The Best Contemporary Women's Fiction: Six Novels

by Jenna Blum

  He was pure and joyous with her; she felt she had never known a man so openhearted. She was breaking all her own rules by being with him— If a foreigner, it must be someone who lives here, never a tourist or a visitor, never, for such a man will soon leave—but she also felt unaccountably happy. He was present. With him she felt seen.

  Afterward he didn't drop immediately into sleep as she expected. He was awake again, talking. He told her about his life, his travels. He talked about his wife. She lay on top of him like a child, listening, following, realizing things were not simple. It was good with his wife, but not perfect. He loved her, yet he wanted a baby and she did not. How strange, Gao Lan thought, her hand idle on his chest, that she would say no to him.

  He had already told her he was coming back to China in several weeks' time. He promised to call her. Then he left. As the days went by after that, as she relented at last and took her other boyfriend's calls, she understood a little better that she in her own way had been using Matt. She felt better after their night together, more confident.

  She started up again with the other man. Almost at once it turned difficult. She began to think of Matt. By the time he returned she was aflame with anticipation. The day he had mentioned came and went. She watched her caller ID screen constantly. If he was in Beijing, why had she not heard from him? She held out another half-day, then called the cell phone number he had given her.

  "Hello, Gao Lan." His voice had a heavy quality. He didn't want to hear from her. She dropped as fast and deep as a stone anchor.

  Still she was warm and cheerful and said they should get together. "I don't know," he said, politely perplexed, as if they were on a business call. "Appointments all day ... I have something on tonight..." She heard him turning pages. "Gao Lan, I'm sorry. This doesn't look good."

  She was shocked by his rudeness. Her opinion of him plummeted.

  "Hey," he was saying, "I'm only here for a couple of days."

  A torrent of curses burned in her throat, but she limited herself to a few cool sentences. "My opinion is like this. We did too much already for you to leave it that way. Whatever you have to say to me, you may say to me directly."

  There was a silence. She heard a long, heavy breath.

  "Meet me at four o'clock at Anthony's on Wangfujing," she went on, stronger. "It's right behind the Pacific Hotel."

  A long silence, and then he said, "All right."

  She was waiting there when he arrived. He came in ready, as if he'd rehearsed, which he no doubt had. He moved his big, square body with ease into the seat opposite her. "Before I say anything else," he began, "I want you to know our night together was special to me. Exceedingly special."

  She was not moved. He seemed so shallow now. "But?" she said.

  "But that's it. I can't do it again. I'm sorry."

  "No problem," she said. "All right. But you can tell me. To my face. That's all." It almost didn't matter what she said. The toxic jolt she had felt when he dismissed her on the phone needed to be aired in order to be erased.

  "Okay," he said, chastened. Suddenly he looked helpless. "It's my wife," he said, as if bewildered by the force of his own emotions. "I belong with her. I love her so much, I can't lie to her. She would never know, she would probably never find out, but I still can't do it."

  "The night we were together you didn't think this way."

  "I didn't think about anything else but you! I'm sorry. I take responsibility. But I can't do it again. Can't turn off reality twice. I'm sorry."

  "Bu yong," she said, Don't be sorry. "I don't care," she added, which was not entirely true, and then, "But I wanted you to say it," which was.

  A short time after that she found out she was pregnant. Late the following summer Shuying was born. To Gao Lan, she was always the child of the other man, for he was the one who had vexed her and hurt her and also carried her to the heights. He was the one who against her creeping knowledge of what was right and wrong had become part of the pattern of her life. There had been only the one time with Matt. One time, and then the insult ofhis dismissal. What were the chances? None. Next to none. No more.

  Gao Lan stayed away from Beijing for almost a year. She returned with a story about having gone home to help with a family illness, but work was spotty. The world had moved on. She was not in demand as she had been before. It was difficult to make money enough for herself, much less enough to send home so her parents could care for the baby.

  She was also tormented over her inability to identify Shuying's father. Because of that one night with Matt she could not be sure. It was as if she were being punished over and over for that night. This doubt had kept her from telling either man there was a baby. She knew this was a mistake. At first, though, she had felt that the best thing was simply to wait a little, until Shuying grew into herself and began to look more clearly like one or the other. Then she would approach the man. Meanwhile she kept working.

  She lost her job. She didn't get another one. She refused to give up. She went out every day on interviews until she lost her apartment, too, and then she moved in with women friends, first one, then another. Her parents were calling. They needed money. Shuying, her little yang wan wan, her sweet foreign-doll baby—she was the sun and the stars, but she needed so many things. Then her girlfriend told her she would have to find another refuge, for she was giving up the apartment and moving to Shanghai. And that was Gao Lan's last stop.

  She remembered meeting a woman—not someone she knew well, a friend of a friend—who told her she could do well working for a man, as a woman who was kept. The woman meant this partly as a compliment to Gao Lan's beauty; not all women were qualified for this work, only women for whom certain men would pay. At the time Gao Lan had laughed, embarrassed. She had waited until another time and place entirely to ask someone what such a man took, and what he gave, and how working as an ernai might be arranged.

