by Ha Jin
After dinner he walked Tingting to the train station, where he wanted to pick up a jar of curry paste at a bodega. On the way she kept glaring sideways at Tian. He wondered what was wrong. She seemed to have swallowed gunpowder today. Finally, she asked him hotly, “Dad, are you sleeping with Funi?”
Aghast, he managed to reply, “What made you say that?”
“I saw her red slippers in your bedroom. They were together with yours under your bed.”
“All right—I was with her last night. You know I’ve been alone all these years. I need a woman in my life.”
“That’s not my point. I mean, did Mom know about this before she decided to divorce you?”
“That was not her reason.”
“I don’t believe you. Mom often said you always had lots of women around you.”
“But that doesn’t mean I go to bed with them. That’s not what I’m interested in.”
“You made Mom worry about losing you all the time.”
“You mean she didn’t have other men with her after I left home?”
“I can’t say that—but you’re responsible for your divorce. Last summer Mom and I saw how close you were to that woman.”
“That’s completely groundless.”
“I just don’t believe you anymore!”
With those words, she swung away, swiped her train card at the entrance, and ran down the stairs toward the platform. He stood at the outside of the entrance, watching her recede among others. Her tall figure was slim, highlighted by the halter she was wearing; on her right shoulder was a giant ladybug and on her left shoulder was a dragonfly. He disliked her tattoos, which gave the impression that she was careless about her body, though he’d never told her what he thought. In a flash she was gone.
Later he called her, but for three days she wouldn’t answer the phone. Then she sent him an email. She wrote:
Mom and I talked about your relationship with Funi. She doesn’t care, since you’re no longer her husband. She begged me to be understanding and said you needed a woman who could take care of you and Funi might be suitable. At least she seems humble and honest and reliable. But even if Mom forgives you, I do not. I also told Freda what you’ve been doing. She laughed and said that you could have picked a woman who looked less rustic and was better educated, and you had no taste. Actually, few women I know are as hard on the eyes as Funi. And she’s got no figure to speak of and can eat a whole chicken in one sitting. To be honest, if you were with someone who was smart and attractive, I wouldn’t object, because she would deserve you. But look at Funi—don’t you feel ashamed of yourself? If you married her, I would feel humiliated to have an ugly stepmother like her!
Her message set Tian’s blood boiling, but soon he composed himself and began to feel amused instead. Who was she to tell him about the kind of woman he should have in his life? He trusted Funi and the trust put him at ease and gave him peace when he was with her. He needed somebody he could always return to. Tingting was still too young to understand this, but she might one day.
* * *
—
In recent months Tian had been contacted separately by three men, all of whom represented the Chinese government. They were attempting to persuade him to go back to China and resume his career there. Now that he was traveling and performing internationally, his reputation had been restored and transformed. Across the Chinese diaspora he was regarded as a top singer with a large repertoire, which included the best songs from Taiwan, Hong Kong, even some popular new hits from the mainland. He attributed this success to his living away from China—the immigrant experience had opened his mind and expanded his ability. Lately he had been learning some American songs that were in a style that spoke to him—they had a psalmlike quality and a simple melody. He had translated the lyrics into Chinese, and since he could strum the guitar, he’d sing and accompany himself onstage. He liked songs full of poetry and religious longing, ecstatic and mysterious and solitary—for instance, some of Lady Lamb’s songs. (Of course, he had to pick those no longer covered by copyright for his shows.) This kind of experiment was well received on the whole and set him apart. Among the singers of his generation, he outstripped those who were still in China, although he didn’t have their kind of glamour and privileges and his life was much harder. Unlike most of them, he earned his living by honest work and had managed to reinvent himself. So he could feel at peace and wouldn’t want more than this feeling of confidence and pride.
