addressing her, not as a “Comrade,” as though she were a foreigner or a Taiwanese. He went on, “We studied your file the day before yesterday. I’m afraid I have to disappoint you. That’s to say, we can’t hire you.”
“Why?” She was puzzled, knowing there couldn’t be enough applicants for the nine positions.
“I don’t want to be rude. If you insist on knowing why, let me just say that we have to use people we can trust.”
“Why? Am I not a Chinese?”
“You’re already a permanent resident in the United States, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but I’m still a Chinese citizen.”
“This has nothing to do with citizenship. We don’t know what you did in New York, or how you lived in the past few years. How can we trust you? We’re responsible for protecting our country’s name.”
She understood now and didn’t argue further. They had gotten her file from the college and must have been notified of her lifestyle in New York. Anger was flushing her face.
“Don’t be too emotional, Miss Chen. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I am just passing the bureau’s decision on to you.” On the desk a shiny ant was scampering toward the inkstand; he crushed it with his thumbnail and wiped the dead ant off on his thigh.
“I understand.” She stood up and turned to the door without saying goodbye.
Waiting for the bus outside the office building, she couldn’t stop her tears. Now and again she wiped her cheeks with pinkish tissue. She fished her makeup kit out of her handbag and with the help of the mirror removed the smudges from her cheeks. The leatherette case in her hand attracted the eyes of a teenage girl, whose gaze roved between Jinli’s necklace and the glossy case.
Having failed to get the job, she came up with another idea, which surprised us. She began trying to persuade Chigan to go to America with her. This terrified him. He didn’t know Eng-lish except for a few phrases like “Good morning,” “Long live China!” “Friendship.” For three decades, no family in our city had moved that far—clear across the Pacific Ocean—though a few had left for Hong Kong and Japan. One young woman, we were told, had been sold by her husband to a whorehouse in Hong Kong the moment they landed there. Understandably Chigan was frightened by his wife’s suggestion. He believed that once they were in New York she’d sell him as a laborer or a gigolo. Physically he looked all right, a bit short but solid, with a flat face and round shoulders, but he would perish in America in no time if he did that kind of work. So, he resolutely refused to go with her, saying, “I’m a Chinese, I don’t want to be a foreign devil!”
“You know,” she said, “New York has a big Chinatown. You don’t have to speak English there. There’re so many Chinese around. Books, newspapers, TV, and movies are all in Chinese. You don’t have to become an American devil at all.”
“I won’t go!” His beady eyes glittered and his nostrils were flaring.
“Come on, we’ll make lots of money. Life’s better there than here. You can eat meat and fish every day.”
“Then why did you come back?”
“I came back to take you with me.” Her apricot eyes winked at him, the long lashes flapping. “Did I go abroad just for myself? Didn’t I say I was leaving to look for a new life for our family four years ago?”
“Yes, you did.”
“You see, now I’m back to fetch you and our child. If we work hard, we’ll get rich there and have a big house and two cars. Don’t you want to drive a brand-new Ford?”
“No, I don’t know how to drive.”
“You can always learn. I can drive, it’s much easier than riding a bicycle.” Her hands gripped an imaginary wheel, turning it left and right, while her head tilted back, her eyes half shut.
He swallowed. “No. Even if you give me a gold mountain, I won’t go.”
“You know, Chigan, we can have more kids there.” She winked again and smiled with a dimple on her chin.
This seemed to sink in, because he always wanted a son but wasn’t allowed to have another child here. Yet after a moment’s silence, he said, “Dandan is enough for me. I don’t want another kid.”
“Come on, will you be happy to remain a mechanic in the boatyard for the rest of your life?”
“Happy is the man who’s content.”
“All right, if you don’t want to leave, let Dandan go with me. She’ll have a good future there. She will go to Harvard.”
“What’s that?”
“The best university in the world.”
“No, it can’t be better than Oxford.”
“Please, let her go with me.” She tried to smile again, but her face twisted.
Of course he wouldn’t trust her with the child. She couldn’t bear his refusal anymore and burst into tears, begging him to let her see Dandan just once. Her crying softened him a little, and he agreed to talk to their daughter and see what the child thought.
The next afternoon he pedaled to his parents’. Onto the carrier of his Flying Pigeon bicycle was tied a long carton containing an electronic keyboard, a gift Jinli had brought back for her daughter.
Chigan’s father scolded him and called him a thickhead, saying that if Jinli saw the child she could easily talk her into leaving with her. “Why can’t you see through such a simple trick?” the old man asked, pointing a half-eaten tomato at his son.
The keyboard was put away; they would give it to Dandan at the right time. The grandparents then asked the child, who was upstairs watching the TV program “Baby Science,” to write to her mother. Chigan returned with the short letter before nightfall. After reading it, Jinli was heartbroken and locked herself in her room, weeping quietly. The letter said: “Go away, bad woman. I don’t want a mother like you!”