  She still saw clearly the first man who took her, Chen Xian from Hong Kong. Fifty-six, hair dyed black, rich, careful about how much he spent on everything, including her, yet fair. He used her for his pleasure, used her hard sometimes, but that was his right. That was what he paid for. He was always kind to her. Him she remembered with affection.

  He had met her for the first interview in a bar off Sanlitun. It was a dim place, and they lounged on a couch together while they talked. She could feel him looking at her. Finally he asked her if she would like to dance. She said yes and they went out on the floor. At first they danced apart, but then he pulled her to him and she felt him feeling her body. She could tell that he liked her. She liked him too, well enough. It would be all right.

  They went out together a few more times, and on their fourth meeting he made an offer.

  "Here's how it works." They were in a bar. He signaled for another round of scotch. His was empty, though she had barely touched her own. "I pay you three thousand ren min bi a month, plus an apartment. You'll have a membership at the gym downstairs. I'm in Beijing only a week and a half a month, maybe two. The rest of the time I expect you to keep my face."

  She swallowed. The pay was far more than she could make at a job, especially considering that she'd have no living expenses. He was old. About that she didn't care. She saw his hand come up from his lap, brown, assured, perfectly manicured. For a second she thought he was going to reach for her, but instead he counted out money, three thousand, the first month. She couldn't take her eyes away from it. "What do you say?" he said.

  She said yes. They were together eight months and then he left her, but only because his wife insisted on it. He let her stay two more months in the apartment. That was the sort of person Chen Xian was, kind.

  Since then she'd had her education. Some of it had been cruel, and some of it had been satisfying—like the money she'd been able to send home. That was satisfying. It was good to know Shuying was taken care of.

  As the little girl grew, she looked frustratingly like herself, and not really like either man, but Gao Lan
still felt pretty certain she was not Matt's. She was not developing Matt's type of body, for one thing. Gao Lan had to approach the other man, and she knew it. She kept planning it, and putting it off. She could not stand to see him now, given what she was selling to survive. It would cost her more than she was prepared to pay. She could not bear to tell her parents, who loved her; how could she tell him, who had toyed with her for months and then dropped her so cruelly? When he ended their affair with a terse, abrupt phone call, she demanded he meet her to talk in person. It had worked with Matt, and even though their liaison was over, the fact that they spoke face to face made her feel better. She at least received a minimal level of human respect from Matt. The other man gave her no such thing. When she asked, he hung up on her. She could not tell him about the child.

  At first she reasoned that she'd get a real job soon, and after that she'd approach him. But it did not happen. Three months, she vowed. Six. Then it became a year, then two.

  She had finally gone to see him a little more than a year before. She had given up on waiting. She carried a picture of Shuying. His response was to curse her out of his office for suggesting any child of hers could be his. He hadn't seen her in years. It was outrageous. If she ever tried to do it again he would ruin her.

  Gao Lan knew he was well connected. He could make it harder than ever for her to return to work if he wanted to. And she had to return to real work eventually or she was finished. She'd take a cut in pay when she did, and she didn't yet know how she would manage, but she also knew she had no choice. In just a few more years she'd run out of time.

  It was soon after that she heard that Matt had been killed. She still remembered her physical reaction, a jolt in her midsection. She knew then she had cared for him, despite the brevity of their encounter, for she'd found her body, in its visceral reactions, to be incapable of a lie. Yet she still didn't believe Matt was Shuying's father.

  After the Treaty was passed, her parents pressed her to file a claim and she said all right, but not against the other man; against Matt. He was gone. He could not take revenge on her, at least not on this side of the veil.

  Not that his wife would be pleased. Gao Lan shivered. That was the woman coming to meet her now. So be it. Just as they said all men were brothers, all women were sisters, and Gao Lan vowed to tell her the truth. She would regard her with respect. The two women already had a connectedness between them, because of Matt.

  In the apartment, after she had prepared tea and set flowers in a plain jug, the doorbell rang. She pulled it open to two women. One was American, the widow—older, attractive in the sharp, speckled, brown-eyed way some Westerners had. Almost friendly. "Welcome, welcome," Gao Lan said, drawing them in. She was relieved she would not have to use English. This big-glasses girl, Chu Zuomin, was obviously here to translate.

  In the living room she poured tea, which sat untouched. She and the Chinese girl made small talk about the apartment, and Gao Lan waited for Matt's widow to begin.

  Yet the woman was not in a hurry. She followed right along behind the translator, observing manners, talking, laying small increments of relationship. She complimented the big, modern complex, the neighborhood. She asked about nearby restaurants, and Gao Lan told her of Ghost Street, a nearby stretch jammed with eateries, which was one reason so many men kept mistresses in the Dongfang Yinzuo, few things in life mattering more than proximity to a good meal. The widow even praised little Shuying for being bright and pretty. She seemed to be thinking of ways to advance the conversation, even as she studied Gao Lan centimeter by centimeter. Finally she said that she understood Gao Lan was working hard at the logistics company.

  Gao Lan stared. "Logistics?"

  "I thought you worked at a logistics company."

  "Oh. My parents must have told you that."

  "Yes."

