A Song Everlasting

by Ha Jin

  In spite of the stress triggered by the article, he managed to regain his composure and went on to complete the third chemo session and the daily radiotherapy the following week. When the twenty radiations were finally done, he felt a huge relief—from now on he could focus on the final session of chemotherapy. The last three infusions took place twenty days later, and he managed to get through them without incident. But physically he had reached his limit—he was sure that one more infusion would have killed him. He felt as if all the destructive power of the drugs had become concentrated on his heart, which was so painful that he could hardly lift his arms or raise his voice. Fortunately Funi knew how to do cupping and cupped his chest and back extensively, which reduced his pain somewhat.

  Then serious side effects began to set in—loss of appetite, bone-deep fatigue, severe constipation, leaking bladder, palpitations, dizzy spells, leg cramps, sore throat. Jawei told Tian to eat a piece of salted vegetable whenever he had a leg cramp—the sodium and potassium might help restore the balance in his body. He’d take a bit of pickled mustard green or turnip, which could stop the pain in his calves for a time. Occasionally, when he coughed hard, he wet his pants, which made him feel ridiculous and wretched. Funi would have him change, then wash his pajamas together with other dirty clothes, including her own. She gave him massages and continued the cupping. She did everything she could for him. Ever since he’d been diagnosed, they hadn’t slept together. At most they kissed a little. He was grateful that she wasn’t demanding and was always considerate. Whenever he could, he would cook dinner for both of them—she tried to stop him, but he felt compelled to do something to ease her burden. These days she never ate out and would always hurry home after work.

  A new scan showed that his tumors had shrunken almost to scars. Dr. Rabb was thrilled. Because of the excellent outcome of the treatment, he recommended more radiotherapy. He explained to Tian, “We give brain radiation only to those patients who have responded to chemotherapy successfully. The lung cancer, if it spreads, will go to the brain first, so in your case the brain radiation will be a proactive treatment. I think you should take it.”

  “Okay, I will do that.”

  Dr. Rabb added, “Brain radiation might have side effects, like compromising your hearing and vision for a period of time. They might also bring on Alzheimer’s. I’ll prescribe a drug to prevent that.”

  “Okay, how many radiations will I have?”

  “Ten.”

  Tian was relieved to hear that and agreed to proceed. This treatment was relatively easy, only once a day, and no tattooing required. A nurse covered his face with a metal mask full of tiny holes and with openings for his mouth and eyes; the gear helped prevent his head from moving under the machine. The procedure was brief, just a few minutes, and Tian hardly felt anything during the treatment.

  In every sense, his cancer treatment was successful and the doctors and nurses were all happy about the results. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to be too optimistic. He knew that the survival rate—those who were still living five years after the treatment—was less than four percent among stage-three small-cell lung cancer patients. It would be a miracle if he stayed alive.

  * * *

  —

  For weeks he’d been depressed. His mind seemed scattered, especially when he felt physically feeble and unable to function normally. Sometimes, when he lay down, the whole bed would revolve slowly, as if he were on a giant lily pad that wavered and trembled. His vision grew disordered too. At times when he was reading, an entire page would go blank or have only one or two big misshapen words on it—all the other words disappeared. When he walked around indoors, a wall would move toward him like a colossal distorting mirror, full of bumps and bizarre patterns, or a door would change shape, its frame twisted. Terrified, he called Samantha to report his symptoms, but she said they often occurred among brain radiation recipients. She assured him that gradually the symptoms would go away, but he must keep taking Memantine, the drug Dr. Rabb had prescribed to prevent Alzheimer’s—one tablet a day for six months. Whenever a new symptom appeared he felt crushed, fearing permanent damage. Yet amazingly, with the help of Funi and Tingting, he managed to reduce or eliminate the fearsome symptoms one after another.

