A Free Life Read online

  The boy blubbered some more, snuffling fitfully. He seemed to understand most of what she was saying, and kept nodding his head.

  Somehow, after that, he didn’t want to go out to gaze at stars anymore, and the telescope was just propped beside the window at the landing upstairs. Once in a while he’d observe the sky with it, but every time he watched for only a minute or two. Soon he stopped missing his grandparents as well. Whenever he was naughty or disobedient, his parents would say they were going to send him back to China by the express mail, but this threat scared him for only a few months.

  4

  THESE DAYS Pingping was so happy that even her limbs felt lighter. An internal glow expanded in her, and a pinkish sheen frequently came over her face. She often hummed Chinese folk songs when she was cooking or sewing. Whenever she went shopping or to the post office, she’d take Taotao along as if the boy might disappear the moment she left him alone. Even when Taotao played within the yard, she’d accompany him. Behind Heidi’s house, beyond the blueberry bushes, lay a tennis court, green and springy as if coated with rubber, surrounded by a tall steel fence. But the Wus didn’t go there. Instead, they often kicked a volleyball under a basketball hoop in the front yard. Taotao played only soccer.

  Pingping understood that the joyful days were temporary, because the summer would end soon—the Masefields would come back and she’d resume doing the housework. Furthermore, Taotao would begin school in early September, which might be hard for him. She had been reading children’s books in English together with him for five or six hours a day. Since he watched a lot of TV, he had begun to pick up words, able to say “Uh-oh,” “Okey-dokey,” and even “Get lost.” Having him with her, Pingping felt more certain how she would live. In the past years she had prepared herself mentally for returning to China, because Nan had planned to go back and teach at his alma mater, a small college in Harbin City. Yet whenever she dreamed of home, she’d have nightmares, in which she rushed around looking for a clean toilet but couldn’t find one. Nan told her that modern restrooms had been put up in many Chinese cities lately; in fact, there had been a campaign to modernize the public facilities, and to use some of them you’d have to pay, like buying a cup of tea. Nan would joke, “Like no free lunch in America, there’ll be no free bathrooms in China anymore. Too many people.” Still, Pingping couldn’t stop searching for a toilet in her dreams. But since Taotao came, her nightmares had mostly stopped and her head had grown clearer. Even if Nan changed his mind and returned to China someday, she’d live in America raising their child alone. She was sure of that.

  Nan had come to the United States alone in the summer of 1985. A year and a half later Pingping had managed to leave China. But the officials wouldn’t allow her to bring Taotao along for fear she might not return, so the boy stayed with her parents in Jinan City, a provincial capital more than two hundred miles south of Beijing. Soon after her arrival in Boston, Pingping told Nan that she wanted to save $20,000 before they went back home. That astonished Nan, to whom the figure was unreasonable, though he already had more than $3,600 in the bank. He had never cared about getting rich and would tease her, saying she was a born capitalist. Yet Pingping wanted financial independence, which meant a tidy sum in their bank account so that they wouldn’t worry about getting a raise that had to be approved by officials at whose feet many people would grovel. So she resolved to make money and save as much as possible while they lived here. Among his compatriots at Brandeis, Nan was known as a rich man after his first year at the school, mainly because he had worked constantly to earn the money needed for his wife’s visa—the U.S. embassy in Beijing required a bank statement that showed at least $3,000. Unlike the graduate students in the science departments, Nan didn’t have a stipend and had to take care of his own living expenses. To save time for his study, he’d cook himself huge meals, each of which he’d eat for half a week. Sometimes he slept only three or four hours a day. He lived such an industrious life that he had lost more than twenty pounds by the time Pingping came to join him.

