The Boat Rocker

by Ha Jin

  But within days, positive articles about Haili’s book again began to appear in China, both in newspapers and on websites like Xinhua Readers and Chinawriter. The Guangzhou Daily ran a new interview that showed a photo of her on a cruise boat on the Hudson River: she was wearing tea-colored sunglasses, her long beige skirt fluttering in the breeze, and her hair was slightly tousled. She looked elegant and at ease, an exemplar of a young woman who had made it abroad. She had been born into such wealth, she declared in the interview, that she had “no concept of money,” which to her was somewhat like noodles growing on trees—she didn’t know where it came from. She had never worked a single day in her life (though actually she’d been a teacher at a New York prep school for years) and didn’t value material possessions at all—she called herself “a spiritual aristocrat.” Yet what she was utterly passionate about was love—pure, unconditional, everlasting love. Love was her religion and her god—for this alone she’d been born and would be happy to die. She had started her writing career, she claimed, by composing love letters every day in her early teens. She slipped them into the book bags of the smart boys she liked. I snorted out loud when I read that—she’d never once written me a love letter. It was I who had kept writing to her, serenading her on paper so as to push aside another boy who was after her. It was true that she had always idolized talented young men, especially if they were artistic—aspiring poets, novelists, painters, composers—but when we were growing up she didn’t know many such geniuses (as she called them). She once told me that I was the smartest fellow she’d ever met. Of course, after coming to New York, she encountered all sorts of brilliant men, many of them able to outshine me with bigger egos and stronger drive. Her genius pool expanded, and so did her sense of herself.

  How had she degenerated into such a shameless liar? Was it because I had failed her, because I hadn’t lived up to her expectations? I don’t think so. Never had I promised her I’d become an artist or poet. She had often railed against me for lacking ambition, but no one can develop more than his potential allows. What can you do if you were born an everyman?

  But there was more. To my astonishment, The Yangtze Morning Post reported that Haili had just sold her movie script, which she’d adapted from the novel, to Panorama Pictures in Hollywood—for a whopping $1.3 million. This was the largest cultural export ever accomplished by an individual Chinese author, the article claimed, and in fact, Haili had made history. “They love the script,” she told the reporter. “The movie director and his colleagues read it with tears in their eyes.”

  As a final touch, her editor, Gu Bing, revealed to the Post that the English translation of the novel had just been finished by the foremost American translator of Chinese works, Edward Silverwood.

  I was puzzled by Haili’s audacity. She and her collaborators weren’t hesitating to further their scheme, ignoring my article and the public outcry, as if all the uproar had not put the slightest dent in their plans. If anything, they were pushing even harder. Their lies seemed to be coming at me faster than I could absorb them—now there was an announcement in The Readers’ Guide Weekly that a Chinese literary association in New Jersey, the Nobel Prize Nomination Committee in North America, would be nominating Yan Haili for the Nobel Prize in literature. I laughed in disbelief. I knew that group—it was chaired by the owner of a Cantonese restaurant and composed of some twenty self-styled literary buffs, every one of them with a pen name like Summer Rain, Smoky Eyes, Little Bamboo, or Ink Eater. They were deadly serious in their mission to spread appreciation of contemporary Chinese literature worldwide, and they concentrated their efforts on various uncommon channels. They ran a micropress that brought out six or seven titles a year by immigrant authors. Whenever a Chinese writer or an official of cultural affairs passed through New Jersey, the group would host him or her in their chairman’s restaurant and then post photos online as a boast—in fact, they feared that the world might have forgotten them. They helped Chinese writers send signed copies of their books to major U.S. universities, whose names would be paraded on the authors’ résumés as collectors of their works. In return, members of the group would be invited to writers’ conferences and literary festivals held at tourist resorts in China, where they would stuff themselves at banquets and get lost while trying to sightsee. They’d also speak at Chinese college campuses as figures of success: people who had made money and a name for themselves in North America, that wild, awesome land.

  How could they be qualified to nominate someone for the Nobel Prize? A legitimate nominator must be at least a full professor or a scholar of some repute. Moreover, the prize is not for a single book but for lifetime achievement. (In one critic’s snide remark, “It might become a sublime epitaph.”) I was sure Haili was not interested in the immortal honor and just had her eye on the prize money. For heaven’s sake, how could those Jersey guys expect the Nobel Committee to accept their nomination? The plot hatched from Haili’s novel was getting more farcical by the hour.

  I went to Kaiming’s office to discuss the story with him. He had been writing an article on U.S. weapon sales to Taiwan and, at the sight of me, turned away from his computer. I told him I feared that things were getting worse. But he viewed the new developments differently—he believed, in fact, that the frauds were on edge now, perhaps feverish and trembling with fear. But they couldn’t simply slam the brakes on wheels that they had already set in motion—they had to play off their nerves as nonchalance. Otherwise, they’d lose face publicly and get hammered by their enemies. Gu Bing could even be removed from his office if he admitted any misconduct. “They’re riding a tiger and can’t get off,” Kaiming concluded and screwed up an eye. He was always sure of his views.