  These days he often remembered Mr. Bao, who had been treated for liver cancer at Mass General. The two of them had met twice at the Cancer Center while waiting for their appointments with supporting professionals—nutritionists, psychiatrists, social workers. Mr. Bao said he had come from Beijing for the treatment and was paying for it out of pocket. Despite the horrendous cost, he was in high spirits and made lively conversation with Tian. He said he felt lucky just to be able to get treated here. Back in China, his liver cancer had been declared terminal. Fortunately his son was a postdoctoral at MIT, and this enabled Mr. Bao to come to Boston. He told Tian he felt much better now and that he was jogging two or three miles along the Charles every day. “I should have come earlier,” he said. “My son wanted me to retire and then come to Boston. I couldn’t leave my office back in Beijing, but my wife forced me to quit and come and live with our son’s family.”

  “Didn’t you have better medical care back home?” Tian asked Mr. Bao, who he suspected must have been a senior official.

  “Not really,” he said. “The air is bad there and the water is polluted. There’re so many additives in the foods. The environment is so ruined that the whole country has been reduced to an immense junkyard.”

  Tian felt that his analogy might be an exaggeration, but he liked Mr. Bao’s cheerfulness. He was in his mid-sixties but still looked energetic and vigorous, wearing jeans and a plaid blazer with elbow patches. Tian enjoyed his company so much that he proposed that they exchange phone numbers. Mr. Bao knew his work, having seen him on TV several times. They agreed to stay in touch.

  Later Tian mentioned the man, Bao Peng, to Yabin. His friend recognized the name at once. “My goodness, that man has a very high rank, the same as a minister’s,” Yabin said. “He was in charge of China’s energy, an engineer by profession originally.”

  The more Tian came to learn about Mr. Bao, the more eager he was to get in touch with him again.

  48

  Mr. Bao sounded delighted on the phone and invited Tian to lunch. He gave him his address, which was in Cambridge, just a few steps from the Central Square subway station. Tian agreed to come and see him—it would be good to walk and get some light exercise, and he ought to go out from time to time to keep from becoming too depressed. As the train passed over the Charles, the water glittered in the morning sunshine. Numerous small boats were moored in the river, some narrow sails bellying out in the spring breeze. Through them a yellow duck boat, half full of tourists, was crawling west. Five or six seagulls were bobbing in midair, their wings waving like sickles.

  Mr. Bao and his wife were living with their son and daughter-in-law on the MIT campus. The apartment in the graduate student dorm wasn’t spacious, but it was clean and bright. Mrs. Bao was much younger than Tian had expected, with high cheekbones and a slender figure. She looked to be in her mid-fifties with graying bangs, but she said she had retired and loved Boston and wouldn’t mind living here for good, provided they had their own home. After pouring Tian a cup of Pu’er tea, which was more suitable for the wintertime, she sat down next to her husband, leaning against him, which amazed Tian. In the presence of a stranger, she didn’t hesitate to show her affection for her husband, touching him time and again—they must love each other dearly. She said Mr. Bao had often mentioned him of late. Apparently she knew him as a singer too.

  As they chatted, he noticed a couple of photographs on a shelf, in which Mr. Bao was posed with various dignitaries. Tian pointed at the one that showed him and President Obama in conversation, both in a suit and tie. “Is that you?” Tian asked.

  “Yes, I used to represent China at energy conferences and negotiation
s with other countries,” said Mr. Bao, whose face widened as he smiled.

  There was also a photo in which he was shaking hands with Hilary Clinton, who was then secretary of state. Tian wondered how Mr. Bao felt about his situation now—his complete obscurity here—but he refrained from asking.

  As planned, the two men went out for lunch at a diner on Massachusetts Avenue. Mr. Bao donned a felt porkpie hat, which covered his gray hair and made him appear younger and rather dashing. The chilly air smelled of auto exhaust and chemicals. Ever since going through chemotherapy, Tian’s nose had become extraordinarily sharp and he could tell the quality of the air the instant he stepped into a new space. He guessed that from now on, it would be hard for him to live in a teeming city where he could smell significant pollution and would instinctively hold his breath. In the diner he ordered a spinach calzone and a bowl of clam chowder while Mr. Bao had fish and chips. Mr. Bao ate with relish and even licked the tartar sauce and ketchup off his fingers. Tian was amazed by his lusty appetite. Small wonder he was so energetic and jogged along the Charles a couple of miles every morning.

