A Free Life Page 23

  “No, this is a matter of principle. I won’t spend money this way.”

  Mei Hong went on, “You act like the U.S. government. Don’t you feel ashamed?”

  “I’m not as rich as Uncle Sam.” Nan raised his voice. “I don’t collect taxes from others.”

  “All right, do you know China appealed to the United States for help last autumn? Guess how much the U.S. government offered our country.”

  “How much?”

  “Twenty thousand dollars.”

  “Yes, that’s just enough for one of those cars,” the young man said, pointing at the parking lot. “The United States, the richest country in the world, meant to humiliate China with that piddling amount of money.”

  “What does this have to do with me?” Nan asked. “If my business went belly-up, China wouldn’t come to my rescue, would it? Where could I get even one dollar?”

  “But you’re a Chinese and obligated to do something,” Mei Hong said.

  “I’ve done enough for China. Don’t want to be charitable anymore.”

  “Don’t you have your parents and family back home?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Then how can you be so cold and cut yourself off completely? How can you see your own people suffering and dying without lifting a finger to help?”

  “Because even if I donated millions, the money would never reach the victims, and the officials would gobble it up. I don’t want to fatten those parasites.”

  “We know what you’re saying might be true to some degree, but we have made sure that the money we give will be spent on the victims. That’s why so many people have contributed. One fellow at Georgia State is so poor that he lives in a decrepit van, but even he gave twenty dollars.”

  “Yes,” the young man added, “a chemistry professor donated a thousand. He’s from Nanjing originally.”

  Mei Hong went on, “We ought to separate the Chinese government from the common people. In this case, we’re helping the victims.”

  Their words mollified Nan some. Pingping put in, “How about fifty dollars?”

  Mei Hong said, “How about sixty? I gave seventy, but I’m not as rich as you. I came to America only last summer. Even my daughter gave twelve dollars—that was all she had for pocket money.”

  “Give them sixty and let them go,” Nan grunted to Pingping.

  She opened their checkbook. “Who do I make the check out to?”

  “The Georgia Tech Chinese Student Association.”

  While his wife was writing the check, Nan said to the solicitors, “We give this money not because the victims are mainlanders. If they were people in Hong Kong or Taiwan or elsewhere, we would do the same. We just don’t want to have anything to do with the Chinese government.”

  “We understand. Some old overseas Chinese said the same thing, because they were hurt by the revolution and the political movements,” Mei Hong admitted.

  That made Nan ponder. He knew that Pingping and he were actually making this donation to China, and that if they hadn’t been from there, the solicitors wouldn’t have come to them.

  “Here you are.” Pingping handed them the check.

  The solicitors accepted it with a bow, which made the Wus cringe. Before turning to the door, Mei Hong said with wholehearted sincerity, “On behalf of all the suffering Chinese on the mainland, on behalf of our country, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. You will receive a thank-you letter from the Chinese consulate.” She bowed again, and so did the young man.

  “No need to hear from them,” Nan said. “They wouldn’t even renew my passport.”

  “We know how you feel,” said Mei Hong. “For several days we’ve been begging around shamelessly for our motherland. We only hope our children won’t repeat the same act in the future when our country becomes rich and strong.”

  Both Nan and Pingping were astonished and wordlessly saw them walking away. When they had gone out the door, Nan shook his squarish chin and said to his wife, “Such hotheads! They acted like state delegates, so damned sincere as if the whole of China rested on their shoulders and they couldn’t even feel the weight.”

  “You shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Said what?”

  “We have nothing to do with China.”

  “I know,” he sighed. “I was just angry. If only we could squeeze the old country out of our blood.”

  Nan had once thought they could dissociate themselves completely from the Chinese community here and just live a reclusive, undisturbed life, but now it was clear that China would never leave them alone. Wherever they went, the old land seemed to follow them.