One of the government men approached him, serving as a broker of sorts. He had a military background. He offered Tian, together with his rancid breath, “If you join the Central Troupe of the Liberation Army, I’m sure they will let you start with the rank of one-star general. It’s a tremendous deal, isn’t it?” He gave a croaking laugh. One of his molars had a new crown, whiter than the others.
Tian shook his head and replied, “Look at me—am I martial material? The army would be too restrictive to me, like I’m a wild animal in a cage.”
There were four or five acquaintances of his who had become “artist generals”—they were sometimes accompanied by bodyguards, even when they went out to eat at streetside food stalls. None of them had made real progress in their art, and they just went on rehashing their old work. Tian might have become one of them if he hadn’t left China.
In his conversations with these government middlemen, he made no mention of his naturalization and got the impression that they didn’t know he was already a U.S. citizen. Or maybe they were actually clear about his naturalization but just pretended ignorance—their task was only to bring him back. As for the opportunities and privileges that they dangled in his face, he’d say, “No, I love freedom more than anything else, even though freedom can be frightening and paralyzing, even though it takes a long time for me to get used to it.”
Yet the men’s persistence amazed Tian. No matter what he said, they kept their composure and always appeared congenial. They must have been routinely approaching people like him for many years to have developed such patience. They insisted that their motherland needed a talent like him, but he knew the truth: His stage appearances outside China threatened to tarnish the mainland government’s image in the eyes of the public, so the authorities wanted to rope him in. Once he was back, it would be easy for them to control or destroy him. By now he had become a symbol, someone who showed that an artist from China could exist freely and meaningfully outside the sphere of the Chinese state. The middlemen always left him with their cards, saying if he changed his mind, he could simply get in touch and he’d be welcome to come back. Some of them even said, “Our country’s arms will remain open to you.” Others urged him, “Please seize such a precious opportunity. After this village there won’t be the same inn.” Tian was irritated by their platitudes—they assumed that patriotism was their common denominator. The truth was that much evil had been done in the name of the country and so many talents been ruined by it too. Tian was too afraid to get close to it now.
In his mind lingered the sentence “I’m not your homecoming prodigal son!” But he never let the words out.
43
That summer Tingting and Jawei went to New York. They planned to make some money there and also travel to see more of the country. They stayed in Flushing and worked at a restaurant, Tingting waitressing and Jawei busing tables. It was Yabin who had helped them find the jobs—the shifts were long, from ten a.m. to eleven p.m., but they were happy to be able to work. Their student visas didn’t allow them to work off campus, but the restaurant used them anyway. Yabin said to Tian on the phone, “You’re lucky to have such a grown-up daughter. You’re only one year older than me.”
Tian said, “That’s the advantage of getting married early.”
But Yabin didn’t like Jawei, saying the young man was too aggressive, too full of himself. He even wondered how Tingting, lovely and smart, could fall for
such a braggart. “It’s like a fresh flower planted on a pile of cowpats,” he told Tian.
He wasn’t troubled by Yabin’s negative view of Jawei, who in Tian’s eyes was fine and decent in spite of his loose tongue and insouciance. As long as the young man and Tingting loved each other, Tian could accept and appreciate him.
In mid-September, he went to Portland, Oregon, to sing for a concert at an Asian culture fair. Onstage he felt something wrong with his throat and was able to sing with only half his usual energy. Afterward he began coughing continually. It was a kind of hacking cough he’d never had before, and there was a ferocious pain in his chest that wouldn’t go away, no matter how many spoons of Pei Pa Koa syrup he took after he returned to Boston. He was sick, all energy drained out of him. Funi was worried and felt his forehead with her hand. “Gosh, you have no temperature—your forehead is so cold! You must go to the hospital.”
He had been without medical insurance for two years, so he was reluctant to go. Instead he went to the herbal pharmacy at President Plaza. The place was run by Mrs. Kuo, who, with a slight underbite that gave her a longish chin, had once been a doctor back in Fuzhou City but couldn’t practice here because of her poor English. In her shop she always wore an immaculate white coat as if she were still a physician. She prescribed a cocktail of herbs for Tian and said he should get well if he’d caught the flu, which she thought he must have. She also told him to come back if he still felt sick after taking the six packets of herbal extracts.
