A Free Life

by Ha Jin

  She slid down to the floor, pulling him down with her. Then they started peeling off each other’s clothes.

  Soon she began panting and trembling a little. A few tears welled out of her eyes. Instead of being rough with her, he licked her wet cheeks, and her tears tasted a bit tangy, reminding him of the bittermelon soup they’d eaten two days before. He adjusted her body to make her lie comfortably so that he could stay in her for a long time.

  “Don’t cry,” he murmured. “Just relax and imagine we’re on our honeymoon.”

  At those words she broke into smothered sobs, which startled him. He regretted having said that because never had they honeymooned anywhere and his words must have caused her to feel sad about their life. He said, “Forgive me for saying that.”

  “Make me happy.”

  He nuzzled her neck and nibbled her ear.

  11

  DESPITE their reconciliation, Pingping’s furious response to that letter brought the memories of Beina back to Nan. For two days he couldn’t stop thinking about his ex-girlfriend. He tried to sidetrack his mind, yet somehow it couldn’t help but stray to that woman, the fountainhead of his misery. Every remembered detail—a peculiar frown of hers or an indolent gesture or a petulant pout—seemed pregnant with meanings he hadn’t thought of before, and whenever he was unoccupied he’d attempt to decipher those hidden messages as if they had really been there all along but he had overlooked them. One incident still stung his heart whenever he thought of it. Three months after Beina declared she’d washed her hands of him, Nan had run into her one morning in a park, where she and her new boyfriend were walking, her hand on his arm. It was windy and the ground was frozen, cobblestones glazed with ice on the path leading to a white building beyond a grove of trees. Nan turned away, pretending he hadn’t seen them. But suddenly he slipped and his legs buckled; he stretched out his hand and grabbed a birch sapling to break his fall. Yet his copy of Friedrich Engels’s The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State dropped on the ground, and the author’s bushy beard on the front page kept fluttering, ruffled by the wind. From behind came that woman’s ringing laughter, silvery and icy, which pierced his heart. He picked up the book and dashed away, sending flocks of crows and pigeons into explosive flight. He ran, ran, and ran until he could hardly breathe, until his heart was about to burst.

  He was unsure whether she had laughed out loud to make him mad so as to bring him back to her or just to wound him. He’d prefer to believe it was just another wile of hers.

  A few weeks before, he had burned the notebook containing the poetry he had written for her. He declared to her face that he had gotten rid of all the silly poems. Yet there still remained one piece that he had never shown her, known only to himself. He wrapped it into the jacket of his copy of Book of Songs, an ancient poetry anthology compiled by Confucius. He brought the book to America and had kept the poem in it all these years.

  One night after his wife and son had gone to bed, he took out the poem and read it again. It went:

  The Last Lesson

  Again the ferryboat was canceled,

  you told me on the phone.

  This time the captain didn’t grab a passenger

  and get his own face smashed.

  The boat was really falling apart,

  docked for an emergency overhaul.

  On the beach my shadow has doubled in length.

  The life ring I just bought lies nearby,

  half withered in the afternoon sun.

  Alone, I’m sitting on an apple crate

  and watching youngsters diving

  in the shallows to compete for

  the championship of holding breath.

  What an idiot! Why volunteer

  to teach you how to swim

  while I myself can hardly keep my head

  above the whirlpools you randomly spin?

  He smiled after reading the poem, which he couldn’t say he still liked and which was probably sappy and unfinished. But it was something that had once been close to his heart, and he wanted to keep it. He wrapped it back into the jacket of the book and put it on the shelf beside his desk.

  Lying on his bed, again he wondered whether he had been too impatient with Beina. For example, after she hadn’t shown up at the beach, he had simply stopped offering her swimming lessons. Then came another breakup of theirs. Although tough in appearance, he couldn’t really disentangle himself from her. One day he even went to the cafeteria near her dorm, just to look at her. She caught sight of him but pretended not to have seen him and kept talking loudly with the man in front of her in the mess line. Now and again she tossed a glance at Nan. When she had bought her lunch, she turned around and headed in his direction, but her eyes looked away. As she was drawing near, he spun around and rushed out of the dining hall.

