A Free Life Page 24

  He noticed a new book on American life entitled Under the Star-Spangled Banner, written by a recent visitor from mainland China to the United States. He disliked this sort of writing targeted to the readers who could never set foot in America, because the writers often told exotic tales that distorted the truth. He remembered that one author had even bragged that American wives were so understanding toward their husbands that whenever their men were about to travel, the women would pack condoms into their baggage, implying they wouldn’t mind if their husbands had a brief fling away from home, as long as they didn’t leave behind their hearts with other women. A novelist who was a political officer in the People’s Liberation Army boasted that he had walked alone at night through Chinatown in New York without taking fright; in an interview, when asked what the American democracy was like, he replied, “A lot of paperwork and high taxes.” A woman author claimed that she had increased her worth from $300 to $5 million after living in the United States for just six years, and that now she was a CEO of a textile company, her cargo containers always on the move, traveling all over the Pacific and the Atlantic. An upstart in Florida even bragged that his ambition was to own a few satellites in space.

  Whenever Nan flipped through these books, his heart would sink—almost every person described in them was a paragon of success. Who will speak for the failures? he wondered. What’s worse, these books were often crudely written, in a journalistic style, and many of them were a mere mishmash of articles, each of which the author could finish at one sitting. These writers rushed to report sensational news of petty triumphs before they had lived here long enough to develop genuine feelings for this lonesome, unfathomable, overwhelming land. Look at these titles on the shelf—Here Is a Real America, Conquering the United States, I Have Become a Successful Lawyer in the Bay Area, Chinese Celebrities in North America, Our Growth in the USA, A Boss on Wall Street, My Bite of the Big Apple.

  As Nan opened the June issue of Harvest, a major literary bimonthly published in Shanghai, an author’s name caught his eye—“Danning Meng” printed under a novella entitled Winds and Clouds at an Alaskan Seafood Cannery. Nan was astounded to see his friend’s name in such a top-notch magazine. He turned to the first page of the story and skimmed several paragraphs. Without doubt the author was his friend Danning, since the story was set in America and even mentioned Boston. He bought that copy of Harvest.

  On his drive back along Buford Highway, whenever he stopped at a red light, he’d pick up the magazine and look at the illustrations and the table of contents. Some of the authors’ names were familiar to him, and some were not. At the intersection of Jimmy Carter Boulevard he almost bumped into a brand-new passenger van, which bore a silver Darwin fish and a large sticker with red letters: LICENSED TO BITCH! That frightened Nan, and he forced himself not to touch the magazine again until he reached the Gold Wok.

  That day at work, whenever he had a free moment, he would read a page or two of Danning’s novella. At home that night, he lay on his bed and resumed reading it. He didn’t feel it was extraordinary; the writing was sloppy, though the story was interesting and enjoyable. It was told in the first person, in the form of a memoir, and it described how the owner of an Alaskan cannery exploited his workers, who were mostly recent immigrants from Vietnam, South Korea, China, Mexico, and Eastern Europe. The narrator, presented as Danning’s doppelgänger, was a graduate student specializing in agronomy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and went to work in Alaska during the summer to make money for the next year’s tuition. The cannery was depicted like a Chinese factory, where industrious workers often got into trouble, bad-mouthed by others, while slackers were trusted and rewarded for their clever words and deeds. Many dawdlers would clock in early and clock out late, but would slack off at work; some would find every excuse for staying on so as to get paid overtime. Furthermore, racial prejudice was widespread, the supervisors acted like little bullies, and most of the workers ate seafood whenever their foremen turned away. Fights broke out among them every day, and some girls were at one another’s throats over a hunk, though there were decent people among the working hands. One man had previously been a lieutenant colonel in the Vietnamese army, and another a philosophy professor in Romania who could hardly speak any English. It was a dark story in spite of the narrator’s breezy voice.

  Turning off the light, Nan thought about the novella, which had somehow disquieted him. The story was believable, full of authentic details that brought the setting to life. Apparently Danning had done a lot of research and thinking, and Nan knew his friend had once been to Alaska, though he didn’t believe Danning had ever worked in a cannery. What troubled him more was the insouciant style, full of misfired digs and riffs, which tried too hard to be funny and tantalize the reader. As a result, the humor felt forced and glib, not arising from within the drama, as if the narrator laughed before the audience, as if the author had become the victim of his own wisecracks. More troublesome, Danning had overused four-letter intensifiers, which appeared on every page. Still, Nan was happy for his friend, who had made a breakthrough in just two years after his return to China. Beyond question, his friend had become a literary figure of sorts. The fiction editor at Harvest called the readers’ attention to Danning’s novella in her introduction to this special issue devoted to “literature by students studying abroad.” Indeed, the other four featured writers had all lived or were still living in foreign countries. Among the stories Danning’s novella seemed to be the center, since the other pieces were much shorter, one just two and a half pages long.

  Nan gave the magazine to Pingping, who read the cannery story during the next few days. She shared his view about the writing. “Danning didn’t have to be that flippant and coarse,” she told him. “He forgot to mention that among all workers the Chinese were the worst, much worse than the Vietnamese and the Mexicans.” Pingping had once worked in a nursing home that hired many recent immigrants, among whom, she felt, the Korean women were the best workers.

