by Ha Jin
I was being paid to do research for the professor directing my master’s thesis, but I needed another job for the summer to make enough for my tuition and living expenses in the fall. Without my parents’ support, I had managed to complete one year’s graduate study. There was still another year to go. I had started working on my thesis, about Jacob Riis and his effort to eradicate urban slums. My mother had called a week before and said it was not too late for me to go to a professional school, for which my parents would happily pay. I had again rejected the offer, saying I intended to apply to a PhD program in American history. My father, a successful plastic surgeon in Seattle, had always opposed my plan. He urged me to go into medicine or law or even politics—clerking for a congressman—because to him history wasn’t a real profession. “Anyone can be a historian if he has read enough books,” he’d say. “What do you want to be, a professor? Anyone can make more than a professor.” I would remain silent while he spoke, understanding that as long as I was in the humanities I would be on my own. In my heart I despised my father as a typical philistine. He was ashamed of me, and his friends talked about me as a loser. I knew he might cut me out of his will. That didn’t bother me; I wouldn’t mind becoming a poor scholar.
I set out at around six thirty p.m. Eileen Min lived at 48 Folk Avenue, not far from my place, about fifteen minutes’ walk. There were more pedestrians in downtown Flushing since the summer started, many of them foreign tourists or visitors from the suburban towns who came to shop or to dine in the small restaurants offering the foods of their left-behind homes. The store signs, most bearing Chinese characters, reminded me of a bustling shopping district in Shenyang. So many immigrants live and work here that you needn’t speak English to get around. I stopped at the newsstand manned by a Pakistani, picked up the day’s World Journal, and then turned onto Forty-first Avenue. A scrawny teenage girl strode toward me, dragged by a Doberman. The dog stopped at a maple sapling and urinated fitfully on the box encasing the base of the tree. The girl stood by, waiting for her dog to finish. Along the sidewalk every young tree was protected by the same tall red box.
Folk Avenue was easy to find, just a few blocks from College Point Boulevard. Number 48 was a two-story brick bungalow with a glassed-in porch. Beside a two-car garage grew a large oak tree, and behind a small tool shed in the backyard stretched a high fence of wooden boards. Despite the close proximity of the downtown and the houses crowded together in the neighborhood, this property stood out idyllically. I rang the doorbell, and a slender woman of medium height in a shirtwaist dress answered. I was amazed when she introduced herself as Eileen Min and said we had spoken that morning. To my mind, it was unlikely that such a young-looking woman could have a daughter attending high school.
She led me into her house. I was impressed by the furniture in the spacious living room, all redwood, elegant and delicate in design, like antiques. A vase of stargazer lilies sat on a credenza on the far side. On the wall above it hung a photo of a lean-faced man, middle-aged with mild eyes and a jutting forehead, his hairline receded to his crown. I sat on a leather sofa, and Eileen Min told me, “That’s my late husband. He died three months ago.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Sami, pour some tea for Mr. Hong.” She said this to a teenage girl who was in a corner using a computer.
“No need to trouble yourself,” I said to Sami, who rose without looking our way.
The girl headed for the kitchen. She was wearing orange slippers, and her calf-length skirt showed her thin ankles. Like her mother, she was slim, but one or two inches shorter, and she too had a fine figure. She quickly returned with a cup of tea and put it beside me. “Thanks a lot,” I said.
She didn’t say a word but looked me in the face, her eyebrows tilting a little toward her temples as if she were being naughty. Then she turned and entered a bedroom off the hall, her slippers squeaking on the glossy wood floor. She left her door ajar, apparently to listen in on our conversation. I produced my student ID card and my GRE scores. “These are my credentials,” I told Eileen.
She examined the card. “So you’re a graduate student at Queens College. What’s this?”
“The results of the test for graduate studies; every applicant must take it. See, I got 720 in English and 780 in math.”
“What’s the perfect score?”
“Eight hundred in each subject.”
