A Free Life

1

NAN decided to take the job in New York. The editor in chief, Bao Yuan, had said on the phone that he could pay Nan only $1,000 per issue of the quarterly, New Lines, but he could also offer him a small room, rent-free. And Bao might help him find work in Brooklyn or Manhattan. Pingping supported Nan's decision, fearing he might lose his mind if he didn't quit his job at Hampden Park soon. Also, New York must hold more opportunities for him. Though the managing editorship didn't pay much, Nan could use it as a foothold to get a start in something. The Wus had heard that a man from Shanghai, formerly a graduate student in anthropology at Tufts University, had gone to Wall Street and gotten so rich that he owned a huge apartment on Madison Avenue. Pingping's main concern, however, was health insurance, which Nan couldn't possibly get in New York for the family. But many immigrants without any coverage at all had managed to survive, so she let him take the job, which might be his only chance to get out of his plight.

"Daddy, I'll miss you," Taotao said to Nan as mother and son were seeing him off at the Greyhound station at Riverside.

"I'll miss you too. Listen to Mom when I'm not home, all right?"

"I will. When will you come back?"

"At the end of zis mons. Be a good boy. If you need anysing, let me know."

"Uh-huh."

Taotao, in knee-length shorts, looked sad, pressing his face against his mother's waist. He was two inches taller than the summer before, also a little thicker. Nan got on the bus, sat down in a window seat, and turned to his family. Taotao was waving his hand back and forth at him. Pingping smiled and blew him a kiss. Nan did the same, though his heart was sagging. Because he couldn't find a decent job in the Boston area, his family couldn't live in a place of their own, and Taotao from now on, without health insurance, would have to avoid taking part in sports at school in case he got hurt. If only he had been a better father. If only he hadn't been such a failure. He hoped he'd return soon, as a more capable man.

This was Nan's second trip to New York. Two years ago he had gone there to meet with a friend of his who was on a delegation of educators from China. The old guard at the entrance to the Chinese consulate wouldn't let him in even though Nan produced his passport and even though his friend stayed there. It was raining outside, and the guard insisted that no visitor was allowed to enter the interior of the building, so Nan and his friend could stand only in the doorway, which was already crowded with more than a dozen people. Outraged, Nan said to the gray-bearded guard, "You've made me feel ashamed of being a Chinese." "Be an American, then! As if you could," crowed the man, and his mouth jerked to the side. Later, Nan and his friend wandered along the Hudson in a steady drizzle without an umbrella. The memory of that miserable trip still rankled him.

This time he went to Brooklyn directly, taking the C train after alighting at Port Authority Bus Terminal. He got off at Utica Avenue and without difficulty found his destination, a house with a stone facade painted white, on Macdonough Street near an elementary school. Bao Yuan, the editor in chief of New Lines, welcomed him warmly. He was thirtyish and squarely built with a patchy beard and long hair that fell on his shoulders. He took Nan 's suitcase and said, "I have the room ready for you."

Together they went up the narrow stairs leading to the attic. Bao pushed the sloping-topped door, which opened with a rat-a-tat screech. On the floor of the slanting-pitched room spread a mattress. An oblong coffee table stood near the dormer window, beside which was a lamp with a tattered yellowish shade. A strong smell of mildew hung in here. "I hope this is all right," Bao said, licking his compressed teeth.

"This is fine." Nan liked that the floor was carpeted so he could sit on it and wouldn't have to look for a chair.

"You can use the kitchen and bathroom downstairs." "All right."

"People living in this house share the phone in the living room." "Fine, I'll pay my share."

"We'll talk about the editorial work this evening." "Great. I'm excited about it."

After unpacking, Nan went out to buy some groceries. He was struck by the garbage accumulated under the curbs-plastic bottles, Styrofoam cups, scraps of paper, blanched beer cans. The air was still rain-soaked, and a few sepia puddles interrupted the sidewalk, too long for him to jump across, so he skirted them. He walked along Malcolm X Boulevard toward the subway station, where he had seen some shops an hour ago. He entered a small supermarket and picked up a bar of cheese, a bunch of bananas, and a loaf of sourdough bread. On his way back, as he was passing a strip club bearing a flickering sign with an electric martini and triple neon X's, a paunchy black man accosted him, shouting, "Hey, do you have a quarter to spare?"

Nan shook his head no and hurried away with the paper bag in his arm. He hadn't expected to see so many blacks living in this area, but he felt lucky to have a room for himself, having heard that you'd pay three hundred a month to share a bedroom in New York.

That evening Nan and Bao had tea in the kitchen. The living room was noisy, occupied by two other tenants, who were watching a game between the Yankees and the White Sox. Bao's girlfriend, Wendy, sat with them at the kitchen table. She was a white woman with half-gray hair and a puffy face, almost twenty years older than Bao. She can easily be his mother, Nan thought. Why doesn't Bao have a younger girlfriend?

Bao didn't seem to mind the age difference, though he was reluctant to show his fondness for Wendy in Nan 's presence. Wendy drank decaf coffee in place of the Tuo tea Bao had made. The original tea had been pressed into a lump like a small bowl, from which Bao had broken a piece and brewed the chunk of leaves in a pot. It tasted a little bitter, but Nan enjoyed it. The last time he'd drunk this kind of tea had been in Nanjing, where he attended a conference on reforming the power structure in the state-owned enterprises. That was seven years before.

Bao got excited as he was describing to Nan the journal, which, though a quarterly, sometimes came out with five issues a year. "Have you seen the English part of New Lines?" Bao asked Nan, scratching his short beard.

"Yes, it's interesting." As a matter of fact, Nan wasn't impressed by the translations, which formed almost a third of each issue, as the last section.

"Danning told me that your English is excellent. Do you think you can take charge of that part too?" "I'll be glad to."

"Maybe occasionally you can translate some poems too." "Sure. I'm writing poetry myself."

Bao looked at Nan in surprise, his heavy-lidded eyes doubtful. He went on slurping his tea and then put the cup into his left palm. He said, "Our circulation has just reached three thousand. Let's hope we can make a profit soon."

"Do we have to be on our own financially?"

" Not at the moment. I have begged around for money since I took over the journal five months ago. So far I've got some. Goodness knows what will happen if we don't get funding next year."

Wendy yawned and said in a weary voice, "Honey, I'm going to bed. Don't stay up too long."

"Yes," said Bao.

"Are you going to come to bed soon?"

"Yes."

Nan wasn't sure if Bao understood her. Wendy shuffled a little as she moved to the door of their bedroom. From the rear, she looked baggy, more aged. Bao said to Nan, "Feel free to show me your poems. "

Nan 's face brightened while his thick eyebrows lifted. "I will definitely do that." He had read some of Bao's poetry, which was experimental and sometimes made no sense to him, just an assembly of pretty, nebulous words. But Bao was well connected in the circle of the exiled artists and writers. If he was willing to help him, Nan might get a good start.

Bao got up and went into the living room to call his sister in Shanghai, and Nan climbed back to his sultry garret.

₂

THE PAY Nan got from New Lines was barely enough for supporting himself, and he had to find additional work. On Saturday morning he took the A train to Manhattan for job interviews. He arrived an hour and a half early so that he could stroll around a little. What was amazing about Chinatown and Little Italy was that every street corner smelled different. There were many foods being cooked and sold on the streets, at quite reasonable prices. Nan enjoyed sniffing the air, especially the smells of popcorn, fried onion and pepper, and Italian sausage, though now and then a stench of rotten fruit would pinch his nose. He noticed that most girls here were pale, slim, and pretty, often wearing perfume, especially those working in clothing stores. Walking along Canal Street, he felt as if he were in a commercial district in Shanghai or Guangzhou. Signs in Chinese characters hung everywhere. The stands along the sidewalk displayed all kinds of merchandise for sale: embroidered slippers, tawdry jewelry, shirts, towels, hats, umbrellas, mechanic pencils, knockoffs of brand-name watches and Swiss army knives-all made in China. The seafood stalls were noisy and had many fishes on display. Salmon, red snapper, bighead carp, pomfret, sea bass, all lay on crushed ice and looked slimy and no longer fresh, with collapsed eyes and patches of lost scales. There were also crabs, oysters, lobster, quahogs, sea urchins, razor clams. Though all the fish were dead, some of the stalls flaunted signs claiming seafood, alive and fierce!

The first interview was at the Chinese cultural center, which had a massive front door, dark like an ironclad gate. Nan arrived fifteen minutes early, so he stayed in the entryway and opened a copy of the white pages at a pay phone. He looked through some names in hopes of finding someone he knew. Whenever he was in a new place, he'd thumb through parts of its local white pages, dreaming of stumbling on a friend or acquaintance. Of course, the first person he'd look for was Beina Su. Somehow wherever he went, he'd fantasize he might chance on her. How wild with joy she'd be on seeing him. How firmly she'd hug him. Yes, they could always start like new. Today, despite finding no familiar names, Nan was amazed by the large number of Chinese living in Manhattan. Just under "Wei Zhang," six people were listed.

It was time for the interview. A young woman told Nan to go to the second floor and see Lourie. To his surprise, Lourie, the manager of this place, was a tall man in his mid-twenties wearing a ponytail and a blue shirt that was so long, it made his legs appear short. He reminded Nan of a hippie, though he looked Mongolian, with bright eyes. Behind him spread a cork bulletin board on the wall, tacked with posters and flyers. He stretched out his hand, which felt meaty when Nan shook it. "I was very impressed by your Mandarin," Lourie said, smiling while licking his fleshy bottom lip. They had spoken on the phone two days earlier.

"Sank you for considering my application," Nan said.

"Thank you for applying. What are you doing at the moment?"

"I'm zer managing editor of a literary journal."

"Excellent. What's it called?"

"New Lines."

Lourie lowered his head and tried to recall. Then he said, "It doesn't ring a bell." "It's new."

"I see. Do you speak Cantonese?" "No, I don't." "Not at all?"

"To tell you zer truth, it's like a foreign language to me. But I can learn."

"That'll make it difficult for us. You see, many of our students speak Cantonese only. You'll have to explain everything in the language they can understand."

"So I'm disquawlified."

"I'm not saying that. We cannot make our decision until we've interviewed all the top applicants."

"Can you tell me how I'm ranked among zem?"

"That I can't. Tell you what, I can offer you a free ticket for our exhibition."

"Sure, sank you."

The other interview was at one o'clock, still an hour away, so Nan went into the Museum of Chinese Immigrant Culture, located on the top floor. The exhibition, however, disappointed him because it was very shabby. There were dozens of photographs on the walls, but just a few pieces of artwork were on display, one of which was an instrument called the Chum Kahm, a crossbreed of the guitar and the banjo. Some hardwood chests and colorful robes worn by early Chinese immigrants were also among the collection. Even newspapers, printer blocks, abacuses, writing brushes, and used ledgers were on show. The most impressive of all was a large bald eagle made of pinkish toilet tissue, standing atop a glass case and symbolizing the longing for freedom. Up close, Nan could see that it was composed of hundreds of miniature origami birds. It had been created by a group of incarcerated illegal aliens, who had been seized by the Coast Guard when the rickety boat smuggling them into America got stranded at Hawaii. As for written works, there were only a handful of books, by contemporary authors such as Maxine Hong Kingston, Amy Tan, and Gish Jen. Near a tall window stood a trash can collecting the water dripping from a leak in the ceiling. There wasn't another visitor in the poorly lighted room. The whole show was a letdown.

