A Free Life

by Ha Jin

  When Nan told the Wangs that he wanted to buy the restaurant, they looked relieved. Then began the bargaining. Nan managed to beat down the price by $3,000 on the grounds that he didn’t like the horse murals and the Formica tables in the booths. This was the first time in his life that he had ever haggled with someone, and he took great pride in the result, feeling like a real businessman. The amount he’d saved translated into 25,000 yuan, thirty times more than his annual salary back in China. Somehow, whenever Nan handled a large sum of money, he couldn’t help but convert dollars into yuan in his mind, and the habit made him very frugal. At times, though, he wished he could grow out of this mind-set, because he believed that here people got rich not just by how much they saved, but more important, by how much they made, and that in America one should live like an American.

  “When will you come and take over?” Mr. Wang asked Nan with a little chuckle.

  “Probably in a month or so.”

  “Too long. How about two weeks?”

  “I’ll try. It shouldn’t be a big problem. I’ll let you know soon after I get home.”

  Nan wrote him a check for $2,200, a ten percent deposit. The Wangs asked that he keep Tammie, who had been working for them since her late teens, almost a decade by now. “That’s fine,” Nan promised. He was going to need help anyway. Currently they paid her one dollar an hour because she kept all the tips.

  That afternoon Nan hit the interstate, heading back north.

  3

  HE RETURNED to Woodland two days later. Pingping was overjoyed to hear about the restaurant and the Atlanta suburbs. They were both pleased to know Mr. Wang was from Taiwan, for generally speaking, the Taiwanese were more trustworthy than the mainlanders, who often ignored rules and laws. The Wus knew some people who’d been swindled even by their fellow townsmen from the mainland.

  One thing Nan and Pingping had forgotten to consider was where to live. Nan had noticed some apartment buildings in Norcross, a neighboring town north of Lilburn, but he hadn’t brought back any information on housing. So the following day he called the Gold Wok and asked Mrs. Wang about affordable housing in the vicinity. The old woman said she was going to mail Nan an apartment book. “There are some copies outside. They just arrived,” she told him.

  He remembered seeing a red wire rack beside the entrance to the restaurant that held several kinds of booklets and leaflets. “Can you send it along right away?” he asked.

  “I’m going to do it today.”

  Everything seemed to have fallen in place, and the Wus began planning to move. Even Taotao had to decide what toys and books to take and what to donate to the thrift shop behind the town library, run by the Unitarian church.

  The main difficulty was Nan’s books, most of which were in the boxes stored in the small shed attached to Heidi’s garage. Years ago when Nan still planned to return to China, he had collected more than forty boxes of used books, determined to establish his own library once he went back. But when they had come to stay with the Masefields, Nan had had to leave the books behind in Watertown. He’d talked his landlord, Mr. Verdolino, into renting him a basement room for sixty-five dollars a month and had kept his three thousand volumes there for two years. Later he realized that the amount he paid for the rent would eventually buy him those books again. Pingping urged him to get rid of them, since he couldn’t go back to China anymore. Nan took some boxes of the books to local libraries and bookstores, but no one wanted them, all telling him that the titles were too specialized. Indeed, who among general readers could use a book like Anna Akhmatova’s Complete Poems in the Russian or Hans Morgenthau’s Politics Among Nations? Heartbroken and having nowhere to send the books, Nan had just left the few boxes next to a bunch of trash cans on a sidewalk lined with dirty snowbanks. The following week he threw away another three boxes.

  For a month afterward he felt miserable, almost ill. If only there were a way to keep those books. Try as he might, he couldn’t steel himself to dump them all. Fortunately, a friend of his who was returning to China came and picked thirteen boxes from his collection. Nan helped her pack them up and even drove a van with her all the way to New Jersey to have them shipped to Tianjin City by sea. Then he persuaded Heidi to let him use a little space in her shed in which to store the remaining eleven boxes. Now, to save postage, he would have to get rid of some of them again. In America every town had a library; why should he keep hundreds of titles at home? After carefully going through them, he kept about two thirds of the books, seven boxes in all, and discarded the rest.