  "Well, that's what they think. Would you blame me? Of course I tell them that. It's not true. I haven't been able to get that kind of job. I work for the man who rents this apartment. Naturally I would not want them to know this." Gao Lan saw that the translator colored a slow pink as she put this into English.

  "I thought this was your apartment," said the widow.

  "Not at all. Living here is part of my pay."

  "And what is it you do?" said the widow.

  "Whatever he wants," said Gao Lan. "Do you understand my meaning or not? He has a wife and children in Taiwan. He is only here sometimes."

  "Oh," said the widow suddenly, when she heard the translation. "I didn't know."

  "My parents also do not know," Gao Lan reminded her.

  "They won't learn it from me," the American said. "Don't worry."

  "Bie zhaoji," Chu Zuomin translated.

  Gao Lan filled the ensuing silence by insisting they have melon seeds and small candies. They thanked her without actually eating any, again showing manners.

  Then the wife of Matt sat up straight. "May I ask you a question?" she said.

  "Please."

  "I do understand why you would seek support from the father of your child. Why you should. What I want to know is, why did you file against my husband? Why not the other man?"

  A charged silence hung, like the kind before a storm's first crack of thunder. How had the widow known? Finally Gao Lan broke it with a short, formal laugh. "You've made a wide cast of your net."

  "If it were your husband, would you do any less?"

  "I suppose not."

  The woman went on. "Look. I know there is a chance Shuying is Matt's, and a chance she's this other guy's. You're the mother. You're the only one who can say which is more likely. So all I'm really asking is, why Matt? Is it because you think she looks like him? Because I'll tell you, I went there and met her with an open mind, and I'm going to be honest: I don't see it."

  Gao Lan nodded. It was true; Shuying did not look much like Matt. She had been aware of it since the girl grew out of her split pants and left babyhood behind. "I did go to the other man first."

  The American woman sat higher in her chair. "And?"

  Gao Lan was a woman who hated to show she was afraid, but this man she feared. She had done many things in her life which showed her bravery—she had struck out on her own; she had refused her parents' suggestions for husbands and come to Beijing to make her way instead. This man was different. She didn't say his name anymore. She didn't even like to think it. "He threatened me," she said.

  "What?" The American widow almost rose from her chair, a fierce, instinctive movement.

  "He said if I ever said such a thing again, implied Shuying was his daughter, or did anything about it, he would make sure I did not work in Beijing again."

  "He can't do that."

  "But he can. He can spread talk about me easily, if he wants."

  "Does he know this work you do?"

  "Not now," said Gao Lan. "At least I don't think so. But secrets are hard to keep. And if he found out, and passed this around"—she trailed her eyes over the apartment, the sparkling plaza down below outside the windows—"the door for me would close."

  "But if he's the father, he's responsible for Shuying under the Treaty. He must take care of her."

  "Asking him to do that is like asking a tiger for its hide."

  The American's eyes softened in understanding. "I see why you'd feel that way. But he still can't intimidate you. I don't know about the laws here, but he couldn't do it in the States. Impossible."

  Gao Lan felt a frisson of surprise. Something in the American woman had changed. It seemed as if she didn't like hearing that this other man had threatened her. "Unfortunately, though, I don't know of anything that could stop him here in China," she said.

  "I do," said the widow. "Carey could stop him. He could straighten him out. Carey James? Remember? You met him."

  The name did not click at once in Gao Lan's mind. She shook her head.

  The foreign woman closed her eyes. "The night you met my husband. The night the two of you were together. The first time.
"

  "The only time," said Gao Lan. "I remember. Your husband's friend." Now she could see Carey: tall, blond, remote. He was the one who had been with Matt, who had urged Matt over and over to say goodbye to her and go someplace else.

  "He will help you," the widow said. "I'll make sure of it. That's if the child is this other man's and not Matt's—and we'll know the answer to that in a few more days."

  Gao Lan decided to give voice to what she noticed a minute before. "Why would you help me? If Shuying is not Matt's."

  "I'll tell you why. Women don't stand by and watch another woman being bullied. That's a law of nature, as I see it." The Chinese woman translated this, even though Gao Lan found she could more or less follow Matt's wife's English.

  Now Gao Lan felt her own guard dropping and tears, for the first time, gathering in her eyes. "You know what? I am sorry. Sorry two ways. First and forever, I'm sorry he took leave of this world. I felt so sad when I heard."

  This made the widow's tears start up.

  "I'm sorry for what we did together, too. It was only once. I thought it would be a secret, safe, separate from you and your life. Well water not intruding with river water—that's what I thought. I was wrong. Duibuqi."

  "That means I'm sorry," said Miss Chu.

  The American nodded, now with shiny tracks down her face.

  Gao Lan pushed on. "But I want to tell you this. Matt was the one who stopped it with us. Not me. I wanted to go on. I'm sorry, but it's true; I did. He said no, he wouldn't, because he loved you. He said he had done it once and he would have to live with that, but he would never do it again. He told me, 'I love her so much.' That's what he said."

  Gao Lan had to stop, and she sat in a tremble while the Chinese woman put this in English. The American listened, then reached out and brushed her dry fingers across the back of Gao Lan's hand. "Thank you," she said.