A Free Life

by Ha Jin

  “There has been a drought. The water is too shallow for the ships to come up here.” Ning licked his thick lips. His baby face, narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, puffed up a little, his gaze focused on a moored rowboat.

  “The river has changed so much. I never thought it was so meager,” Nan said. He had dreamed of the Songhua many times and always seen it as an immense body of water like a lake. Now he guessed that the Hudson or Lake Lanier must have mingled with this river in his dreams.

  “You should come and see what it’s like here in the morning,” said Ning. “It’s thronged with people, like a sports ground. People exercise and dance everywhere.”

  “Didn’t they build an amusement park over there some years ago?” Nan pointed at the wooded land in the middle of the river called Sun Island, over which a biplane was flying slowly, bobbing like a giant dragonfly caught in the wind.

  “Yes, but if I were you I wouldn’t go there. It looks better from here. It’s too crowded there, just a tourist trap.”

  Indeed, viewed from this shore, the island was lovely, with picturesque buildings and bright-colored houses. It had been covered by bushes twelve years before. In his late teens Nan had often swum across the channel in the afternoons and napped on the warm beach that was now occupied by pavilions, boathouses, and a long platform on stilts which must have been a pier. He told Ning, “I thought I’d go and see the island, but there’s no need now. The water is so narrow I feel I can wade across.”

  “Like this river, China has run out of strength. It’s already rotten to the core. Brother, you made the right choice to stay in America.” Ning took a swat at a horsefly hovering around his head but missed it.

  “Life is hard there too,” said Nan.

  “Still, you have hope there, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know.” Nan wanted to say “What hope?” but he held back, not wanting to upset his brother.

  “Nan.” Ning looked rather shy. “I’m thinking of going to Australia.”

  “For what?”

  “To emigrate.”

  “That’ll be very hard, Ning. It will take ages to get all the papers through. If you were a young woman, your life in Australia may be less difficult. Chinese men are often at a disadvantage compared with Chinese women in foreign countries.”

  “Why so?”

  “Chinese women are more likely to be accepted because white males like them. Also, generally speaking, Chinese women can take more hardship than Chinese men. If you go to Australia with your wife, it’ll be less difficult for her to adapt. To be honest, Minyan may not stay with you forever once you reach Australia. I’ve seen many broken marriages among the immigrants in America because the wives changed their hearts. I’m lucky. Pingping has been loyal to me. She can endure more suffering than I can. Without her I couldn’t have survived there.” He had to stop because a surge of emotion seized his heart and drove him to the brink of tears. Then it dawned on him that Minyan, his sister-in-law, might have wanted to take Ning to another country so that he’d have to give up his gambling friends here. Nan had met Minyan a few hours ago and liked her, but he didn’t feel she was very reliable. She was a looker, also quick-witted. He was sure that if she and Ning went to Australia, she could make it there, whereas Ning, sensitive by nature, might get lost and lapse into his old ways, frequenting casinos and betting on horses. His brother, the youngest in the family, had always been the baby and didn’t have the strength to grapple with fortune in a foreign land.

  Ning sighed. “I don’t see any meaning in my life here. My job makes me go to parties almost every night. I hate alcohol but have to guzzle it, to get drunk a few times a week, or others would think I’m dishonest. I’m sick of this kind of life, sick of having to smile at the people I don’t like to meet, sick of attending banquets at which I have to blab like a windbag. I want to go abroad for some peace and quiet.”

  “At least you have many friends here,” Nan said. “Our life in America is very solitary. It would be hard for you to endure a lonely existence in Australia.”

  “I’m not afraid of loneliness, which is better than hopelessness. This place is totally ruined. You should see what it’s like here in the winter—the smog is so thick that sometimes even the sun has changed its color, and whenever you go out, you have to wear a surgeon’s mask, or your nose will be blocked by soot. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that millions and millions of Chinese have lung problems, because China has no lungs anymore—all the forests are gone. Worst of all, there are lots of criminals roaming around. Too many people have lost jobs and are desperate to get along by any means. A colleague of mine was stabbed last spring under the bridge right outside our office building, because he didn’t have enough cash on him for the mugger. In this place it’s impossible to live honestly—you have to lie constantly because everyone else lies. If you don’t, others will take advantage of you. In the marketplace more than half the scales are crooked. Our neighbor, Aunt Niu, bought a sack of sweet rice dumplings from a peddler one evening last January, but when she got home she found they were actually frozen donkey droppings. A friend of mine, a policeman, lost his marriage because he returned to the owner a full envelope of cash he’d picked up on a bus. His wife called him ‘mental,’ and even his parents-in-law said he was a dope.”