“That’s impressive. Forgive me for asking, but if you’re so strong in math, why didn’t you study science?”
“Actually I was torn between history and biology during my freshman year at NYU.” I told her the truth. “Then I decided on history because I wouldn’t want to depend on a lab for my work. If you do history, all you need is time and a good library.”
“Also brains. Is history what you’re studying now?”
“Yes, American urban history.” I lifted the tea and took a sip. Then I caught Sami observing us from her room, through the gap at the door. She saw me noticing her and withdrew immediately.
Eileen beamed, her face shiny with a pinkish sheen and her almond-shaped eyes glowing. She said, “I promised Sami’s father that I’d help her get into a good college. Tell me, can you help my daughter score high on the SAT?”
“Sure. I tutored my cousin two years ago, and he’s a freshman at Caltech now.”
“That’s marvelous.”
She decided to hire me. I would start the next day. Since I was still taking summer courses, I could come only in the evenings. Before I left, Eileen called Sami out to greet me as her teacher. The girl came over and said with a nod of her head, “Thank you for helping me, Mr. Hong.”
“Just call me Dave,” I told her.
“Okay, see you tomorrow, Dave,” she said pleasantly, and grinned. Her button nose crinkled.
Coming out of the Mins’ house, I felt relieved. I would teach Sami five times a week, including Saturday evenings. I no longer needed to worry about my summer income.
Sami was seventeen, and not as slow as I had expected. She was bright, but her grasp of math was shaky owing to some missed classes during her sophomore year, which had left holes in her knowledge. Those holes had expanded. She had been depressed in recent months about her father’s death and unable to pay attention in class. To help her better understand basic algebra and trigonometry, we reviewed the first two years of high school math. As for English, I focused on enlarging her vocabulary and teaching her how to write clearly and expressively. This was easy, since I had taught grammar and composition before. In addition, I assigned her a list of books to read, mainly novels and plays.
Sometimes Sami was quite mischievous. She’d sniff at my arm or hair, then joke, “You smell so strange, like an animal, but that’s what I like about you.” At first her words embarrassed me, but gradually I got used to her playfulness. She’d wink at me, her eyes rolling and her lashes fluttering, and she talked a lot about recent movies and TV shows. I treated her strictly as a pupil; to me she was a child.
When we worked, the door of her room was always open, and I occasionally noticed Eileen eavesdropping on us. I tried to act professionally. Whenever Sami was occupied with an assignment, I would go into the living room to chat a little with her mother, who was always pleased when I did. Eileen would treat me to tea, cookies, nuts, candied fruits. Sometimes I felt she was waiting for me.
I enjoyed spending time with the Mins in their warm and comforting home. My own small studio apartment was lonely. I’d sit by myself, reading or working on my thesis, wondering what sort of life this was. If I fell ill tomorrow, what would happen to me? If I died, where would I be buried? Unless my parents came to claim my body, I might be cremated and my ashes discarded God-knows-where. I had once known a young Filipino who was killed in a traffic accident. He had signed the back of his driver’s license, agreeing to be an organ donor, so his body was shipped to a hospital to have the organs and tissues harvested and then it was burned and his ashes mailed to his parents in Mindanao. At
least that’s what I heard. I still don’t know with certainty what happened.
It was difficult to date someone in Flushing, especially if you wanted a long-term, serious relationship, because most people would work here in the daytime and then return home. Those living here didn’t plan to stay for long. It was as if their current residences were merely a transitory step to someplace else. I’d had two girlfriends before, but each had left me. The memories of those breakups stung me whenever I attempted to get close to another woman.
One evening I arrived at the Mins’ a little early. They were just sitting down to dinner. Eileen asked me if I’d eaten. I said, “I’m fine.”
My tone must have been hesitant, for she sensed my stomach was empty and beckoned to me: “Come and eat with us.”
“No, I’m not hungry.”
“Listen to my mom, Dave,” Sami urged. “She’s your boss.”