Nan came out of the building with a sinking heart. Questions, one after another, were arising in his mind. Why do they call that place a cultural museum? Why are there so few exhibits that can be called artwork? How come there's no Picasso or Faulkner or Mozart that emerged from the immigrants? Does this mean the first Chinese here were less creative and less artistic? Maybe so, because the early immigrants were impoverished and many were illiterate, and because they all had to slave away to feed themselves and their families, and had to concentrate their energy on settling down in this unfamiliar, discriminatory, fearsome land. Just uprooting themselves from their native soil must have crippled their lives and drained their vitality, not to mention their creativity. How could it be possible for an unfettered genius to rise from a tribe of coolies who were frightened, exhausted, mistreated, wretched, and possessed by the instinct for survival? Without leisure, how can art thrive?

The more Nan thought, the more upset he became.

₃

WITH a sadness induced by those thoughts, with the conviction that the cultural center wouldn't hire him, Nan entered Ding's Dumplings on Pell Street. The owner of this place was Howard Ding, who looked weary, sitting behind the counter with his legs crossed and reading the New York Times. But when he raised his eyes to glance at Nan, his face turned alert and intelligent. He stood up and shook hands with the applicant. Though already in his fifties, he had a straight back and a full head of dark hair, which Nan thought might be dyed. Howard stood almost six feet, but every part of him was thin-thin eyes, thin nose, thin chest, thin limbs, and thin extremities. After talking with Nan for a few minutes, he handed him a book that had a gray cover and a red title: Practical English for Restaurant Personnel. He told Nan, "Your English is pretty fluent, but you may still need to familiarize yourself with some of the words and expressions in our business."

"Does zis mean you're going to hire me?"

"Yes. I like you." Howard was soft-spoken, but his voice was clear. "Let me ask you one more question, because I hate to change my staff too often. How long will you live in New York?"

"I don't know, probably a year or two."

"I won't hire temporary workers. We just lost two people who started only three months ago."

"You mean they're cawllege students." "Right. They went back to Maryland."

"Zen I will stay longer. I don't go to school. No need to worry." "Good, I'm glad to hear that. Have you waited tables before?"

"No."

"What kind of work experience do you have in a Chinese restaurant?"

"I don't have any."

"I like your candor. How about starting as a busboy?"

"Zat's fine." Nan frowned in spite of himself.

"Don't be discouraged. Everybody here starts from the bottom. I'm always fair with my employees. You can also help the chef in the kitchen. Your English is good, so you can wait tables, filling in for someone now and then. If you're really capable, you may end up a manager eventually. I have other restaurants in town and need all kinds of help." Howard peered at Nan.

"All right, I'll begin as a busboy."

"Keep in mind that you're also a helper in the kitchen." "It seems you want me to know every part of zis business." "That's exactly what I mean."

Nan had on his mind a newspaper job he had applied for, but he wouldn't let this opportunity slip away. He said, "When should I start?"

"Tomorrow morning at ten." "All right, I'll be here on time."

Despite saying that, he wasn't certain whether he really wanted the job. He was going to call the newspaper today to find out his chances with them.

He crossed Canal Street and somehow wandered onto Mott Street, where crowds of people gathered at a fair. Many of them clustered around jugglers, palm readers, quoit throwers, toy gun shooters, psychics arranging tarot cards, even a fire-eater wearing a red cape. A lot of foods were for sale on the sidewalks: sausages as thick as a human leg, giant pretzels revolving in glass ovens, kebabs sizzling on skewers, ravioli bobbing in boiling pots. Three young men in black T-shirts with the ideogram for "tolerance" printed on the front were performing kung fu massage on the people straddling the chairs that all had a ring affixed to the top for the customers to rest their faces on. Toward the end of the fair, two Chinese painters sat on canvas stools, one in his early thirties and the other middle-aged, both wearing Chicago Bulls caps. The older man was crying, "Anyone want a portrait?"

Few people paid heed to them. A flock of fat pigeons landed nearby, strutting nonchalantly, pecking at bread crumbs and popcorn and sending out a koo-koo-koo sound. Nan looked at the large sample portrait standing between the two painters. Beneath it were listed the prices: black and white-$20, colored-$40, frame-$8.So cheap. How could they make a living by doing this? The middle-aged painter tilted his lumpy chin and asked Nan, "Want a portrait, brother?"

" No. " He shook his head.

The man smiled and whispered, "Please sit down for us. We won't charge you."

"I can't do that." Nan was amazed by his offer.

"Please help us. We have to work on somebody to attract customers. Sit down, please."

"I'll pay you ten dollars if you do a good portrait of me. How's that?"

"Fine, just sit on that."

The younger man handed him a folding stool. As soon as Nan sat down, people began gathering around to watch. The older painter wielded a charcoal pencil, and with a few strokes sketched out the contour of Nan 's face. Then he proceeded to draw his bushy hair and broad forehead. From time to time he used a napkin to wipe his own pug nose, which somehow wouldn't stop dripping. He now lifted his head to observe Nan, and now bent forward, scratching the paper rapidly.

"Where are you from?" Nan asked the younger painter. " Wuhan. We used to teach at Hubei Institute of Fine Arts." " You were professors?" "He was. I was a lecturer."

"Can you make a living by drawing portraits on the street?"

"It's not easy, but we've been doing this for several years."

The older painter raised his eyes, his brow furrowed. "Don't talk too much. Keep still, or the portrait may not resemble you."

Nan stopped. He looked away. In the distance two trees grew on a rooftop, beyond which a jumbo jet was sailing noiselessly through the fleecy clouds. He wondered whether the trees were planted in pots or in a flower bed on the roof. Three seagulls were wheeling in the air on sickle wings, squawking like babies in pain. Around Nan, people were palavering about the portrait in the making. "It's really like him," said a girl.

"A fabulous job," echoed another voice.

"For twenty dollars, not a bad deal."

"Maybe I should have a portrait done here."

"Yes, just twenty bucks."

"Look et de nose, exectly like de guy's."

"Hey, smile," a jug-eared man yelped at Nan.

"I'm not taking a photo." Nan purposely set his face straight while fiddling with the strap of his bag.

Twenty minutes later the portrait was done. Nan looked at it and was surprised by his own face, which was as forlorn as though he had just missed a train or boat, too muddled to know where to go or what to do. In the drawing his eyes gazed into the distance while his mouth was set as if he were suppressing some anguish or pain. This face belonged to a lost, exhausted man. Obviously the painter had captured the actual state of his mind. A miserable feeling surged in Nan 's chest and his eyes misted over, but he managed a grimace- his cheeks twitched. The older painter bent down and inscribed the date and place at the right-hand bottom corner of the portrait. "Here you are," he said, rubbing his hands while the younger man took the sketch off the easel and rolled it up for Nan.

Nan paid the older man ten dollars and walked away with the drawing under his arm. On the train he wondered what to do with it. Who wanted to see such a woeful face? It would remind people of bad luck! On no account would he show it to his wife and son- Taotao might laugh about it, whereas Pingping would be disappointed. So when he got off at Utica Avenue, he dropped it into a trash can at the station.

In Wendy's house, a letter from the North Star Times was awaiting him, which informed him that the newspaper had picked someone else for the assistant editorship it had advertised. Nan was upset, suspecting that they might already have decided on the hire before they put out the ad. An applicant like himself must have been needed just to fill a quota. Now he had no alternative but to start at Ding's Dumplings the next day.

₄

DING'S DUMPLINGS offered mainly Shanghai cuisine, which isn't spicy but a bit sweet. It also specialized in noodles and dumplings filled with several kinds of stuffing: lean pork, fish, shrimp, crab-meat, and beef, all mixed with various vegetables. The restaurant was small, with only twelve tables in it, but it enjoyed a fine reputation. Under the glass top of each table was a New York Times article praising the quality and the fair prices of the food offered here. Unlike in a regular Chinese restaurant, on each table here was a sugar shaker among the cruets of soy sauce, vinegar, and chili oil. The main wall in the dining area was glazed entirely with mirror, on which some sea creatures were blazoned: turtle, swordfish, lobster, crabs, skate. On the street-facing window was painted a fat boy carrying with a curved shoulder pole two huge baskets of money, one of gold coins and the other of silver ingots.

Nan 's job was to wash dishes in the basement kitchen. Besides the chef and the busboy, there were three waitstaff, supervised by a hostess named Chinchin. Chinchin was from Taiwan, and was congenial but garrulous and giggly. She often wore a pink dress and beige pumps, her bright-colored outfit making her sallow complexion appear dark. Whenever possible, she'd chaff the waitstaff, who were all from mainland China. She'd say they were all Communist supporters, red to the bone, and hadn't yet shed their air of banditry, and still dreamed of communizing property and sharing others' spouses and children. Unlike Chinchin, the two waitresses and one waiter all had on the restaurant's uniform-a yellow T-shirt, black slacks, and a maroon apron. Nan wore the same clothes but stayed in the basement most of the time. When there were too many customers he'd go upstairs and help clear tables. Otherwise, the waitstaff would carry the used tableware downstairs for him to wash.

Howard, the owner, seldom showed up here and left Ding's Dumplings in the hands of Chinchin, a distant relative of his, who also managed the tiny bar. Usually customers just ordered ready-made wines and beers, so the bar was rarely used. Howard had other restaurants in the city, one in the World Trade Center and another on 55th Street, near the Museum of Modern Art. These days he was all tied up at a new place he'd just opened in Queens. He was such a wealthy man that he received a letter from George Bush each year, inviting him to the President's Dinner at the White House, though he had never attended such an event. "Too expensive," he once told his staff. "You think there are free meals in America? You'll have to pay fifteen thousand dollars for a fund-raising dinner like that. Besides, I'm not a Republican."

A week after Nan started at Ding's Dumplings, a stalwart black man appeared. As he was stepping into the doorway, Chinchin motioned to the waitresses and shouted, "Be careful! Here comes a dark ghost." A month ago the restaurant had been robbed by two blacks, one of whom wore a mask of Ronald Reagan and the other that of Richard Nixon. The police were still investigating the case.

To their astonishment, the black man announced in standard Mandarin, "Please rest assured, comrades. I'm not a hoodlum. I'm your friend."

Embarrassed, they looked at one another speechlessly. Then Nan broke into laughter and the others followed him. Maiyu, the slender waitress with slightly bulging eyes and hoop earrings dangling from below her bob haircut, led the customer to a round table close to the stairs. The man, more than six foot two, squared his shoulders and sat down, his hands clasped on the tabletop. He had grizzled hair and wore a tie with a pattern of antique coins on it and a dark blue suit, his yellowish shirt decked with cuff links. He smiled at Maiyu, showing his wide mouth and strong teeth. Plainly he was past forty, but the wrinkles on his face made him look masculine and quite handsome. "Hi, it's gorgeous out there, isn't it?" he said to the waitress.

