A Free Life Read online

  Different from the Wus, Niyan and Shubo were still like newlyweds, seeking each other’s company whenever they could. They loved Georgia for its low cost of living and warm climate, which resembled that of their home province, and they didn’t think about moving elsewhere. Yet they had been so busy struggling to survive ever since they landed here that they wouldn’t dare to have children. Some of their friends had given birth to babies and then sent them back to China, to farm them out to the grandparents. But both Niyan’s and Shubo’s parents were in poor health and couldn’t look after a child, and neither could they come here to help them if Niyan had a baby. As a result, she was still wearing an intrauterine ring. “Look, I’m already thirty,” she said to Pingping one afternoon. “How many years do you think I can wait?”

  “I know how you feel. Back in China I was never worried about bringing a child into the world.”

  “Maybe Shubo and I will end up adopting a baby like the Mitchells,” quipped Niyan with a grimace.

  “You’re too young to think like that.”

  Since it was impossible to have their own child now, Shubo and Niyan had grown very fond of Taotao. They’d tell Pingping and Nan that they envied them their fine son. Whenever Taotao’s report card arrived, they’d look at it and sing his praises. Many times Shubo said Nan was a lucky man who had everything—a devoted wife, a smart son, a lakeside house, and a business of his own. His words would put Nan in a reflective mood and make him wonder why he himself didn’t feel as content as he should.

  4

  IN LATE SPRING Taotao, with the help of his friend Zach, who was an eighth grader, assembled a large computer. The machine was so powerful, he told his parents, it worked like a small station. With the new computer, he spent a lot of time surfing the Internet and chatting with his friends—they mainly let off steam by bad-mouthing their teachers. He also played games with some children in Europe and Asia. Because his parents were always busy working at the restaurant, they couldn’t supervise him. Once he was online, he’d enter cyberspace unknown to his parents, who would accept whatever he told them about it.

  Both Pingping and Nan tried to curb him from surfing the Internet, warning him over and over again not to waste too much time. The boy promised not to use the computer very often when his parents weren’t home. At work, every evening Pingping would call back at least twice to check on him, but most times the line was busy. Evidently Taotao was using the Internet. Whenever this happened, Nan and Pingping would get angry and take their son to task when they came back at night.

  Taotao had never been really close to Nan, perhaps because Nan hadn’t spent enough time with him and had left for America when the boy was merely two. In recent years Nan had worked constantly and tended to confine himself to his business and books. As a result, father and son didn’t talk much. If Nan spoke to him harshly, Taotao would ignore him or mutter “Shut up,” at which Nan would lose his temper, calling his son a heartless ingrate. Yet the boy always listened to his mother, who knew how to make him behave. Sometimes she called him “Little Donkey,” meaning that as long as she coaxed him, he’d be obedient.

  One evening in late May, Nan phoned home. At the busy signal he got enraged, telling his wife he was going back to catch Taotao red-handed. She was angry too and couldn’t stop fulminating against their son under her breath. Nan set out for home along the dimly lighted street. The air was very humid, and his hurried pace made him pant a little while the cries of insects cascaded from the trees. He wondered whether they were chirring to attract mates or were maddened by the heat. As he passed Mrs. Lodge’s, the old woman, lounging in a cane rocker on her porch, waved at him. “Closed early today?” she asked cheerfully, flapping the palm fan Pingping had bought for her from a Korean grocery store.

  “No,” Nan shouted. “I’m going back to get somesing.”

  “Tell Pingping I have some geraniums for her.”

  “Sure, sanks.”

  He continued homeward, wondering how come mosquitoes didn’t bother Mrs. Lodge at all. The old woman was so hale and hearty that, already past ninety, she still took care of her yard and garden. Over the crown of a giant oak in Alan’s backyard, the North Star, slightly obscured by the smog, glowed with orange light, while traffic whirred from a distant main road. Fireflies pulsed here and there, drawing short arcs. As Nan entered his own front yard, a young maple suddenly rustled as if startled by his approaching. Then the air conditioner kicked on, humming at the side of the house. Taotao’s room was dark, but Nan saw the light of his computer through the half-closed slats of the venetian blind. He unlocked the door stealthily and tiptoed in.

