A Free Life

by Ha Jin

  “Why?”

  “You could get killed.”

  Nan wanted to tell his son that he’d prefer death to this life that seemed to lead nowhere and only to reduce him to nothing, but he throttled his impulse. A kind of shame washed over him. “I won’t do zat again,” he said.

  The incident shook him deeply. He wasn’t sure whether his license was really revoked. If it was, how could he get a new one? For the time being he could manage without it, but it would be indispensable when he came back to Boston eventually. He dared not ask Heidi for advice, for fear of arousing unnecessary suspicion. As a last resort, he phoned a local radio station that night, under the alias Jimmy, to ask the talk-show host.

  The call went through. The gentleman told Nan on the air, “It doesn’t work that way, Jimmy. An off-duty officer has no right to revoke anyone’s driver’s license. He isn’t even entitled to issue a ticket for a traffic violation. That means your license is still valid. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Should I do somesing to prevent zer trouble down the road?” His heart was pounding; this was the first time he was speaking on the radio.

  “You may go to the police station and file a complaint. Do you know what station this officer is at?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Find that out and file a complaint. We mustn’t let this sort of police brutality pass with impunity. It’s outrageous to threaten people with a gun when he was off duty. All right, it looks like we’re out of time. You’re listening to Legal Talk. Our toll-free number is 1-800-723…”

  Nan didn’t know the word “impunity,” and neither would he bother to lodge a complaint, since it was impossible to find out what station the policeman belonged to. He was glad he still had his driver’s license.

  10

  HENG CHEN hadn’t shown up at Ding’s Dumplings for several days, and Nan substituted for him. The staff upstairs often talked about Heng, and sometimes Nan joined their conversation. They felt that Heng must be too ashamed to continue to work here since everybody knew his wife had dumped him. Nowadays it was commonplace for young women from mainland China to leave their husbands for white men and Chinese Americans, but in his case, he had lost Maiyu to a black man who was at least fifteen years his senior. For that, Chinchin believed, he must have felt more humiliated. Nan didn’t think so. He could see that Kellman was attractive to women, especially to those who needed a strong shoulder to rely on. Kellman was the kind of fellow who would buy flowers for his girlfriend a few times a week and would take her to the movies, the theater, museums, and concerts. In contrast, Heng had yet to find his bearings here. He just worked and worked, and he must have been boring to Maiyu, who couldn’t tolerate it that her husband, formerly a promising young historian, had grown less and less competent than herself. More troublesome, some men from mainland China tended to have a devil of a temper because they had lost their sense of superiority, especially some college graduates who had been viewed as the best of their generation in their homeland; here as new arrivals they had to start from scratch like others, and mentally they weren’t primed for such a drastic change. Worse still, their former privileged life had deprived them of the vitality and stamina needed for grappling with adversities in order to take root in the American soil; as a consequence, the emigration blighted many of them. Undoubtedly, Heng was one of those men.

  Heng had once told Nan that his parents would call him collect from his home village every other week, even though they didn’t have anything urgent to report. For them, this was a way to show off to the villagers, none of whose children had gone to college, to say nothing of making big money in New York. His parents would go to the village office and use the only telephone available for the two hundred households. Every call from home cost Heng at least fifty dollars, so he and Maiyu often fought over the phone bills. He admitted to Nan that in a way he himself was to blame, because he had once sent back a photograph in which his rear end leaned against a brand-new Jaguar parked in a driveway beside a grand Tudor house, as if he owned both of them.

  Rolling her large eyes, Chinchin said to the waitstaff joshingly, “You mainlanders, Communist supporters, must’ve been used to sharing husbands and wives, so it’s no big deal to Heng. If Maiyu had a Taiwanese husband, she’d better be careful—he would kill her.”

  “Heng is no man,” Aimin said.

  “You shouldn’t blame him,” Nan broke in. “It’s hard for him to survive here. How can he compete with Kellman, who has everything Maiyu wants?”

  “Kellman can’t be as rich as he appears,” Chinchin said.

  “But he owns a business and has a lot of confidence.” Nan tugged a piece of tissue out of a dispenser on the counter. “Maiyu must feel vulnerable and want security.”