  Two and a half years later, after Pingping had worked in a nursing home for a year and then for Heidi for a year and a half, and after Nan had done various odd jobs, the Wus had saved $30,000. Yet this sum didn’t give them any sense of security, because now they were planning to live here permanently. If Nan quit his Ph.D. candidacy, Pingping wasn’t sure what he was going to do. Though she knew he didn’t love her, she loved him deeply. Before she’d married him, her father had warned her that she might not live a secure life with Nan, who, though a decent young man, was by nature impractical, an incorrigible dreamer. Yet she had never regretted being his wife, though she did feel hurt from time to time and was even tempted to drink (though she disliked American wines and there was no way to find the kind of fragrant Luzhou liquor here, of which she had used to pilfer mouthfuls from her father’s bottles when she was a child). She was certain Nan wouldn’t just walk out on her. For better or worse, he was trustworthy and dependable. Now that Taotao was here, Nan was all the more willing to be the head of the household. In his own words, “To be the draft horse pulling the cart of this family.”

  “I’ll look for a full-time job soon,” he told Pingping one afternoon. Their son was napping in the other room.

  “What kind of jobs do you have in mind?”

  “Do I have a choice?” Again a caustic edge sharpened his voice.

  “Don’t be nasty. I always can work too.”

  That mollified him some. He sighed, “I’ll keep my eyes open for jobs.”

  Pingping remained silent, feeling guilty because Heidi didn’t pay her during the summer. They had spent thousands of dollars recently and couldn’t afford to stay home eating away their savings. Yet she wanted to teach Taotao some basics before his school started, so it was Nan who needed to look for a job.

  It was reported that the U.S. government was going to issue green cards to the Chinese students who did not intend to return to China. Professor Nicholson in Nan’s department, a specialist in American domestic policy, had assured him that the United States would definitely keep the Chinese students here. This baggy-eyed scholar said to Nan, “Believe me, any country will be willing to have the cream of China’s young generation.” That was probably true. Indeed, both Canada and Australia had just granted permanent residency to all the Chinese students and scholars living there. Pingping and Nan felt relieved to know they wouldn’t have to spend thousands of dollars and wait years for green cards like most immigrants. Still, they were unsettled. Mentally they were not prepared for such a new life.

  5

  THE FALL SEMESTER would be starting in two weeks, and if he didn’t register as a student Nan wouldn’t be able to work in the university library anymore. For days he had been looking for a job but couldn’t find one. He had liked his job as a custodian in the medical building very much; it was not demanding and gave him some time to read, though he was paid only $4.65 an hour, and though his fellow worker Nick, the maintenance man, often carried a dime bag on him and smoked a joint in their windowless office, mixed with tobacco to hide the scent. For years Nan had adhered to the principle that he would sell his brawn but not his brain. He wanted to save his mind for his study. Now graduate work was no longer his concern, so he wouldn’t be too picky about jobs.

  He responded to numerous ads, but no one was interested in a man without any employable skill. He went to several Chinese restaurants and they wouldn’t use him either, because his accent betrayed that he was from northern China and because he couldn’t speak any southern dialect. They didn’t explain why, but he guessed the reason. At Nanking Village in Watertown, the owner of the place, an old woman with high cheekbones, told him, “If only you had come last week. I just hired a waitress, that fat girl.” Apparently she liked Nan and showed him some respect, as if he were a poor scholar in dire straits but might ascend to a consequential post someday. Nan even wrote to several Chinese-language programs in local colleges, one of which did resp
ond, but in a form letter, saying they couldn’t hire him although they might rue that they had let “a pearl” slip through their fingers.

  A pearl only your mother can appreciate! Nan sneered to himself.

  Without any hope he phoned a factory in Watertown that had advertised for a night watchman. A man named Don told him to come in and fill out a form. Nan was not enthusiastic about the job but went anyway.

  Don was a middle-aged supervisor with a bald crown who spoke English with an Italian accent. Seeing that Nan was a foreign student and over thirty, he seemed more interested. They sat in the factory’s office, which stank of tobacco and plastic. The room, with its grimy windows facing west, was dim despite several fluorescent tubes shining. “Have you done this kind of work before?” Don asked Nan.

  “Yes. I worked for one and a half years at zer Waltham Medical Center, as a cahstodian. Here’s recommendation by my former bawss.”

  Don looked through the letter, which Heidi’s sister-in-law Jean had written for Nan when she got fired and had to let her staff of three go. Don tilted his beetle eyebrows and asked, “Tell me, why did you leave that place?”