  At the creaking of the floorboards in the corridor, Taotao lurched up from his swivel chair. He gulped as if to say something, but no word escaped from him. Nan flicked on the light, which made his son’s eyes smart. The boy’s mouth dropped open. A spasm of rage seized Nan, who rushed up to Taotao, grabbed his shoulders, and threw him down on the bed. “Why are you playing with the computer again?” he demanded. “Damn you! You promised Mom and me to do your homework and read when we were not home. Why did you break your word?”

  “I just turned it on. I did my homework already.”

  “Liar! The phone line has been busy for two hours. I’m going to smash this damned machine now.” Nan picked up a large magnet from a corner shelf, about to throw it at the monitor.

  “Please, Daddy, don’t! I won’t do it again!” Taotao was holding Nan’s arm with both hands and begging him tearfully, but his father wouldn’t let go of the magnet. Nan raised it above his head, struggling to pitch. As father and son were tussling, Nan caught sight of some words on the monitor’s screen. He dropped the magnet on the chair and leaned forward to read the message, which said:

  Hi, Taotao,

  I miss you. You’re my best boyfriend. I often tell my friends here what a great guy you are. They don’t believe we are sweethearts and say I just brag. Write me some sweet, sweet words, so I can show them.

  A thousand kisses,

  Livia

  Again anger overtook Nan, who grabbed his son’s chest and began slapping him across the face. “You little beast! No wonder you always turn on the computer. You’ve been carrying on with Livia.”

  As Nan went on striking him, Taotao stopped resisting. He wailed, “I didn’t write the message. Ow, don’t hit me! You’re hurting me, Dad!”

  But his father’s merciless slaps kept landing on his face and head. In a flash his cheeks turned puffy, streaked with handprints. When Nan’s temper had subsided some, he saw his son’s face, which horrified him. He released Taotao, who was still gasping for air. For a moment Nan stood there motionless as if dazed. Suddenly he remembered his promise to Pingping long ago that he’d never resort to violence in his life. How shocked he was by his own use of brute force on the boy, who couldn’t defend himself. He averted his head, too ashamed to face his son.

  Then he rushed off into the kitchen, picked up the cordless phone, and came back. “All right, stop crying,” he said, panting, and gave Taotao the phone. “Call the police and tell them I beat you up.”

  “No, I won’t call.” The boy put both hands behind him, his mouth twisting.

  “Call them!” Nan thrust the phone to him. “Let them come arrest me. Tell them I’m a violent man and should be sentenced to life.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “Damn it, call them! Help me—I have had enough of this miserable life. Let them come and take me away. That will spare me all the worries and hopelessness. Let the police slam me into jail so that you can play with your computer day and night and have as many girlfriends as you want. Here, dial the number.” He pointed at one of the emergency numbers on the sticker stuck to the handset.

  “I won’t call.”

  “Why? I just beat you up. Why not have me arrested? I’m an abusive parent and should be sentenced to prison. Now call!”

  “No, I won’t.”

  Nan began punching the police’s number m
adly. Taotao lunged forward and snatched the phone from his father’s hands. Nan wrapped one arm around the boy as his other hand tried to loosen Taotao’s grip on the phone. Father and son scuffled, and then both fell on the bed, but the boy still held the phone with both hands. Hard as Nan tried, he couldn’t pry it free.

  “Let go!” Nan huffed.

  “No!”