That stopped her from attempting to take the family abroad. What was she going to do next? Probably she would return to New York soon. But when asked about that, she said she would stay, since neither her husband nor their child wanted to leave.
To our surprise, a week later Chigan filed for divorce. Who could have imagined this feckless man was capable of taking such a step? It must have been his parents who planned it and used their connections to make the court give priority to the case, for without delay the divorce was granted. Jinli didn’t seem to mind losing her husband, though she did fight in court for custody of her daughter. The judge said she was an irresponsible parent, then announced to her, “Out of our concern for the child’s physical and mental health, this court declines your request.” She was, however, ordered to pay thirty-yuan in child support a month. Strange to say, she insisted on paying a hundred instead. This puzzled us. People began to wonder how much money she actually had. Perhaps she was a lady of wealth.
Then word went about that Jinli had a lot of money. Some people said she was small-minded and stingy. If she was so rich, why not buy her parents-in-law a twenty-seven-inch color TV—either a Sony or a Sanyo? Had she done that, surely they’d have let go of the child. Yet some people didn’t b
elieve she was rich. They proved to be wrong.
On a windy afternoon Jinli arrived at Five Continents Commons to buy a new apartment. Recently our city had put up a few residential buildings on the riverbank to attract foreign customers, mainly overseas Chinese from Southeast Asia and businesspeople form Taiwan. Jinli seemed still set on staying in Muji, or at least spending a few months a year here.
“Your passport, please,” said a slender young man, the manager of the estate.
Having handed him her passport, she felt something was wrong and wiggled slightly in the chair.
The man looked through the maroon-covered passport and said without raising his eyes, “This was issued by the People’s Republic of China. You’re a Chinese citizen?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I can’t help you. These apartments are only for foreign customers. We want hard currencies.”
“I’ll pay you U.S. dollars.” She blushed a little and clasped her hands. Her interlaced fingers made the ring invisible.
A gleam crossed his dark eyes, but he shook his head and said, “No. I’m allowed to do business with foreigners only.”
“What’s the difference if I pay the same money and the same price?”
“I’m sorry, Comrade. This is a rule I have to follow or I’ll lose my job.” He combed back his soft hair with his fingers.
So she gave up the idea of buying an ultramodern apartment, which would cost twenty thousand dollars—about a quarter-million yuan according to the exchange rate on the black market at the time. None of us would dare dream of having so much money! Not even a medium-sized factory here would have that amount of cash. Finally we realized we might have a millionairess among us. Some people began to suck up to Jinli, saying they would help her find a job or a place to stay. But she didn’t seem interested anymore. Whenever people condemned Chigan and his parents in front of her, she would say drily, “When I left I thought I could always come back.” And she began to avoid others.
Nobody knows when she disappeared from Muji City. It’s said that she left for Shenzhen or Hong Kong. Professor Fan, however, claims Jinli returned to New York to rejoin the old man and has changed her name. Chigan refuses to comment; maybe he doesn’t know her whereabouts either.
A month after the divorce, he got married again. The bride, who was a young widow with a four-year-old boy, works in the same institute with him. She’s a decent woman, loves her new husband, and takes good care of him and their home. We often see the newlyweds walking hand in hand in the evening. Never has Chigan looked so happy and healthy. His stomach has begun growing into a potbelly like a general’s.
More amazing is that Dandan adores her stepbrother. She tells others she always wanted a younger brother and now she finally has one. The boy is attached to her, too; together they read picture-storybooks and recite nursery rhymes every day after school. Asked whether her stepmother is kind to her, Dandan will say, “My dad found me a good mommy.” Sometimes she plays hopscotch with other children in front of the apartment building. A pair of huge butterflies, made of yellow ribbons, dangles at the ends of her braids as she capers around. Smiles widen her gazelle eyes.
After Cowboy Chicken Came to Town
“I want my money back!” the customer said, dropped his plate on the counter, and handed me his receipt. He was a fiftyish man, of stout girth. A large crumb hung on the corner of his oily mouth. He had bought four pieces of chicken just now, but only a drumstick and a wing were left on the plate.
“Where are the breast and the thigh?” I asked.
“You can’t take people in like this.” The man’s bulbous eyes flashed with rage. This time I recognized him; he was a worker in the nearby motor factory.
“How did we take you in?” the tall Baisha asked sharply, brandishing a pair of long tongs. She glared at the man, whose crown barely reached the level of her nose.
He said, “This Cowboy Chicken only sounds good and looks tasty. In fact it’s just a name—it’s more batter than meat. After two pieces I still don’t feel a thing in here.” He slapped his flabby side. “I don’t want to eat this fluffy stuff anymore. Give me my money back.”
“No way,” Baisha said and swung her permed hair, which looked like a magpies’ nest. “If you hadn’t touched the chicken, we’d refund you the money. But—”
“Excuse me,” Peter Jiao said, coming out of the kitchen together with Mr. Shapiro.
