A Free Life

by Ha Jin

  5

  TOWARD EVENING they arrived in Gwinnett County, Georgia. Peachtree Terrace was easy to find, just off Stone Mountain Highway. Nan parked before a brick building and went away to look for the woman who had the key to the apartment. As Pingping and Taotao waited outside their car, a few black and Mexican boys, who had been roller-skating in the parking lot, came over to look at the new arrivals. They didn’t speak to Pingping and Taotao and just stared at them curiously, some chewing bubblegum. They nudged and jostled one another. Pingping couldn’t fully understand what they were saying.

  “Dey ain’t Japs,” said a boy with a chipped tooth.

  “How d’you know?” asked another.

  “Dis ain’t fancy car.”

  “Is Ame’can car. Yuh know what I’m sayin’?” a heavyset boy in short pants said and kicked the rear wheel of the car, its Ford logo missing.

  “Yeah. Them Japs don’ wanna live here.”

  “Must be Chinese den.”

  “Naaah!”

  Taotao clung to his mother, who was also a little unnerved. It was getting dark, and the damp air felt solid and oppressive. Large moths zigzagged around the orange lights in the parking lot. Beyond the lampposts and the treetops, the sky was spangled with clumps of stars, partly obscured by the clouds and smog. From the highway in the west came the whirring of the traffic.

  Nan returned with the key twenty minutes later, massaging his sore neck with his hand. The apartment was in the basement of the building, whose hallways stank of so much synthetic lilac that Pingping held her breath as she walked through them. If only Nan had asked which floor the apartment was on before paying the deposit. No wonder the rent was so low. He couldn’t help but blame himself for not having looked for a place two weeks earlier when he had been here. Pingping told him not to worry. They had arrived safe and sound, which was already something they should celebrate. As they went through the dingy rooms in the apartment, a fusty odor tickled their noses. The carpet in one bedroom and the living room was partly soaked with water. Dead cockroaches lay about, their claws stretched toward the ceiling. Nan picked up the telephone left by the former tenant—amazingly, it still had the dial tone. There was no time to think, and they had to unload the car without delay. Together Pingping and Nan carried in the bags and parcels and put them into the innermost bedroom, where the floor was dry, though also grubby.

  Taotao was sitting on the only chair in the apartment, crying noiselessly. Pingping asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “I want a real home!” he wailed, chewing his lips.

  “This is good home. Look how big it is.” Indeed, the three bedrooms were spacious.

  “No, this isn’t a home I want. It’s wet and dirty like hell.”

  “Don’t worry your head about that. We can make it clean and comfy. That’s why we have hands, right? You will see how nice it look in coupla days.”

  “Where can we sleep tonight?”

  That was indeed a problem, to which she hadn’t figured out a solution yet. They didn’t have a mattress, and the floor in every room was filthy. The walls were so inadequately insulated that they could hear people yammering next door. Worse, since they’d come in, the ceiling hadn’t stopped echoing the clatter of someone’s heels.

  They were all hungry, so Pingping went about cooking dinner. This was easy, since they had a lot of canned food. As the tomato soup was bubbling on the stove, she brought out a head of lettuce and a bag of poppyseed rolls. Nan opened a can of fried anchovies and a jar of spiced bamboo shoots. Fifteen minutes later they sat down to dinner on a pink sheet spread on the dry floor of the innermost bedroom. While eating, they talked about where to sleep. Because the linoleum floor of the bathroom could be wiped clean, they decided to spend the night in there. Done with dinner, Pingping began wiping the bathroom with paper towels while Nan was doing the dishes.

  She spread a blanket on the floor, and together they lay down in the narrow space between the toilet and the bathtub. With Taotao in between the parents, the family tried to sleep. In spite of the two thick blankets keeping them warm, both Pingping and Taotao remained awake, but Nan slept soundly, though he didn’t snore as he would when sleeping alone. As long as he was fatigued, he could always fall asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. If he wasn’t exhausted, he would read for a while, which would induce him to sleep within an hour. Tonight, dead tired, he slept deeply regardless of the damp and the confining space in the bathroom. The toilet bowl against his right shoulder would whistle and hiss whenever somebody flushed in a nearby unit, but nothing could wake him up. Meanwhile, Pingping and Taotao tossed and turned beside him. If only they could have adjusted the central air-conditioning, which, on full force, went on without letup as if to refrigerate the rooms. What’s worse, the floor was hard and musty. Pingping was afraid a roach or a mouse might crawl on her. For the whole night she drifted off fitfully. Whenever she was awake, she’d pat Taotao to help him sleep.