  He’d just had his hair cut and looked younger today—his head seemed rounder than usual and his jaw smoother. He held his sinewy hand over his steaming teacup, which reminded me of his hobby of sailing alone on the ocean as a way to clear his mind. He emphasized, “We must continue to expose their lies.”

  I realized that Kaiming had also been following the case closely. Despite his cordial relationship with the Chinese authorities, he always wanted to remain neutral in our news reporting so that we could grow our reputation as an unbiased source for Chinese readers around the world—a source that reported all the news Xinhua wouldn’t. Indeed, people had begun to view GNA that way, and every month our readership increased by thousands. Lately Kaiming had also been expanding his small publishing house, which brought out books on people and issues and historic events that could not be discussed openly in China. His books were selling well in Hong Kong and at some airports in Southeast Asia, mostly to the mainland Chinese traveling through. Secretly, Kaiming was even more ambitious than he seemed. He played his cards close to the chest. Only once, tipsy in a restaurant and together with two relatives, had he confessed that he saw himself as a sort of modern-day Joseph Pulitzer, and hoped to be remembered like the newspaper magnate. That was why he’d been planning to publish GNA’s own newspaper and magazine all over the world once he had accumulated enough wherewithal. I admired him, needless to say. He had just turned forty-three and was already a self-made man, who had his own businesses, two beautiful children, and a loving wife. He was success personified.

  Following my boss’s instructions, I began to fact-check Haili’s latest claims about her novel. The translator Edward Silverwood, famous in China thanks to his several TV appearances there, was a professor of East Asian studies at Duke. I had phoned him in the morning, but he was not in his office. Around midafternoon I dialed again, and on the second ring a slightly rough-edged voice answered. It was Professor Silverwood, who had the voice of an old man though he wasn’t yet fifty. He sounded like he had been working late the night before and hadn’t gotten enough sleep. He seemed stumped when I mentioned Haili’s novel.

  “Remind me of the author again,” Silverwood said.

  “Yan Haili,” I told him.

  “Male or female?”

  “
A woman.”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell. Did you read the novel?” His voice perked up.

  “I went through six chapters.”

  “Is it a good book?”

  “What can I say? It’s below average.”

  “Then I’m glad I didn’t touch it. I have so much to do at the moment that I can’t take on anything new.”

  That made sense—I’d heard that there was always a long line of Chinese writers waiting for him to translate their works despite his high price: in addition to the translation fee paid by the publisher, the authors had to split their royalties with him, fifty-fifty. You may protest that’s not fair, but it was his policy. What’s cheap can never be first-rate. That’s why some Chinese authors, especially those who were members of the Writers’ Association and drew salaries from the state, simply let Silverwood have all the royalties from their English editions, considering that his translations could help them open doors to the other foreign book markets, and that European publishers often based their offers on the advance that Silverwood’s English version had commanded.

  Silverwood’s process was to read a manuscript, write a short summary, translate the one or two chapters he deemed most interesting, then let his agent shop the translation proposal to publishers in New York. If the book was bought, he’d go ahead and finish it. But just two months back he had confessed to a Chinese audience in a TV interview that his desk drawers were packed with rejected proposals of that kind. He admitted that he simply had no eye for what could sell. To date, he had translated more than thirty titles, but not one of them had become a best seller. He couldn’t even tell which one he liked most. Yet he hadn’t lost heart. He held on to his dream of translating a landmark work like Doctor Zhivago, which, more than half a century after its first publication, still sold forty thousand copies a year in the United States alone.

  Now, our phone conversation verified that there was no English translation of Haili’s novel. This had wide implications—it meant that the translations into “more than thirty languages” her editor had bragged about didn’t exist either. Many of them would have had to be based on the English version, because Chinese is such a difficult language that some countries have no translators who can read the original.

  The next step was to contact Panorama Pictures in Hollywood. I called their office twice that afternoon, but no one answered. Not until the next day around noon did I get to speak with the manager of the studio. The man was as baffled by my questions as Silverwood had been.

  “Come again,” he said.

  “Love and Death in September,” I repeated.

  “Never heard of it. You sure it’s our company that bought it?”

  “Yes, Panorama Pictures.”

  “Well, you can’t take that kind of rumor seriously. If a script sold for more than a million dollars, the whole of Hollywood would have heard of it. Do you know who her agent is?”

  “I’ve no clue.”

  “This sounds bogus.” He giggled childishly. “One thing I can tell you—we haven’t acquired any script recently.”

  I thanked him and hung up. I couldn’t help but feel happy that Haili’s house of cards was starting to tumble. I debated whether to confront her again with the lies I had just ferreted out. Should I inform my boss of my new discoveries and get them published right away? Or should I give Haili a chance to make amends?

  I telephoned her at the prep school where she was a music teacher and told her that I had questions for her, but she was busy in a parent-teacher conference and suggested we meet in person. Reluctantly, I agreed to see her at Lovely Songs in downtown Flushing the next evening.