  Everything else was easy to pack; the Wus didn’t have many belongings. Pingping phoned Heidi, who was on Cape Cod with her children, to let her know of their imminent move. Heidi sounded excited and also relieved. Two days later she returned to Woodland. She gave Pingping $1,200 to buy mattresses—twelve one-hundred-dollar bills in an envelope—since the Wus couldn’t take along the ones they had. She also told her to clean their attic apartment before they left. Livia had come back with her mother too, and on the way she’d bought Taotao a Rubik’s Cube. Now, as the adults were talking, the girl and the boy were in the living room, Livia showing him how to work the puzzle. The girl had an appointment with her orthodontist at eleven a.m. to adjust her braces, so a few minutes later Heidi called her out, ready to go.

  “Keep in touch, Taotao,” said Livia as she followed her mother to the passenger van.

  “Sure.” The boy nodded.

  “Remember, I’m your friend.” She waved her thin, short-nailed hand. Her flip-flops seemed too big, pattering on the driveway.

  “Sure, thanks for the cube.”

  The Wus waved as Heidi’s van drew away. The boy returned to the living room, to the unsolved puzzle.

  The Atlanta apartment book arrived, a thick volume containing hundreds of listings. Pingping and Nan were impressed by the rents, which were much more affordable than in the Boston area. They folded several pages that showed housing in the eastern suburbs. But to their dismay, there was only one listing in Lilburn, and that place was too pricey, so they had to look for an apartment in an adjacent town. They noticed that housing was much cheaper in some areas near Stone Mountain, a town six miles south of Lilburn in Dekalb County. Nan phoned two of those places. Without difficulty he rented a three-bedroom apartment at Peachtree Terrace, which was within Gwinnett County and, according to the map, just a fifteen-minute drive from the restaurant. Nan wanted a study for himself, hence the third bedroom. Ideally, Pingping had hoped they could walk to work, but Nan told her that unlike Boston, the city of Atlanta sprawled in every direction, one having to drive to get around, so they’d better stay at Peachtree Terrace. The rent was a reasonable $550 a month.

  A UPS van came to pick up their boxes. Altogether there were thirty-five. The driver was a tall woman with a squarish jaw and a tanned face. She wore the brown uniform, the short-sleeved shirt showing her muscular arms and bulging chest. Nan helped her load the shipment and was impressed by the ease with which she lifted the heavy boxes and lodged them onto the shelves in the van. He liked to see the woman work with her sinewy hands and could feel energy radiating from her sturdy body.

  When everything was loaded, she assured him that the whole batch would arrive intact. With a ballpoint attached to a clipboard she scribbled an X at the bottom of a form for his signature, then handed the paperwork to him. He signed it and asked her to handle their boxes carefully, though he didn’t reveal that the shipment contained a microwave, a roaster, a computer, even a TV set. He gave her a ten for tip, and she beamed, panting a little. She promised to stick FRAGILE labels to all their belongings when she got back to the local UPS headquarters.

  What a woman, so hardy and so independent! Nan watched her hop into the brown van and pull it out of the yard.

  4

  ON THE MORNING of July 6, a Saturday, the Wus got up at four o’clock. Pingping had put blankets and pillows in the backseat of their car the night before. As Heidi had instructed, she checked all th
e doors and windows, then left the key on the kitchen table and locked the front door. It was still damp and chilly outside. She couldn’t stop shivering as she walked toward their loaded Ford parked in front of the garage.

  There was little traffic on I-95, and a faint mist veiled the land on both sides. The hazy air seemed stirred by the shafts of light projected by their car and was rolling by like strips of smoke. The woods on the roadside were dark and looked as solid as if they were a rocky bank. Pingping was happy and excited. Despite knowing that Nan didn’t completely love her, despite getting carsick easily, she felt hopeful and safe with him. Their move to Georgia showed that he was willing to live and raise Taotao together with her. Don’t mind going anywhere as long as we’re together, she told herself. The more you move, the stronger you’ll grow, not like a tree that can be killed if you uproot it. Sick of living under Heidi’s roof. At last we can have a place for ourselves.