The herbs didn’t help him. Every day he still coughed incessantly and his chest pain persisted. He was so weak that he had to cancel some engagements, unable to travel. Before leaving for work in the mornings, Funi would prepare lunch for him, and she would cook for him in the evenings. He could hardly do anything and had to carry a foam cup stuffed with a Kleenex wherever he went so that he could spit into it. As a result, he couldn’t even go shopping anymore; in grocery stores people would turn to look at him, wondering about his cough, surely thinking he was a heavy smoker. At home alone, he tried to do his vocal exercises, but he couldn’t manage it, interrupted by coughs. Again Funi urged him to go see a real doctor, yet he wanted to wait a little more.
A week later he returned to the herbal pharmacy to see if Mrs. Kuo could help him with another remedy. She looked at his tongue and felt his pulse, then said he should have a regular checkup in the hospital. She told him, “Herbal medicine is basically to nurture your body but can hardly treat emergency cases. When it comes to acute illness, Western medicine is much more effective. You should go to the hospital without delay, Mr. Yao.”
“That can be expensive,” he said. “I have no medical insurance.”
“You haven’t applied for the Massachusetts healthcare plan?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“You should apply for it right away. Haven’t you heard of Romneycare?”
“What is it?”
“It’s the universal healthcare plan for Massachusetts.”
“You mean anyone can get insurance?”
“Right. How much do you make a year?” She smiled, as if this were a normal question from a doctor.
“Less than twenty thousand?” He told her his official income, which was lower because he was paid cash half the time, especially for local events.
“Then you are qualified for the low-income medical care. Go to the community health center on Hancock Street and fill out the form. As soon as you have the insurance, go to the hospital for a checkup.”
Following her advice, he went to the small medical center and filed an application, which was accepted on the spot. The laminated insurance card would come to him in the mail, and in the meantime they gave him a temporary paper card he could use. He was thrilled by the simple application procedure and kept saying to himself, “This is like Canada and this is what a good country does for its citizens.” Then he remembered that only Massachusetts had such universal coverage.
He went to Quincy Medical Center the next afternoon, where immediately they gave him a chest X-ray. Dr. Sabatino, his head bald with a shiny crown, frowned at the imaging and said, “This doesn’t look good. You should get a scan first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Is it very serious?” Tian asked, then coughed hard and spat into the foam cup in his hand.
“It’s hard to say. There are two spots in the X-ray that look moist and blurry. We should have a CT scan to make sure.”
“I have TB or pneumonia, right?”
“We need to have a scan to find out.”
He was depressed after the visit and told Funi about the ominous diagnosis, uncertain though it was. She tried to comfort him, saying he’d get well soon and mustn’t worry ahead of time. She cooked noodles with shredded chicken breast in the soup. He could eat only a small bowl in spite of the sesame oil she added for him. Even at dinner he couldn’t stop coughing. Afterward she urged him to go to bed early, but she kept his door ajar and hers too, so that she could hear him when he needed help. He couldn’t fully lie down because of the cough, so his back was rested on two folded blankets when he tried to sleep. In such a cumbersome position, he could only doze. His chest felt pressed hard, like a thick plate of iron was set upon it. His mind wandered through memories of his life in China and of his family, some of them sad and some pleasant. He felt awful about his predicament: At the time when his career was rising again, he’d suddenly fallen ill. He hoped he could be treated effectively and recuperate soon.
* * *
—
He went to the CT scan alone the next morning. He was the first patient of the day, so he was admitted into the scanning room without waiting. A slight young woman told him to lie on a blue narrow bed, then she pushed a button to slide him into a large tube. The bed stopped when his chest reached the middle of the tube, in which cameras began taking images of his lungs.