  Unsure whether the apartment was safe, they went to the bank first thing the next morning to open an account and deposit the certified check they had with them. Nan and Pingping sat patiently, with Taotao on his mother’s lap, while a clerk, a young woman with a receding chin, was getting through the paperwork with them. It took a solid hour to set up the account. Back in Boston such a matter would have taken at most twenty minutes, but this was the South. The woman seemed surprised that they deposited such a large check—$50,000—and glanced at them from time to time. Pingping understood the meaning in her eyes and knew they didn’t look like people who could have so much cash. There was no way this woman could imagine the sacrifice and labor this check embodied. Pingping had never once bought new clothes for anyone in the family. She had always chosen the cheapest foods at the supermarket for themselves.

  From the bank they went to Mattress King at a shopping center. Pingping insisted on buying three full-size mattresses, plus the box springs, though Nan suggested they get at least one larger one so that they could sleep two in the same bed more comfortably. But she didn’t want a queen-or king-size mattress. In the matter of shopping she always had the final say; Nan wasn’t good at comparing prices and often felt a bit disgusted with money, for which he had worked jobs he loathed. The sales representative, a man with a beer belly hanging over his belt, said to Pingping with a smile, “Ma’am, I’m going to have these mattresses treated for you, to prevent bugs, okay?”

  “How much that cost?” she asked.

  “Ninety-nine dollars apiece, ma’am. You should have them treated, or they won’t last in this climate.”

  “Hmm…fine, fine.” She was pleased that he was so polite. Back in the Northeast salespeople had often followed her in stores, suspecting she might shoplift, and nobody had ever treated her as courteously as this gentleman.

  The final bill was $962.82, including the delivery fee. Pingping handed the salesman ten one-hundred-dollar bills. He looked amazed, hesitating as if reluctant to touch the cash; then he took the banknotes and went into the back room to make sure they were genuine. A moment later he stepped out and gave Pingping her change and a receipt. He promised to have the mattresses delivered that very day.

  After that, the Wus stopped at a large thrift store on Memorial Drive, where they chose some used furniture—a sofa, three chairs, a desk, and an hexagonal dining table. They paid $170 for those pieces and another $25 for delivery. They also bought a vacuum cleaner at a department store, getting a good price on the already-assembled floor sample.

  As soon as they came back, they opened all the windows to air out the rooms and dry out the wet carpet. Nan plugged in the vacuum and began cleaning the floors. The living room had a screen door facing the backyard, where grass grew on a narrow lawn closed in by holly shrubs, which were dense and tall enough to keep people out. But Pingping and Nan kept that door shut most of the time, afraid someone might sneak in.

  Both the mattresses and the furniture were delivered that afternoon, dragged in through the screen do
or of the living room. After Pingping checked and smelled the mattresses, she said, “I don’t think these are treated.” Nan took a look, but couldn’t determine whether the salesman had made good on his promise or not. There was no time to regret or complain, so they went on cleaning. In a wink the apartment was transformed into something resembling a home. Even Taotao couldn’t stop jumping on the mattresses in the dry bedroom. He laughed loudly and poked fun at Nan, kicking his shins and pulling his belt from behind. His mother kept saying to him, “Stop messing around! Do something to help.”

  That night Nan phoned Mr. Wang. Then he set about writing down some notes of the landscape he had seen on their trip to Georgia, hoping he could make a poem or two out of them eventually. He was still moved by the splendid views, though he didn’t know how to describe them dramatically to make them vibrant. Meanwhile, Pingping was teaching Taotao how to solve some math problems that combined multiplication and division.

