by Ha Jin
“I have a daughter,” Tian said. “If I lived with someone else, it would be hard for me to face my family when we are together again.”
“Can’t you live with a woman without any commitment? No strings attached, you know. This can also save a lot of expenses for both sides.”
“It would be hard for me. I couldn’t help but get entangled emotionally. In a way, I admire a man like you. I cannot relax with a woman I really like. For me, love is like a fever, an illness.”
“I’m not who you think I am. If I met the right person, I could be very devoted and loyal too.”
Tian wasn’t sure Yabin could truly be that serious about a relationship. His friend sighed and said he knew several Chinese exiles who were living as Tian did. That kind of separation from their spouses was entirely man-made. “Unnatural,” in his opinion.
“Don’t worry about me,” Tian told him. “I’m an artist and can use my energy creatively.”
“That’s a Freudian idea. He believed that a genuine artist must live moderately so as to conserve his creative energy, including sexual energy.”
Tian was not familiar with Freud but was impressed by what Yabin said. Compared to him, Yabin was a learned man.
14
Since his tour with the Divine Grace, few offers of work had come to him. When the holiday season was over, opportunities became scarcer. Tian began to worry about how he would earn a regular income. No matter what, he had to send money home every month. Yabin suggested he take on a couple of students, and Tian liked the idea. With Yabin’s help, he put out an ad in a small Chinese newspaper and also distributed flyers throughout his neighborhood—in grocery stores, Laundromats, hair salons, the public library.
His fee was reasonable, fifty dollars per lesson, but the students were a disappointment to him. Five people of various ages applied, and he accepted them all regardless of their talent. They came to his apartment individually to take lessons. He didn’t have a piano but used a keyboard instead, which was good enough for practice and teaching. One student, a Mr. Chang, was already eighty-one. He was retired and had worked as a hotel shift supervisor, but he loved singing. He admired Tian so much that the instant he’d seen his ad he had called him to schedule a lesson. He introduced himself as a fellow provincial, though his hometown, Harbin, was nowhere near Dalian. Many people from the northeast of China act this way, viewing anyone from one of the three provinces as a fellow provincial. The northeasterners in the diaspora would hold picnics and outings and festive gatherings together, as if the region, formerly Manchuria, were one big province. So Tian acquiesced when Mr. Chang claimed him as a fellow provincial. The old man was scrawny and withered, with a narrow face and a shiny bald head, but he had a strong voice. Tian could imagine him dreaming of singing onstage when he’d been young. But Tian would have rejected him on the spot if they’d been in China. At his age Chang couldn’t possibly train his hoarse voice and grow into a decent singer.
The other students were younger: two girls in their late teens, still in high school, and two men in their thirties—one was a custodian at City Hall and the other an accountant in a furniture company. Unlike the four younger students, Mr. Chang didn’t seem interested in learning how to sing. He gave Tian the impression that he didn’t care about the tuition he’d paid and was only eager to get to know the teacher better. Chang had a low opinion of the earlier immigrants from Guangdong and Fujian who had come to America two generations before, and blamed them for the backward image imposed on the Chinese in American society. “They brought here the worst of our culture,” he’d say. Although Tian didn’t share his view, he didn’t argue with him. Sometimes, when he asked Chang to repeat a phrase or a note after him, the codger would shake his head and claim, “I’m too old to go through this. I’m dog-tired—don’t treat me like a child.” Tian let him have his way. Mr. Chang once invited Tian to dinner at a Shanghainese restaurant. “They use real crabmeat in their small soup buns,” he assured him. Tian declined, saying he had too many other engagements. Chang’s odd behavior made him nervous, and Tian suspected he might be an agent hired by someone to spy on him. He told Yabin his suspicion. His friend said this was likely—there were all sorts of agents and informers here under the employ of the Chinese government. Some people were ready to undertake such a mission without pay—college students often viewed it as something that could enrich their credentials for when they returned to China after graduation.
About six weeks after Tian had begun teaching, he got a call from Freda.
“Can you accept me as your student?” she asked blithely. Over the phone she sounded younger than she was.
“Well, I never thought you’d be interested in singing,” he said, a little flummoxed.
“I’ve always enjoyed listening to music. Studying with a great singer like you, at least I can find out if I’m talented.” She giggled shyly. “Also, someday I might brag about being your student.”
“Does Yabin know this? I mean, was this his idea for you to study with me?” He was still nonplussed.
“He told me you were accepting students. But I don’t have to get his permission if I want to learn from you, do I?”
“Of course not.”
“Then take me on. Who is to tell I won’t bring honor to you one of these days?”
That only made him more baffled. He said, “You mustn’t think of success that way. Better start with some sense of failure.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ultimately there’s no success, but in confronting difficulties we can display our worth as a human being. So in the long run even success might not mean anything.”
“Wow, that’s philosophical. I knew you were deep, but I didn’t expect you had that kind of take on life. This makes me more eager to study with you. Can you accept me or not? I’ll pay you three months’ fee in advance.”