  PART FOUR

  1

  SPRING in Georgia was miserable for Nan and Pingping, both allergic to pollen. The air turned yellowish in daylight, and even the surfaces of roads changed color in the mornings, dusted with the powder from trees. Every day before going to work, Pingping would sweep their deck clean of the yellow dust. Once she couldn’t find their car in the parking lot of Winn-Dixie, pollen having coated all the vehicles parked there and dulled their colors. Here the pollen season was much longer than in New England, usually from late February to mid-May. Whenever Pingping went out, she’d wear a mask, a nose piece, regardless of the attention it drew, whereas Nan wouldn’t do that, so his nose had swollen to twice its normal size. How eagerly they looked forward to the next rain, which might cleanse the air for a few days so that they could walk outside again. To fight the allergies, Pingping made Taotao and Nan take tablets of bee pollen every day, which helped some, though Nan would have gastric pain if he swallowed them on an empty stomach. The Wus also took plenty of vitamins to build up their resistance to the allergies. Not until mid-May when a drought set in did they begin to feel better. Miraculously Taotao’s allergy had subsided considerably this year. Back in Massachusetts pollen had tortured him, but now he could play in the open air without a runny nose or itchy eyes. Nan joked about him, saying the boy had acculturated so well, he would become a redneck eventually.

  “I ain’t a redneck!” his son protested, imitating some of his classmates, with an upswinging lilt on the last syllable “neck.”

  “Don’t use that kinda language,” his mother warned him.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  They all laughed. Actually, like Taotao, Nan and Pingping had begun to adapt to life here as well. Sometimes Pingping made grits for breakfast, and they often ate kale and collard and mustard greens. Nan and Taotao also liked pork rinds, boiled peanuts, fried okra, hush puppies, barbecue sauce. But the boy disliked the cheese here, which indeed had a dull taste compared with that in the Northeast. Corn bread had become a favorite of theirs, like a kind of pastry, and they’d buy it whenever it was on sale. Back in China, Pingping and Nan had lived on corn buns for many years, but that was a different kind, with no sugar or milk mixed into the cornmeal. It was pure corn, one hundred percent. One day Pingping cooked a few corn buns—the Chinese type—for Taotao, who had asked her for them several times, but the boy, after taking a bite, wouldn’t touch it again. “Tastes like crap!” he said.

  Unlike him, his parents each ate a whole bun with relish. They also brought one to Tammie. At the sight of it, the waitress got excited, but after having a morsel, she frowned and said, “You mainlanders always insist on the reunification with Taiwan, but I bet no Taiwanese wants to eat this stuff. You should eliminate this sort of corn buns before you talk about the reunification. This is absolutely not for human consumption.”

  Despite saying that, despite eating only a quarter of the bun with a piece of smoked herring as Pingping suggested, Tammie was pleased by the Wus’ sharing it with her. She wrapped the remainder of the bun and took it home to show her roommates.

  2

  FOR TWO YEARS Nan had often feared that his wife or son might fall ill, because they had no health insurance. Nan had once known a young man living in downtown Boston who was a Canadian citizen; the fellow had never bought any medical insurance, so if he had
an illness, he’d go to Montreal to see his doctor. Nan wished his family could do that.

  He talked with Jinsheng Yu, who had once served as a captain in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and was now a reputable insurance agent used by many Asians and Latinos in the Atlanta area. Jinsheng told him that it would cost $860 a month to get the standard health insurance for his family. There was no way the Wus could afford that. At the suggestion of Jinsheng, Nan bought only the emergency coverage for his family for about $90 a month. This was the best he could do. Such a minimum protection, however, did calm him down some. He knew that a lot of Asian immigrants had no medical insurance whatsoever. If they were ill, they’d first go to an herbal shop. With few exceptions, Chinese herbalists are also doctors and can treat ailments and prescribe herbs. Some of them in the Atlanta area had been professors in medical schools back in China, but they couldn’t practice here because they specialized only in Chinese medicine and couldn’t speak English, so were unable to pass the professional exams. Apprehensive of lawsuits, many of them avoided treating whites and blacks, to whom they sold only herbs and patent pills and boluses.