  “Maybe Heng is no good in bed,” Aimin said, gnawing her thumbnail.

  “Come now, he’s already down, no need to kick him anymore,” Nan protested.

  “I’m sure Heng hasn’t had enough sex education and can’t satisfy Maiyu.”

  “Aimin, you really have a mouth on you,” said Chinchin.

  Strangely enough, Yafang had been tongue-tied the whole time the conversation was going on. She looked pale today. Aimin asked, “Yafang, what do you think of Heng? Does he look like a man to you?”

  “He’s a hungry wolf.”

  “Wow, how come you’re so angry?” Chinchin said.

  “He’s just a little crazy, horny man.”

  “How do you know he’s horny?” Aimin asked.

  “I just know it.”

  Nan was amazed by Yafang’s remarks. She seemed to know more about Heng than the rest of them. Perhaps something had taken place between her and him when Nan was back in Boston over the weekend. What had happened? Why wouldn’t Heng come to work? Why was Yafang so irascible?

  Peeling scallions in the kitchen, Nan thought about his conversation with the female staff upstairs. Though Heng was physically small and weak, Nan felt that sex shouldn’t be the reason Maiyu had run out on him. He remembered Gary Zimmerman, who had been his roommate during his first year and a half at Brandeis. Gary, skinny and poor, was crippled, with one leg shorter than the other and his left arm unable to stretch out freely, yet he never lacked girlfriends. Sometimes this Israeli would date two girls together and even frolic with both of them simultaneously in his queen-size bed, making such a racket that Nan, in the next room, couldn’t sleep until they quieted down in the wee hours. Except for his sonorous voice, Gary had nothing extraordinary, but he spoke English fluently and was at home in America, so his demeanor and confidence attracted the females around him, especially those who were learning Hebrew from him and sympathized with his handicap. By contrast, Heng’s problem was that he had been enervated and diminished here. Having little English, with neither hope nor confidence, how could he rival Kellman?

  11

  THAT NIGHT after they closed up, Nan and Yafang left together for the subway station. She was wearing a gabardine peacoat that gave her a cinched waist. It was sprinkling, and the murky puddles on Canal Street reflected the neon lights and would disappear whenever a car crushed through them. Nearby wisps of steam were rising from a manhole. There were still many people on the sidewalk, though most of the shops were locked up. Along the other side of the street a Chinese man was biking from the opposite direction against the slashing wind, the back of his white raincoat bellying out and making him anomalous, like a ghost. As if unable to see far, his eyes were fixed on the front wheel of his bicycle; on the handlebars hung a plastic bag still giving off steam. Nan turned to watch the back of the deliveryman, who vanished at the street corner a block away.

  On the subway platform, Yafang told Nan that Heng might never come to work again. “Why?” he asked.

  “He dare not.”

  With the slackening clank an A train came to a stop, disgorging passengers. Nan could have taken it, but it didn’t stop at Kingston-Throop avenues, where Yafang would get off, so he waited with her for the C train.
>
  After the platform quieted down some, he said to her again, “I still don’t understand why Heng won’t come to work again. Who’s he afraid of?”

  “Me.”

  “You? Why?”

  “I’ll knife him if he comes close to me again.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “He…he forced me to have sex with him.”

  “What? A man like him could do that?”

  The C train appeared and screeched to a stop. Nan and Yafang stepped onto it. Only a few passengers were aboard, some of them nodding off. Nan and Yafang sat down near a corner. “How did it happen?” he asked her.

  “He tricked me.”

  “How? I don’t mean to be nosy. I never thought he could be so dangerous. He’s such a wispy man.”