  If he had spoken to her, probably he could have resumed teaching her how to swim the next summer. That would have given him an opportunity for more physical contact with her. Sure, she wouldn’t change much, but he could take her willfulness and caprice with aplomb to show he had a large heart. Eventually he might have gained the upper hand with her. Yet he was bitter and too proud of himself. It was his silly self-pride that gradually cemented the barrier between them. If only he’d had thicker skin; if only he had played fast and loose with her; if only he could have made her suffer.

  “What sickness, sickness…” With those words on his lips, he drifted off to sleep. The fluorescent tube remained on until daybreak.

  12

  HEIDI MASEFIELD called the Gold Wok and asked Pingping whether she had heard from Livia recently. The girl had run away from home, and for days her mother had been looking for her. Shocked, Pingping wondered if Taotao was still in touch with the girl despite his agreeing to stop e-mailing her. She told Heidi that she’d talk to her son and find out whether Taotao knew Livia’s whereabouts. “I will call you tonight, Heidi,” she said.

  “Please do. I don’t know why she did this to me.”

  “I hope she is not with someone.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Did you tell police?”

  “Not yet. She disappeared three days ago. I thought she might have gone to her grandparents’ or a friend’s home.”

  “Maybe you should let police know.”

  “If I still haven’t heard from her by this evening, I’ll do that.”

  Pingping didn’t ask her why Livia had run away. Neither would she express her fear that Livia might have fallen into a molester’s hands. From the brief conversation she guessed that the girl and her mother had quarreled over a boy who could be a bad influence. Livia was just thirteen and seemed already entangled with a number of boys. On the phone Heidi had revealed that recently Livia had often “played hooky.” Pingping had almost gasped at that, not knowing the exact meaning of the idiom, and assumed it had something to do with “hookers.” She went into the kitchen to tell Nan about the phone call. The radio was on in there, sitting on a shelf, and Nan was listening to Car Talk. He enjoyed the show, especially the hacking laugh of Tom, the older of the Magliozzi brothers. Tom’s wild laughter was contagious and often made Nan chuckle or giggle when he was cooking. It was boring in the kitchen, so every Saturday he’d listen to Car Talk from beginning to end. He liked the seemingly casual way Tom and Ray treated their callers—teasing them a little so that everyone could have a good laugh. He often wished he could crack up like Tom, who would ha-ha-ha with total abandon and from the depths of his gut. Pingping, who liked Tom’s laughter too but felt he cackled way too much, came in and turned down the radio, saying, “Heidi just called. Livia ran away from home.”

  Nan’s face stiffened. “I hope it hasn’t implicated our son.”

  “She’s a bad girl and ‘played hooky.’”

  “I ‘played hooky’ when I was in elementary school.”

  “What did you say?” She widened her eyes at him.

  “We just fooled around in the mountains, doing kids
’ stuff.”

  “That’s not what you would do with ‘hookers.’”

  Nan broke into laughter.

  Discomfited, she went on, “This is not funny!”

  “‘Play hooky’ means to skip school. It doesn’t pertain to prostitution.”

  “Oh, I see.” She laughed, then went on, “Still, Livia is a bad girl.” She removed the lid from a pot, as the broth in it was about to bubble over.

  That afternoon they talked to their son about Livia. The boy had no idea about her disappearance but knew she didn’t get along with Heidi. Recently Livia had often complained to him about her mother, who had a boyfriend named Joe. She disliked that man and thought he was just “a smarty-pants.” Both she and Nathan tried to dissuade their mother from seeing Joe, but Heidi was obsessed, because, unlike the other men she had dated, Joe would always pick up the tab when they went out. Together they had traveled to Paris and London. Joe was a banker, but in her e-mail to Taotao, Livia had called him “a little jerk.” She also wrote: “I never thought my mom was such a cock-tease.”

  “What that mean?” Pingping asked her son.

  Nan explained, “A woman who is too fond of men.”

  “Something like that,” agreed the boy. “That’s a gentle expression.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Pingping said. “Livia is never gentle to her mother.”

  “I mean Dad’s explanation.”

  “Anyway, she can’t talk about her mother like that. She’s bad girl and crazy.”