  She looked at Nan, who seemed calm. In fact, he had been better tempered these days. He was driving steadily in spite of their old car that wobbled a little and couldn’t overtake any vehicles on the road. Ahead of them, the blacktop looked endless and mysterious, yet Pingping was sure it was leading them to a new life. Deep down, she knew Nan would work hard and together they would make a decent living.

  When they had passed New London, Connecticut, suddenly the sun came out, a giant disk flaming a good part of the eastern sky. More cars appeared on the highway, and patches of ocean shimmered as they went. Pingping kept telling Taotao to look at the sun and the water, but the boy just grunted. He was too sleepy to open his eyes, dozing away all along.

  Because their car was fully loaded, Nan wouldn’t let Pingping behind the wheel at first. From time to time she kneaded the nape of his neck to relieve his tension. She could see that he was nervous, especially whenever a semi passed them, its powerful wake shaking their car a little. This happened more frequently as they were approaching Stamford. Yet somehow she felt peaceful. As long as the three of them were together, she wasn’t afraid of restarting their life anywhere.

  They didn’t want to get stuck in New York City traffic, so Nan turned onto I-287 as soon as they cleared the Connecticut border. After he drove a dozen miles or so west, the Hudson River emerged, immense, serene, and as breathtaking as the ocean. A lighthouse stood on the eastern bank like a behemoth penguin gazing at the distance. Many white houses on the western shore were drenched in the sunlight and nestled in the woods on the hills along the water, against which herons and gulls were sailing and bobbing. Far away, a yacht was churning a whitish trail. Swarms of sailboats were moored in the southwest, their sails fluttering like wings. Other than those small vessels, there was no trace of disturbance on this wide and tremendous river. Near the lower end of the Tappan Zee Bridge, a red stubby boat was anchored and planted with fishing rods; two men were sitting on it, smoking and drinking beer. Nan veered into the outside lane and slowed down some so as to take in more of the view. If only he could live in a place like this, so clean and tranquil. The river, though mighty and vast, wouldn’t be roughened by storms and hurricanes the way the sea was. The hills on the shore were as bright as if every treetop, though viewed from the distance, were distinguishable. What a sublime place! Who were the lucky people living in these hills? How fortunate they were to be able to enjoy the peace and quiet here. If Nan came back to this life again and could choose where to live, this would definitely be one of his choices.

  “This sight beats the Yangtze,” said Pingping.

  “Also the Yellow River,” echoed Nan.

  They both laughed, then Nan tooted the horn. “Don’t do that,” Pingping said. “You might confuse other cars.”

  Soon they entered New Jersey. It was getting hot, the wild grass on the roadside flickering in the withering breeze. Then hills appeared, most of them wooded heavily and some devoid of human traces. Pingping felt drowsy but forced herself to chat with Nan so he could remain alert. He told her to take a nap and not to worry about him, because enjoying the scenery would keep him awake.

  After they turned onto I-78, the land was still rugged, and some places were crowded with houses and buildings. The Wus took a lunch break at the first rest area after the toll bridge over the Delaware River so as to avoid the gathering heat. Around two-thirty, they set off again. Taotao kept asking what crops were growing in the vast Pennsylvanian fields. His father told him they were corn and soybeans. Nan was struck by the undulating landscape, so sparsely populated that most farmhouses looked deserted. Few human beings were visible on the farms, while dappled cows with bulging udders grazed lazily in the meadows. There were also horses and colts walking or lying in the distance. The land was rich and well kept, though some pastures were enclosed by wire fences. The sight reminded Nan of his first impression when he had come to the United States six years ago—he had written to his friends in China that nature was extraordinarily generous to America; it was a place that made their native land seem overused and exhausted.