"Yes. What would you like?" Maiyu's soft eyes wavered as she spoke.

" Yangzhou Fried Rice and Three-Delight Soup." He spoke Mandarin as if he were an old customer.

"How come you speak Chinese?" put in Heng Chen, the waiter, standing by with arms akimbo. Heng was Maiyu's husband; they had married the previous year, right before he came to America.

"I studied it in Beijing Foreign Languages Institute for three years, in the seventies," the man said, watching the supple movement of Maiyu's shapely waist as she was heading away for the kitchen.

"What are you doing now? Teaching Chinese?" Nan asked him.

"No, I quit teaching long ago. That's an awful profession, I mean in this country, underpaid and tiresome. I'm a private investigator now."

"You're a detective?" the bespectacled Aimin cut in, fingering the tip of her thin braid.

"Yes. I help my clients find information on other people or companies."

Maiyu returned with a pot of tea. The black man gave her a sidelong look and said, "You're beautiful, a real knockout."

Though unfamiliar with his last word, she was blushing. She glanced at her husband, who was frowning.

"I'm David Kellman. What's your name?" the man asked her.

"Maiyu."

"Can you write it down for me?" He took out of his inside pocket a gilt pen and a dark blue address book and opened it for her to inscribe on.

He observed the characters she'd written for him. "This is a beautiful name, 'Mai-you.' " "No, 'Mai-yu.' "

"Let me try again. 'Man-yu.' Did I get it right?" "Almost."

"Thank you for writing it down. I'm going to look it up in my dictionary and work on it. Next time I come, I'll pronounce your name accurately. Here's my card. If you need any help, just give me a ring."

She looked astonished, staring at him, her face crimson. Heng Chen, her husband, jumped in, "She has no ring for you!"

"What?" Kellman looked puzzled, and then his face relaxed. He burst out laughing. "Oh my, this is so funny! You thought I was talking of an engagement ring or a wedding band? What a misunderstanding! I wish I could do that for this charming young lady, though."

Nan told his fellow workers, "He meant you should phone him eef you need his help."

"Exactly," Kellman said, still chuckling.

"Thank you," Maiyu mumbled. She turned and made for the kitchen to fetch his order. Still, Heng couldn't take his triangular eyes off Kellman. As his wife was passing him, he wagged his chin to indicate that she shouldn't talk too much with that self-styled Sherlock Holmes.

Nan went back into the kitchen and resumed chopping vegetables and slicing beef. Today the assistant to the chef was off work, so Nan took over the kitchen chores, which he liked doing, as he was eager to see how the chef cooked.

From that day on, Kellman would come to Ding's Dumplings at least three times a week. Whenever he was here, the room would echo with his laughter. Nan liked him, though he felt this man was reckless, flirting with Maiyu openly and never noticing her husband's furious eyes. Kellman would talk excitedly to the waitress, who at first seemed reluctant to speak, but her face would turn sunny whenever he was here. Heng hated to see him, yet he couldn't throw out a regular customer. He had neither the muscle and guts to confront this big man nor the English to spoil his conversation, which at times could be heard by the entire room. One day, after Kellman had left, Heng exploded, accusing his wife of having become Americanized and degenerated into a shameless broad.

Chinchin reproached him, saying he ought to have a large heart. She kept shaking her oval face, on which lingered the last trace of youth, and said to the waitstaff, "You people have been brainwashed by the Commies and are too serious about what happens between a man and a woman. A husband should feel proud if his wife is attractive to other men. Heng, just because Maiyu spoke a few words with Kellman, you think she's carrying on with him? You're dead wrong. Truth be told, I'm pleased to see that Kellman has become a regular. If only we had more pretty girls here. Then you all could get more tips." She caught herself and glanced at the homely Aimin, whose eyes were fixed on Chinchin, glinting behind her thick glasses.

But Heng couldn't be appeased, and was visibly jittery and grumpy whenever Kellman was in the restaurant, so Chinchin scheduled Maiyu and Heng for different shifts. As a result, Nan often filled in, waiting tables in the daytime. He made four dollars an hour as a busboy and was glad about the tips he got. Unlike him, the waitstaff were each paid only $1.50 an hour because they kept the tips.

Nan would phone Pingping in the morning before he set out for work. Occasionally she called him, especially when she had run into difficulties. One recent day she was unable to use his credit card to order things on the phone because she couldn't recall his mother's maiden name. Neither she nor Nan actually knew what a maiden name was. Three years ago, when they were opening a joint bank account and a woman representative asked Nan for his mother's maiden name, he had been stumped, but on the spur of the moment had told her, "Fengkou," which was a rural town where his grandparents had lived. When Pingping was asked, she said to the woman, "My mother has same maiden name." The representative said, "How did that happen?" Nan explained, "It's common in China, where a billion people have only a hundred family names." From then on, both of their mothers had shared the same maiden name- "Fengkou," a word that might never have been applied to a human being before.

Once in a while Nan didn't have time to call Pingping before going to work; then she'd phone him at the restaurant around noon. His fellow workers often teased him, saying his wife was an insomniac without him in bed, and asking him if he and she had grown up together. He once answered with a poker face, "Of course, we were engaged when we were tots. That's why I'm so henpecked."

They were amused but unsure if he had told the truth.

₅

THREE WEEKS LATER Howard hired another busboy and promoted Nan to the chef 's assistant, because the former kitchen aide had left for Miami to marry a Cuban Chinese woman. Nan got a one-dollar raise too. Chef Zhang needed a lot of help, and Nan 's job was mainly to cut meats and vegetables, fry chicken cubes, and wrap dumplings. Nan watched carefully how the chef cooked. Zhang told him to memorize the entire menu and the ingredients of every dish, so that Nan could assemble all the things needed for each order in a bowl or a plate or a Styrofoam container before the chef cooked it. On occasion Zhang would let Nan make fried rice or noodle soup while he stood by to supervise. He also taught Nan how to concoct various sauces. When it wasn't busy, Nan would go upstairs to chat with the waitstaff. Chef Zhang, always cooped up in the basement, told Nan not to "gab too much with those bitches up there."

The waitstaff disliked the chef, partly because they made money in different ways. The chef was paid by the hour and so were Nan and Chinchin, but the waiter and waitresses depended mainly on tips. When business was good, both the boss and the waitstaff would get excited, whereas the chef would become grouchy, having to cook without respite. Old Zhang often struck his legs with his fists to help the blood circulate. He revealed to Nan that he suffered from piles because for many years he had stood for more than ten hours a day in the kitchen. Whenever the work turned hectic, his pain and itch would grow more intense, insufferable. He said to Nan, "Lots of people in this business have this problem with their asses. Be careful-don't end up like me."

At last Nan understood why there were advertisements for treating hemorrhoids everywhere in Chinatown. No matter how tired he was, he'd take a shower before going to bed. Also, at night he'd place his pillow under his feet instead of his head to prevent his legs from developing varicose veins, which were also a professional hazard as a consequence of standing for long hours. He wasn't interested in managing one of Howard's dumpling houses, but he was eager to learn how to cook. Neither did he feel he could be a good waiter, who would have to carry a loaded tray on his shoulder steadily while climbing up the narrow stairs. Worse yet, a waiter had to put on a smile in front of customers, some of whom were nasty and wouldn't leave tips on the grounds that the service wasn't good enough. So Nan felt that by nature he belonged in the kitchen, where he wouldn't have to face any customers. Chef Zhang seemed fond of Nan and taught him how to cook and how to make dumpling stuffings whenever it wasn't busy. He often said, "You're lucky, Nan. When I started, I was not allowed to touch the rim of the wok during the first year."

Nan had heard a lot of stories about the difficulties in finding a job at a Chinese restaurant in New York. The waitresses told him that if you were unable to speak Cantonese, most places wouldn't hire you. Ding's Dumplings was one of the few restaurants in Chinatown where the owners didn't know Cantonese. Heng said he had once worked at a place where all the waiters had had to wear a short bow tie, which made him miserable, unable to breathe freely. Chinchin, the hostess, had worked in other restaurants before and also talked about how the Chinese waitstaff were exploited and humiliated by their bosses, and even mistreated by barkeeps, most of whom were Caucasians. In contrast, Howard was by far a better boss, who wouldn't dock your pay if you came to work an hour late because of an emergency. Nan felt lucky he had this job.

₆

THE CIRCULATION of New Lines had dropped by nine percent in recent months. Bao was worried and held an editorial meeting, at which five people were present, counting himself and Nan. They were to decide whether they should expand the journal, namely to include articles on current events and social issues, and even a few advertisements. There were a good number of Chinese dissidents living in North America and willing to contribute political essays to the journal. However, except Bao, those at the meeting all opposed the idea, arguing that New Lines should remain strictly literary. Bao complained that there wasn't another way to revitalize the journal. As a compromise, they agreed to print two or three pieces of fiction in each issue, though at present they couldn't pay the authors.

Bao knew many Chinese dissidents living in New York. One Saturday morning he and Nan went to visit Mr. Manping Liu, the well-known scholar in political economy who lived near Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn. They wanted to get the older man's endorsement for their journal. Nan had seen Mr. Liu at Harvard last June and was eager to meet him again. Mr. Liu opened the door, his eyes and mouth both sunken, and said to them, "Welcome to my hovel." His apartment had only two rooms and was on the ground floor, but in his tiny backyard were some wilting sunflowers and chrysanthemums, and also some tripods for supporting vegetables, made of whittled branches tied at the tops but all unloaded now. The living room cum study was lined with books, and a small desk stood next to the window, strewn with manuscripts. Liu was well respected in the Chinese community, not only for his incisive writings but mainly for his integrity. In June 1989, when the field armies began attacking civilians in Beijing, he had bought a large wreath and intended to take it to Tiananmen Square personally, but his friends had restrained him despite his wailing and struggling to break loose. Within a few days his name appeared on the Most Wanted list; fortunately he and his wife managed to flee to southern China and from there were smuggled to Hong Kong through an underground channel. Unlike the other dissidents in the United States, he had always refused to accept financial aid from any organization and to date had supported himself mainly by writing for Chinese-language newspapers and magazines. Also, his wife was very adaptable and worked in a gift store in downtown Manhattan.

After Bao and Nan sat down and made their case, Mr. Liu happily agreed to write a few words for their journal. But for a moment he looked rapt in thought, then moved to his small desk, uncapped his fountain pen, and wrote something on a card. He turned around and handed the endorsement to Bao. It read: "I greatly admire the young writers at New Lines. May their effort flourish and their work endure!"

Both Bao and Nan thanked him. Then his wife, a sturdy woman with a heart-shaped face, came in, holding a kettle of boiled water to make tea for them. She looked tired, saying she had worked late the night before. After serving tea, she went back into their bedroom.

