by Ha Jin
“I’m with you on that, a hundred percent. Keep in mind that the two countries will stand together on many major issues for a long time.”
“That’s what we want to see too.”
“People in the same boat must help each other,” Trouton said and raised his spoon, revealing a silver cuff link. I was amazed he knew that expression.
Trouton offered to pick up the tab, but my boss handed his credit card to the waitress before she showed us the check.
“Thank you for the delicious lunch,” Trouton said amiably on our walk back. Pressing his left hand on his chest, he added, “Next time lunch will be on me.”
Would he come again? I noticed Kaiming smile pensively, his cheek twitching.
—
MY BOSS WAS BESIDE HIMSELF after Trouton had left in his Ford Crown Victoria. I couldn’t see why Kaiming was reacting this way. “You don’t understand politics, Danlin,” he said.
“You mean the Department of Homeland Security has targeted us?” I asked.
“Not only that. The White House and the Chinese government are working in tandem now.”
I couldn’t believe it. “Come on, this is a free country,” I protested, “and it’s not like we’ve broken the law. We’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Free country, my ass. That man came here to warn us not to do anything rash that might damage the Sino-U.S. relationship, especially before President Hu’s visit to the States next spring. We’re in Trouton’s charge now, and he will continue to scrutinize and handle us.”
“But he said nothing like that.”
“He didn’t need to! His presence here was enough to get the message across. Obviously they’ve been handling us in the Chinese way—he uses his appearance here to rope us in. Danlin, you’re so innocent, still a virgin in the whorehouse of politics.”
“You might be right.”
“I am right.” Kaiming sounded impatient. “Look at what China’s been doing. It has kept its backyard—Afghanistan and Pakistan—open to the U.S. in the past twenty years. Originally it was the U.S. and China together that created the Islamic militants there to fight the Soviets. In the eighties China sent PLA officers to train those fighters in guerrilla warfare and also provided them with light weapons and tens of thousands of packhorses, while the U.S. gave them millions of dollars and Stinger missiles that brought down hundreds of Russian aircrafts. Then the Soviet Union collapsed, but the militants became the genie out of the bottle, plaguing the region. Now the U.S. and China have no option but to join hands to deal with all the blowback of violence and terrorism. China may need the U.S. to occupy that area so the militants in Xinjiang Uygur won’t have their foreign bases across the border anymore. The two countries have a lot of common interests in Central Asia.”
“Still, they don’t share the same values,” I said, not entirely convinced by his logic.
“That’s high-flown rhetoric. As far as countries are concerned, only national interests dictate their union and separation.”
“But I have a suspicion that China and the U.S. might not get on in the long run.”
“They will, believe me. They’re bound together. China has become a large U.S. factory, so the Communist regime will remain in place for many years unless China miscalculates and challenges America’s supremacy.”
I shook my head. “What you’re saying sounds something like a bad marriage neither party can get out of,” I said. “But even a married couple can divorce at any time and become strangers or enemies.”
“It’s not that simple. I’m quite sure that the two countries will be partners for a long time. China must’ve demanded that the U.S. side rein us in so its image won’t be tarnished here. Some people in Beijing even believe we can influence the U.S. Congress. Jiao Fanping and Gu Bing must have done a hell of a job in presenting us as major troublemakers to the Chinese government. That’s why Trouton came to warn us. From now on we have to do our best to stay friends with him. I never thought we’d have to deal with the U.S. government as well.”
“Don’t worry so much. Let’s just keep our eyes open and see what happens next.” Feeling it preposterous that the official’s visit would rattle him so much, I said, “Why are you so afraid of Trouton? He’s nothing compared to the Chinese officials we’ve dealt with.”
“Are you simpleminded or what? I know how to handle those Chinese bastards. I know how to bribe them. But you can’t bribe someone in the Department of Homeland Security or the FBI.”
“You mean American officials are clean?” I said skeptically. “I’m positive some of them take bribes too.”