“All right, I can take you, but there’s no need to pay for more than one month at a time—four lessons.”
“I’m so glad to hear this. You made my day, Teacher Yao.”
“Just call me Tian. We’ve known each other for a long time.”
“Sure, thank you, Tian!”
They both laughed. He was amazed that he could relax with Freda, who had so many unanswered questions surrounding her. He hoped she wouldn’t disturb the peaceful order of his teaching.
Later, over lunch at a congee house, he told Yabin about Freda’s phone call. Yabin shook his head and said, “She’s starstruck. To her, you’re a big celebrity, you know.”
“But I’m like nobody here.” Tian tried to sound casual, without any bitterness.
“Freda doesn’t have a balanced sense of time and place. Part of her mind seems to still operate with a Chinese compass.”
Tian made no comment, but could see there might be some virtue in such a mind uninfluenced by the force of circumstances. If nothing else, it suggested a strong will. He wasn’t sure whether Freda was such a willful person that she couldn’t see his true condition here: He was already diminished almost to nobody. How come she couldn’t see that he had never bothered to teach to make a living back in China?
“If you want me to turn her away,” he said to Yabin, “I can tell her my teaching load is full.”
“No need to be so serious about her. To be honest, I might wash my hands of her.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s a free woman and can do whatever she wants. I won’t be involved with her from now on.”
Seeing him still bewildered, Yabin added, “I might break up with her.”
“Why? She’s too much trouble?”
“Not exactly. I’m just tired of her. She’s very interested in you, though—she keeps asking about you.”
Tian was alarmed, wondering whether her studying with him might be a secret assignment of some sort. As their conversation continued, Y
abin talked at length about the difference between dating a Chinese woman and dating a non-Chinese. He mentioned his former girlfriend Barrie, comparing her with Freda. If he had to choose between the two, he would prefer Barrie, because, according to him, foreign women tended to appreciate small kindnesses he showed them and were willing to divide the chores with him. Freda, being a single child in her family, took him for granted and always expected more. More than that, she openly demanded that he love her wholeheartedly, with total commitment. How could he possibly commit himself to a woman he didn’t know fully yet?
“But didn’t you often go to bed with her?” Tian asked, unconvinced by his reasoning.
Yabin laughed. “That’s the question Freda often asks, like I’ve robbed her of something precious by sleeping with her. Barrie wasn’t like that. She viewed sex as something we gave to each other. She appreciated the effort I made.”
Tian chuckled but didn’t say any more. Yabin’s words convinced him that it would be safe to take Freda as a student, but he must be careful when dealing with her.
* * *
—
Mr. Chang stopped showing up for his lessons. At first, Tian thought this was due to his old age and frail health, but Tian overheard at the nearby Laundromat that a bunch of old men, Mr. Chang among them, had gone to the Foxwoods casino in Connecticut last weekend and that they’d lost so much money that some of them were laid up. Tian called him to see if he still wanted his lessons. Chang sounded hoarse over the phone, and said he had a nasty cold. He told his teacher that he couldn’t join him anymore.
“How should I refund the remaining fees you’ve paid me?” Tian asked him.
“I don’t need a refund, Mr. Yao. Keep the money as my donation.”
“Thank you, Mr. Chang. But I still owe you two lessons. Whenever you feel like coming, just give me a call.”
“That might not happen again. At my age, do you really believe I can become a good singer even though I go through all the necessary training?”
“That’s still possible.”
“I’m not that optimistic. I went to see you only because they assigned me the job.”
“Assigned you? What do you mean?”
“An official whose name I’d better not disclose. Let me just say this: They thought me incapable of keeping tabs on you, so they had me replaced.”
“With whom?” Tian persisted, surprised that Chang’s tongue was so loose. He must be addled by his rotten luck at the casino and by his anger at being dismissed from his spying mission. It had been stupid of the officials to hire such an octogenarian in the first place.
“I’m not sure who my replacement is,” he said, and heaved a wheezy sigh. “I hated to rat on you anyway. Just be careful, Mr. Yao. Like I said, I’m a big fan of yours and wish you all the best of luck. Even though we’ve met only a couple times, I can see you’re a kindhearted man.”
“Come on,” Tian said, exasperated, “tell me who the spy is. You don’t even have to name him or her. Let me mention the students one by one, and you just cough when I reach that name.”
“Don’t trouble yourself about this. I’ve already said too much.”
In spite of his bafflement, Tian thanked him and wished him a speedy recovery. Chang’s revelation unsettled him and forced him to wonder about the man’s successor. None of the other students seemed like a spy at all except for Freda, who had enrolled just the previous week. But there was no way Tian could verify his guess. He thought of declining her as a student, but she’d already paid him two hundred dollars, so he decided to keep her and reminded himself to be cautious when he was with her. He believed he had nothing to hide and wouldn’t mind if they sent over ten spies, as long as they all paid him his fee.