  “My bawss was sacked, so we got laid all together.”

  “You got what?” Don asked with a start. A young secretary at another desk tittered and turned her pallid face toward the two men.

  Realizing he’d left out the adverb “off,” Nan amended, “Sorry, sorry, they used anozzer company, so we all got laid off.”

  “I see.” Don smiled. “We need you to take a physical before we can hire you.”

  “What’s zat? Body examination?”

  “Correct. Here’s the clinic you should go to.” Don penciled the address at the top of a form and pushed it to Nan. “After the doc fills this out, you bring it back to me.”

  “Okay. Do you awffer medical care?”

  “You mean health insurance?”

  “Yes.”

  “We do provide benefits.”

  “Cahver a whole family?”

  “Yes, if you choose to buy it.”

  Nan was pleased to hear that. Having left school, he was no longer qualified for the student health insurance and would have to find a new one for his family. But the idea of taking a physical bothered him. He was healthy and sturdy, and the job paid only $4.50 an hour; there should be no need for them to be so meticulous. On second thought, he realized that the factory, which manufactured plastic products, would be liable to lawsuits filed by its employees.

  Nan went to the clinic on Prospect Street in Waltham. It was a small office that had opened recently and had only one physician; there wasn’t even a secretary around, probably because it was lunch hour. Nan handed the form to the bulky doctor, who showed him into a room that wasn’t fully furnished yet. The dark leather couch was brand-new; so were the floor lamps. In spite of his pale face and brown stubble, the doctor reminded Nan of a Japanese chef he had once seen at a restaurant in Cambridge. The man had a pair of glasses hanging around his neck and against his chest. As he was checking Nan’s hearing, Nan wondered whether the doctor was farsighted or nearsighted.

  After listening to his breathing, tapping his chest, and palpating his stomach, the doctor said, “All right, open your pants.”

  Nan started. “You need to check everysing?”

  “Yep.” The man grinned, putting on a pair of latex gloves.

  Nan unfastened his belt and moved down his pants and briefs. On the right side of his belly stretched a scar like a short engorged leech. The doctor pressed it with his index and middle fingers, saying, “How did you get this?”

  “Appendix.”

  “Appendicitis?”

  “Yes.”

  “That shouldn’t have left such a big scar. Does it still hurt?” He pressed harder.

  “No.”

  “Fascinating. It’s healed okay, I guess.” He spoke as if to himself. Next, to Nan’s astonishment, the doctor grabbed his testicles, rubbed them in his palm for three or four seconds, then squeezed them hard and yanked them twice. A numbing pain radiated through Nan’s abdomen and made him almost cry out.

  “Any prawblem?” he managed to ask, and noticed the man observing his member intently.

  “No. Genitalia are normal,” the doctor grunted, scribbling on the form without raising his puffy eyes.

  Nan was too shocked to say another word. Having buckled up his pants, he was led into the outer room. Rapidly the doctor filled out the form and shoved it back to him. “You’re all set,” he said with a smirk.

  Stepping out of the clinic, Nan wondered if the doctor was allowed to touch his genitals. He felt insulted but didn’t know what to do. Should he go back and ask him to explain what the physical was supposed to include? That wouldn’t do. “Never argue with a doctor”—that was a dictum followed by people back home. Even now, Nan couldn’t understand some of the terms on the form. If only he had brought along his pocket dictionary. Perhaps the doctor had just meant to find out whether he had a normal penis. Still, the man shouldn’t have pulled his testicles that hard. The more Nan thought about this, the more outraged he was. Yet he forced himself to let it go. What was important was the job. He’d better not make a fuss.

  A boy on a skateboard rushed by on the sidewalk and almost ran into Nan. “Watch out, dork!” shouted the teenager with an orange mohawk. That stopped Nan from brooding, and he hurried to his car, parked behind the clinic.