Eileen went on, “Please. If you don’t mind.”
I stopped resisting, sat down beside Sami, and picked up the chopsticks Eileen had placed before me. Dinner was simple: chicken curry, tomato salad sprinkled with sugar, baked anchovies, and plain rice. I liked the food, though. It was the first time I’d eaten baked anchovies, which were crispy and quite salty. Eileen explained, “It’s healthier to eat small fish nowadays. Big fish have too much mercury in them.”
“This is really tasty,” I said.
“Wait until you have it every day,” Sami piped up. “It’ll make you sick just to look at it.”
As we ate, Eileen kept spooning chicken cubes into my bowl, which seemed to annoy Sami. “Mom,” she said, “Dave’s not a baby.”
“Sure. I’m just happy to have someone eating with us finally.” Eileen turned to me and added, “Actually, you’re the first person to sit with us at this table since March.”
We were quiet for a moment. Then she said, “Tell me, Dave, which one of you cooks, you or your girlfriend?”
“At the moment I don’t have a girlfriend, Aunt.” I called her that out of politeness, though she was just half a generation older. I felt my face burning and saw Sami’s eyes suddenly gleaming. Then she gave me a smile that displayed her tiny canines.
“Don’t call me ‘Aunt,’” her mother said. “Just ‘Eileen’ is fine.”
“All right.”
“Then why don’t you eat with us when you come to teach Sami in the evenings? That’ll save you some time.”
I didn’t know how to respond. Sami stepped in and said, “My mom’s a wonderful cook. Accept the offer, Dave.”
“Thank you,” I said to Eileen. “In that case, you can pay me less for teaching Sami.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s very kind of you to agree to keep us company. I appreciate that. But don’t grumble if I cook something you don’t like.”
Before I could answer, Sami put in, “My mom’s rich, you know.”
“Sami, don’t start that again,” pleaded Eileen.
“Okay, okay.” The girl made a face and speared a wedge of tomato with her fork. She wouldn’t use chopsticks.
The next evening Eileen made taro soup with shredded pork and coriander. It was delicious; Sami said it was her mother’s specialty. She ate two bowls of the soup and asked Eileen whether we could have it more often. “You used to make this every week.”
Eileen soon learned I liked seafood, and she would pick up shrimp or scallops or squid. On occasion she bought fish—yellow croaker, flounder, red snapper, perch. During the day I found myself looking forward to going to the Mins’, even when I was busy with other things. To distract myself from these thoughts and keep myself from gaining much weight, I often played tennis with my friend Avtar Babu, a fellow graduate student, in art history.
Sometimes I arrived early at the Mins’ to give Eileen a hand in the kitchen—peeling a bulb of garlic, opening a can or bottle, crushing peppercorns in a stone mortar, replacing a trash bag. I just enjoyed hanging around. If something went wrong in the house, Eileen would tell me, and most times I could fix it. She’d be so grateful that she would insist on paying me for the work in addition to the parts, but I refused the money. The Mins treated me almost like a family member, and I was equally attached to them.
Sami made good progress in math, but her English improved slowly. She usually followed my instructions, and even tried memorizing all the words listed at the back of her English textbook, yet there were many gaps in her mastery of the subjects. Before her father died, he’d often said he hoped she could enter an Ivy League college. I never expressed my misgivings about that and always encouraged her.
As I was explaining a trigonometric function to Sami one evening, Eileen came in panting and said, “My car won’t start.”
“What’s wrong with it?” I asked.
“I’ve no clue. I drove it this morning and it ran fine.”
I told Sami to do a few problems in the textbook and went out with Eileen. Her blue Volvo was parked in the driveway, under the oak tree. A few caterpillars wiggled around on the pavement nearby, and Eileen avoided stepping on them as if in fear. I got into her car and turned the key in the ignition. The starter ground lazily, but the engine wouldn’t catch.
“The battery must be gone,” I told her. “When was the last time you had it replaced?”