“But I don’t know how to grease palms the American way and dare not run the risk.”
“I never thought our investigation of Haili’s novel would anger so many people,” I said wearily. “She said her book was a national project, endorsed by the Chinese government, but Vice Consul Tao denies it.”
“It might be true only in the sense that one or two high officials support it. Those sons of bitches in power are idiots and think that they can buy off the United States with a couple of candy bars. They don’t understand that this superpower has to be fed with billions of dollars continually.”
“So Haili’s novel is just a candy bar?”
“Or a cookie at most.”
I broke into a laugh, and Kaiming followed suit. He then wagged his chin as though to awaken himself fully. I had the feeling that he might have withheld something from me, so I couldn’t share his anxiety completely. He was a sharp man and could sense danger ahead of time.
NINETEEN
The apartment houses on Crufts Street were completed, all wrapped in simulated wood siding, fireproof and durable. Because of the sluggish real estate market, the builder was renting out the units as well as selling them. Both FOR SALE and FOR RENT signs were planted alongside the driveways. On my way to work the next morning I bumped into Randy. He wore a brown leather jacket and was walking with his head bowed a little, as though deep in thought. His sandy hair was tousled, and he had three or four days’ growth of beard. I got off my bicycle and greeted him to see if he still remembered me.
“Hi, Danlin,” he said, shaking off his reverie. “How’s it going?”
“Not very well,” I admitted. “Do you remember that conversation we had, about my carpentry? Would you still hire me as a carpenter when there’s an opening?”
“Only if you’re good. You need to show us you can do the work first, then we can decide whether to take you on. But winter’s coming, and new construction won’t start until next spring.”
“I understand,” I said. “I’m a decent carpenter, you know.”
“Do you have a work permit or a green card?”
“I’m a U.S. citizen,” I said proudly.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Randy said hastily. “I shouldn’t have assumed.”
“I just got my citizenship,” I assured him.
“Well, congratulations then.” Randy reached out to shake my hand. “Stop by every once in a while.”
“Thanks. This means a lot to me.”
“No sweat, buddy.”
He walked off, an accordion folder stuffed with paperwork tucked under his arm, and he passed over the spot once occupied by a pair of blue Porta Potties. Beyond him, beech saplings, all about six feet tall, stood, their trunks whitish in the sunshine. I had his business card in my drawer. These days I could not escape feeling insecure at GNA. At night I kept dreaming of strange infants, small people—some of them stretched out their miniature arms, inviting me to hold them. According to Chinese folklore, this might be an insidious omen, and it made me consider the possibility of working for Randy’s company.
Kaiming sent for me as soon as I arrived at work. I shucked off my peacoat and went to his office. As soon as he saw me, he crumpled up a sheet of paper and dropped it into his wire wastebasket. He looked frazzled, his eyes tired, his face drawn. Without question he’d slept badly the night before. He was in his white shirtsleeves and ges
tured for me to sit before his desk. I plopped down in a chair and crossed my legs. Behind him on the wall was a tasseled banner, presented to GNA by a charity association and emblazoned with these characters: Let truth shine in words! To Kaiming’s left, a pair of olive-green filing cabinets stood against the wall.
“Danlin,” he said, “I need you to take a leave.”
“What?” My hands gripped the chair. “You mean I’m laid off?”
“No, no!” He shook his head and gave a little laugh. “Good heavens, you’re a nervous wreck too. I mean I’m sending you out of town on a paid leave.”
I relaxed my grip on the chair. “For how long?”
“A week.”
“Why? Whose way am I in?”
“We’re facing pressure from the officials on all sides. It’s best for you to get some physical distance from the situation.”
“Fine,” I said, warming up to the idea. “I could use a break.”
Kaiming nodded, looking relieved. He said, “Can you go to Berlin? There’s a festival there this weekend, celebrating Chinese culture. Some well-known artists will be exhibiting their work, and you can cover it.”
“I’d love to go, of course,” I agreed, despite knowing the festival might not be very exciting.