Mr. Liu said he remembered an article Nan had published in the Journal of Political Economics a few years earlier. But on hearing that Nan had left the field, he said, "I understand. Life is hard here, and you have to survive first."

" Not only because of that," Nan told him. "I made a vow not to be involved in politics again. I'm not cut out for it."

"I see."

Bao put in, " Nan has been writing poetry."

"Good. Every road leads to Rome," said Mr. Liu. " China needs all kinds of talents."

Nan turned reticent, not knowing what to make of the old man's remark. Mr. Liu talked as if he were still an official.

Soon their topic shifted to life here. "I just bought a car," Liu told the visitors.

"A new one?" asked Bao.

"No. How could I afford a new car?" "How much did it cost?"

"Four hundred dollars. It's a pretty good Toyota. A friend of mine drove it and said it was better than his car that cost him over a thousand."

"Can you drive?"

" I just got my license. "

"You're very brave," Nan put in. "I wouldn't dare to drive in New York. "

"I have to be able to drive, or else I'd feel as if I'm missing a limb. Also, as long as I live here, I'll have to make a living on my own. A driver's license is a means of independence. Once I can drive really well, I'll deliver food for a restaurant."

"You shouldn't do that. You have poor eyesight, don't you?" said Bao.

The old man laughed heartily. "Maybe I can deliver computer parts in the daytime. Anyway, driving a car on the highway gives me a feeling of freedom. What fun! What exhilaration! Do you want to see my car?"

"Sure, let's have a look," Bao agreed.

On their way out, Nan said, "Mr. Liu, from now on we're going to publish two or three short stories in each issue of New Lines. If you come across any good fiction, please recommend it to us."

"I'll keep that in mind. As a matter of fact, my wife used to write fiction under the pen name Purple Lilacs. She's working too hard now, but she may write again."

Bao said, "When she finishes a piece, please show it to us first."

"By all means. I'll tell her."

Her pen name reminded Nan that he had read a novella by Mrs. Liu back in China. It had felt to him like a piece of reportage, but she had indeed had a name.

The three of them walked out of the building. Along the curbs were parked many cars, some dented and rusted, one with both front lights smashed and another wearing a boot. Nan looked back and forth, unable to determine which one might belong to Mr. Liu. The old man was taking them farther down the street, chomping on a thick pipe, a puff of smoke wafting about his head.

"This one," he said finally, pointing at a hatchback with a warped front fender.

Nan looked closely but couldn't decide what color the car was. It was battered and repainted. It appeared dark brown, but some bright orange patches were scattered all over it. "This is a good car," Bao managed to say.

" Impressive," echoed Nan.

"Want a ride?" Liu asked.

Bao and Nan exchanged glances. "Actually, we should be leaving," Bao said. " Nan 's going to work in the afternoon." "Then I can take you to the train station." " Are you sure?"

"Of course. My driving skill isn't good enough yet, or I'd drive you all the way home."

They got into the car, Nan in back and Bao in front. The seats were broken, yellow foam stuck out in spots, and there were also cigarette burns on them. An acrid smell of sweat and tobacco emanated from the interior.

"How old is this car?" Bao asked Mr. Liu.

"More than ten years old."

As soon as the engine started, the car began shaking, coughing and moaning as if it were an animal seized by a crippling pain. Nan was unnerved as he noticed a pedestrian turn to observe them. He craned to look at the odometer, which showed merely seven zeros in a row. "How many miles are on this car?" he asked Mr. Liu.

"Hard to say. Probably two hundred thousand."

"What?" cried Bao.

"Just a guess. A Japanese car like this can run forever."

The car jolted along as if running on cobblestones. Despite the bumpy ride, Nan soon turned thoughtful. Mr. Liu had formerly lived a privileged life, having his own chauffeur and secretary, but now he had to restart his life here, writing for newspapers and magazines like a hack and even ready to do menial work. Still, he seemed quite buoyant and didn't regret his exile at all. Nan was full of both sadness and respect.

At last they arrived at the Nostrand Avenue station. Even though he had stepped out of the car, Nan still couldn't shake off the jitters. "It's a real experience," he told Mr. Liu.

" Next time I can drive you all the way home," the old man said with a broad grin that revealed his tobacco-stained teeth.

"Take good care, Mr. Liu," said Bao.

"You too, young men."

They saw the jalopy roll away, dragging a tail of exhaust, and merge into the flow of the traffic. They turned and entered the station to catch the train. Nan asked his friend about Mr. Liu, "Doesn't he often say he'll return to China?"

"Yes, but he must have realized that would be impossible in the near future. That's why he has been learning how to support himself."

"He's a remarkable man."

"And also an interesting character."

Nan was annoyed by Bao's flippancy but said no more. They parted company to take different trains, Nan going downtown while Bao headed back. All the way to work, Nan ruminated on their meeting with Mr. Liu, who, unlike himself, didn't show any bitterness about his truncated life, as if he were oblivious to all the evil he had suffered. How different the old man was from some Chinese dissidents who were well supported by universities and foundations. On the other hand, Nan was upset too, for he felt a man such as Mr. Liu couldn't possibly live decently in this land because he was too old to start anew. However hard he struggled to be independent, Mr. Liu would still belong to their native land, and his existence would still be shaped by the Chinese political center of which he had always been a part. The very fact that he thought of doing those odd jobs indicated that he didn't plan to stay in America for long. Perhaps at night he couldn't help but dream of his former life.

Unlike him, if Nan lived his type of life and drove that kind of car, he'd earn only contempt and ridicule. He had to find his own way here, living not as an expatriate or an exile but as an immigrant. He was still young and must put up a fight. If only he could figure out where his battlefield was.

₇

UNLIKE NAN, Bao didn't work and had been writing his memoir, which he said might bring him fame and fortune once it was published. That was why he didn't edit the journal himself and had hired Nan to do it. He seemed determined to live an artist's life, concentrating on his writing and painting. In his studio, the room opposite Nan's in the attic, several unfinished gouaches leaned against the walls, and Bao told Nan that he had been experimenting with new techniques, including painting with fingers or with a palette knife. Whenever others asked him what he did for a living, he'd say, "I paint and write." In a sense Nan admired that, though at the same time he could see that Bao had been using Wendy.

What's worse, Bao was an alcoholic. He often came to Nan's room with a bottle of cheap wine and wanted to share it with Nan, but Nan usually declined. Bao seemed lonely, unable to speak with anyone during the day when Wendy would go out to meet friends or participate in community activities. After half a bottle of wine, he'd grow loquacious, but would slur his words so much that Nan couldn't always follow him. He'd talk about whatever came to mind. He described how at the age of nine he had pilfered money from his parents and bought candies and Popsicles for his pals, and how he and a bunch of urchins had stolen into an orchard, eating their fill of fruits and melons. Once when he was tipsy, he even bragged about how firm Wendy's breasts were because she had never suckled a baby, and how tight her vagina was since she hadn't given birth. Another time he confided that he'd had a crush on the young Chinese woman who had been the managing editor before Nan. One night he took offense at Nan 's refusing to down the California Chardonnay he had poured for him. "If you want to write poetry, you have to be fond of drinks, like Li Po, the Wine God," he told Nan. But Nan would have to read submissions the next morning before going to work and couldn't afford to get drunk. Besides, he didn't believe alcohol was a source of inspiration and could induce poetic spontaneity. To his mind, that was a mere excuse for would-be writers to indulge themselves.

One day Bao showed Nan a chapter of his memoir, nineteen handwritten pages, and asked him to read it. It was about how his father, a high school chemistry teacher, had been forced to collect night soil in their rural town and pull a trash cart on the streets at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. Because of his father's disgrace, Bao, besides taking verbal insults every day, was often beaten by his schoolmates. The writing was rough, and the story too generic and too expository. As a result, the experiences remained opaque and dull, not substantiated by concrete details. After reading it, Nan told Bao, "I don't think this is finished yet. You should make it fresher and more peculiar if not surprising."

"Heaven knows how hard I worked on it."

Then, to Nan 's surprise, Bao asked him to translate this chapter so that New Lines could print it. Grudgingly Nan agreed. The translation bored him and took him a whole week to finish. When working on it, he'd swear and slap his forehead as if he had been swindled. He'd rather dig ditches with a shovel than wrestle with this florid prose marred with cliches and clever but superficial jibes. How relieved he felt when he was finally done.

On seeing the pages in English, Bao turned ecstatic and even bowed to Nan, saying he owed him a dinner. He looked at the translation over and over, though hardly able to understand it. But Wendy read it and told Nan that she was impressed by his way of using English, which was fluid, elegant, and slightly old-fashioned, but suited the subject well.

These days Bao often said to Nan that he was terribly homesick. He even wondered if he should go back to visit his parents, though he didn't have the money for the airfare and for the gifts for his family and friends. Nan admonished him to forget about that, because Bao was known as a dissident, already blacklisted, and would be either refused entry or apprehended by the police at China 's customs. "It's not worth running the risk," said Nan.

"If only I were naturalized," Bao sighed.

"What difference would that make?"

"The Chinese police won't hurt you if you're an American citizen. Have you heard of Weifu Cai?"

"Yes, wasn't he arrested last time when he attempted to enter China?"

"Yes, but they released him a month later. He just got a huge grant from an American human rights foundation, thirty thousand dollars in total. See, he held a U.S. passport, so the Chinese government couldn't really harm him. Otherwise they could've sentenced him to five years at least."

"I didn't know he was back."

" I saw him a couple of weeks ago. He was a picture of health. If only I were an American citizen." "Then you'd try to go back?" "Definitely."

Nan remembered a saying popular in the Chinese diaspora: "Only by becoming a citizen of another country can you be treated decently by the Chinese."

₈

AT DING'S DUMPLINGS, the waitstaff judged customers mainly by how much they tipped. Aimin and Maiyu often complained that some Americans were too demanding and too grouchy, and that if this restaurant had been Italian or French, they wouldn't have been so surly. "They come here only because they're cheap," Aimin said, and bunched up her thin lips. "Or we're cheap," Maiyu added.

A couple, an overweight white woman and a young black man wearing a Vandyke beard, came twice a week. They always bought wonton soup, Peking ravioli, and fish dumplings, but had never left more than one dollar for a tip, usually just some loose change scattered on the table. Whenever they showed up, the waitresses would avoid waiting on them, so Chinchin would assign Aimin and Maiyu to serve them by turns. Sometimes a whole family would dine here: tots crawled under the tables, and youngsters even snuck into the small banquet room upstairs when they used the toilets next to the landing. Two middle-aged gay men turned up every Wednesday evening and wouldn't hesitate to neck in front of others. One afternoon a Caucasian couple came with their four daughters, who looked similar in features, all pretty though a little pallid. Nan was told that this family ate here once a month, right after the father, a dapper man, received his pay. Obviously they weren't rich, but they had good table manners. Nan overheard the youngest girl, about six years old, ask for a walnut cookie for dessert, but her mother said no. The child didn't make another peep. Once they were done with the meal, the father left a ten for tip.