  6

  IN THE SHANG LAW OFFICE at the Chinatown Plaza in Chamblee, the Wus and Mr. Wang were about to finalize the sale of the restaurant. To Nan’s surprise, the paperwork didn’t include Pingping’s name. The attorney explained that Mr. Wang had never mentioned her as a cobuyer. Although Nan had left his wife’s name with him, the old man had forgotten, probably because he had always been the sole proprietor of the Gold Wok. Now Nan wanted to have Pingping mentioned as a cobuyer in the papers. Mr. Shang, the lawyer, looked displeased and said it would take several days to reprepare the paperwork and to meet them again. Pingping intervened, saying this wasn’t a big problem and there was no need to waste so much time. She urged her husband to complete the deal as quickly as possible. The truth was that she was worried about Taotao, who was staying with Mrs. Wang at the restaurant.

  Nan signed the contract. Pingping wrote out a check for $19,800 and handed it to Mr. Wang. Then she made another check for $120 to the lawyer for his fee. “Congratulations!” said Mr. Shang, a spindly man wearing gold-rimmed glasses. “This is your first step toward becoming a millionaire,” he said to Nan, scratching his fat ear. He leaned back on his large chair and laughed gratingly, his half-gray mustache waggling. He gave Mr. Wang and Nan each a copy of the contract, then shook hands with everyone.

  Together with Mr. Wang, the Wus headed back to the Gold Wok. Pingping said she shouldn’t have gone to the attorney’s office and she hoped Taotao was all right.

  Both Nan and Pingping were overwhelmed. Now they owned a business; they had become their own boss. Even though he knew the restaurant couldn’t make them rich, Nan couldn’t help imagining the prospect of managing a business of their own. A kind of euphoria possessed him. At the same time, he tried to remain levelheaded. All his life he had never been interested in making money, but now he’d flung himself into the thick of it and was bowled over by becoming a small restaurateur. He knew that without his wife’s backing he wouldn’t have dared to attempt such a thing.

  The Wangs had worshipped the God of Wealth. In a tiny alcove in the restaurant’s dining room, this deity was represented by a porcelain statuette, like a smiling Buddha, with a bulging belly and ruddy, smooth cheeks. At his bare feet sat bowls of tangerines, apples, peaches, cookies, two miniature cups of rice wine, and four smoking joss sticks stuck in a brass censer. Nan and Pingping had mixed feelings about this superstitious practice, but should they evict the god? What if there indeed existed such a supernatural power that could decide the vicissitudes of their fortunes? In any event, they mustn’t offend this deity, so they decided to leave him undisturbed and make similar offerings to him.

  For several days, even when Nan was working at the cutting board and the sizzling wok, Pope’s lines would echo in his mind: “Happy the man whose wish and care / A few paternal acres bound, / Content to breathe his native air / In his own ground.” He was aware that he wasn’t completely at home here, but still he felt that his feet were finally standing on solid, independent ground.

  Unlike the Wangs, the Wus kept the restaurant quiet and didn’t play any music. They had grown up with loudspeakers everywhere, punctuating their daily life with roaring songs and jarring slogans, so they detested any kind of sound pollution that forced people to listen to it regardless of their states of mind. They had changed the menu; Nan added a few more dishes and decided not to use MSG in anything they offered. Also, he prepared some dishes differently. For example, formerly the cold cuts called Five-Spice Beef would be piled on a plate with sliced meat atop slivers of cucumber. This was misleading or deceptive, because there was actually more vegetable than meat. Now Nan put the beef and the cucumber in separate piles on the same plate, so the customer could see how much meat and vegetable were actually served. He wanted to be honest. He understood that, unlike in China, here honesty was one’s best credit. His wife and son liked the various kinds of chicken he made, especially Strange-Flavored Chicken, a Szechuan dish. Another improvement was that he would change the frying oil every three days. Most Chinese restaurants did this once a week, which often contributed to the unfresh taste of their foods. Most American restaurants used new oil every day. For the Chinese, such waste amounted to a sin. For decades, cooking oil had been rationed in China, each urban resident entitled to only four ounces a month; as for the people in the countryside, a whole household had been allocated only a few pounds a year. These days Nan often thought that if his parents had seen him pour a trough of used vegetable oil into plastic jugs for disposal, they’d have chastised him, not to mention the piles of chicken skin and pork fat he dumped into the trash can every day.

