by Ha Jin
“This might be personal and embarrassing, but I need to ask. Why was my dad so fond of you? Was it because of your common racial, cultural background? Or simply because you were good in bed? Or something else? To be honest, I don’t think you were superior to my mother in every way.”
Suzie smirked complacently. “Well, domesticity was never my thing, and I wasn’t good at keeping a man happy at all. In the beginning it was mostly mutual attraction, but bit by bit Gary and I began to get along. When we were together we could talk endlessly, about everything, so after many years an affair grew into a friendship in spite of all the quarrels we had. Besides, compared to Nellie, I was more useful to him.”
“In what way?” I asked, despite knowing of her secret trip to Hong Kong and her failed attempt to look for Yufeng.
Suzie said, “My uncle used to be a senior officer in Taiwan’s intelligence service. That meant Gary could work for the Nationalists at any time. I advised him to do that, because if he was caught by the U.S. government, he could identify himself as a spy working for Taipei. That would make his crime a lot less serious because Taiwan was not an enemy country to the United States. In other words, I could be Gary’s safety net.”
“Did he ever work for the Nationalists?”
“No, never. He wasn’t a triple agent. He would not betray the mainland because he didn’t want to endanger his family there, also because he wouldn’t get me embroiled in the espionage business. For that I was grateful. He never took advantage of me and just remained a good friend. A real gentleman.”
“Did you tell your uncle about Gary’s true identity?”
“Of course not. If the Nationalists had known of that, they could have tipped off the CIA. So Gary and I were faithful to each other to the very end. Wasn’t that remarkable?”
I nodded while she broke down sobbing. I glanced at Ben, who was teary too. “Aunt Suzie,” I murmured, “thank you for loving and helping my father. You allowed us to understand him better—he was at least loyal and decent in his own way.”
“I still miss him,” she mumbled, wiping her wrinkled face with a red napkin, her cheeks streaked with makeup.
After lunch we sent Suzie back to her apartment building, a kind of senior home. Then we hit Expressway 10, headed east. Ben was pensive and reticent while I was driving. When we’d begun cruising along with little traffic on the road, I asked him, “Do you think Minister Hao Ding had a point? I mean, as he said, your grandfather was a blackmailer?”
“No. That was just an excuse.”
“How come? Seventy thousand dollars was a ton of money by Chinese standards then.”
“It was a mere pittance in my grandfather’s case. Remember what Mao said about him? ‘This man is worth four armored divisions.’ An armored division had more than two hundred tanks. A single tank was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
“But that was when Gary was still useful to them.”
“True, they squeezed everything they could out of him. His case was a textbook example of stupidity and misjudgment. In a way, you can say it was his love for your mother that did him in.”
“What makes you say that?”
“He got the money for her fucking bakery! That was like blowing his identity on purpose—no professional spy would make such a dangerous move. How could he have got that lax?”
“I’m not sure if he loved Nellie, but he must have meant to do right by her. After twenty-five years’ living together, he must have developed some feelings for her. Now that he was going to leave America for good, he wanted to make sure she’d be able to survive without him around. We can call that love or honor or a sense of responsibility, whichever name it doesn’t matter. What’s essential is that he finally did something he felt right on his own, and was willing to pay the price.”
Ben looked at me in astonishment. I added, “Don’t you think my mother was also a victim?”
“I can see that. Let me say this then: it was his decency that ruined him.”
“Also because he was ignorant of the nefarious nature of the power that used and manipulated him.”
“You mean China?”
“Yes, what it did to your grandfather is evil. On the other hand, he allowed the country to take the moral high ground and to dictate how he lived his life. That’s also a source of his tragedy.”
“It wasn’t that simple. How could he have separated himself from China, where he still had a good part of his family?”
“That’s another source of his tragedy—he couldn’t exist alone.”
A lull followed. I kept driving in silence. Ben seemed to be dozing off in the reclined passenger seat, but I suspected he was just deep in thought trying to figure a way out of his plight, so I remained wordless.
It started sprinkling, the beads of rain rattling on the windshield, and I flipped on the wipers, which began swishing monotonously. I’d been driving sixty miles an hour, following a tanker truck at a distance of about five hundred feet.
As we were approaching Magog, Ben sat up, pulled a notepad out of his hip pocket, and scribbled on it. He ripped off the page and handed it to me. “Keep this, Aunt Lilian,” he said.
“What is it?”
“An email address and a password. From now on we should communicate only through this account. I’ve already set it up. You just leave a message for me in the draft folder whenever you want to reach me. After I read it, I will delete every word. You must do the same. We must leave nothing in the account after we have read a message.”
“Why should we do that?”
“This is a way to communicate without leaving any trace online. Email exchanges might not be safe. We just share the same account, known only to the two of us. Every time after you’ve read my message, delete the whole thing.”