  “Danning must be doing quite well,” Nan said.

  “He’s clever and knows how to sell. But don’t take his novella too seriously.”

  “Look, this is Harvest.”

  “So? If you tried, you could write better. At least you won’t use that many double exclamation marks.”

  “Are you jealous of him?”

  “I never want to be a writer—why should I be jealous? Trust me, you can do a better job.”

  “Heavens, you’re so arrogant.”

  “He tried too hard to please the reader. Also, this kind of writing might mislead the Chinese who have never been to America.”

  For some reason Pingping simply wouldn’t praise Danning’s accomplishment. Why did she judge the novella that way? Nan pondered her remarks and concluded that he agreed with her. He couldn’t accept Danning’s fiction as literature either. It was at most a piece of creative reportage written by an experienced hack. Yet obviously his friend was making headway in a direction totally different from his own. Maybe someday Danning might grow into a literary figure in China, where the vicissitudes of celebrity defied logic. Nan decided to write to his friend.

  4

  NAN didn’t write to Danning immediately. For several days he’d been experimenting with moo shu, a Mandarin dish he hadn’t cooked before. But in his childhood he’d had spring pancakes once a year, which were prepared and eaten in the same way as moo shu except that his mother had used soy paste in place of hoisin sauce. In China the term “moo shu” referred to dishes whose main ingredient was wood ears, sautéed with eggs or pork or shrimp, and they had little resemblance to the Americanized moo shu. Nan realized that the beauty of this dish consisted in the flexible choice of its ingredients. You could sauté meat, seafood, eggs, and vegetables individually, so you were free to make the dish in your own way. This also meant moo shu could be various kinds, sumptuous, or simple and light, or even vegetarian. What’s better, Nan could use high-quality tortillas instead of pan
cakes and serve them after warming them up in the microwave; this would save a lot of work. So he resolved to add moo shu to their menu, not as a regular offer but as a house specialty.

  He put a plate of moo shu he had wrapped and cut on a table and asked his wife and Tammie to try it.

  “Mmm, it’s great!” said Pingping, chewing with relish.

  Tammie loved it too. She strode to the storage room and shouted, “Hey, Taotao, come out and have some moo shu.”

  The boy had just gotten off the school bus and was paring carrots with a scraping knife. After washing his hands, he came out, rubbing his eyes, and yawned. He took a bite of a piece of the tortilla wrapped around bean sprouts and slivers of lean pork. “Is this a taco or something?” he asked.

  “No, it’s moo shu,” Nan said.

  “Oh, I remember it!” Taotao’s eyes gleamed as he was chewing. “My grandpa cooked this too, but he put chives into it. It tasted much better than this.”

  “We cannot offer sautéed chives to our cahstomers, who won’t like zat,” said his father. “Also, zat’s too expensive. Maybe we can use chives for ourselves once in a while.”

  In fact Nan seldom cooked moo shu for themselves. The Wus ate at the restaurant most of the time, just whatever was available. There were choices for Taotao anyway, so the boy wouldn’t complain.

  When Nan finally had spare time, he wrote a letter to Danning. It read:

  August 3, 1992

  Dear Danning,

  I cannot say how amazed I was to find your novella in the last issue of Harvest. Congratulations! I am impressed and can see that you are on your way to an illustrious career. I wish you all the good luck and keep my fingers crossed for you.

  I assume that you are married by now. If so, give your wife my regards. My family is well, and we moved to Georgia last summer. Now we live in a northeastern suburb of Atlanta, where I run a small restaurant. The work is hard and weary; most of the time Pingping and I have to put in more than twelve hours a day. But so far we have managed to survive. In truth, we have prospered to some extent. We bought a house nearby, which has a lake, about twenty acres large, in the backyard. You see, I am a laborer now, a professional cook, but I won’t complain. Frankly, I feel rather content with our situation. At length we have settled down in a corner of land we can call home.

  The other day when I was reading your story, I felt as if we had been separated for a lifetime. You must be a different man now, but I’m sure that with this publication your life must have changed, opened to great expectations.

  Please keep me posted about your new publications. There is a decent Chinese bookstore here that carries some magazines published in China, and I can follow your success from this side of the earth. Work hard and write with more heart and vision.

  Your friend,

  Nan Wu

  He thought about expressing his view on the novella candidly in a postscript, but changed his mind, unwilling to let Danning suspect he was jealous. He didn’t know Danning’s current address, so he sent the letter in care of the editorial department of Harvest, trusting they’d forward it to him.

  In front of the Dollar Store at Beaver Hill Plaza stood a mailbox. Nan went out to drop the letter. It was muggy and hot outside, a mass of heat rubbing his face, but two adolescent boys were biking around in the parking lot, crying at each other happily and from time to time letting go of the handlebars of their bicycles while their legs kept pumping away. The heat didn’t seem to bother them at all. These days it was so humid that when Nan drove on the street, he often saw waves of water ahead of his car. He had thought he might be losing his mind, seeing things, but Pingping told him she had also seen such puddles on the asphalt. Overhearing them, Tammie giggled and said, “That’s just a mirage. It always appears on roads in the summer, even in the North too.” Tammie had once lived in upstate New York for a year and had dreaded the winter there.