  “Look at it this way, Ning. You’re almost thirty-five and don’t speak any English. Even if you’re lucky and get to Australia eventually after spending a fortune, it will take several years for you to settle down. In a foreign country it’s almost impossible to restart your life once you’re past forty, unless you have a lot of money or extraordinary talent. The struggle is too overpowering and can drive you out of your mind. Ning, you must think carefully before you decide to go to Australia. To my mind, you belong to this place. At least you have a comfortable job here and people respect you as a reporter.”

  “Actually, Minyan wants to go abroad more than myself. She’s been attending a night school to learn English.”

  “I see. Think twice before you make up your mind, will you?”

  “I will.”

  A man began bellowing a folk song from a rowboat up the bank. A freight train blew its whistle, trundling across the dark, old bridge downstream built by the Japanese more than half a century ago. Numerous lights were already on, flickering lazily on the river. A moment later the two brothers turned back, each wheeling his bicycle with one hand on the handlebar. On their way home Nan gave Ning three hundred dollars and made him promise to let his wife keep the money.

  11

  NAN gave the same amount of cash to his sister, Ying, who didn’t really need the money since her husband owned a profitable landscaping company. But the dollars were a hard currency, which pleased her.

  Nan told his parents not to buy braised chicken or fresh fish for him because he ate those things every day in America. He just wanted homely food, like millet porridge, cornmeal gruel, plain noodles with soy paste, fried toon leaves. These things were easy to make. His mother didn’t even have to go to the marketplace to buy anything. His aunt, living in the countryside and having four toon trees in her backyard, would mail his parents a large sack of the leaves every spring. Although Nan had missed these foods, he didn’t enjoy them as much as he had expected. Somehow everything tasted different from what he’d remembered. Maybe he’d lost some taste buds. Or maybe all the memories of those toothsome foods were just the remaining sensations of his childhood.

  The next afternoon he and his mother were at home alone. His father had gone to a memorial service held for a former colleague of his who had just passed away. Putting a clay pot of chrysanthemum tea on the side table for Nan, his mother sat down and sighed.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I miss Taotao.”

  This was strange, because Nan remembered that she had never liked her eldest grandson and had once even refused to watch over the boy when he and his wife had to attend a meeting together. For that Pingping still he
ld a grudge against her. Nan told his mother, “Don’t worry about him. He’s fine. He’s a stellar student and will have a good future.”

  “I want to see him.”

  “All right, I’ll talk to Pingping and see if we can bring him back next summer. That way he can learn some Chinese from you and my dad.”

  “No, I want to go to America to see him and Pingping.”

  “Why do you have to go yourself? At your age it’s not safe to travel that far.”

  “Why? I’m not that old.” True, she had just turned sixty-five.

  “I’ll try to send Taotao back to stay with you next summer, all right?”

  “I want to see America myself.”

  “Mom, you have a very comfortable life here. If you fall ill there, you could die abroad. Don’t you have arteriosclerosis and dizzy spells?”

  “I’m well now, and I’d like to see America before I die.”

  “Truth be told, for old people life there is harder than here.”

  “I don’t mind. I can work.”

  “Work, at your age?”

  “Yes, there’s no shame in working. Everybody knows how easy it is to make money in America. After you gave us the cash the day before yesterday, your dad said to me, ‘Damn, we’ve never had so much money in our whole life. See how easy it was for Nan to toss out a thousand dollars. In just twelve years he has become such a rich man.’ My son, you know, that amount you gave us is enough for us to live on for a whole year.”

  “We make more there but have to spend more too.”

  “Don’t you own a restaurant?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I can work for you. I can make dumpling wrappers, wonton wrappers, noodles, all kinds of buns and pies. For five dollars an hour I can earn forty a day. In a year that’ll be more than ten thousand, enough for your dad and me to spend in our remaining years. Nan, I’ll stay with you just a year and then I’ll come back. Please take me to America.”

  “How about my dad in the meantime?”

  “He’ll stay home.”

  “But he can’t cook.”

  “He can always hire a maid.”

  Nan realized that his father wouldn’t go because he had many friends here, because he could play mah-jongg every night, and also because he’d have to be around to collect their pensions and take care of this home. Nan said, “I’ll have to talk with Pingping about this. I can’t decide by myself.”

  His mother’s face dropped and a few folds appeared on her throat. She said, “Who’s the boss in your home? If you insist on your right as her husband, of course Pingping will obey you.”

  “Mom, I can’t do that. She owns half the business too. We two are partners, like a team.”

  She seemed to intuit that Pingping wouldn’t let her come to America because the two of them had never gotten along. She sighed and went on in a flat voice, “You’re not your old self anymore. Having your wife, you no longer need your old mother, the same as your brother and sister. Heartless. Every one of you is heartless.” She pursed her lips, her nose crinkled.

  Nan wanted to say, “Where were you when Pingping suffered and struggled with me all these years? Did you ever weep with me when we lost our baby? Were you ever worried when we couldn’t pay our bills? You only know how to take advantage of us and ask for money. Greedy. Both of you are greedy.” But he held his tongue, lowered his eyes, and muttered, “Mother, you don’t know how hard life has been for Pingping and me. If she were another woman, she’d have walked out on me long ago. She’s the mainstay of our family.”