  The Wus didn’t believe in Chinese medicine despite its holistic approach, despite its emphasis on the balances between yin and yang and between hot and cold winds in the body, but their friend Janet often asked Pingping about herbs. Janet had once been treated by an acupuncturist for her back injury, so she was fascinated by Chinese medicine. In addition, she also wanted to know if there was an herbal remedy for infertility, of which Pingping wasn’t sure.

  One afternoon, toward the end of May, Janet came to the Gold Wok, wearing pedal pushers and a thick ring on her second toe. Unlike other days, she overstayed her midafternoon break. She and Pingping were sitting in a corner booth, chitchatting and tittering while Tammie was wiping with a sponge the cruets and saltshakers on the dining tables, a basin of warm water on a stool beside her. On the wall beyond them pranced and frolicked the horses and foals in the mural painted a decade before. Putting her long-fingered hand on Pingping’s forearm, Janet said, “I have something to ask you.”

  “What?”

  “Would you like to have another baby?”

  “I love babies, but I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “I must make money and help Nan and Taotao. Nan like to have a lotta kids, but we can’t afford.”

  “What if somebody gives you money, lots of money?”

  “What you mean?”

  “I mean, I’d love to pay you to have a baby for Dave and me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Dave and I cannot have a baby no matter how hard we try. It’s my problem, my eggs are no good.”

  “How can I have baby for you?”

  “There are two ways.” Janet grew animated, her eyes fully open and glowing. “You and Nan have another baby for us, and we’ll pay you ten thousand dollars. Or you and Dave have a baby, and we’ll double that.”

  “That’s disgusting. How can I have Dave’s baby!” Pingping was blushing to the ears and felt insulted.

  “Don’t blow your top. You must’ve misunderstood me. Haven’t you heard the term ‘surrogate mother’?” Janet scratched her own freckled arm.

  “I heard it on TV, but what it mean exactly?”

  “The doctor can inseminate a woman’s egg with a man’s sperm, and then put it into her uterus. That’ll make her pregnant.”

  “Then what?”

  “After the baby is born, the father has the right to it.”

  “So the mother can’t see her own child again?”

  “In most cases she can’t. She has to abide by the agreement she signed with the man and his wife before she went through the artificial insemination. But biologically she’s still the mother.” Janet’s face tensed up, as though she were holding back a smile. “If I could get pregnant like you, I’d have a small army of kids and let them populate a whole town.”

  “This is hard, Janet.” Pingping crimped her brows, then muttered, “Why can’t you adopt baby? Lots American couples have Chinese girls.”

  “We’ve thought of that, but ideally we’d love to have a baby from you.”

  “Why you give me such big problem? This is very hard for me.”

  “Look, Pingping, you’re so pretty and healthy that we’d love to have your baby. You’re just a year or two younger than me, but look at you—your skin and figure are like a young girl’s. You can easily pass for twenty-five.”

  “You don’t understand, Janet. Chinese women don’t get old very quick like white women before we are fifty. Chinese girls grow up slow. I have my first period when I was sixteen. But after we’re fifty, we suddenly become old woman, very, very old.”

  “Anybody’s old after fifty.”

  “But after fifty, white woman get old very slow, because better nutrition, I guess. Look at Mrs. Lodge. She’s eighty-nine and still do yard work and grow her vegetable garden.”

  “Okay, I see your point. Dave and I will be blessed if you can give us a baby.”

  “I can’t do that, sorry.”

  “You see, usually a surrogate mother is paid ten thousand dollars. We’re willing to double that. Cash. You won’t have to pay tax for it. Dave loves Taotao, you know, and I can see that he dreams we can have a son like yours someday.”

  “Why not girl? I like girls.”

  “A girl will be great too. We’ll be thrilled to have her.”

  “I can’t say yes, Janet. Maybe I should talk to my husband.”

  “Sure, I understand. This ought to be a family decision. Talk to Nan, okay?”

  “All right.”

  Although reluctant to consider the offer, Pingping saw this as an opportunity to reduce their mortgage, which had agitated her all along. Never had she borrowed money before they bought the house. She had always dreaded debt and paid their bills promptly. What if their business took a downturn? Or Nan fell ill, unable to work for some time? Then they might lose everything. If they couldn’t make their monthly payments, for sure Mr. Wolfe would come and take their home back just as banks would repossess houses and cars of insolvent mortgagors. The more she thought about this possibility, the more terrified she was. She felt they must pay off the mortgage as soon as possible.