  SIX

  To my surprise, Haili didn’t show up at the bar alone. With her was a slight young woman dressed in a yellow raincoat and polka-dot boots. I recognized her at once—her name was Shao Niya. She was a staffer at NYU and also ran the website of a Chinese-language newspaper, The North American Tribune, which circulated mainly in New England. She was from Harbin and spoke Mandarin impeccably, like a radio broadcaster, as many people from that area did. Haili introduced Niya as her best friend, and the woman stretched out her tiny hand, which felt forceful when I shook it. The bar was noisy and crowded, packed with businesspeople, yuppies, and tourists, so we requested a quieter place to sit. A reedy girl wearing an orange apron led us into a small karaoke room. She turned up the lights a little and shut off the soft Hong Kong music when I asked.

  After we sat down on the synthetic leather sofas, I ordered tea, fruit salad, and spiced peas and nuts for all of us. The moment the girl left, Haili said to me, “What’s up?” Her eyes bored into me, her brows furrowed.

  “I’ve discovered more about your salacious novel,” I told her. I glanced at Niya, who had removed her raincoat to reveal a mauve silk shirtdress and was now looking around absentmindedly.

  “What’s up?” Haili repeated.

  “Your brilliant novel, which you claim is being worked on by the most famous translator in the industry? I called Edward Silverwood and he said he’d never heard of you.”

  “I didn’t say he was my translator, did I? That was wrong information someone else gave, perhaps due to a misunderstanding. In fact, I’m doing the translation myself.”

  Her audacity astounded me—I knew that her written English was still puerile. True, she spoke the language with only a trace of an accent and could toss out expressions like “I’ll be damned,” “long time no see,” and “twenty-twenty hindsight,” but every once in a while she still made mistakes, calling out “break your leg” instead of “break a leg,” or urging someone to “crack your brain” in place of “rack your brains.” She used to tell others that sweepstakes had “cheated on” her, because she had paid a $19.95 fee twice but never been able to collect the big prizes they’d promised her. Exasperated once, she had declared “I’m mad about Cicely,” Larry’s youngest sister, who had ignored her advice and dropped out of college to join a local band.

  In fairness, Haili had always been above the kinds of silly mistakes made by her former schoolmates. She’d told me that one of them, while filling out a visa application form at the U.S. consulate in Shenyang, had even put down “twice a week” on the line for “Sex.” But it would take years for Haili to be able to produce publishable English prose. What she was capable of now was bubbly and ridden with clichés.

  The waitress stepped in and served the tea and snacks. With a toothpick I lifted a piece of pineapple, which tasted fresh and succulent. I said to Haili, “Truth be told, George Bush might not enjoy your translation.”

  “I’ve never said the White House was interested in my book. Don’t play the wise old man again.”

  Before I could respond, Niya chimed in, “It was Gu Bing who announced the completion of the English translation and the possible endorsement from President Bush. Haili has nothing to do with those announcements.”

  I was struck that Niya was so well informed about the case. What’s it to her? I wondered. Is she involved too? Is she playing Haili’s publicist? Do we have a gang of four now?

  “See, you made a false assumption about me again,” Haili continued, pointing at my nose. “For good or ill, you and I shared the same roof and bed for two years, we ate from the same pot, and for more than three years we were a married couple. You should at least have treated me more decently.”

  “Hang on a second,” I said. “I haven’t finished yet. I spoke with the manager of Panorama Pictures as well. They’d never heard of your grand novel or any movie script based on it. Where did you get your fortune of 1.3 million dollars?”

  Silence ensued. Haili was biting down on her lower lip as though she had too much to hold back.

  Then she said, “I have written a script, and a movie company has been considering it.”

  “It must be a studio in Changchun or Kunming or Chengdu, right?” These were provincial capitals where some old-fashioned movie companies were based, mostly in dormancy.

  “No, it’s a U.S. fi
lmmaker.”

  “Which one? Can you disclose its name to Niya and me?”

  “I already know which one,” Niya put in.

  “We can’t share the information with you,” Haili said, “or you will rain on our picnic.”

  “That’s a load of bull. If you cannot name the company, I’ll have to take the movie deal as a pack of lies.”

  “Danlin,” Niya resumed, “I can guarantee you that Haili is finishing a movie script. Your doubts are groundless.”

  “See, she hasn’t even completed it yet, so how could it have been sold?”

  “We’ve been negotiating,” Haili said.

  “Even if that’s true, there’s still no contract. Where did you get your 1.3 million dollars? This sounds like pure fantasy to me.”

  “We’re almost there. I’m positive my script will bring a price like that. My publisher is experienced in closing this kind of deal. Everything will work out to our advantage.”

  “That’s not very convincing, is it? I don’t care about how big your fortune will be. I just want you to show the first page of your contract. How else can you prove your claims to the public?”

  “The public is manipulated and misled by so-called journalists like you. The truth is, you can’t let a day pass without using your job to tear other people down. Why, why are you so determined to humiliate me? How the hell will my success diminish you? I can’t think of any reason except that you enjoy watching me suffer.”

  “Don’t twist things around and accuse me of anything. Didn’t you tell a flat-out lie in the first place? Haven’t you been exploiting people’s pain and loss with this novel?”

  Haili shaded her face with her narrow palm and broke into sobs, wiping her prominent cheeks with her fingers and sniffling. “What have I done to deserve this?” she wailed.