The whole process was painless and took just a few minutes. He was told to go home and wait to hear from the doctor. He was glad he was living within walking distance of the hospital. Holding the foam cup, he headed back along Whitwell Street. On the way back, he picked up a carton of eggs and a tin of Spam and a pack of twenty foam cups at Dollar Tree. He would force himself to eat more so as to recover soon.
Around midafternoon a nurse called and asked Tian to come to the hospital as soon as possible. She told him to bring someone with him. He thought that perhaps she assumed he was living far away. Funi happened to be back early, so he asked her to accompany him. Together they walked west to the hospital. It was a gorgeous day, the sky clear and cloudless, and Tian was amazed to see a pair of jet fighters soaring soundlessly in the distant sky, drawing two looping ribbons of contrails.
“Mr. Yao, we have bad news for you,” Dr. Sabatino said. Another man, whiskered and with yellow eyes, was seated next to him. He introduced himself as Dr. Markson, an oncologist.
Dr. Sabatino explained to Tian that he had lung cancer, already at stage three at least. He went on to say that the final stage was four, so his case was not terminal. Tian was stunned, just staring at the two doctors, from one face to the other.
“Can you treat him?” Funi asked them. By now she could speak some English, as she used it at work.
Dr. Markson joined in, “I’m sorry to say that your two tumors are big—one is 5.7 centimeters in diameter and the other 2.4 centimeters. In fact, your cancer is quite advanced. You should see a surgeon. We have spoken to Dr. Hartley and you should make an appointment with his assistant right away.”
For a while Tian was too shaken to say a word, his mind in turmoil. He coughed and spat into his foam cup. Dr. Sabatino patted Tian’s knee with his hairy hand and said, “I’m so sorry about this, Mr. Yao. You should have come to us long ago. It must have taken some years for the tumors to grow so big.”
Funi began sobbing quietly. Tian managed to ask, “What’s your prognosis? What kind o
f chance do I have for recovery?”
The two doctors looked at each other, Sabatino’s wide, heavy-boned face glum, while the oncologist shook his small head a bit. Then Dr. Markson swallowed, and, eyes lowered, he said to Tian, “Advanced lung cancer can be fatal, but there are treatments and a small percentage of patients have survived.”
Tian knew his condition might be too advanced for them to treat. His uncle had died of lung cancer two decades before. The old man’s tumor, a single one, was under an inch in diameter, but he couldn’t go through the chemotherapy and had died at the last stage of the treatment due to his destroyed immune system. Tian’s cancer was far more advanced, probably already terminal. He was in such a daze that his mind turned blank and he couldn’t ask the doctors another question.
Funi called Tingting to inform her of Tian’s condition. His daughter came straightaway and went about taking care of him, making tea and doing his laundry and cooking dinner, noodles with spaghetti sauce mixed with ground beef. Before they could eat, she slipped into the bathroom, crying. He heard her and knocked on the door, then stepped in. She was doubled over, clutching her stomach, so he patted her head while assuring her he’d be all right. “It’s so unfair, unfair!” she moaned.
“Misfortune always strikes unexpectedly,” he murmured. “It’s life. Now come and eat.”
“Let me wash my face. I’ll be out in a moment.”
She stayed with him that night, sleeping on the sofa, because she wanted to accompany him to see the surgeon the next morning. Throughout the night he coughed persistently, and Tingting got up time and again to make sure he had what he needed.
Dr. Hartley was a thickset man with a bulky face, his protruding eyes glinting with such coldness that Tian was reminded of a butcher. He didn’t seem to be part of the full-time staff. More likely, he operated at various hospitals and got paid by piece rate. As he looked at the scans he exclaimed, “Jesus, how come you found out so late?” He showed them the images on the monitor. “See, it’s a mess in your chest. You cough so much because this bigger tumor has pressed your windpipe. We can remove the tumors, then you will be able to breathe more easily.”