  “That’s true,” agreed Pingping, “but you see it here more often.”

  Nan had never seen such shadowy water on the roads in Massachusetts, but again, he could have been too absentminded to notice it. How he hated the Georgia summer, when the damp heat reduced people’s appetite, causing his business to flag, its clientele dwindling. Mr. Wang assured him that this was normal and that business would pick up after mid-September.

  5

  JANET and Dave Mitchell came to dine at the Gold Wok one evening. Dave was six foot one and seemed to have gained weight recently, weighing at least 240 pounds. He was a little bald and wore glasses that barely shielded his large gentle eyes. Both Nan and Pingping liked this reticent man, who never raised his voice and always smiled like a young boy when Tammie brought him and his wife their order, to which Nan would add something extra, a plate of teriyaki beef or a bowl of Peking ravioli. Dave would wave at Nan and say in a thin voice, “Thanks!” When he lifted a teacup, it would almost disappear in his huge hand, whose skin was as fair and hairless as his face.

  Dave had once told Nan that he was a Republican, though he had grown up in a housing project in Camden, New Jersey, raised by his mother alone. Nan wasn’t a citizen yet and couldn’t vote, or he’d have argued more often with Dave over politics and the upcoming presidential election. He couldn’t understand why Dave, a beneficiary of the welfare system, was adamantly against it. Once he asked him about this, and Dave replied, “I don’t want to pay too much income tax and I hate a big government. If the Democrats win the election, they’ll jack up taxes again.”

  “But you don’t have to be a Republican to oppose a big gahvernment,” Nan said.

  “No. I may join the Libertarian Party anytime.”

  “Why not be a Democrat?”

  “The Democratic Party is anti–white males.”

  Nan didn’t know what to make of that.

  This evening the Mitchells had come later than usual. There were so many customers that Pingping couldn’t chat with Janet and Nan had to stay in the kitchen, cooking constantly. But the Mitchells seemed purposely to outstay the other customers, and when the room had finally quieted down, Janet beckoned Pingping, wiggling her forefinger. Pingping went up to her and said, “Don’t do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Move your fingers that way. It make me feel like slave or servant, like you can pull me around just by move your finger.”

  “All right.” Janet smiled, her high cheeks coloring. “Golly, you’re so sensitive. I won’t do that again. Listen, I want to ask you something.”

  “Sure.” Pingping sat down, hoping this was not about the surrogacy again.

  “Have you been to Nanjing?” Janet asked.

  “Where?”

  “Nanjing, the big city on the Yangtze River.”

  “Ah, I see. No, I never be there, but my father’s family is from somewhere near that city. You want to visit China?”

  “I’m not sure. Dave and I have been thinking of adopting a baby girl.”

  “That’s wonderful. But are you sure you want to raise Chinese kid?”

  “Not one hundred percent sure yet. Tell me what you think.”

  “Everybody can see she’s not your daughter.”

  “Dave and I thought about that too. We won’t mind. As a matter of fact, we like Chinese babies.”

  “Why not adopt American baby?”

  “That’ll be very hard. You don’t have a choice here. It’s the biological mother who chooses the adoptive parents. Besides, you have to wait a long time, sometimes several years. And you have to hire a lawyer. It’s outrageously complicated and expensive. That’s why a lot of people go to other countries to adopt babies. Dave and I have met some couples who have Chinese baby girls. They’re all happy.”

  “Why do the Chinese abandon girl babies?” Dave said.

  “People in countryside need boys to work in fields, so they don’t want girls,” replied Pingping.

  “Why won’t some Chinese families adopt them?” asked Janet.

  “I guess because each family can have
one baby only.”

  By now Nan had joined them, standing by listening to their conversation. He put in, “Zer one-child policy has a lot to do wiz it. If you already have a baby, you cannot have anozzer. So some families throw away girl babies to save zer quota for a boy. Feudalistic mentality, you know.”

  “Are the babies healthy?” Janet went on.

  “Don’t worry about that,” answered Pingping. “Very few Chinese in countryside eat drugs. Many people can’t afford food, no money for drugs and alcohol. The parents are young, healthy, and clean, but some of them can’t read and write.”

  “We’re not worried about that,” Janet said. “We can give a good education to the child we raise.”

  Pingping had meant to say that although the babies were healthy, you couldn’t know anything about their parents’ education and intelligence. She didn’t explain and asked Janet instead, “You really think adoption?”

  “We’ve contacted an orphanage in Nanjing. Once we hear from them, I’ll let you know. We’ll need your advice.”

  “Sure. Nanjing is famous for beautiful girls.”

  Nan added, “Women there usually have smoos skin and fine figures. It’s a majar city, and I went there once for a conference.”

  “That’s good to know. Dave and I may go to the orphanage if we decide to adopt.”

  As the conversation continued, Nan left quietly to tidy up the kitchen. He was glad that the Mitchells were thinking of adoption, which meant they might not bring up the subject of surrogacy again.