  Gradually Nan eased off some, then stopped to sit up. He peered at his son, who got up and moved away. The boy, still snuffling and panting, thrust both hands behind him so that his father couldn’t see the phone. He stood in the corner with his back firmly against the walls. Seeing Taotao’s tears and terror-stricken face, Nan froze, at a loss. In a flash he realized that his son desperately wanted to keep him home. Look at his face, so scared. Wouldn’t surrender the phone even if you smashed his hands. Awash in contrition, Nan stood up and went out of the house without another word. He headed back to the Gold Wok, continually wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, weeping all the way.

  5

  WHEN Nan told Pingping of what he had discovered at home and what he’d done, her first response was a punch on his shoulder. Then she warned him, “Don’t ever whale Taotao again, or I’ll give you endless trouble.”

  Nan promised he would never hit the boy again.

  Though Pingping smacked their son once or twice a year, she wouldn’t allow anyone else to touch him. Yet in her heart of hearts she believed Taotao deserved his beating, so she couldn’t help but grumble about him and even said she too would whack him. Niyan overheard her and protested, “Please go easy on him. He should have some fun.”

  “Fun?” Pingping retorted. “He was flirting with a girl while we work ourselves half to death here.”

  “He’s almost eleven and should be interested in girls.”

  “I don’t want him to have a girlfriend until he graduates from college. It’s a waste of time.”

  “Heavens, you’re such a fuddy-duddy. We’re not living in China anymore. Here kids reach puberty earlier. By any standard Taotao is a fine boy. You should feel lucky to have a son like him. I have a friend whose teenage boy often visited porn sites on the Internet. He even called some women. At the end of a month his father received a phone bill for more than nine hundred dollars.”

  “My goodness, when did this happen?”

  “Two years ago when that boy had just turned thirteen.”

  “What did his parents do about him?”

  “His father strapped him, but the boy kept visiting porn sites, addicted to cybersex. He even threatened to sue his parents for child abuse.”

  “There’s no way to straighten him out?”

  “His parents sent him back to Beijing the summer before last, but last year they took him back because he couldn’t survive middle school there. He didn’t know enough Chinese to understand his lessons. If you had a son like that, how would you feel?”

  Pingping said no more, though deep down she was still fuming at Taotao for carrying on with Livia. The greatest regret in her life was that before she met Nan she’d had a boyfriend who had wasted five years of her life. She had gone to the young man’s home on weekends, hand-laundering and cooking for his family. Because of serving them, she couldn’t concentrate on her schoolwork, though she always got good grades. Without the boyfriend she could have gone to graduate school and achieved much more in her life. Those years spent with the man who later jilted her were the most miserable and empty period of her life. At any cost she wouldn’t let her son repeat the same mistake.

  After returning home from work that night, she said to Taotao, “You must stop writing to Livia.”

  Nan added, “She must have a dozen boyfriends, and you’re just one of them, like a toy.”

  “How do you know?” asked Taotao.

  His mother put in, “I took care of her for several years, and I know what she’s like. She’s not a serious girl. She’s boy crazy and just playing games with you.”

  “She’s my friend.”

  “You must never take a girlfriend like her.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Our family is not their kind and we’re poor. We don’t have eight fireplaces in our house, do we?”

  “No. But that doesn’t mean she’s bad.”

  “Stop arguing. I served the Masefields long enough. Do you want me to be a servant of my daughter-in-law?”

  “What are you talking about, Mom?”

  Nan also felt that Pingping had stretched this too far, but he didn’t say another word. He didn’t want Taotao and Livia to be close friends either. He’d feel uncomfortable to see the Masefields again and was afraid they might not treat Taotao well.

  “Do you want to be a servant boy all your life?” Pingping asked their son.

  “No.”

  “Then drop Livia. You’re a poor boy, and a rich girl like her will treat you like a piece of trash. Do you remember Phil?” Phil was Heidi’s brother-in-law, a Spaniard without a penny of his own, and the Masefields would frown at him even in the presence of Heidi’s sister, Rosalind, the one Phil had married.

  “Yes, he’s a good guy,” Taotao said.

  “Do the Masefields respect him?” asked his mother.

  “Not really.”