" They always give the same amount, very nice people," Aimin said to Nan, smiling with her nose wrinkled.

Compared with other customers, David Kellman was the most generous tipper. Usually he'd show up midafternoon, when diners were few, and would have Maiyu wait on him. He'd compliment Chinchin on her outfit, and then the two of them would tease each other in a friendly way. However, they'd stop their repartee when Maiyu brought over his order. He talked a lot to Maiyu, and once in front of everyone he invited her out, saying he'd take her to a Broadway show and then to a nice place where they could have a great time.

"I'm already married," she told him, simpering.

"Really? You look so young, like a teenager, but it doesn't matter. We'll have fun." He spoke so loudly that the other diners turned to look his way.

Nan kind of admired Kellman, who seemed good-humored and at ease with himself, and who appeared so well off that even the cuffs of his tailored jacket were monogrammed. In addition, Kellman seemed unafraid of anything and anybody and never minced his words. He said to Maiyu again, "Tell me who's your husband, the lucky guy."

"No, I won't."

"You'd better not, or I'll strangle him." He gave a belly laugh.

Apparently Maiyu was attracted to this man. Her fondness for him often exasperated her husband, especially when she and he worked the same shift. Heng would fume, his eyes smoldering. Through his rage Nan could see the kind of desperation that often marked a man unable to find his way in this place. Nan had met a good number of these men, who, frustrated and disoriented and desperate, would vent their spleen on their wives or girlfriends, though almost without exception they all appeared taciturn in front of others. Deep inside, every one of them was like a keg of gunpowder, ready to explode. Intuitively Nan felt Heng and Maiyu's marriage was floundering.

Soon Kellman stopped showing up, and then Maiyu quit. Rumor had it that she had moved out of her apartment and shacked up with that black man. Nobody dared verify this with Heng, fearing he might go into hysterics, but it was an open secret that his wife had walked out on him. Heng sighed a lot at work and was more reticent than before, though once in a while he'd yell at the other workers without provocation.

Howard, the boss, interviewed several people for the job left by Maiyu. He decided on Yafang Gao, a woman of twenty-four who had arrived in New York a week before. She had graduated from Fudan University and spoke English fluently. She smiled at everyone as if she had worked here for a long time. Her slightly chubby face showed some innate goodness, while her bulbous nose and tiny eye-teeth gave her a youthful look. Her geniality made Nan think she must have had a happy childhood. Howard hired her mainly because she could speak the Shanghai dialect, which none of the staff could understand but which matched the cuisine of the restaurant. Four decades before, Howard had lived in that metropolis too. So at the interview with Yafang he spoke the language, which sounded foreign and slick to Nan. At one point, he overheard Howard saying in English to the applicant, "I'm thrilled to speak our home dialect again!" The boss gave Yafang a copy of Practical English for Restaurant Personnel as well, and from then on called her "my hometown girl."

Because Yafang Gao had to settle in before she could start, Howard let Nan wait tables for a few days. When she began waitress-ing, Nan returned to the kitchen, where from then on he'd cook under Chef Zhang's supervision. He liked the work and enjoyed seeing raw materials change into toothsome dishes. He tried to learn as much as he could, believing Howard might put him in the chef 's position someday.

Yafang turned out to know some of Nan's former schoolmates who had continued to do graduate work at her alma mater in Shanghai. She and Nan often chatted and got along well. Both were amazed that China, though a vast country, was actually a small world. Many people who had come out of their homeland knew of one another. Most of Nan's fellow graduate students had left China. As long as one could speak a foreign language, one would strive to go abroad. Some of them had even landed in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Russia, South Africa. "It took me three years to get the approval from my department for visiting America," Yafang told Nan. She had taught English at a technical college in Shanghai.

"Why so long?" he asked.

" The chairman of my department said I was still young and should let the older comrades have a chance first." "So you feel lucky?"

" Certainly. You should have seen the long line of visa applicants outside the U.S. consulate in Shanghai. Some of them went there the night before their interviews, but the American officials turned most of them down."

"I don't think people always know why they want to come to the United States."

"Sure they know, for a better life." "But life here isn't easy at all." "Still, there's freedom."

"Freedom is meaningless if you don't know how to use it. We've been oppressed and confined so long that it's hard for us to change our mind-set and achieve real freedom. We're used to the existence defined by evasions and negations. Most of our individual tastes and natural appetites have been bridled by caution and fear. It's more difficult to break the self-imposed tyranny than the external constraints. In short, we have lost the child in ourselves."

"Wow, you speak like a philosopher, so eloquently."

Heng Chen broke his habitual silence, saying, " Nan is also a poet."

" Are you really?" Yafang batted her glossy eyes, unconsciously licking her top lip.

"I've been trying to write poetry," admitted Nan.

"That means you still have a young heart."

Heng butted in again, "Heh-heh-heh, Nan 's a young-hearted man indeed, also very romantic. More impressive, he doesn't drink or smoke, absolutely a clean man, a model husband."

Nan wanted to call him "a loser" or "a new bachelor," but feeling reluctant to continue the conversation, he merely said, "I've got to go down and cook some pot-stickers." He hurried away to the kitchen.

₉

NAN went back to see his family at the end of September. Pingping and Taotao were overjoyed to have him home again, though Heidi greeted him lukewarmly. Pingping had explained to Heidi several times that Nan had gone to New York just to take a job; perhaps Heidi was afraid she might have to shelter Pingping and Taotao if Nan abandoned them. Nan had promised Heidi on the phone that he would come back as soon as he went through his training at the restaurant. Now, to convince her that he had been learning to be a chef, he cooked a dinner-wonton soup, lemon chicken, and shrimp dumplings-for the Masefields and his family. His cooking was a complete success. Livia loved the wontons so much that she wanted Nan to teach her how to make and boil them. Nan told Pingping what he had put into the stuffing, and she promised Livia that she'd get the wrappers from the Chinese grocery store in Burlington and show her how to wrap and cook wontons. Both Nan and Pingping knew that the girl would forget her interest in a matter of a day or two. Livia rarely persisted in doing anything.

Nan could stay only the weekend and would have to take Greyhound back on Monday morning. He didn't sleep in the same bed with Pingping, though they made love while Taotao was napping in the other room. She sighed afterward, saying she had missed him terribly and felt handicapped without him around, because there were many things she couldn't handle by herself. "Why can't we stay together?" she asked. "When you're not home, I'm restless and can't sleep well at night."

"I can't sleep well in New York either. Too noisy."

"Heidi asked me if we were separated."

"I'll come back soon. Honestly, I don't care about the editorial work, but the job at the restaurant is an opportunity for me to learn a trade. Just take my absence from home as a stint I'm doing, all right? I'll come back like a real chef in a few months."

"Taotao misses you too."

"I know."

"If you meet another woman you like in New York, you can spend time with her, as long as you don't catch disease and come back to us."

"Drop it! I'm too tired to have another woman. One's enough."

That stopped her. Nan remembered that before he left for America, she had said the same thing. Somehow she always thought he could make women weak in the knees. In reality he believed he wasn't attractive at all and was too quiet and too introverted to be a lady-killer. Worse, he had never been good at flirting or sweet-talking. Before coming to the States, he had heard that American colleges offered all kinds of bizarre courses. When he enrolled at Brandeis and got a copy of its curricula, he had thumbed through it to see whether there was a course in flirtation or seduction. If there had been such a class, he'd definitely have taken it.

Nan sighed, still fingering the tip of Pingping's hair while she was lying on her side, facing the back window. After the lovemaking, he still felt numb in the heart. This numbness made him gloomy. He knew she sensed his state of mind and must be feeling hurt.

What he didn't know was that she sometimes hated to go to bed with him, because sex made her feel miserable and degraded. "Cheaper than a whore," she'd chide herself afterward. Despite her undoubted love for him, despite her great effort to hold the family together, she simply couldn't always reconcile herself to the feeling that to have sex with a man who didn't love her was somewhat like self-violation. That was why she wouldn't mind that much if Nan slept with another woman, though she did fear losing him. If only he could understand how she actually felt.

She gazed at the sheets of rain rolling down the widowpanes as she listened to Nan snoring lightly.

The next morning Nan drove Taotao to the town library, where the boy checked out a stack of books. On their way back, father and son chatted about Taotao's pals at school while Nan was driving rather absentmindedly. The boy was on the math team now, but he disliked the practice for the future tournaments, which he said were more about the speed of your response than about your knowledge. There was a small traffic jam near the old town cemetery caused by an acci-dent-a pickup had broadsided a white station wagon. Approaching the site, Nan swerved into the newly opened lane marked by orange pylons. As he was coming out of the stopgap way, somehow the right-hand side of his car touched the rubber-coated front shield of a coupe, but the contact was so light that Nan wasn't even aware of it. He continued driving away.

The bottle-nosed coupe honked, then sprang forward, following him. Nan ignored it as road rage and didn't stop. He drove faster. A moment later the car overtook him and beeped again. "Pull aside!" the driver yelled at Nan, who still didn't know what was going on.

He stopped before a speed bump and stepped out of his car, his son remaining inside. A stocky man in a trench coat leaped out of the coupe and rushed over. To Nan's astonishment, the man produced a police badge and flashed it at Nan 's face, though his unbuttoned coat revealed that he wasn't wearing his uniform. His hawkish eyes blazing, he shouted, "I'm a police officer. Why did you hit my car and run?"

"When… when did I do zat?" "Just now. Don't argue with me!" "I reelly don't know what happened."

"Stop arguing. You committed a crime, d'you understand?" He slapped his flank. "I have a gun here." Indeed, he wore a pistol, though he was off duty. "Give me your driver's license!" he ordered.

"Why?"

"I said so. Give it here!"

Nan turned to look at Taotao, who was still in the car, unaware of the trouble outside. He handed his license to the policeman, who began to jot down the information while saying, "You're lucky today. If you don't stop next time, I'm gonna shoot you."

Seized by a sudden surge of heartsickness and self-pity, Nan begged, "Why don't you do it now? Keel me, please!"

"I can do that if I like." The officer kept writing without raising his eyes.

"Come on, awfficer, pull out your gahn and finish me off here. I'm sick of zis miserable life. Please shoot me!"

His earnestness surprised the man, who looked him in the face and muttered, "You're nuts!" Then he went on in an official tone of voice, "Stop bluffing! I've seen lots of wackos like you who don't give a damn about others' property."

At this point Taotao came over and stood by his father. The officer handed the driver's license back to Nan and said, "This is revoked. You can't drive anymore. You're in deep shit."

"Why not keel me instead? Come on, put me out of this suffering! I'm sick of zis uncertain life. Please fire your gahn!" Nan gulped back tears, his face twisted with pain.

"Get a grip here, man. We all have a cross to carry, and only death and taxes are certain in America. You gotta be more careful when you're driving, especially when you have your kid in your car." He glanced at Taotao, whose eyes were watering too. Without another word he turned and strode away.

On their drive back, Taotao said, "Dad, you shouldn't talk to the cop like that."

"Why?"