  That night, after Taotao went to bed, she talked to Nan about the Mitchells’ offer. “No way,” said Nan, whose eyes suddenly blazed. “You must be out of your mind. How can you think I’ll let you be a surrogate mother, carrying another man’s seed? I’m not that shameless. If you love babies so much, I can give you one. Do you really want one for ourselves?”

  “That’s not my point. We need money to reduce our debt, don’t we?”

  “But you mustn’t use yourself that way. What will you say to Taotao if someday he asks you why you sold his brother or sister?”

  “I don’t mean to sell a baby. Only because Janet needs my help. She’s a friend.”

  “But the fact is that you’ll have to disown the child if you accept her money. How can you face Taotao if he asks you what happened to his sibling?”

  This was more than Pingping could bear, and she burst into sobs, which startled Nan. He softened some and said, “Come, don’t cry. I won’t let you take that kind of risk.”

  “I know it will be hard and risky, but I can do it for you and Taotao. We must get rid of the mortgage as soon as possible. I’m so scared.”

  “Scared of what?”

  “We may lose everything we have if misfortune strikes.”

  “Don’t be a worrywart. Nothing will happen as long as we manage our business carefully. Look at Americans. Don’t most of them have a mortgage? Do they fret like us? Many of them feel lucky if they can get a mortgage. We must shed our Chinese mind-set and learn to accept insecurity as a living condition.” Despite saying that, he was touched by his wife’s willingness to sacrifice, gratitude welling up in his chest.

  She whimpered, “From now on we mustn’t have sex too often. We don’t have any re
al health insurance and can’t afford to get sick or have a baby.”

  “All right, I’ll try to control myself. Haven’t I always slept in my own room?”

  She grimaced, her lips wet. “Promise you’ll never walk out on me and Taotao.”

  “How can you think of that? I won’t leave you, all right? You two are all I have. Where could I go?”

  Pingping told Janet about Nan’s objection the next afternoon. To her surprise, her friend accepted the explanation without any resentment and even said, “I knew it would be difficult. Let’s forget it.”

  Afterward, Janet still came to the Gold Wok for lunch regularly. Pingping continued to help her assemble necklaces for five dollars apiece; she could finish half a dozen a week. They remained friends. Both Pingping and Nan were amazed by Dave and Janet’s lack of resentment. If they had turned down such a request from a Chinese couple, the friendship might have ended automatically. Nan began to treat the Mitchells better than before and always picked a bigger red snapper for them when they ordered Five-Willow Fish, a deep-fried fish topped with five shredded vegetables.

  Once Pingping asked Janet why she had not resented her refusal. Janet said, “If you agreed to give us a baby, we’d have to run away after it’s born, so that you couldn’t see us again. See, now I still have you as my friend.”

  3

  EVERY Monday morning Nan went to the Chinese bookstore in Asian Square to buy the Sunday World Journal, which, unlike English-language newspapers, wouldn’t arrive until midafternoon every day. He couldn’t get it on a daily basis, so once a week he’d drive ten miles to Doraville to buy the Sunday paper; this was his way to keep abreast of the news about China and the Chinese diaspora. Besides getting the newspaper, he’d also visit the stores and the supermarket there to check the prices of groceries. His Monday trip to the shopping center was a kind of diversion to him, a luxury, since he had never taken a day off except on major holidays when no customers would show up. One morning in late June he turned up at the Chinese bookstore again, which was owned by World Journal, whose regional editorial division occupied two rooms in the back of the store. Several editors and typists worked in there on the advertisements and the local news for the southeastern section of the newspaper. As usual, Nan picked up the Sunday paper, then looked through the new books on the two display tables and flipped through some of the journals and magazines on the shelves. Among all the publications he liked the Mirror Monthly best because it carried well-informed articles on cultural and current issues, mostly written by reputable authors and scholars living in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and North America.