We explained to him the customer’s demand, which Peter translated for our American boss. Then we all remained silent to see how Peter, our manager, would handle this.
After a brief exchange with Mr. Shapiro in English, Peter said in Chinese to the man, “You’ve eaten two pieces already, so we can only refund half your money. But don’t take this as a precedent. Once you’ve touched the food, it’s yours.”
The man looked unhappy but accepted the offer. Still he muttered, “American dogs.” He was referring to us, the Chinese employed by Cowboy Chicken.
That angered us. We began arguing with Peter and Mr. Shapiro that we shouldn’t have let him take advantage of us this way. Otherwise all kinds of people would come in to sample our food for free. We didn’t need a cheap customer like this one and should throw him out. Mr. Shapiro said we ought to follow the American way of doing business—you must try to satisfy your customers. “The customer is always right,” he had instructed us when we were hired. But he had no idea who he was dealing with. You let a devil into your house, he’ll get into your bed. If Mr. Shapiro continued to play the merciful Buddha, this place would be a mess soon. We had already heard a lot of complaints about our restaurant. People in town would say, “Cowboy Chicken is just for spendthrifts.” True, our product was more expensive and far greasier than the local braised chicken, which was cooked so well that you could eat even the bones.
Sponge in hand, I went over to clean the table littered by that man. The scarlet Formica tabletop smelled like castor oil when greased with chicken bones. The odor always nauseated me. As I was about to move to another table, I saw a hole on the seat the size of a soybean burned by a cigarette. It must have been the work of that son of a dog; instead of refunding his money, we should’ve detained him until he paid for the damage.
I hated Mr. Shapiro’s hypocrisy. He always appeared good-hearted and considerate to customers, but was cruel to us, his employees. The previous month he had deducted forty yuan from my pay. It hurt like having a rib taken out of my chest. What had happened was that I had given eight chicken breasts to a girl from my brother’s electricity station. She came in to buy some chicken. By the company’s regulations I was supposed to give her two drumsticks, two thighs, two wings, and two breasts. She said to me, “Be a good man, Hongwen. Give me more meat.” Somehow I couldn’t resist her charming smile, so I yielded to her request. My boss caught me stuffing the paper box with the meatiest pieces, but he remained silent until the girl was out of earshot. Then he dumped on me all his piss and crap. “If you do that again,” he said, “I’ll fire you.” I was so frightened! Later, he fined me, as an example to the seven other Chinese employees.
Mr. Shapiro was an old fox, good at sweet-talking. When we asked him why he had chosen to do business in our Muji City, he said he wanted to help the Chinese people, because in the late thirties his parents had fled Red Russia and lived here for three years before moving on to Australia; they had been treated decently, though they were Jews. With an earnest look on his round, whiskery face, Mr. Shapiro explained, “The Jews and the Chinese had a similar fate, so I feel close to you. We all have dark hair.” He chuckled as if he had said something funny. In fact that was capitalist baloney. We don’t need to eat Cowboy Chicken here, or appreciate his stout red nose and his balding crown, or wince at the thick black hair on his arms. His company exploited not just us but also thousands of country people. A few villages in Hebei Province grew potatoes for Cowboy Chicken, because the soil and climate there produced potatoes similar to Idaho’s. In addition, the company had set up a
few chicken farms in Anhui Province to provide meat for its chain in China. It used Chinese produce and labor and made money out of Chinese customers, then shipped its profits back to the U.S. How could Mr. Shapiro have the barefaced gall to claim he had come to help us? We have no need for a savior like him. As for his parents’ stay in our city half a century ago, it’s true that the citizens here had treated Jews without discrimination. That was because to us a Jew was just another foreigner, no different from any other white devil. We still cannot tell the difference.
We nicknamed Mr. Shapiro “Party Secretary,” because just like a Party boss anywhere he did little work. The only difference was that he didn’t organize political studies or demand we report to him our inner thoughts. Peter Jiao, his manager, ran the business for him. I had known Peter since middle school, when his name was Peihai—an anemic, studious boy with few friends to play with. Boys often made fun of him because he had four tourbillions on his head. His father had served as a platoon commander in the Korean War and had been captured by the American army. Unlike some of the POWs, who chose to go to Canada or Taiwan after the war, Peihai’s father, out of his love for our motherland, decided to come back. But when he returned, he was discharged from the army and sent down to a farm in a northern suburb of our city. In reality, all those captives who had come back were classified as suspected traitors. A lot of them were jailed again. Peihai’s father worked under surveillance on the farm, but people rarely maltreated him, and he had his own home in a nearby village. He was quiet most of the time; so was his wife, a woman who never knew her dad’s name because she had been fathered by some Japanese officer. Their only son, Peihai, had to walk three miles to town for school every weekday. That was why we called him Country Boy.