"You could get killed."

Nan wanted to tell his son that he'd prefer death to this life that seemed to lead nowhere and only to reduce him to nothing, but he throttled his impulse. A kind of shame washed over him. "I won't do zat again," he said.

The incident shook him deeply. He wasn't sure whether his license was really revoked. If it was, how could he get a new one? For the time being he could manage without it, but it would be indispensable when he came back to Boston eventually. He dared not ask Heidi for advice, for fear of arousing unnecessary suspicion. As a last resort, he phoned a local radio station that night, under the alias Jimmy, to ask the talk-show host.

The call went through. The gentleman told Nan on the air, "It doesn't work that way, Jimmy. An off-duty officer has no right to revoke anyone's driver's license. He isn't even entitled to issue a ticket for a traffic violation. That means your license is still valid. Don't worry about it."

"Should I do somesing to prevent zer trouble down the road?" His heart was pounding; this was the first time he was speaking on the radio.

"You may go to the police station and file a complaint. Do you know what station this officer is at?" "I don't."

"Find that out and file a complaint. We mustn't let this sort of police brutality pass with impunity. It's outrageous to threaten people with a gun when he was off duty. All right, it looks like we're out of time. You're listening to Legal Talk. Our toll-free number is 1-800-723…"

Nan didn't know the word "impunity," and neither would he bother to lodge a complaint, since it was impossible to find out what station the policeman belonged to. He was glad he still had his driver's license.

₁₀

HENG CHEN hadn't shown up at Ding's Dumplings for several days, and Nan substituted for him. The staff upstairs often talked about Heng, and sometimes Nan joined their conversation. They felt that Heng must be too ashamed to continue to work here since everybody knew his wife had dumped him. Nowadays it was commonplace for young women from mainland China to leave their husbands for white men and Chinese Americans, but in his case, he had lost Maiyu to a black man who was at least fifteen years his senior. For that, Chinchin believed, he must have felt more humiliated. Nan didn't think so. He could see that Kellman was attractive to women, especially to those who needed a strong shoulder to rely on. Kellman was the kind of fellow who would buy flowers for his girlfriend a few times a week and would take her to the movies, the theater, museums, and concerts. In contrast, Heng had yet to find his bearings here. He just worked and worked, and he must have been boring to Maiyu, who couldn't tolerate it that her husband, formerly a promising young historian, had grown less and less competent than herself. More troublesome, some men from mainland China tended to have a devil of a temper because they had lost their sense of superiority, especially some college graduates who had been viewed as the best of their generation in their homeland; here as new arrivals they had to start from scratch like others, and mentally they weren't primed for such a drastic change. Worse still, their former privileged life had deprived them of the vitality and stamina needed for grappling with adversities in order to take root in the American soil; as a consequence, the emigration blighted many of them. Undoubtedly, Heng was one of those men.

Heng had once told Nan that his parents would call him collect from his home village every other week, even though they didn't have anything urgent to report. For them, this was a way to show off to the villagers, none of whose children had gone to college, to say nothing of making big money in New York. His parents would go to the village office and use the only telephone available for the two hundred households. Every call from home cost Heng at least fifty dollars, so he and Maiyu often fought over the phone bills. He admitted to Nan that in a way he himself was to blame, because he had once sent back a photograph in which his rear end leaned against a brand-new Jaguar parked in a driveway beside a grand Tudor house, as if he owned both of them.

Rolling her large eyes, Chinchin said to the waitstaff joshingly, "You mainlanders, Communist supporters, must've been used to sharing husbands and wives, so it's no big deal to Heng. If Maiyu had a Taiwanese husband, she'd better be careful-he would kill her."

" Heng is no man," Aimin said.

"You shouldn't blame him," Nan broke in. "It's hard for him to survive here. How can he compete with Kellman, who has everything Maiyu wants?"

"Kellman can't be as rich as he appears," Chinchin said.

"But he owns a business and has a lot of confidence." Nan tugged a piece of tissue out of a dispenser on the counter. "Maiyu must feel vulnerable and want security."

" Maybe Heng is no good in bed," Aimin said, gnawing her thumbnail.

"Come now, he's already down, no need to kick him anymore," Nan protested.

"I'm sure Heng hasn't had enough sex education and can't satisfy Maiyu. "

"Aimin, you really have a mouth on you," said Chinchin.

Strangely enough, Yafang had been tongue-tied the whole time the conversation was going on. She looked pale today. Aimin asked, "Yafang, what do you think of Heng? Does he look like a man to you?"

"He's a hungry wolf."

"Wow, how come you're so angry?" Chinchin said. "He's just a little crazy, horny man."

"How do you know he's horny?" Aimin asked. "I just know it."

Nan was amazed by Yafang's remarks. She seemed to know more about Heng than the rest of them. Perhaps something had taken place between her and him when Nan was back in Boston over the weekend. What had happened? Why wouldn't Heng come to work? Why was Yafang so irascible?

Peeling scallions in the kitchen, Nan thought about his conversation with the female staff upstairs. Though Heng was physically small and weak, Nan felt that sex shouldn't be the reason Maiyu had run out on him. He remembered Gary Zimmerman, who had been his roommate during his first year and a half at Brandeis. Gary, skinny and poor, was crippled, with one leg shorter than the other and his left arm unable to stretch out freely, yet he never lacked girlfriends. Sometimes this Israeli would date two girls together and even frolic with both of them simultaneously in his queen-size bed, making such a racket that Nan, in the next room, couldn't sleep until they quieted down in the wee hours. Except for his sonorous voice, Gary had nothing extraordinary, but he spoke English fluently and was at home in America, so his demeanor and confidence attracted the females around him, especially those who were learning Hebrew from him and sympathized with his handicap. By contrast, Heng's problem was that he had been enervated and diminished here. Having little English, with neither hope nor confidence, how could he rival Kellman?

₁₁

THAT NIGHT after they closed up, Nan and Yafang left together for the subway station. She was wearing a gabardine peacoat that gave her a cinched waist. It was sprinkling, and the murky puddles on Canal Street reflected the neon lights and would disappear whenever a car crushed through them. Nearby wisps of steam were rising from a manhole. There were still many people on the sidewalk, though most of the shops were locked up. Along the other side of the street a Chinese man was biking from the opposite direction against the slashing wind, the back of his white raincoat bellying out and making him anomalous, like a ghost. As if unable to see far, his eyes were fixed on the front wheel of his bicycle; on the handlebars hung a plastic bag still giving off steam. Nan turned to watch the back of the deliveryman, who vanished at the street corner a block away.

On the subway platform, Yafang told Nan that Heng might never come to work again. "Why?" he asked.

"He dare not."

With the slackening clank an A train came to a stop, disgorging passengers. Nan could have taken it, but it didn't stop at Kingston-Throop avenues, where Yafang would get off, so he waited with her for the C train.

After the platform quieted down some, he said to her again, "I still don't understand why Heng won't come to work again. Who's he afraid of?"

"Me."

"You? Why?"

"I'll knife him if he comes close to me again." "What's going on?"

"He… he forced me to have sex with him." "What? A man like him could do that?"

The C train appeared and screeched to a stop. Nan and Yafang stepped onto it. Only a few passengers were aboard, some of them nodding off. Nan and Yafang sat down near a corner. "How did it happen?" he asked her.

"He tricked me."

"How? I don't mean to be nosy. I never thought he could be so dangerous. He's such a wispy man."

"Three days ago Howard's daughters worked at the restaurant, so Heng Chen and I were both off for a day. We live in the same area, and he said he'd like to take me to the movies in the evening. I asked him what pictures were good. He said, 'Have you seen adult movies?' 'No,' I said. I had no idea they were porno flicks. I thought they must be something too serious for kids to understand. So he took me to a place nearby. We saw how Americans were having sex. I'd never seen that kind of thing before and was astonished and, to be honest, also fascinated. In the dark Heng Chen began to caress me, and I didn't know how to resist him, too ashamed to make any noise. Afterward we went to his apartment." She sobbed and blew her nose. Her face suddenly aged, lines appearing under her cheeks. She went on, "I was excited and never knew there were so many ways of doing it. Heng Chen said he was good at it and could teach me how to make love. I tried to reject his advances, but he begged me, saying, 'We're all drifters in this country and ought to help each other. It's just like you have food in your pantry while I'm starving. Sex can help you forget your misery and loneliness, can make you happy.' All of a sudden he became so talkative and so piteous that I was touched. I felt sorry for him and let him have his way. He was like a wild beast, even bit and pinched me, and he wouldn't let me go until after midnight. But it was too late for me to return to my place by myself, so I slept in his living room. He wanted me to share his bed, but I refused. I stole out of his apartment at daybreak."

Nan remained silent, not knowing what to say. She had gone to Heng's bedroom of her own accord, though no doubt he had planned to seduce her. Her story upset Nan, as he realized that those who were wounded would in turn wound others. It was hard for him to imagine that Heng, a timid man in appearance, could be so bold and so vile.

"What should I do?" Yafang asked him. "I don't know."

"If this had taken place back home, I could've asked my brother and his friends to beat him up, but here I don't know anybody. In fact, I've told only you what happened. You're a good man I can trust. Tell me, do you think he raped me?"

Amazed, Nan massaged the corners of his eyes with his fingertips, then put down his hand and said, "In reality he did, but it will be hard to prove because you went to the movies with him and entered his bedroom. He can say you two had a date and the sex was consensual. It will be your story against his story."

She sobbed again, this time louder. Nan put his hand on her shoulder and whispered, "Don't be so sad. In this place we have to be tough, and have to endure a lot of humiliation. Sometimes you even have to swallow a tooth knocked off your gum."

" But I never thought my fellow countryman would…do…do this to me!" she panted.

"A man like him, not daring to hurt whites or blacks, can only turn on the Chinese." He removed his hand from her shoulder and sighed.

" Can you come and stay with me tonight? " she asked, and her eyes dimmed. "I feel so lonely, also frightened. Nobody cares about me here. My roommates are not in tonight and the apartment feels deserted. Please come with me. I'll be nice to you."

"Yafang, you're too emotional to think clearly. You're a good woman and will recover from this. I can't go to your place tonight. That will amount to taking advantage of you, and later you'll despise me. "

She nodded, her head hanging low. "You misunderstood me. I meant to invite you to stay in our living room. I'd just want to have someone in my apartment. I'm scared."

"Forgive me for what I said then, but I can't come with you."

"I understand."

"Don't tell others about what happened to you unless you absolutely trust them. If you can't help it, call home and talk to your siblings."

"That I can't do. They'll tell my parents. So far I've always told them everything is excellent here."

"Then you can call me if you want to talk." "Thanks. I might."

She got off at Kingston-Throop avenues, dragging her feet away as if her body were suddenly too heavy for her.