  That night Pingping phoned Heidi and told her that Livia was angry about her taking a boyfriend. Heidi said someone had seen Livia at the train station three days before. She was worried sick and had reported her disappearance to the police. She didn’t mind whatever Livia called her, as long as the girl could return home safe and sane.

  13

  TO THE Wus’ astonishment, Livia showed up at the Gold Wok two days later. The girl was a foot taller than three years before, almost as tall as Pingping now. She wore a jeans skirt and high heels, her lips thickly rouged, nearly purple. Despite a few flecks of acne on her cheeks, she was handsome, as well as curvaceous. Her frizzy auburn hair was pulled back into a ponytail, giving her the look of a young woman. Both Pingping and Nan couldn’t help but marvel at the girl they had never imagined Livia would grow into. Though unsettled by her sudden appearance, Pingping hugged her and said, “I told you you will grow tall.”

  Livia beamed. “You were the only person who knew me.”

  At those words Pingping’s unease melted, and she called Taotao to the front to meet his friend. The boy came over, and the two of them hugged awkwardly, smiling without a word as if shy in the grown-ups’ presence, as if he had known all along that she was coming.

  Livia had no extra clothes with her and reeked of tobacco, which she said she’d caught from a man sitting close to her at the Greyhound station. “Anyways, don’t think I smoke,” she told Pingping. Then she caught sight of the God of Wealth sitting in the alcove and asked Taotao, “Who’s this cross-eyed guy? Why offer him so many goodies?”

  “He’s the money god. We inherited him from the former owner of this place, and my parents don’t want to disturb him.”

  “Can he make your family rich?”

  “I’ve no frigging clue.”

  She patted the deity’s porcelain belly and caressed his smiling face. “He’s so pudgy, a model of obesity. Can I have an orange from this plate?” She lifted one of the fruits Pingping had placed at the deity’s feet that morning.

  “I’m not sure if you can now. They were was just offered to him.”

  Pingping said, “We have orange at home. Let’s go.” She wanted the girl to take a shower and change her clothes. Livia put the fruit back on the plate, and together she and Pingping went out, heading for Marsh Drive.

  It was early August, and despite the clear sky, the air was so muggy that Pingping and Livia both opened their mouths to breathe as they walked. The roadside near an intersection was littered with napkins, a squat whiskey bottle, a few chicken nuggets and fried shrimp; the grass had been grooved by a truck’s wheels, red mud exposed like festering wounds. Several photos were scattered around, all torn in half. “Whew, it’s so humid!” Livia said to Pingping.

  “This is Georgia, not Boston. It’s not hottest time in summer yet.”

  “Hotter than this?”

  “Of course, it can reach ninety-eight degree.”

  “God help me! How can human beings live here!”

  Pingping didn’t respond, but she was glad that her son didn’t seem involved with the girl’s running away, though she wasn’t sure whether Livia had come to stay with them or mainly to see Taotao. In some sense she was pleased that the girl had shown up here, which meant that Livia must have felt somewhat attached to them, and now her mother could stop looking for her.

  A snapping turtle appeared ahead of them, crossing the street. At the sight of the creature, Livia let out a cry and bounded over. “Wow, he’s so cute!” She patted its dark shell and scared it to a halt, its head withdrawn from view. With her toes she overturned the turtle, whose underside was brownish and rubbery, semitranslucent. Pingping bent down, held one side of its shell, and put it back on its stomach. Still it wouldn’t move, playing dead. Around them a pair of blue dragonflies hovered, their wings zinging and flickering with sunlight.

  “There’s lake nearby,” Pingping told Livia, “so you can find a lotta bird and animal around here.”

  Livia tried to lift the turtle, but Pingping stopped her, saying it might snap at her hand if she wasn’t careful. Yet the girl feared that a passing car might crush it if it stayed in the middle of the road. Pingping stretched out her foot and gently pushed the creature all the way across the street into the roadside grass. The turtle began crawling away, its beak stretched out again and its eyes clear like a bird’s.

  As soon as Pingping and Livia got into the house, the girl went to the bathroom for a shower. Pingping put a change of clothes on the lid of the toilet beside the bathtub while the girl stood in the cone of spraying water, shielded by the screen of ground glass. “You can wear my clothing, okay?” Pingping said.

