by Ha Jin
This wasn’t over. She wouldn’t let him get away with it.
She phoned Panbin two days later and asked to see him in the afternoon. He sounded pleased, though his voice was languid and lukewarm. He agreed to meet her at a karaoke club on Prince Street.
He showed up first and got a booth. A couple of minutes later she arrived. At the sight of the beers, mixed nuts, and fruit salad he’d ordered, she frowned but sat down without a word. He grinned, his lips bloodless and his eyes red. “So what’s up?” he asked.
“I never thought you could be so mean, disgusting.”
“What are you talking about?” He stopped munching nuts to gaze at her.
“You snitched on me to my husband.”
“No, I didn’t!” He laced his fingers together on his lap. “But it’s all right if he knows. The truth would come out sooner or later. What are you going to do?”
“I’ll have to spend all my savings for his tuition if a business school accepts him. Tell me, what did you tell him about us?”
“I don’t know him. Why don’t you believe me?”
“But you could call or e-mail him. I knew you were full of tricks, but I never thought you could be an informer.”
“Wait a second. I’ve had no contact with Zuming whatsoever. Don’t unload all your trouble onto me.” He sighed and then went on. “Matter of fact, I’m in a fine mess too.” He pulled an envelope out of his hip pocket and put it on the coffee table. He said, “A letter from my wife. She wants a divorce.”
Surprised, Lina wanted to open the letter, but refrained. Now she felt he might be innocent—he was obviously tormented by his wife’s demand. Lina said, “But who could have told Zuming about us?”
“We were not like some other ‘wartime couples’ and never bothered to conceal our relationship. Anyone who resented us being together could tattle on us. The world is never lacking in defenders of morality. My wife also knows about our affair and cited it as grounds for divorce. Apparently people back home sympathize with her, and she’ll get custody of my child for sure.”
Lina felt awful, knowing how he loved his six-year-old son. She was no longer interested in ferreting out the informer. Whoever that was, what was the use? The damage was already done, and they could do nothing about it.
“When did your wife find out?” she asked, taking a swig of the beer she’d just uncapped.
“Long ago, evidently. She said she’d fallen in love with an architect, who promised her to treat my child like his own. They’ve been carrying on for a while. That must be why she gave me all the excuses for not coming to join me here. How long has your husband known about us?”
“He wouldn’t tell me. He must’ve planned all his moves before he came.”
“See? I told you not to try hard to bring him over.”
“I meant to keep my marriage.”
“You simply couldn’t pull your neck out of the yoke of the past.”
“Can you?”
“I would try.”
She sighed. Too late for me now, she thought. She wanted to talk with Panbin some more, to get advice on how to tackle her predicament, but she restrained herself, fearing he might take advantage of the situation to wreck her marriage. In the back of her mind some misgivings about him still lingered.
For weeks Lina had been looking for a different job while her husband spent his days cramming for tests. On weekends when she was home, he would go to the library, saying he had to concentrate. He’d wrap an egg sandwich for lunch and also pocket a handful of chocolates. Back in China he’d done graduate work in economics, so he was somewhat familiar with the test subjects. His main obstacle was English, which he was determined to overcome. In a way, Lina admired his devotion to pursuing his ambition. From the very first days of going with him, she had liked his optimism and his ability to work hard. He’d once fainted in a public restroom where he studied a math formula while squatting over a toilet bowl. In his home county, he was the only one accepted by a college in Beijing that year.
As May approached, Lina landed a bookkeeping job at a law firm. She was pleased and a bit relieved. Still, she was unsettled by Zuming’s determination to go to business school despite the hardship it would cause. She was prepared to pay his tuition, even though she might have to borrow some money. But what would he do after he got his MBA? Would he still want this marriage? Anything could happen during the next two years. If he met a woman he liked and hit it off with her, he might file for divorce. He must have been waiting for such an opportunity while squeezing whatever he could out of her, his unfaithful wife. The more Lina thought about the future, the more agitated she became. Sometimes she felt sure he must despise her. Back in Beijing, she’d planned to give him a child once they settled down, but now she was no longer willing to do it.
At night they slept in the same bed, and he would make love to her once or twice a week. She didn’t enjoy it, so she wouldn’t mind if he left her alone. It was after the lovemaking that she’d feel miserable, listening to him snoring while she felt used. Sometimes he’d grind his teeth or whisper something she couldn’t make out. She wondered if he felt she was dirty and rotten, tainted by another man’s lust. Shrewd and inscrutable, Zuming must have harbored quite a few plans, which he would never confide to anyone. When they had sex, he was sometimes rough as if intending to hurt her. That would make her miss Panbin, who, when doing it, had always spent what seemed like an hour with her and kept asking how she felt this way or that. He’d made her eager to open herself and indulge her passion. Sometimes she thought of recommending to her husband a book like The Joy of Sex or She Comes First, which he could borrow from the library, but she never dared to bring that up, knowing he might think her shameless.
• • •
She suggested that they sleep separately, and Zuming didn’t object. His compliance convinced her that he would leave her someday. Even so, she was willing to pay his tuition, as a way to make up to him. She didn’t regret having brought him here, though she felt it might have been a mistake to have broken up with Panbin in such a rush.