  “Do you want to be like him?”

  “Damn it, Mom! I’m not going to marry Livia, okay? You’re crazy and imagined the whole thing.”

  “Then why do you carry on with her?”

  “We just have a good time.”

  “Stop this American ‘fun’ crap! I don’t want you to learn how to toy with girls. You must be a serious and responsible man.”

  Taotao turned pensive, but looked unconvinced. His mother went on, “It just wastes your life to have a girlfriend so early. I want you to concentrate on your schoolwork. As for a girlfriend, you can wait until you graduate from college.”

  The boy made no reply and turned to his father, gazing at him beseechingly. Nan sympathized with his son, yet he felt the boy shouldn’t be so close to that girl or he might get hurt. On the other hand, it would be better for Taotao to know some girls before he grew up and entered into any serious relationship. If Nan could have restarted his life, he’d have dated many girls casually before losing his heart to a woman. “All right,” he said to both his wife and son, “time for bed.”

  “I want him to promise us to break with Livia,” insisted Pingping.

  “I’ll take her just as a regular friend, okay?”

  Pingping said no more, knowing Taotao was too stubborn to make a full promise right now. She went into her room and picked up a towel for a shower, still grumbling about what a weakling her son had become.

  The next day Mrs. Spiller, the geography teacher, asked Taotao in class, “What happened to your face? Somebody hit you?”

  “No, I bumped into a wall when I was going to the bathroom last night.” Though a little flustered, the boy forced a smile.

  “You look awful.”

  “It hurt like hell, but I’m all right now.”

  “Uh-uh, language.”

  “Sorry.” He lowered his head and resumed working on his map. The teacher had assigned the class to create a country of one’s own, and each student was to draw a map of an imagined territory containing different time zones, several cities, forests, plains, highways, harbors, sea routes. Taotao loved the project.

  6

  THE MITCHELLS left for Nanjing in early June. The two-month delay had been prolonged for another month, and as a result, they’d had to rebuy some clothes for Hailee, who wore larger sizes now. Even so, the Mitchells were elated by the final approval of the Chinese side. At long last they could bring their daughter home, they kept telling others. When Janet and Dave were away in China, Pingping would stop by at the jewelry store from time to time, chatting with the tall Susie, who kept everything in good order, as if she owned the business. Since the previous spring Susie had been working full-time for Janet. She told Pingping that her boss was a cheap-skate and wouldn�
�t give her a paid vacation. Pingping defended her friend, saying, “Look, you have health insurance, right?”

  “Yes, but it’s not that good. Every time I go see the doctor, I have to spend twenty bucks for the co-pay.” Susie made a pout, then licked her upper lip.

  “We have a child, but we don’t have any real insurance. You’re lucky. It cost Janet a lotta money to cover you.”

  Susie looked annoyed and kept flexing her henna-nailed fingers. She was wearing so much rouge that she looked sunburned. “I know you two are close,” she muttered. “Don’t tell Janet I bad-mouthed her.”

  “Of course I don’t do that.”

  Susie often went to the Gold Wok for lunch, mainly because it was convenient. She didn’t have a car, and her boyfriend, a young carpenter who had a centipede tattooed on each bicep, would drive her to work and pick her up when she closed up in the evenings.

  Today there were few customers at the restaurant after two o’clock, so everybody could take a breather. Pingping and Niyan settled at a table drinking tea and paring apples to eat. Nan was reading Time magazine, to which he had subscribed for business use. Usually they didn’t have lunch; whoever was hungry could take a bite from the kitchen. But they’d eat a meal together late in the evening before they called it a day. Nan often cooked light, homely food for their dinner, such as fish-head soup, sautéed watercress, and tofu with peas and pickled mustard greens.

  As Nan lifted his coffee mug absentmindedly to his lips, the phone rang. Pingping picked it up. “Where are you calling from, Janet?” she asked excitedly.

  “Where can it be? I’m in Nanjing!” Janet said.