  As Tian ate his chowder with oyster crackers, he asked the question that had been on his mind for a long time. He said, “Mr. Bao, you were once a high-ranking official and must have had a lot of privileges: special medical care, business-class flights, luxury housing, domestic staff, personal chauffeur and secretary. But now you live in a small apartment here and go to the hospital as a regular cancer patient like me. How can you keep the psychological balance, the equilibrium? Do you feel life has treated you fairly? In other words, don’t you regret coming here?”

  Mr. Bao smiled as if to himself, then said, “Indeed I used to have plenty of privileges, but they didn’t make me happy. As an official in China, it’s impossible to get by without taking bribes and kickbacks, because all your colleagues do that. If you were different, you would become their enemy, an obstacle on their path to wealth. They’d get rid of you sooner or later. Among wolves you have to behave and howl like a wolf regardless of your own feelings and sense of decency. What I hated most were meetings, especially those given by the top leaders. Sometimes we had to wear diapers to attend them because the speeches were long and people dared not leave their seats. Those meetings were sheer torture. Once in a while I forgot to put on a diaper and had to struggle so hard to hold my pee.”

  Tian laughed. A crumb from his calzone dropped onto the table.

  Mr. Bao continued, “See my hair? It’s gray, the true color I don’t need to hide here. I used to be in trouble constantly because I didn’t dye my hair raven black like my superiors and colleagues. Concealing the truth is the essence of the official culture there. To be honest, after I landed here, I felt that at long last I could live cleanly and decently as myself, so I have no regrets. Finally I can eat and sleep like a normal person.”

  His watery eyes fixed on Tian’s face, he seemed moved by his own words. Tian could tell he spoke from his heart. But Tian went on, “How about your liver problem? Do you feel you have received better medical care here?”

  “Absolutely. Believe me, given the opportunity, most high-ranking officials would come here for cancer treatment. If I had stayed any longer in China, I might be already dead.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Fourteen months.”

  Now he realized why Mr. Bao so often used the word “fortunate” whenever he talked about his cancer treatment. So, like him, Tian ought to feel fortunate too. He confessed to the old man, “My uncle died of lung cancer twenty years ago in Shenyang. If I had had this disease in China, I might just have undergone the conservative treatment, which would have amounted to succumbing to the cancer.”

  “I know what you mean, Tian. I am of the same opinion.” Mr. Bao put his hand on Tian’s wrist and gave it a shake. “You’re still young and will have a long life ahead. Don’t you feel much better now?”

  “I do.”

  “See, this is the difference. In China I never met a person with advanced lung cancer who had survived. To most people with internal cancer there, it’s like a death sentence.”

  “That must be true,” Tian agreed. “A friend of mine said the same thing: Lung cancer is a death sentence in China. His father was a general in the North Sea Fleet at Port Arthur and had lung cancer. When he put his old man in an ambulance so he could get treated in Beijing, he knew he’d never be able to bring him back.”

  “So we both ought to feel fortunate.” Mr. Bao put a long french fry into his mouth, munching heartily.

  Tian’s meeting with Mr. Bao was mind-opening and reassuring, although he could see that the two of them were in different boats. Mr. Bao didn’t have to struggle to get used to the conditions here—his livelihood was secured by his pension and perks, and likely also by his vast connections back in China. Like most officials, he must have accumulated a considerable amount of wealth over decades of taking bribes. He couldn’t possibly feel the way Tian did—like a freshwater fish having to live in salt water while striving to grow into a euryhaline creature, eventually capable of swimming in both rivers and seas. What’s more, Mr. Bao could always return to their native land, and that must give him a good deal of emotional security. The truth was that if Tian were not living in Massachusetts, he couldn’t have had the universal healthcare that allowed him to be treated at a fine hospital. Mr. Bao and he were both fortunate, but in different ways.