“Is this how you send intelligence to China?”
He chuckled. “It’s one of the methods. There’re more complex ways too, like classified codes and encrypted fax. For you and me this should be private enough.”
Evidently he’d begun making arrangements. Whatever action he might take, it would be better than sitting tight with apprehension, so I didn’t press him for details.
Back in College Park, I checked our shared email account a few times a day but found no words. I wrote Ben a note, saying I hoped everything was well. The message disappeared overnight, which meant he had read it. That put my mind somewhat at ease.
Henry and I dined out on Wednesday evening, September 21, to celebrate his birthday—he was sixty-two now. Again he talked about Ben, hoping he could get out of his trouble with the FBI soon and quit his shady computer business so he might work for us someday, and so we could live together like a family. Henry knew I would love that. Indeed, if that happened, I’d feel blessed. I always admired immigrant families that had parents and children, even grandchildren, living under the same roof, although I could see that it might be hard for the younger generation, who needed more space for themselves. But I said nothing to Henry about Ben’s current situation, which must have been volatile. Longing for an early retirement, my husband wanted to collect his Social Security without delay. He was not afraid of losing some of his benefits since my employment at the university could cover him. I made no comment but wondered whether it would be good for him to be entirely unoccupied. His job wasn’t that demanding and gave him a lot of free time. Still, he suggested we contract a handyman to lighten his maintenance work. I wouldn’t mind if that was what he wanted, yet I told him that he should keep himself busy so that he could live longer. He laughed and said, “I prefer comfort to longevity—quality but not quantity of life.”
When we came back that night, I booted up my computer and accessed the secret email account again. A message appeared:
Dear Aunt Lilian:
By the time you read this, Sonya and I are no longer in the Boston area. We are very fond of Massachusetts but unable to live there anymore. I just sold my business at a huge discount so that I could get some ready c
ash. I am not sure where Sonya and I will end up, but we have each other and will share all our good and bad fortunes. As long as she is with me, I can live anywhere and won’t be lonesome. I will cherish her as my sole companion and will love her as my wife and the mother of my children.
There will be consequences for my family back in China on my account, and I won’t be able to do anything for them for a long time, but I believe that with your help they will survive. Among my family members, I am most worried about Juli, who is, as I am, untamed at heart. I fear she might flee home again given that the provincial life can be prosaic and stifling. But as long as she is with our parents, she should be all right. So please always urge her to stay home. Also, don’t let them know of my present situation yet. It’s better to keep them in the dark for now.
I feel liberated as we are traveling along. For the first time in my life I am acting as an independent man, also as a man without a country. I have decided to grow a beard. Yes, let it get as thick as a forest so I will look older and a little fierce. Whether Sonya and I will be able to live decently, I am not sure, but we are willing to accept all the joys and sorrows that come our way. This is the true condition of freedom, isn’t it?
Love from both of us,
Ben
PS: Originally I planned to come to DC next spring to pay my respects to your parents, but I will not be able to do that anymore. When you go visit them in the cemetery next time, please take along two bouquets, of white chrysanthemums or roses, on behalf of me and Sonya.
I felt that Ben’s escape was a natural step, but he might have been rash to dispose of his business like that. On the other hand, that must have been his only way to get funds for the road.
I wondered about Ben and Sonya. Did they cross the border into Canada? That was unlikely. Ben had once said there was too much Chinese influence in Canada when I half-joked that he should consider immigrating to Quebec like a U.S. draft dodger. He and Sonya might still be in the States. Their immediate task was to elude the FBI and the Chinese investigators, so for now they might have to continue to travel. Wherever they went, I was certain they could survive.
I read Ben’s message again, then deleted it. I couldn’t help smiling about his decision to grow a beard, which sounded a shade eccentric. I supposed it could be his way to assert his manhood, at least in appearance. Ben didn’t know my parents had been buried in different cemeteries, but I’d bring them flowers as he requested. I left him a message saying that he and Sonya must take care of each other and must avoid making friends for the time being.
My words got erased the next morning. That pleased me.
Through Juli I informed my sister and her husband that Ben was working on a special project that imposed strict isolation on him, but that he was well and they shouldn’t worry. Juli wrote back and thanked me on behalf of her parents. She reminded me of the next summer’s family reunion, to which I again promised to come.
Weeks have passed, and I still haven’t heard another word from Ben. I try to stay undisturbed. The silence might mean everything is okay.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to LuAnn Walther, Catherine Tung, and Lane Zachary. Their comments and suggestions made this novel richer and stronger.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ha Jin left his native China in 1985 to attend Brandeis University. He is the author of six novels, four story collections, three volumes of poetry, and a book of essays. He has received the National Book Award, two PEN/Faulkner Awards, the PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award, the Asian American Literary Award, and the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. In 2014 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Ha Jin lives in the Boston area and is a professor of English at Boston University.