That night Nan reviewed Yafang's story in his mind. He felt low and somewhat regretted not having gone with her, but he feared he might get entangled with her too deeply. His life was already a quagmire. At this point he didn't want to be involved with another woman, and he had to concentrate on his own survival and that of his family. The more he thought, the more tormented he was by the notion Pingping had often expressed, namely that it was more dangerous to mix with your own people than with strangers. Yafang's trouble proved that. Many of their compatriots here were desperate and wouldn't hesitate to harm one another. In Heng Chen's case, there must have been more to it than just taking advantage of Yafang. His wife's betrayal might have turned him into a misogynist. No, not exactly. He obviously still lusted after women. Perhaps he was so desperate and so cornered that he couldn't help but move fast to seduce a young woman. But afraid of lawsuits and retaliation, he could only prey on a new arrival from their native land.

Yafang never phoned Nan. At work she was polite to him but remained aloof. Nan knew he must have hurt her pride, and she might have felt he had left her in the lurch. He noticed that she talked a lot with Aimin and Chinchin. Several times he caught her wistful eyes glancing at him, but whenever he joined their conversation, she'd turn taciturn. She seemed to avoid speaking to him, though she did tell him that she very much enjoyed the issues of New Lines he had given her.

₁₂

MR. LIU called and said his wife, Shaoya, had completed a short story. He wondered whether New Lines could use it. If they could, he would send it along right away. Nan told him, "By all means, we'd love to see it. What's it about?"

" About how hard a Chinese woman works in an underground sweatshop in New York."

"That's good. We probably can run it."

"Should I mail it to you?"

"No need. I'm going to the print center tomorrow morning, and I can stop by and pick it up. That will save you the postage."

"Thank you for your thoughtfulness, Nan. I'll see you then." Mr. Liu sounded tired, as though he'd lost some of his voice.

Nan told Bao about Shaoya's story. They both believed they should publish it provided she was willing to resume her pen name, Purple Lilac; yet they couldn't make the final decision until they had read it. Bao kept saying this was a good sign: some fiction might bolster the circulation of the journal.

The next morning Nan went to the Lius'. It took him a good while to find their apartment, because he wandered into a neighboring tenement that looked identical. Finally, as he was approaching the correct entrance, he heard a woman screaming in Chinese, but he couldn't make out her words. A black man ran out of the stairwell and almost barreled into Nan, who stepped aside to let him pass. The front of the man's canary yellow pullover bore the large words sick of it all! He nodded at Nan and sauntered away. Nan went to unit 127, and the female voice was intelligible now-it was Shaoya's.

"I've worked myself half to death to make the money while you just threw it away right and left," she shouted. "I didn't mean to," came Mr. Liu's tamed voice. "You must pay it back."

"You know I'm broke. If I had any money, you could have it all." "Stop playing the stock market! Do you hear me?" "Life is a risk. We-"

"Shut up! Just promise me never to do it again."

Should Nan go in? He decided to knock on the door. Mr. Liu answered and was surprised to see him. Then the old man grimaced, saying, "Come in, please." He spread out his arm as if ushering Nan to a meeting.

" Sorry, I understand this might not be a convenient time," Nan said.

"Don't worry. We're just having a small exchange of words. Right, dear?" he asked Shaoya, who still looked incensed, her face dark.

She said to Nan as if he were an old friend, "He dabbled in stocks with the sweat money I made. Yesterday alone he lost more than two thousand dollars."

"All right, all right," said her husband. "The stock market is like a battlefield where it's normal to lose or win. It highly depends on luck. Right, Nan?"

Nan was taken aback, totally ignorant of stocks. He forced himself to answer, "That must be true. Losses and gains take place every day."

"But he shouldn't have run the risk in the first place," she said. "Heaven knows how hard I've worked at the gift store. Last week I put in fifty-eight hours, and my legs got swollen every night when I came back. But he stayed home playing ducks and drakes with the money I made."

"All right, I won't do it again," said her husband.

Nan got the story and Shaoya's agreement to resume her pen name. on his way back he mulled over the scene at the Lius'. He was surprised that the old man would speculate in stocks. Everyone assumed that the Lius were poor, but Mr. Liu had just lost thousands of dollars. How could that be possible? Had he accepted some financial aid on the sly? Probably. Otherwise he wouldn't have squandered money that way.

On second thought, Nan was unsure of his reasoning. Mr. Liu had already established his image as an independent man; if he had taken money from someone, word would surely have come out, since the exile community was small and all eyes were focused on the funds available for the dissidents. No, the old man could hardly have accepted any financial aid without being noticed. Nan realized that Mr. Liu's apparent self-reliance was based mainly on his wife's hard work and sacrifice.

₁₃

BAO knew a famous poet, Sam Fisher, who lived in the Village. He had invited Fisher to be on the honorary board of New Lines and the poet had agreed. The journal listed his name, together with several others, on the inside of its back cover. Bao also requested poems from Fisher, who was so generous that he said he'd give him three or four. One Sunday morning Bao and Nan set out for the poet's place to get the poems.

Fisher lived in a yellow-brick building on West Tenth Street. He greeted Bao and Nan with a little bow, his arm opened toward the inside of his apartment. He looked sleepy, but his droopy eyes were intense, as if they could bore into your mind when he peered at you. His crown was entirely bald, yet the hair at his temples curved upward like two tiny horns. His home was rather crowded, the walls lined with bookcases and many large photographs, some of which showed naked young men in different postures. One displayed a teenage boy sitting on his haunches and holding his erected member with his hand as if masturbating. Sam Fisher was also an accomplished photographer, selling his pictures to collectors regularly. In addition, he was a Zen Buddhist. On the wall of the corridor hung a long horn, the type used at Tibetan temples. He led the visitors into the living room, which smelled bosky and had a shiny floor, and then he called to his boyfriend to brew tea.

To Nan 's surprise, a young Chinese man stepped in with a tray that held a clay teapot and four cups. "This is Min Niu, from Chang-sha," Fisher introduced him to the guests.

They greeted his boyfriend in Mandarin, and then Nan resumed speaking English with Sam. He observed the young man pouring tea.

Min was rather effeminate and had a smart face with a smooth, hairless chin. He must have been in his mid-twenties. How could he and Sam be lovers? Sam must have been at least thirty years older than he was.

On the glass coffee table lay two biographies of Sam Fisher, one almost twice as thick as the other. Sipping the piping hot jasmine tea, Bao pointed at the books and asked Sam, "Which is more true?"

"Neither," Sam said. "This one is from a Marxist point of view, and that one is Freudian. They're interesting, but the man they describe is not me." He laughed, a sparkle in his eyes. He got up and went into his study.

Nan turned to Min Niu. "How long have you been in America?"

"Since last autumn."

"What do you do?"

"I'm a graduate student at NYU."

"Studying science?"

"No, Asian history."

"Really? What period?"

"I'm not sure yet. Probably I'll write a thesis on homosexuality in ancient China."

Sam returned with a few sheets of paper and handed them to Bao, saying, "You can use these."

Bao glanced through them as if able to read English while his eyes brightened. He said, "Thank for your help."

"Your poems will make a huge difference to our journal," Nan added.

Sam nodded without speaking. Someone knocked on the door, and Min went to answer it. In came a tall young man with Beatles-cut hair and high cheekbones. "Hey, come and meet my friends," Sam shouted, waving at the new arrival.

"Dick Harrison," the man introduced himself, and shook hands with Bao and Nan. He sat down across from Sam, and Min put a cup in front of him. As Min was about to pour tea, Dick stopped him and asked Sam, "Aren't we going out?"

"Yes, we're going to have lunch at Lai Lai." He turned to Bao and Nan. "Let's go out together, okay?"

Min whispered in Chinese, "He's in a sunny mood today."

"What did he say about me?" Sam asked.

"You're high-spirited," said Nan.

"Yes, I am happy. Let's go out for lunch."

"I have homework to do, Sam," Min said. "I can't join you."

"Stay home, then. We'll go without you."

After Nan called Ding's Dumplings and told Chinchin he'd be an hour late, the four of them went out of the building and headed east. As they passed a small bookstore called Smart Readers, a young woman with penciled eyebrows waved at Sam and cried, "Hey, Mr. Fisher, how are you doing?"

"I'm well."

She blew him a kiss and turned away, pulling a cart loaded with used books. Then a young man with a widow's peak stepped out of the bookstore, and at the sight of Sam, he said, "Wow, Mr. Fisher! Please wait a sec. Let me go in and buy a book of yours. Can you autograph it for me?"

"All right."

The man rushed back into the store while the four of them stood waiting. "Well, I'm often stopped on the street," Sam told Bao and Nan, apparently amused. His hands hung against his abdomen, his fingers interlaced.

In no time the man returned with a volume of Sam's poetry entitled Oh-Oh-Oh-, his thumb in between the cover and the title page. "Please sign this for me, will you? This will make my day."

"Sure." Sam took the felt-tip the man handed him and began inscribing. Nan craned to see him drawing a Buddha with a drumlike belly. Next Sam put several stars around the Buddha's head and wrote "Ha Ha Ha!" Then with a flourish he signed his name below the figure.

The man looked at the drawing and the signature. "This is awesome! Thank you." He held out his hand and Sam shook it.

They went on their way to Lai Lai on Sixth Avenue, which Dick told them was a noodle house Sam loved. Sam walked with his hands in his pants pockets and every once in a while kicked something on the sidewalk: a beer can, or a pebble, or a cigarette pack, or a paper cup. After another turn they arrived at the eatery, but before they could enter, an overweight man greeted Sam. "Mr. Fisher, I enjoy your new book. I'm a big fan."

"So," Sam looked annoyed, "you want me to fuck you in the ass?"

"No, no, please." The man backed away, but turned his head to smile at Sam.

Nan was flabbergasted by Sam's words. Dick explained, "That's Sam. People know him well and won't be offended."

"Damn it," Sam grunted. "I just don't want to be stopped every five minutes. If he'd bought my book, that would've been different."

They all laughed and went into Lai Lai.

₁₄

THE NOODLE HOUSE was full of people. A young waitress, looking Vietnamese, piloted them into an inner room that had only two tables in it. She asked Sam with a knowing smile, "What would you like today?"

"Ask my friends first," Sam said.

"Sure." She turned to Bao. "What will you have?"

"Shogun Noodle."

Nan ordered the same; not having eaten the Japanese noodle before, he wanted to try it. Dick and Sam chose Pad Thai.

While waiting for their food, they talked about religion. Sam said he knew the Dalai Lama personally, and in fact his master was a distant cousin of His Holiness. "Do you practice Buddhism?" Nan asked him.

"I meditate every day."

"We go to Ann Arbor every fall," Dick put in.

"Why?" Bao asked.

Sam smiled mysteriously. "My master's temple is there, so we go there to pray every year."

"We also listen to our master preach," added Dick.

The noodle and the Pad Thai came, giving off a spicy scent. Nan was fascinated by their involvement with the Buddhists. He spooned a shrimp out of the soup and took a bite. It tasted fresh but a bit rubbery. He asked Sam, "Why do you study Buddhism?"

"It can calm me down. It also helps my constipation."

Nan burst out laughing, while Bao looked bewildered. Dick said, "It can also enlighten the mind."