Not only was this a chance to travel, but it was also, I realized with some sadness, a way to get away from Katie for a while. She’d already begun preparing for her trip to China. If I was around, I might get nastier. She planned to stay in China for the whole spring semester and part of the summer. I felt we might part ways anytime if she met another man there. Our fruitless relationship seemed to have been wasting my life, and lately I’d been longing to settle down and start a family, to live a peaceful life, though I was still unsure if I would marry. But now that I knew I wanted children eventually, I recognized I should entertain the possibility. In my heart of hearts I knew I wouldn’t want to become a perpetual bachelor, an “old boy.” If only I had some money saved up.
I was eager to use my U.S. passport for the first time. I knew people who’d gone to Toronto soon after naturalization just to see for themselves that they could cross the border into Canada and back without trouble. Kaiming had a niece studying at Dalhousie University in Halifax, but the girl couldn’t come to see him because she held a Chinese passport and dreaded the tedious and frustrating process of visa application. The previous fall, Kaiming’s sister had gone from Shenzhen to Nova Scotia to see the girl, and hoped to make a stop at New York, but she couldn’t get a visa in advance, so Kaiming had to fly to Halifax to see them in spite of his hectic schedule. Afterward, he kept telling others that only when Chinese citizens could go to 150 countries without having to obtain visas ahead of time would China truly be a strong country. He’d say this in jest, even to some Chinese officials’ faces. Whenever someone countered that China was already a superpower, he would respond, “No, no, no, they still have a long way to go. Not until China has Japan’s universal health care, Germany’s free education, the Netherlands’ paid parental leaves, America’s open-stack public libraries in every town, and a world-standard passport for its citizens can China be called a global power.” As it was, a Chinese passport allowed its holder entry into only a dozen or so small countries without a visa.
When I mentioned my leave to Katie, she said my plans were extravagant—who drops everything to take a vacation in Germany in late November? I said it was also a business trip that wouldn’t cost much. Besides, GNA would reimburse my expenses. There was a network of Chinese-run hostels throughout Europe, and the lodgings were very affordable, usually under twenty euros a day, breakfast included. If Katie had come with me, we’d have had to stay at a regular hotel, which would cost three or four times more. I quickly found one of those hostels in Charlottenburg, a town outside western Berlin. The owner of the place, Mr. Huang, assured me that his house was absolutely convenient for everything and near the S-Bahn, the train that could take me anywhere in the city. I made a reservation and paid a fifty-dollar deposit with my credit card.
TWENTY
“Why are you coming to Germany?” the russet-haired officer at customs asked me while examining my passport.
“For sightseeing and a meeting,” I said.
“How long will you stay in the country?” he continued.
“A week.”
He stamped my papers and let me through. It was as simple as that? I was still marveling over it as I wheeled my luggage out the frosted-glass door. What a privilege it was to hold a Western passport!
But my amazement made me pensive. I imagined two babies, one born in China and the other in the West, given different passports at birth—one child was automatically granted the freedom of travel. Why should the Chinese child grow up without the same right? What or who was responsible for that child’s deprivation? The country the child was born into. A country that cannot endow its citizens with the same right of travel and migration as most other countries have, a country that makes its people second-class citizens in the world, has failed and should be held accountable by its populace. So much of our humiliation and resentment toward the West in reality originated from the country we created but cannot hold responsible. We allow the country, which should be the guardian of our rights and interests, to rule and abuse us like a god.
I made a mental note that next time someone argued against universal values by insisting on China’s particularity, I’d bring up this inequality as evidence that by overemphasizing our differences, we reduce our humanity—we must fight to have the same rights as everyone else in the world.
Mr. Huang’s place was nestled at the end of an alleyway close to the train station. It was a three-story house that had a steep roof bulging with dormer windows; his family lived on the ground floor, and the other two floors were for guests. Because it was the off-season, I had a large room furnished with three beds and a few sticks of furniture, but such a big room felt lonely at night, in spite of the moonbeams sneaking in through the slats of the window blinds.