  Tammie, the waitress, was very fond of Taotao and talked to him whenever she wasn’t busy. Since school hadn’t started yet, the boy came to the restaurant with his parents every day. Pingping made him read books and do math problems in a booth when business was slow in the early mornings and afternoons. Nan noticed that Tammie often avoided speaking to Pingping, perhaps because his wife was much better-looking than she was. He realized that the waitress had probably lived a lonesome life. Very likely, she longed to have a family; she was at least twenty-seven or twenty-eight. With her broad cheeks and heavyset body, she couldn’t easily fetch a bridegroom here unless she had a lot of money or a green card, neither of which she possessed. Nan knew he might get into trouble if the INS caught him employing her, but it was unlikely that the agents would swoop down on such a small restaurant. Tammie often said she missed her parents, who had emigrated to Malaysia from southern China in the 1940s. Nan paid her three dollars an hour besides letting her keep all the tips, because she also helped do dishes and kitchen chores, mainly stringing beans and wrapping wontons, dumplings, and egg rolls. This way he wouldn’t have to hire another hand, and Tammie was pleased with the arrangement. What Nan liked most about her was that she spoke English all the time, which was good practice for him and Pingping. Tammie understood Mandarin but couldn’t speak it fluently.

  In the first week the restaurant made a profit of almost six hundred dollars. Nan and Pingping were amazed. This place was a little bonanza, and business would almost certainly go up in the fall. It looked like they might indeed build a small fortune if they ran the Gold Wok well.

  The Wangs lived just on the other side of Beaver Hill Plaza. Their house, a two-story brick bungalow painted gray, was visible from the restaurant. Nan and Pingping envied the proximity of their house to the Gold Wok. If only they could own a home so close by. They asked Mr. Wang teasingly whether he’d sell his house to them as well. “Give me one hundred and fifty thousand, it’s yours,” the old man told them in earnest. That was too high a price, at least $40,000 above its assessed value.

  Because the Wangs lived nearby, whenever Nan needed help, he’d ask Mrs. Wang to come in and work a few hours. The old woman was more than happy to do that, to make a couple of dollars. Sometimes Mr. Wang would drop in and palaver with Nan and Pingping. He was often bored at home despite having on his roof the satellite dish called “the Little Ear,” which enabled him to watch many TV shows in M
andarin and Cantonese. There were few Chinese living nearby—most of the Asian immigrants lived in Duluth, a town seven miles to the northeast—and the Wangs seemed to have no friends here. They had a daughter working for a Taiwanese airline in Seattle. She was there just temporarily, so the Wangs wouldn’t go and join her. The old man would sigh and say to Pingping, “America is a good place only for young people. Once you’re old, you feel awful living here, just a nuisance.”

  “Why won’t you go back to China?” Pingping asked, knowing he had been born in Fujian Province. “I heard that lots of people bought retirement homes there.”

  “I wish we could do that. It costs too much. Besides, I don’t trust the mainland government.”

  “How about Taiwan? Can’t you live there?”

  “The same thing. The legal system is a slum there, not a good place to retire to. Many people are desperate to leave the island. They don’t want to get trapped there when the mainland launches an attack.”

  “How about Singapore?”

  “That small country is just like another province of China. The Chinese government controls nearly everything there. Here’s a copy of the United Morning Post, published in Singapore. You should read it. Terrible. The paper not only uses the Communists’ language but also reprints the news distorted by the mainland media.”

  “Do you plan to stay here for many years?”

  “Hard to say.”

  To a degree, Nan and Pingping felt uneasy about the Wangs’ situation and often talked about the old couple. They couldn’t help but imagine their own old age, though it was still far away. It must be frightening to lead such an isolated life. Would they end up like the Wangs, who wandered around like scarecrows, still out of place after living here for three decades?