Freda turned out to be a better student than the others. She didn’t have an exceptional voice, but she was serious about bringing out its potential, and it was clear that she was practicing at home. By contrast, most of the other students weren’t taking their practicing seriously, and he could see that the two girls had come to him mainly because their parents had paid the fees for them. They took the lessons merely for a lark.
Soon Freda offered to work for Tian, to be his manager. She said she knew a lot of people and was good at business management. These months he’d hardly had any bookings and he was anxious about how to maintain his singing career. At first he was skeptical about Freda’s offering, but when he mentioned it to Yabin, his friend said that it was worth trying her out, given her extensive connections.
“But how about you?” Tian asked him. “Are you willing to let Freda take over?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m already too busy with my insurance work. She might do a better job for you. If I were you, I’d give her a try.”
Tian also mentioned the possibility that Freda might be a spy, at which Yabin laughed, saying no sane person would employ her for an espionage mission. She was simply too extroverted to hide anything. So Tian decided to hire her.
She began to reach out to cultural organizations and art centers to see if they were interested in Tian. Yet only four places offered to engage him, and they didn’t pay much, between five and thirteen hundred dollars per job. Still, he was pleased, believing that when the fall started, business might pick up. There’d be the Moon Festival and the mainland’s and Taiwan’s national days. Yet Freda seemed disappointed by the meager responses—she must have realized that her work for him would be minor. She had no idea that the Divine Grace toured only in winter, so at best he could have one season’s work if they continued to use him. Her frustration also reaffirmed his decision to take on students—there was no way he could make enough by singing. By far teaching these talentless students was easier and steadier work. He offered them basic skills: breathing technique, vocal exercises, singing simple songs. Some of them had learned to read music in China where the notes are transcribed differently, so he also taught them how to read music in the Western way. Obviously none of them was serious enough to aspire to sing onstage someday. This made his work easier, so he wouldn’t grumble.
Then in late July the two girls quit, claiming they were going to be away for the rest of the summer. Their leaving at the same time made Tian wonder if this was really coincidental. Two weeks later another student, the custodian at City Hall, dropped out too. Freda told Tian, “Some hands are behind this, I’m sure. They mean to drive you out of business. To show that without the backup of our country, no Chinese artist can survive in the U.S.” She sucked her teeth. She had gotten a root canal two days earlier, which cost her almost a thousand dollars. She’d had to pay out of her own pocket, having no dental insurance. She used to have it, but the policy had been canceled due to a missed payment.
He was puzzled but half-joked, “You mean the Chinese government intends to sabotage my business? Aren’t you working for them too?”
“Please, I work for you. You’re my boss.” She pointed her slim finger at his face. “You can trust me.”
“So you won’t leave me like the others?” he asked.
“Certainly not.” She smiled. “You will find me to be a very loyal woman.”
15
Later he discovered that a performing arts school had recently opened in Jackson Heights, founded by a group of Chinese expats. They charged very low rates, less than half his fee, and had a small three-story building as their base. Yabin believed that a media company in mainland China was behind them. The school had admitted dozens of students. Freda learned that the two girls who had left Tian were in fact attending that school now. He was upset, though having vaguely expected that the Chinese officials would damage his livelihood one way or another.
Yabin finally broke up with Freda. He claimed she had become a piece of baggage that he couldn’t carry anymore, so it was time to drop her. But Freda didn’t let him go so easily. She called him a brazen womanizer and claimed she’d make him
regret leaving her. That frightened Yabin, who was not as strong-minded as he seemed to be.
“Maybe I should leave New York,” Yabin told him one evening.
Tian laughed and said he was silly to consider decamping because of a jilted girlfriend. “Freda should be able to cool down soon,” he assured Yabin. “To be fair, she seems to be reasonable and working hard for me. She’s just upset that things didn’t work out with you.”
“She likes you a lot,” Yabin said. “Be careful, you might have a groupie on your hands.”
Tian held on to his suspicions about her. But when working with Freda, he found her behavior unremarkable and forthcoming. She despised the Chinese government and was outraged by its policies, especially its suppression of the minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang. She used the word “medieval” to describe China’s current legal system and its maltreatment of the petitioners from the provinces who went to Beijing to register their grievances and seek justice. In some ways Freda was like an exiled democracy activist, though she didn’t like America that much either, saying life was difficult here, especially for someone with yellow skin and black eyes. She did believe, though, that in general Americans worked harder than Chinese because most of them were convinced that you could get rich by working hard. This pointed to a major difference between China and the United States. “Here hard work always gets rewarded, more or less,” she once told Tian. “This means that the American social system is basically fair, and supported by most people.”
Her way of reasoning impressed him. He too noticed that many Americans believed they could get rich by working hard. As for the issue of fairness, Freda had simplified too much, without considering the immense gap between the haves and the have-nots in America. Yet the more time Tian spent with Freda, the less suspicious he became of her. She was immature at times, willful and fiery, but sympathetic at heart.