  From I-78 they cruised onto I-81. Pingping and Nan began talking about what crops they’d like to grow if they had a farm of hundreds of acres. Nan thought he’d like to have an orchard of apple and pear trees, whereas Pingping thought she’d prefer a vegetable farm, which could be more profitable. “That would be too much work,” said Nan.

  “We’re not old. We could manage it,” she replied. “A lot of work is done by machines here.”

  They both agreed that if they lived on a farm, they’d raise a big family and build a large house that had at least six bedrooms.

  From the backseat came a little voice. “I don’t want any siblings,” Taotao whined in English, his hands busy working on the Rubik’s Cube. His parents laughed.

  “Don’t worry,” Nan told him. “We’re just shooting zer breeze.”

  “Shoot what?” asked Pingping.

  “Shoot zer breeze. Zat means just to chat away.”

  At twilight, they crossed the tip of Maryland and a little strip of West Virginia in less than forty minutes. As soon as they had passed the border between the Virginias, they stopped for the night at an Econo Lodge at Winchester. Once inside the room, Pingping started cooking noodles on her single burner while Nan, exhausted, dropped off to snooze in the bed near the window, breathing stertorously. The instant Taotao clicked on the TV, his mother told him to turn the volume down. He was watching The Simpsons. Whenever he cracked up in response, Pingping would say, “Don’t disturb Daddy.”

  When dinner was ready, Pingping woke Nan up, saying he mustn’t sleep like this for long and ought to take a shower after the meal. Groggily, he sat up and began eating the noodle soup and canned ham.

  That night Nan snored thunderously, which frightened Pingping. She worried he might hurt his larynx and made him turn on his right side so as to reduce his snoring. She and Taotao slept in the other bed. Despite the noise Nan made, despite the air conditioner’s whirring, mother and son did get a good night’s sleep. The motel offered continental breakfast, and the Wus ate bagels with cream cheese and a plate of cantaloupe. Nan drank two cups of coffee. Then they started out to cross Virginia.

  Nan loved seeing the farms and the mountains along the way. Even the animals seemed comfortable and docile in the grasslands. He asked Pingping time and again: How about settling down in Virginia? She said that would be great. What impressed him most was the openness of the land, whose immensity and abundance seemed to dwarf humans. Farmhouses with red or black roofs, barns, trucks, all looked like toys. There were few people in sight except that once in a while a stalled vehicle sat on the roadside, its driver and passengers sitting inside or nearby. Somehow Nan couldn’t help but think that if he died, he’d like to be buried in such a place, so open, so unpolluted by human beings. This was indeed a pristine piece of land.

  When Nan felt tired, he let Pingping take over the wheel so that he could nap. The most pleasant part of the trip was central Virginia. Toward noon a fine shower washed the temperature down, and
the air became cleaner, shining softly. Everything seemed to have turned clear in the sunlight. The green hills rising ahead and moving on both sides looked impenetrable with foliage, though in the distance the massive mountains, still under the rain clouds, were indigo. Traffic was sparse on the highway, with only a few semis in view. What’s more, all the automobiles seemed subdued—no horn blared and every car was gliding smoothly along the glistening asphalt like a boat.

  The landscape changed when they got onto I-77, crossing the spine of the Appalachian Mountains down to North Carolina. As Nan drove along, heading south for Charlotte, the soil became a lighter color, more reddish. More and more cars appeared on the two-lane road. After Charlotte and along I-85, they began to see peanut and tobacco fields. Holsteins, with drooping dewlaps and bald patches, were grazing in pastures, their tails languidly thrashing their hindquarters. Then orchards emerged, peaches studded the luxuriant crowns of the bulky trees, with branches curving down under the weight of the fruit. Once in a while they came across a bunch of mobile homes sitting on the edge of an orchard. Those trailers looked vacant; apparently their occupants had gone deep into the groves to pick peaches. Whenever Nan and Pingping saw a cottage or a small house, they’d say they would have been content with a home just like that. They wouldn’t mind living in one of those trailer homes. They asked Taotao what he was thinking, but the boy didn’t respond; perhaps he preferred something better.