  “Three days ago Howard’s daughters worked at the restaurant, so Heng Chen and I were both off for a day. We live in the same area, and he said he’d like to take me to the movies in the evening. I asked him what pictures were good. He said, ‘Have you seen adult movies?’ ‘No,’ I said. I had no idea they were porno flicks. I thought they must be something too serious for kids to understand. So he took me to a place nearby. We saw how Americans were having sex. I’d never seen that kind of thing before and was astonished and, to be honest, also fascinated. In the dark Heng Chen began to caress me, and I didn’t know how to resist him, too ashamed to make any noise. Afterward we went to his apartment.” She sobbed and blew her nose. Her face suddenly aged, lines appearing under her cheeks. She went on, “I was excited and never knew there were so many ways of doing it. Heng Chen said he was good at it and could teach me how to make love. I tried to reject his advances, but he begged me, saying, ‘We’re all drifters in this country and ought to help each other. It’s just like you have food in your pantry while I’m starving. Sex can help you forget your misery and loneliness, can make you happy.’ All of a sudden he became so talkative and so piteous that I was touched. I felt sorry for him and let him have his way. He was like a wild beast, even bit and pinched me, and he wouldn’t let me go until after midnight. But it was too late for me to return to my place by myself, so I slept in his living room. He wanted me to share his bed, but I refused. I stole out of his apartment at daybreak.”

  Nan remained silent, not knowing what to say. She had gone to Heng’s bedroom of her own accord, though no doubt he had planned to seduce her. Her story upset Nan, as he realized that those who were wounded would in turn wound others. It was hard for him to imagine that Heng, a timid man in appearance, could be so bold and so vile.

  “What should I do?” Yafang asked him.

  “I don’t know.”

  “If this had taken place back home, I could’ve asked my brother and his friends to beat him up, but here I don’t know anybody. In fact, I’ve told only you what happened. You’re a good man I can trust. Tell me, do you think he raped me?”

  Amazed, Nan massaged the corners of his eyes with his fingertips, then put down his hand and said, “In reality he did, but it will be hard to prove because you went to the movies with him and entered his bedroom. He can say you two had a date and the sex was consensual. It will be your story against his story.”

  She sobbed again, this time louder. Nan put his hand on her shoulder and whispered, “Don’t be so sad. In this place we have to be tough, and have to endure a lot of humiliation. Sometimes you even have to swallow a tooth knocked off your gum.”

  “But I never thought my fellow countryman would…do…do this to me!” she panted.

  “A man like him, not daring to hurt whites or blacks, can only turn on the Chinese.” He removed his hand from her shoulder and sighed.

  “Can you come and stay with me tonight?” she asked, and her eyes dimmed. “I feel so lonely, also frightened. Nobody cares about me here. My roommates are not in tonight and the apartment feels deserted. Please come with me. I’ll be nice to you.”

  “Yafang, you’re too emotional to think clearly. You’re a good woman and will recover from this. I can’t go to your place tonight. That will amount to taking advantage of you, and later you’ll despise me.”

  She nodded, her head hanging low. “You misunderstood me. I meant to invite you to stay in our living room. I’d just want to have someone in my apartment. I’m scared.”

  “Forgive me for what I said then, but I can’t come with you.”

  “I understand.”

  “Don’t tell others about what happened to you unless you absolutely trust them. If you can’t help it, call home and talk to your siblings.”

  “That I can’t do. They’ll tell my parents. So far I’ve always told them everything is excellent here.”

  “Then you can call me if you want to talk.”

  “Thanks. I might.”

  She got off at Kingston-Throop avenues, dragging her feet away as if her body were suddenly too heavy for her.

  That night Nan reviewed Yafang’s story in his mind. He felt low and somewhat regretted not having gone with her, but he feared he might get entangled with her too deeply. His life was already a quagmire. At this point he didn’t want to be involved with another woman, and he had to concentrate on his own survival and that of his family. The more he thought, the more tormented he was by the notion Pingping had often expressed, namely that it was more dangerous to mix with your own people than with strangers. Yafang’s trouble proved that. Many of their compatriots here were desperate and wouldn’t hesitate to harm one another. In Heng Chen’s case, there must have been more to it than just taking advantage of Yafang. His wife’s betrayal might have turned him into a misogynist. No, not exactly. He obviously still lusted after women. Perhaps he was so desperate and so cornered that he couldn’t help but move fast to seduce a young woman. But afraid of lawsuits and retaliation, he could only prey on a new arrival from their native land.