  “I see, your old mother is useless to you now.” She rose and shuffled away. Her shoulders sagged.

  Nan rested his head on the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. The conversation saddened him. He remembered how the day before, when he mentioned Pingping’s miscarriage, his mother had merely said, “If you’re more filial to your parents, no misfortune like that will strike again.” Those words still rankled him. Now how could he make her understand that she was no longer a member of his immediate family? How could he convince her that Pingping was the only person he could rely on? Greedy and vain, his mother just dreamed of making a fortune and showing off to her neighbors and friends. Ning had told him that their parents often bragged to others about going to America for a vacation and to see their grandson. His mother had even promised some friends of hers that she’d persuade Nan to help their children study in the United States when the kids grew up. As a result, many people had begun to ingratiate themselves with his parents. Nan realized that the old man and woman couldn’t possibly commiserate with him and Pingping over the fear and misery they had gone through in America. How lonely he felt in his parents’ home, as though he hadn’t grown up in this very apartment. Perhaps he shouldn’t have come back in the first place.

  12

  “I CANNOT imagine marrying a man younger than myself.” That sentence, spoken by Beina sixteen years before, had been reverberating in Nan’s mind ever since he’d been home. In fact, she was just four months older than he. His memory of the proposal still stung him. Fat snowflakes had fluttered around as he proposed to her, saying he’d do everything to make her happy, including most of the household chores. He also promised her that they’d eventually live in a city south of the Yangtze River because she disliked the cold climate here. And with trepidation he waited for her answer. A few sleepy birds croaked in the treetops, whose branches had all caked into masses of snow. Her voice was flippant, which unsettled him, though he had steeled himself for the worst. When the final answer came, he felt crushed and wounded, leaning against the bole of a young birch crusted with ice. “I’ve got to go now. Good night,” she said, and walked away, fading into the darkness. Tears, hot and unstoppable, coursed down his face.

  If only he had cut his ties with her right then and there. But instead, he had returned to her later on and gotten enmeshed deeper and deeper in her maze.

  For several days now he had been thinking about her. Has she been happy? What does she look like now? Like a middle-aged woman? That’s unlikely. She always knew how to take care of herself. Does she still remember me? Does her husband, that fellow with a rabbit face, really love her? Would she like to see me? Will my reappearance disturb her? What does she do? Still working as a translator in the information office of the sewing machine factory?

  He hadn’t asked his siblings about Beina, and nobody had mentioned her either. But he was determined to see her before returning to America. He wouldn’t expect to rekindle her feelings for him. All he wanted was to see her once more so that he could preserve her in his memory as a lovely woman beyond his reach, as someone who still possessed his soul, so that the flames of inspiration would blaze in him again.

  On Sunday morning he set out for Daoli District, for Beina’s home. He walked the entire two miles, first along Thriving Peace Street and then along Worker and Peasant Boulevard. The poplars on the sidewalks were twice as large as when he had last seen them, but most buildings alongside the streets were grimier as if coated with coal dust. Since coming back, he had taken some herbal boluses that helped relieve his allergy, so he could breathe normally now. He turned onto a small lane after he passed the sewing machine factory, which, according to one of the signs on the gate pillars, now manufactured motorcycles as well. He found Beina’s bungalow easily, which was tucked away behind two rows of tenements and which he had thought might have been torn down. This Japanese-style house had appeared in his mind from time and time, usually surrounded by cherry blossoms and tulips, but now, standing before it, he saw only a few aspens that seemed to have withered. The grape arbor and espalier that used to shade the east side of the house were gone, replaced by a small garden grown with eggplants, bell peppers, tomatoes, fava beans. The large willow under which he had often watched Beina’s window on the second floor looked ragged, as if it had been struck by lightning, its stringy branches floating in the breeze. He stood under the tree for a while to collect himself. Then with a throbbing
heart he climbed up the brick steps and knocked on the door. He backed up a little, his stomach aflutter.

  A noise came from inside, and a svelte young woman in a pastel sundress came out. She looked familiar, but Nan wasn’t sure if he had ever met her. “Who are you looking for?” she asked in a voice full of sleep, her eyes fixed on him.

  “Beina Su. This is still her home, isn’t it?”

  “Sure. Do I know you?”

  “I’m Nan Wu.”

  The woman’s eyes widened with a dreamy light. “Oh, I heard of you. Come in. I’m Beiya, Beina’s half sister.”

  She showed him into the spic-and-span living room. Once he had sat down on a chintz sofa, she asked what he’d like to drink, tea or beer. The latter was a household beverage in Harbin, enjoyed by both men and women, even by children. “Just boiled water will be fine,” Nan told her.