"Does your master impose any restriction on your life?" asked Nan.

"No, we're free," Sam said. "You can do anything in our branch of Buddhism. Drugs, sex, marriage, alcohol, you name it, anything but violence."

"We're a radical group," Dick said, "so lots of people are against us."

"I don't give a fuck about what they think of us." Sam thrust a bundle of rice noodles into his mouth. "Do you know when Tibet will be open to tourists?" he asked Nan.

"I have no idea."

"I hope I can go there next year. I've been trying to get permission from the Chinese consulate, but every time those bureaucrats turn me down."

"You must be on their list," Nan said.

"I'm a crazy Jew, on every government's list."

"Including zer U.S.?"

"You bet. My FBI file must be able to fill a whole cart. I'm an enemy of authorities."

Bao broke in, "If you go to China, you know what happen?"

"I know, some undercover agent will put a bullet into the back of my head and the government will claim I committed suicide."

They all cracked up. When lunch was over, Sam paid for everyone. "I make more than the three of you put together," he said, refusing to go Dutch.

It was getting cloudier and looked like rain. As they were saying good-bye at a street corner, Sam embraced Nan and gave him a loud smack on the cheek. Nan was surprised and a little embarrassed. Dick Harrison wrote down his phone number for Nan and said he might send along some poems too. They promised to see each other again.

Nan and Bao headed for the subway station. "Sam is really fond of you," Bao said, and squinted at Nan.

"Come now, I'm not gay. I'm drawn to women, can't stop thinking about them."

Despite that unsettling kiss, Nan was quite moved by their meeting with Sam Fisher, in whom he had seen the free spirit of a poet who wasn't afraid of anything or anybody, a complete individual. Nan hadn't read Sam's poetry, but he liked his personality. If he were gay, he wouldn't have minded seeing Sam more often.

Bao told him more about Min Niu. Min had been an English major at Hunan Normal University. He wrote to Sam to express his admiration for his poetry, and then a relationship developed between them through correspondence. As his sponsor in the United States, Sam helped him get his visa and even paid tuition for him at NYU. Min came and lived with Sam, working as the manager of his home. In fact, he also cooked for Sam and sometimes served as his secretary. Bao had once eaten dinner in Sam's apartment, and Min had made four dishes and a large bowl of soup within an hour. And everything he cooked that evening was delicious. Sam also paid Min a decent salary.

Nan was impressed, saying, "What a lucky fellow Min Niu is."

"I think you can replace him if you want." Bao winked at Nan.

"No, I'm dying to work for a pretty woman poet as famous as Sam Fisher. Do you happen to know anyone?"

"What makes you think I'll provide the information gratis?"

They both laughed. An old woman walking by turned to look at them. They stopped laughing and went on chatting about the poetry world in New York.

₁₅

PINGPING phoned Nan at Ding's Dumplings and begged him to come back immediately. She had bickered with Heidi and was thinking of moving out. What had happened was that Nathan couldn't find his new calculator and suspected that Pingping had taken it upstairs for Taotao to use. Heidi went up and asked Pingping, "Do you have Nathan's calculator?" "No," Pingping said. She took Heidi to Nathan's room on the second floor and found the calculator lying on the windowsill behind his desk. Then she told Heidi to her face that however poor she was, she wouldn't steal.

Her words rendered Heidi speechless, for she knew that was true. Many times Pingping had come upon banknotes and coins when laundering their clothes, and without fail she had given the money back to Heidi, sometimes even thirty or forty dollars. Yet as Ping-ping's boss, Heidi wouldn't apologize and just went away without a word. That angered Pingping more, and she planned to quit, though she hadn't mentioned it to Heidi yet.

Nan told her on the phone not to think of moving out right now, because Taotao couldn't find a better school. They could not afford to leave Woodland until the school year was over. "I'll come back soon, all right?" he said to her.

" How soon?"

"I've got to make arrangements before I go back. I can't just leave without notifying my boss."

"All right, come back as quickly as you can."

For a whole afternoon Nan was absentminded at work and even nicked his fingertip while dicing a cucumber. He was angry with Heidi, who seemed to have mistreated Pingping because he wasn't around. Probably she feared that his wife and son might stay at her home forever, so she created some difficulties for them to chase them out.

Toward the end of the day, Nan told Chinchin that he wouldn't come for the rest of the week because there was an emergency at home and he had to go back. His fellow workers all thought he was just taking a few days off and would return the next week. He wanted them to think that way too, since he wouldn't burn his bridges.

But he decided to quit his job at New Lines. He didn't enjoy the editorial work and was afraid that sooner or later, Bao would ask him to translate his entire memoir if he continued editing the journal.

The next morning he went downstairs to explain his decision to Bao. As he was approaching the door of their bedroom, he heard Wendy berating her boyfriend. She sounded furious today. "You're just a sponge!" she cried.

"Don't cawl me that!" yelled Bao.

"You live like a parasite. I can't stand you anymore. Get out." "It's just couple dollars."

"A couple of dollars? I only get seven hundred a month from Social Security, but you spent more than two hundred on alcohol, not to mention the phone bills you ran up. How dare you call that amount just a couple of dollars?"

"But you have rent money."

"That goes to the mortgage. Stop arguing with me. I've made up my mind and want you to move out." "Okay, okay, I go out your house." "Good. Bring your gay friend along." "Damn you, Nan not gay!" "Don't tell me that. I know what he is." "You don't want to marry me no more?"

"I'm sick of you. You've just been using me to get a green card. I can't help you with that anymore. Get out."

"Okay, I don't carry old bag like you," he said calmly.

Nan knocked on their door. He was incensed by Wendy's remark and glared at her. She was taken aback by his fierce eyes and turned to the bay window. Outside, a few blackbirds were fluttering on the crown of a sycamore, and one of them was holding a strip of toilet tissue in its beak. Nan noticed a reddish patch rising on Wendy's cheek. She used to be friendly to him, and he had helped her repair the front door and put up the picket fence in the backyard, but all of a sudden she had begun bad-mouthing him. This hurt him to the quick.

"I'm going home," he told Bao. "You mean for good?"

"Yes. My family has some trouble, and I have to go back without delay."

"Well, I'm going to move out soon. Sick of this rotten cunt." He pointed at his girlfriend.

Nan glanced at Wendy, who didn't understand Bao's curse. Then the two of them talked briefly about the journal. Bao hadn't gotten the funding for the next issue, so this might be the time for Nan to leave after all. In his heart Nan couldn't help but despise Bao. If he was going to become an artist, he would be a different type. He'd be a self-sufficient man first. Now it was high time for him to start his life afresh. New York wasn't a place for a man like him; he had to return to his family and struggle together with them.

₁₆

ON THE PHONE Pingping hadn't told Nan the whole story, which involved Taotao and Livia as well. A few days earlier the two children had been doing homework together in the kitchen while Pingping was outside the house, fixing the lid on the wooden trash bin. The girl and the boy were quite close by now, and Livia often claimed that Taotao was one of her best friends, though he still wouldn't join her pals when they were over. Several times Pingping told her son not to get too attached to Livia, yet the boy couldn't help but turn ebullient whenever the girl was around. Heidi didn't like Taotao that much, though she admitted he was bright and handsome. Bending over the trash bin, Pingping hammered two nails into the holes on the hinge affixed to the lid, then opened and shut it a few times to make sure it was no longer loose. The job done, she turned to go back into the kitchen. But then she overheard the two children and stopped to listen.

"I just don't think he'll come back," Livia said in a serious tone of voice.

"That's not true. My dad is just working in New York."

"Tell you what, grown-ups always lie."

"My dad isn't a liar."

"How do you know he isn't?"

"My mom told me so."

"He lies to your mom too. He walked out on both of you, that's what I heard." "You're a big liar!"

"Don't be mad at me. I don't want you to lose your dad just because I don't have my dad." "You're not my friend anymore."

"C'mon, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I just told you what my mom and her friends said."

Pingping stepped in and said to the girl, "They're just buncha miserable rich ladies, have nothing else to do. They just want everyone else have bad luck."

Livia gasped and winced. Pingping went on, "Don't believe that kinda crap. Nan is learning to be chef. Don't you eat the wonton he cooked?"

"I did. It was delicious, better than anything I ate in any Chinese restaurant." Livia seemed to relax a little. "He's away just for short time."

"He told me so too," Taotao added. "He said we'd open our own business in the future."

Livia dropped her eyes, misting up. She said to Pingping, "My mom's friends all say you and Nan split up. My mom is afraid you'll stay with us forever. To be honest, I won't mind." That was true. Livia was fond of Pingping, who was the only one who had contradicted Dr. Hornburger's prognosis that the girl wouldn't grow taller than five feet. Even her mother believed that Kraut.

"They just gossip," Pingping said. " Nan won't walk out from Tao-tao and me. He's good man."

Despite saying that, Pingping got more agitated than ever. She could see the logic behind the rumor. What if Nan hit it off with some woman in New York who could win his heart? Wouldn't he start an affair and then abandon Taotao and her? If this happened back in China she might not be devastated, because she was a complete person there and could do anything by herself. But here she depended on him for many things, and Taotao needed him as his dad. Indeed, before they had decided to immigrate, she had even planned to divorce Nan after they returned to China, where she would raise their child by herself. That was why for years she had been determined to make money. But in this place she couldn't live separately from Nan, and at all costs she must hold the family together, to give Taotao a safe, loving home. What's more, recently she somehow could no longer bear the thought that Nan might go and live with another woman. She knew she'd get jealous like crazy if that happened. So now she must have him back. The longer he stayed in New York, the more trouble might start.

₁₇

NAN came back and talked with Pingping, who agreed they shouldn't rush to move out. To their amazement, Heidi had made up her mind to dismiss them, although she would let them stay another half year. She said, "I'll need someone for house-sitting this summer anyway. But after August I won't be able to use your help anymore. Are we clear about that?" Her face was wooden. The Wus thanked her for offering them the extended period.

Nan wondered if he should return to New York, but decided not to, now that he could cook like a professional. He called Howard to apprise him of his decision. His boss said he understood and would send him his last week's pay. That moved Nan, who had never thought he could get the wages.

That night he and Pingping went to bed together, but he found all his condoms punctured or cut by scissors. "That must be our son's doing," she said, tittering.

Nan didn't reproach Taotao, realizing that the boy must have resented his absence from home. He smiled and said to his wife, "How could he understand sex? I knew nothing about it until I was thirteen."

"Here children reach puberty earlier. He has read some small books on biology and knows a lot about how babies are made."

"Still, it's too early for him to be so interested."

"It doesn't matter, as long as we love him and raise him well."

He said no more and went on making love to Pingping, who soon began to come. But she dared not scream for fear of waking up their son. She murmured tearfully while licking Nan 's chest, saying she couldn't live without him. If only she could keep him home forever!

The next day Nan began to look through job ads in the Boston Globe and World Journal. This time he wanted to be a cook. Two Chinese restaurants interviewed him, and the Jade Cafe in Natick hired him as a sous-chef. He was to start the following Monday.