  Yafang never phoned Nan. At work she was polite to him but remained aloof. Nan knew he must have hurt her pride, and she might have felt he had left her in the lurch. He noticed that she talked a lot with Aimin and Chinchin. Several times he caught her wistful eyes glancing at him, but whenever he joined their conversation, she’d turn taciturn. She seemed to avoid speaking to him, though she did tell him that she very much enjoyed the issues of New Lines he had given her.

  12

  MR. LIU called and said his wife, Shaoya, had completed a short story. He wondered whether New Lines could use it. If they could, he would send it along right away. Nan told him, “By all means, we’d love to see it. What’s it about?”

  “About how hard a Chinese woman works in an underground sweatshop in New York.”

  “That’s good. We probably can run it.”

  “Should I mail it to you?”

  “No need. I’m going to the print center tomorrow morning, and I can stop by and pick it up. That will save you the postage.”

  “Thank you for your thoughtfulness, Nan. I’ll see you then.” Mr. Liu sounded tired, as though he’d lost some of his voice.

  Nan told Bao about Shaoya’s story. They both believed they should publish it provided she was willing to resume her pen name, Purple Lilac; yet they couldn’t make the final decision until they had read it. Bao kept saying this was a good sign: some fiction might bolster the circulation of the journal.

  The next morning Nan went to the Lius’. It took him a good while to find their apartment, because he wandered into a neighboring tenement that looked identical. Finally, as he was approaching the correct entrance, he heard a woman screaming in Chinese, but he couldn’t make out her words. A black man ran out of the stairwell and almost barreled into Nan, who stepped aside to let him pass. The front of the man’s canary yellow pullover bore the large words SICK OF IT ALL! He nodded at Nan and sauntered away. Nan went to unit 127, and the female voice was intelligible now—it was Shaoya’s.

  “I’ve worked myself half to death to make the money while you just threw it away right and left,” she shouted.

  “I didn’t mean to,” cam
e Mr. Liu’s tamed voice.

  “You must pay it back.”

  “You know I’m broke. If I had any money, you could have it all.”

  “Stop playing the stock market! Do you hear me?”

  “Life is a risk. We—”

  “Shut up! Just promise me never to do it again.”

  Should Nan go in? He decided to knock on the door. Mr. Liu answered and was surprised to see him. Then the old man grimaced, saying, “Come in, please.” He spread out his arm as if ushering Nan to a meeting.

  “Sorry, I understand this might not be a convenient time,” Nan said.

  “Don’t worry. We’re just having a small exchange of words. Right, dear?” he asked Shaoya, who still looked incensed, her face dark.

  She said to Nan as if he were an old friend, “He dabbled in stocks with the sweat money I made. Yesterday alone he lost more than two thousand dollars.”

  “All right, all right,” said her husband. “The stock market is like a battlefield where it’s normal to lose or win. It highly depends on luck. Right, Nan?”

  Nan was taken aback, totally ignorant of stocks. He forced himself to answer, “That must be true. Losses and gains take place every day.”

  “But he shouldn’t have run the risk in the first place,” she said. “Heaven knows how hard I’ve worked at the gift store. Last week I put in fifty-eight hours, and my legs got swollen every night when I came back. But he stayed home playing ducks and drakes with the money I made.”

  “All right, I won’t do it again,” said her husband.

  Nan got the story and Shaoya’s agreement to resume her pen name. On his way back he mulled over the scene at the Lius’. He was surprised that the old man would speculate in stocks. Everyone assumed that the Lius were poor, but Mr. Liu had just lost thousands of dollars. How could that be possible? Had he accepted some financial aid on the sly? Probably. Otherwise he wouldn’t have squandered money that way.

  On second thought, Nan was unsure of his reasoning. Mr. Liu had already established his image as an independent man; if he had taken money from someone, word would surely have come out, since the exile community was small and all eyes were focused on the funds available for the dissidents. No, the old man could hardly have accepted any financial aid without being noticed. Nan realized that Mr. Liu’s apparent self-reliance was based mainly on his wife’s hard work and sacrifice.