  Yet their meeting pacified Tian considerably. He felt much better and managed to suppress the question that had been tormenting him all along: whether his lung cancer had been caused by his frustrations and grief during his seven years here, or had it been hereditary and would have struck him no matter where he was. Now he could see there was no answer to such a conundrum. To appease himself, he repeated the American slang: “Shit happens.” He began to think how to rebuild his life, however long it might be. Now every day unfolded like a gift for him.

  Yet death was always on his mind—he even bought a plot for $850 in the cemetery owned by Funi’s Buddhist temple. He loved that clean, tranquil spot on a hillside, shaded by large maples and firs and oaks. A clear creek flowed along its eastern edge. Funi said she’d like to be buried there too, perhaps together with him. Knowing where he would rest eased his mind considerably, helped him accept death as a natural scenario. Indeed, it was part of life.

  * * *

  —

  Since he had been missing from the Divine Grace holiday tour, rumors had spread that he must have died. In early May, he was shocked to see his obituary in The Global Post. The notice said he had died of lung cancer and his funeral had been attended by just five or six people. “It’s tragic that Yao Tian passed in total obscurity, notwithstanding his wide fame back in China. He was a lost soul and went astray from the broad road that most artists have chosen to travel. His is a negative example of willfulness and megalomania. Nonetheless, like many of his former fans, we mourn his passing.”

  He was outraged and cursed the author in his mind—Son of a turtle, damn your mother! For weeks his anger lingered, though his friends—Yabin, Tan Mai, and others—had written to the Post to condemn the misinformation. An editor of the newspaper had responded, stating: “Yao Tian is already dead as a singer, so the obituary is symbolic. We printed it to lament the loss of his melodic, heartwarming voice. We all wish him solace and peace.”

  It felt like a stab in the back, but it made him more determined to restart his singing career. Shaking with anger, he imagined storming back onstage with a vengeance. But try as he might, he could no longer sing through a complete song, his memory incoherent and the lyrics often garbled. Worse, his voice had lost most of its beauty and sheen, and he would crack trying to hit the high notes that he’d formerly been able to reach with ease. He no longer had the energy to project his voice. Often he broke down in tears, realizing he couldn’t possibly sing as before. Perhaps intensive practice
would help, but, given his condition, this seemed out of the question.

  He hadn’t worked now in seven months, and his savings were dwindling away. He had to make some money now, but how? He remembered the Irishman who often sang at the train station. Maybe he could do that too? But he no longer had the memory or the voice needed for a decent performance. He had his guitar, which he often took out and strummed while humming aimlessly. He could improvise a line here or there to keep a song going. As long as the tune was coherent, he could make it work. This realization, plus some experimenting, gave him enough courage to perform to make a little money. Now you’re going to become a true street artist, he told himself.

  He wouldn’t sing in the open air because his lungs were still weak and might not be able to take the gusty wind. He picked the train stations with roofed platforms, where the air was fresh but not windy. Quincy Center, with its fully sheltered platform and bustling crowds, seemed like the best spot. But when he got to the station, he saw the Irish busker leaning against a concrete column and singing happily, a small, brand-new hand truck and a music stand beside him. So Tian instead rode to JFK/UMass, where there was also a large flow of passengers and where the platform was roofed as well. He feared that Tingting might see him there, but he had no choice. Setting up in a spot not too far from the stairway, he adjusted his guitar and began to sing. He closed his eyes and let his voice wordlessly follow the chords he strummed out. People paused to listen or turned their heads in his direction. From time to time someone would come over and drop a dollar or two into the opened guitar case on the ground. In spite of his camouflaging shades and blue baseball cap, he felt that his face must be familiar to some of the Chinese students passing through; now and again one of them would pause to stare. They must be wondering if he was the singer Yao Tian. How could he have been reduced to a singing peddler here?