  “Thanks a million,” said Livia. “Oh, it’s so nice to take a warm shower again! I must stink like a skunk.”

  “How many days you didn’t wash?”

  “Four.”

  “Take your time and wash yourself thoroughly. There are orange in refrigerator. You can eat as many you want.”

  “Sure, I’ll have one.”

  Pingping looked at Livia behind the semitransparent screen, but she could see only the contour of that pubertal body. Apparently Livia had grown into a fine, healthy girl, though she still seemed flighty and fragile. Pingping went out to call Nan to discuss what to do about Livia.

  At the Gold Wok, Taotao was sitting in a booth and eating a pork bun. His father asked him, “Is Livia your girlfriend?”

  “Nah, she’s just a friend. Why? Why are you grinning like that?” the boy growled.

  “I jahst asked. What’s the difference between a girlfriend and a friend?”

  “You date a girl, then she’s your girlfriend. I don’t date Livia, so she’s just my friend.”

  “That’s good. She’s not suitable for you.”

  “None of your business! How can you tell if she suits me or not?”

  “She’s too big, almost like a woman. Look at yourself. You have no hair on your tawp lip yet.”

  The phone rang and Nan picked it up. Pingping asked him how they should handle Livia. They were both worried that something might happen between their son and the girl, so they had to figure out a way to prevent the two youngsters from being alone together. Having talked briefly, they decided to let both Taotao and Livia work in the restaurant and would pay them each five dollars an hour. Although business was slow at present, this was the only way to keep the girl in line.

  The moment Pingping hung up, Nan called Heidi. Heidi dissolved into sobs at t
he news. She implored Nan and Pingping not to disturb her daughter, saying she would come and pick her up without delay. “Don’t wahrry yourself sick, Heidi,” said Nan. “We’ll take good care of her. In fact, we’re going to hire her to work for us.”

  “Do you think she’ll do that?” came Heidi’s concerned voice, broken up by a burst of static.

  “Here is not like in Boston, where you have a lawt of places to visit. Livia cannot go anywhere. Taotao will work wiz her too. We hire them as a team so zat we can keep watch on them.”

  “That’s a great idea, Nan. I can’t thank you and Pingping enough.”

  Nan wondered if he should invite Heidi to stay with them, but unsure if their home was too shabby for her, he said nothing, knowing she’d surely make arrangements for her lodging anyway. In the back of his mind lingered a touch of discomfort from having the two juvenile workers at the Gold Wok, because their wages might consume a good part of the profit the business could fetch in a slow season like now. Besides, he’d have to pay Niyan as well and might even lose money this week. He hoped Heidi would arrive within two or three days.

  14

  LIVIA and Taotao didn’t mind being kept at the Gold Wok. Never paid five dollars an hour before, they followed Pingping’s instructions with alacrity and worked zestfully, busing tables, taking plates and bowls out of the washer, peeling fruits, shelling nuts, picking vegetables. Livia did ask Nan what places in Atlanta were worth seeing; he told her that there was the Martin Luther King Center and also the World of Coca-Cola, where you could have a “Soda Safari” and partake of all kinds of soft drinks for free. The girl wasn’t interested in either place, and said, “Coke just makes you fat. I quit drinking it long ago.” To Nan’s disquiet, Taotao mentioned Stone Mountain Park, saying a boat ride on the lake there could be fun, but Livia thought it was too hot to stay in the open air. Nan felt relieved that she didn’t want to go sightseeing.

  Compared with Livia, Taotao seemed much younger, like a little brother, so his parents weren’t really worried about his being with the girl. Yet Nan noticed that with Livia around, Taotao had become more animated and talkative. The boy even tried to ingratiate himself with Livia, who he assumed had come all the way to see him. Nan was certain that if Taotao were a few years older and able to drive, he would have taken Livia to the movies, or Stone Mountain Park, or Lake Lanier, and wouldn’t have been willing to work at the restaurant. Maybe it would do him good to have a girlfriend. At least that might teach him how to get along with girls and eventually make him relax when dating a woman. Nan always regretted that he had taken girls too seriously when he was young.