Meanwhile, she’d called Panbin at work several times, but he never picked up the phone, nor had he returned her calls. Then, one day, he did answer. He was cold and businesslike, saying he had no time to talk for long and his boss was awaiting him upstairs.
“How are you?” she asked almost timidly.
“Still alive.” He sounded so bitter that she felt a twinge in her chest.
As she continued talking, he cut her short. “I have to go.”
“Can I call you again sometime this week?”
“Didn’t you say it was over between us? I won’t have a mistress anymore. I want a wife, a home.”
She remained silent and knew that something had happened to his marriage. Before she could ask, he hung up. She turned tearful and went to the law firm’s bathroom to compose herself.
Later, through a mutual acquaintance, she found out that Panbin had granted his wife the divorce and the custody of their child. Over the past five years he’d sent his wife more than seventy thousand dollars, which made her rich; even after paying off her mortgage, she still had a good sum in the bank. Crushed, Panbin rarely stepped out of his house these days except when he had to go to work. Lina also learned that some young women had been recommended to him, but he wouldn’t meet with any of them. He just said he wouldn’t date a Chinese woman again. He seemed to have changed and now avoided people he once knew.
Soon after taking all the tests, Zuming found a job at the martial arts institute called Wu Tang on Parsons Boulevard. He was hired as an assistant instructor, mainly tutoring a tai chi class. Lina was amazed, although it was a part-time job that required Zuming to mop the floors and clean the restrooms as well. He was a survivor, full of vitality.
In late June a university in Louisiana notified him that its one-year MBA program had admitted him. Lina knew he’d planned for a more expensive school, but he’d missed most of the application deadlines. He
jumped at the late admission; he wanted to go. She felt he’d begun leaving her. God knew what would happen in New Orleans once he was there. After he had his degree, where would he go? Back to China, where a U.S. MBA was worth a lot and he had already built up a business network? That was unlikely. He would probably start a career here, even though Wall Street might be beyond his reach.
She felt wretched but had no one to talk to. If only Panbin were still around. He used to listen so quietly and attentively that she had often wondered if he fell asleep as she was speaking. Afterward he would help her figure out what to do and whom to see. He was full of strategies and, despite his training in computer science, loved reading practical philosophy, especially Machiavelli and a modern book on the ways of the world titled The Art of the Shameless.
One Saturday afternoon in early July, Lina took a shower, let her hair fall loosely on her shoulders, slipped on a pastel blue dress that highlighted her slender waist, and went to Panbin’s house as if she just happened to be passing by. He answered the door and looked surprised, but let her in. He was a lot thinner, yet spirited as before.
“Tea or coffee?” he asked her when they’d entered the living room.
“Coffee, please.” She sat down on the love seat, which felt as familiar as if it belonged to her. The room with bay windows was the same, except for the floor, which had been recently waxed and was shiny throughout. He seemed to be doing fine.
He put a cup of coffee in front of her and sat down. “Well, why did you come to see me?” he asked in a flat voice.
“Is it illegal?” She tilted her oval face, her chin pointed at him as she smiled, her lips curling a little.
“I thought you’d already washed your hands of me.”
“I’m still worried about you.”
“No need. I’m tough and I know how to get by.”
“Zuming’s going to New Orleans in a couple of weeks.”
“So? What does that have to do with me?”
She tittered. “Didn’t you used to feel you too were my husband?”
“That was four months ago when I still had my family.”
“You feel differently about me now?”
“Things have changed and I’ve changed too. My wife found the love of her life and took my son away from me. That almost killed me, but I resurrected myself and have become a different man.”
“How different?”
“I’m going to Kiev to see my girlfriend next week.”
“Your girlfriend?”
“Yes, I got to know her online.”
Lina couldn’t help but sneer. “So you want to become an international womanizer?”
“Oh, you can call me a cosmopolitan playboy, but I don’t give a damn. From now on I won’t date a Chinese woman again. Just sick of it—every Chinese has so much baggage of the past, too heavy for me to share and carry. I want to live freely and fearlessly with nothing to do with the past.”
“Without the past, how can we make sense of now?”
“I’ve come to believe that one has to get rid of the past to survive. Dump your past and don’t even think about it, as if it never existed.”
“How can that be possible? Where did you get that stupid idea?”
“That is the way I want to live, the only way to live. If you hadn’t worried so much about all the ties to your past, you wouldn’t have left me, would you? That’s the reason I’ve been dating a Ukranian woman, who is lovely.”
“She just wants to get a green card; she can’t be serious about a yellow man. Even if she agrees to marry you, she might not give you children. Or maybe you’ll dump her once you’re done toying with her.”
“That’s not something for you to speculate about. Didn’t you do that to me? Anyway, you mustn’t think ill of my girlfriend. I believe in names. Do you know any woman named Olga who is an adventuress?”
She laughed. “You’re so silly. You haven’t even met her yet, but you call her your girlfriend. Doesn’t she have siblings?”
“She has a younger brother, she told me.”
“Doesn’t she have parents?”
“She does, and grandparents.”