There were only four guests in the entire hostel, myself included. The others were a Korean student and a young Chinese couple who had come to Germany for sightseeing. The couple had just finished their master’s degrees in civil engineering at the University of Manchester and were returning to their home in Suzhou the next month, while the Korean student, a willowy young woman named Doona Kim, was studying music in Vienna, where she said there were many Korean music students. Doona, with youthful candor, told us that she wanted to marry a European before her visa expired so she could live in Europe permanently. I joked that I hoped she already had a prospect, but she said she didn’t yet.
Mrs. Huang, a plump Korean woman with permed hair and a batik apron, was from Yanbian, the Korean autonomous region in northeast China, and that was why they received some Korean guests as well. Because I was from the same province, the Huangs called me a fellow townsman. I enjoyed their lavish homemade breakfast, which consisted of kimchi, pickled string beans and soy sprouts, daikon slivers mixed with paprika and baby shrimp and squid, salted duck eggs, fried peanuts, rice porridge, and steamed plaited buns. I hadn’t eaten this kind of breakfast in years. When I’d been a reporter back in China, I used to go to the Korean region at least twice a year.
I took the S-Bahn downtown to the Festival of Chinese Culture. I loved the German trains—they were clean, quiet, and punctual. Some were brand-new, still smelling of new metal and plastic. On my first ride I didn’t realize that I needed to activate my ticket, but the conductor didn’t fine me. She told me that if I were not a new passenger, I’d have had to pay forty euros. “But how do you activate a ticket?” I asked. She explained, but I couldn’t understand everything she said. After stepping off the train, I stood watching people on the platform insert their tickets in the small red metal boxes to mark the time, till I learned how to do it.
The festival at the House of World Cultures, as I expected, wasn’t very impressive. In addition to an assortment of paintin
gs, photographs, and slide shows, there were theatrical performances, readings, and talks. Most of the folk plays had a single act performed by one actor because it was too expensive to fly in whole troupes from China; as a result, the performances were simple and at moments crude. I did not enjoy the readings and talks either. The literary events felt insubstantial, perhaps because most of the readings were done by German translators and actors on behalf of the authors themselves. I couldn’t understand the German and felt disengaged. What I looked forward to was the small reception in the evening, at which I planned to interview some artists and officials. But because the German host had allowed a dissident poet living in London to sit on a panel that afternoon, the Chinese ambassador declined to appear at the party.
The German organizers were excited about Ambassador Chang’s absence and congratulated the middle-aged poet for his power to nettle the top Chinese diplomat. The bearded poet only shrugged his thin shoulders and looked bemused. He was still holding a long-stemmed red rose that had been presented to him at the end of his reading. I asked him a few questions, to which he gave such terse answers that I could hardly quote him. He held out his glass to a bartender for a refill of red wine. Three waitresses were carrying trays of hors d’oeuvres around the room: pan-fried wontons, shrimp dumplings, spring rolls, sweet-and-sour chicken fingers, steamed shu mai, eggplant boxes, and pot stickers stuffed with crabmeat and zucchini. The food was excellent, sometimes even exquisite, but for this occasion I felt uncomfortable about all the appetizers. It was as if Chinese cuisine could always outshine our other arts, as if ours was a culture that satisfied only the stomach.
A bespectacled German man introduced himself to me in English as Stefan. He was dressed in a black suit, a lavender grosgrain tie, and cap-toe oxfords; the top of his head displayed a bald patch surrounded by curly hair. When he learned who I was, he was eager to talk with me about his work—he’d been writing a long article on contemporary Chinese literature. I was impressed by his knowledge of the subject—he seemed observant and erudite. He’d been involved in selecting the authors for the festival, and for that he’d had to read many novels. I asked him, among all the novels he had read, which one impressed him most. He shook his head and said, “None.” Swirling his zinfandel, he confided, “We’ve spent more than a million euros for this series of events. I doubt whether it’s worth it.”