“This is a new car, just three years old.”
“The battery must be lousy, then.”
“What should I do?” She kept rubbing her little hands together as if washing them. “I’m supposed to deliver the books to the reading.” She had inherited her husband’s small publishing business, and the company was holding an event that evening.
“Where’s the reading?” I asked.
“At the high school.”
“How many books do you have here?”
“Thirty-two copies, one full box.”
The school wasn’t far away, about twenty minutes’ walk, so I offered to carry the books there for her. She thought about it, saying as if to herself, “Maybe I should call a cab.” Then she changed her mind and asked, “Can you really carry the books for me, Dave?”
“Absolutely.”
“It’s so kind of you.”
I went into her house and explained the situation to Sami. When I came back, Eileen was holding the handle of a maroon suitcase with wheels. “Guess what?” she said. “I found this and put all the books into it.”
“Great idea.” I wondered whether she still needed me since she could pull the wheeled suitcase herself, but I decided to go with her. Together we started out.
We hurried along Main Street, toward Northern Boulevard. The suitcase wasn’t heavy, but I had to lift it at the curbs whenever we crossed a street. Soon I began sweating, and the back of my T-shirt became damp. I noticed people throwing glances at the two of us, probably wondering whether we might be a couple. Eileen was thirteen years older than I but looked younger than her age, her waist small, her legs shapely, her steps full of bounce. She dabbed at her face with Kleenex as we walked. I grew excited, as if this were a date, despite the bulky thing I was dragging. When we had crossed Thirty-seventh Avenue, to my surprise she said, “Let me mop your face.”
I turned to let her wipe the sweat from my forehead and cheeks. It happened so naturally that it didn’t feel like the first time. She smiled, her eyes alight with feeling. Then I remembered we were in the middle of a thoroughfare, in the presence of many passersby. “We’d better hurry,” I said.
We hastened our steps but soon stopped again. Near Little Lamb, the Mongolian firepot place, we ran into a bent man whom Eileen called Old Feng. He had just come out of the restaurant, still chewing. Although she introduced us, the man kept glaring at me, his eyes pouchy and bloodshot, his mouth sunken. As he talked with Eileen, he went on watching me as if wary of my presence. I stood nearby, waiting. After a few moments Eileen said, “I have to run, Old Feng. Let’s discuss this later, okay?”
“Sure. I’ll stop by.” The old man didn’t look happy. He shambled away, cleaning hi
s teeth with a toothpick.
We continued north. Eileen explained that Old Feng had been a professional writer back in China, an editor at the official magazine The People’s Arts, before coming to the States about ten years ago. His wife, almost twenty years his junior, worked at Gold City Supermarket so that Mr. Feng could stay home and write his books. Recently he had finished a trilogy, which Eileen would publish, though she expected to lose money on the novels. Before her husband died, he had made her promise to print the three books—because he had read parts of the manuscripts and loved the writing and because Mr. Feng had been his friend. Now Eileen had to keep her word.
Her company, Everyman Press, was tiny, with only three employees, all part-timers. It survived owing mainly to the print-on-demand equipment her late husband had installed, which allowed publication of a small run of a book at little cost. He had spent more than a quarter of a million dollars on the technology, almost half his life savings. He’d been in the pharmaceutical business originally, but—obsessed with books and with magazines and newspapers—he’d started his own press to publish obscure authors, including half a dozen poets. Eileen had worked there first as an editor. Now she was its owner and manager.
As we walked along, shop signs bearing Korean words appeared, and a small building with most of its windows boarded up. Eileen told me she had just finished editing the first novel of Mr. Feng’s trilogy, the one titled Of Pigs and People. “I don’t like it. It’s too tedious and repetitive,” she confessed. “I cannot see how to market this one.”
We reached the high school just in time. I dropped the suitcase at the entrance to the conference room and headed back to Sami. Twilight was falling; neon lights flared up one after another along the street. I indulged in thoughts of Eileen.