“See, are those not a kind of baggage? The same sort of past as we have?”
Stumped, he looked at his wristwatch and stood. “I have to go to the UPS store.”
She got to her feet too and refrained from saying she wished to remain his friend, but told him she missed his cooking, to which he didn’t respond. She lifted the cold coffee and downed it to the last drop, then stepped out of his house without another word. She wasn’t sure how serious he was about Olga or whether he’d bought the plane tickets for Kiev. Maybe he couldn’t help but act out of character. Whatever he might do, she hoped he wouldn’t make a fool of himself.
The House Behind a Weeping Cherry
WHEN MY ROOMMATE MOVED OUT, I was worried that Mrs. Chen might increase the rent. I had been paying three hundred dollars a month for half a room. If my landlady demanded more, I would have to look for another place. I liked this colonial house. In front of it stood an immense weeping cherry tree that attracted birds and gave a bucolic impression, though it was already early summer and the blossoming season had passed. The house was close to downtown Flushing, and you could hear the buzz of traffic on Main Street. It was also near where I worked, convenient for everything. Mrs. Chen took up the first floor; my room was upstairs, where three young women also lived. My former roommate, an apprentice to a carpenter, had left because the three female tenants were prostitutes and often received clients in the house. To be honest, I didn’t feel comfortable about that either, but I had grown used to the women, and especially liked Huong, a twiggy Vietnamese in her early twenties whose parents had migrated to Cholon from China three decades ago, when Saigon fell and the real estate market there became affordable. Also, I had just arrived in New York and at times found it miserable to be alone.
As I expected, Mrs. Chen, a stocky woman with a big mole beside her nose, came up that evening. She sat down, patted her dyed hair, and said, “Wanping, now that you’re using this room for yourself we should talk about the rent.”
“I’m afraid I can’t pay more than what I’m paying. You can get another tenant.” I waved at the empty bed behind her.
“Well, I could put out an ad for that, but I have something else in mind.” She leaned toward me.
I did not respond. I disliked this Fujianese woman and felt she was too smooth. She went on, “Do you have a driver’s license?”
“I have one from North Carolina, but I’m not sure if I can drive here.” I had spent some time delivering produce for a vegetable farm outside Charlotte.
“That shouldn’t be a problem. You can change it to a New York license—easy to do. The motor registration office is very close.” She smiled, revealing her gappy teeth.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked.
“I won’t charge you extra rent. You can have this room to yourself, but I hope you can drive the girls around in the evenings when they have outcalls.”
I tried to stay calm and answered, “Is that legal?”
She chuckled. “Don’t be scared. The girls go to hotels and private homes. No cops will burst in on them—it’s very safe.”
“How many times a week am I supposed to drive?”
“Not very often—four or five times, tops.”
“Do you pay for the girls’ meals too?”
“Yes, everything but long-distance phone calls.”
At last I understood why my female housemates always ate together. “All right. I can drive them around in the evenings, but only in Queens and Brooklyn. Manhattan’s too scary.”
She gave a short laugh. “No problem. I don’t let them go that far.”
“By the way, can I eat with them when I work?”
“Sure thing. I’ll tell them.”
“Thank you.” I paused. “You know, sometimes it can be lonely here.”
A sly smile crossed her face. �
��You can spend time with the girls—they may give you a discount.”
I didn’t know how to respond. Before leaving, she made it clear that I must keep everything confidential and that she had asked me to help mainly because she wanted the women to feel safe when they went out. Johns would treat a prostitute better if they knew she had a chauffeur at her disposal. I had seen the black Audi in the garage. I hadn’t driven for months and really missed the feeling of freedom that an automobile used to give me, as though I could soar in the air if there weren’t cars in front of me on the highway. I looked forward to driving the women around.
After my landlady left, I stood before the window of my room, which faced the street. The crown of the weeping cherry, motionless and more than forty feet high, was a feathery mass against a sky strewn with stars. In the distance, a plane, a cluster of lights, was sailing noiselessly east through a few rags of clouds. I knew Mrs. Chen’s offer might implicate me in something illicit, but I wasn’t worried. I was accustomed to living among the prostitutes. When I first figured out what they did for a living, I had wanted to move out right away, like my former roommate, but I couldn’t find a place close to my job—I was a presser at a garment factory downtown. Also, once I got to know the women a little better, I realized that they were not “bloodsuckers,” as people assumed. Like everyone else, they had to work to survive.
I too was selling myself. Every weekday I stood at the table ironing the joining lines of cut pieces, the waists of pants, the collars and cuffs of shirts. It was sultry in the basement, where the air conditioner was at least ten years old, inefficient, and whined loudly. We were making quality clothes for stores in Manhattan, and every item had to be neatly ironed before being wrapped up for shipment.
Who would have thought I’d land in a sweatshop? My parents’ last letter urged me again to go to college. But I couldn’t pass the TOEFL. My younger brother had just been admitted to a veterinary school, and I’d sent back three thousand dollars for his tuition. If only I had learned a trade before coming to the United States, like plumbing, or home renovation, or Qigong. Any job would have been better than ironing clothes.