  6

  NAN liked the job at the factory. He worked at night and on weekends when all the machines stopped and the workshops were closed. There was another watchman, Larry, a spindly student majoring in thanatology at Mount Ida College. He and Nan rotated. On Nan’s first day Larry told him, “I can’t hack it anymore, have to quit one of these days.” Indeed the fellow looked sickly and shaggy, his face always covered in sweat, but he never missed his shift.

  Once an hour, the watchman had to walk through the three workshops and the warehouse to make sure everything was all right. There were sixteen keys affixed to the walls and the wooden pillars inside the factory, and he had to carry a clock to those spots, insert the keys into it, and turn them, so that the next morning Don could read the record. As long as the clock showed enough of the hourly marks, Don would be satisfied.

  Usually a round took Nan about fifteen minutes; after that he could stay in the lab upstairs, doing whatever he liked. A black-and-white TV sat on a long worktable strewn with pinking shears, large scissors, rulers, red and blue markers, and bolts of waterproof cloth of various colors. If he got tired of reading, he’d watch television. On weekends he could go up to the rooftop and stay in the open air. Behind the factory, close to the base of the two-story building, flowed a branch of the Charles. The green water looked stagnant; it was quite narrow, no more than a hundred feet wide, but it was deep. Sometimes one or two anglers would come fishing on the bank, and Nan, not allowed to leave the building, would sit on the rooftop and watch them. Most of the time they caught bass, bluegill, perch, pumpkinseed, and smelts, but the water was so polluted that they always threw their catches back, even a thirty-pound carp Nan once saw a man drag ashore, its rotund body motionless while its slimy tail kept slapping the grass.

  Between his rounds, Nan read a good deal, mainly poetry and novels, and if he didn’t read or watch TV, he let his thoughts roam. Recently many Chinese students in the humanities and social sciences, having realized they might have to live in the United States for good, had changed their fields in order to make themselves more marketable. Nan knew that some people who had been writing dissertations on Shakespeare or Dewey or Tocqueville had decided to go to business or law school. More amazing, in some cases their advisors encouraged them to switch fields and even wrote recommendations for them. Nan’s professor, Mr. Peterson, was different and said it was unfortunate that Nan would be leaving the Ph.D. program, because he believed Nan could have become an excellent political scientist if he had studied the subject devotedly. Professor Peterson even tried to dissuade him
, but Nan wouldn’t change his mind.

  Nan was determined to quit political science, but deep down he was disappointed about leaving academia. He had written to Professor Clifford Stevens at the University of Chicago to inquire about the possibility of doing graduate work in Chinese poetry or comparative poetics under his guidance, but he never heard a word from that distinguished scholar. Nowadays most American graduate schools were inundated with applications from China. Worse yet, after the Tiananmen massacre, the student enrollments in the Chinese language and studies had dropped so drastically that many American colleges had begun to scale down their Chinese programs. So, for the time being, there was no way Nan could study Chinese poetry.

  Four years ago, a former professor of his in China had visited the United States as part of a Chinese delegation of American Studies, as an expert in U.S. political history because he had translated some essays by Thomas Jefferson. When his former teacher came to visit Harvard, Nan went to the Holiday Inn in Somerville to see him. The old man, beardless and browless like an albino, told Nan about his meeting with Professor Carolyn Barrow at Harvard. He said, “The old lady was very nice and gave me six of her books. Do you know her writings?”

  “I read some of her papers. She’s well revered for her work in political theories.”

  “I guessed that,” the teacher went on. “I gave her a stack of plates.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I brought with me some fine porcelain, and I gave her eight pieces.” He smiled, his lips puckered.

  That account had scandalized Nan. His old teacher hadn’t shown any trace of discomfort, as if the fact that his porcelain and Professor Barrow’s books were at least equal in monetary value had canceled all the difference in the nature of the two sets of presents. Nan was sure that some other Chinese scholars had done similar things. Without telling anybody, he had made up his mind that he’d write many books after he finished his Ph.D. and returned to his homeland to teach. Someday when he came to revisit the United States, he’d bring only his own works as gifts for American scholars. Yes, he’d write a whole shelf of books and would never subject himself to his teacher’s kind of disgrace.