In the Walled City

by Stewart O'Nan

  Sunday nights the five of them eat dinner together, either in or at a restaurant. The conversation slips in and out of Cantonese, making Mrs. Wu nervous. The rest worry about her. They imagine her unable to communicate; they forget Mr. Wu has just begun to speak English. When a phrase eludes him, he shakes his head, and Anne, Lee’s wife, translates for him. He orders steak and mashed potatoes until he learns fried chicken; then pork chops, fried shrimp, peas. At home he names Mrs. Wu’s dishes. The section in his notebook labeled Food thickens.

  They talk of Lee’s promotion, Tommy’s classes, Anne’s new car. Having lived in cities all their lives, Mr. and Mrs. Wu absorb Anne’s description of Waltham, stopping her when they don’t understand. “And the car,” Mr. Wu asks, “you like it?” Mr. Wu has never driven; he rides his bike everywhere. But now, the move to Waltham assured, he thinks he should learn. He asks Lee.

  “Ask her,” he says, “it’s her car.”

  Anne agrees and sets a date. Saturday she’ll pick him up and take him out on Route 1. He can practice in the lot behind Digital.

  On Tuesday, Mrs. Wu asks him if she can come. Delighted, Mr. Wu takes her to the Volkswagen dealer in Allston. They read brochures and gesture with the salesmen, check prices. With their present savings buying a car is impossible, but when they move in with Lee and Anne …

  Afterward, they go to Shanghai Gardens in Brookline. They talk with Mr. Lin, the owner, while they wait for their food. Mr. Lin is in Mr. Wu’s class and tries to speak English whenever possible. Tonight, in deference to Mrs. Wu, he speaks in dialect. “Sounds like you’re ready to retire,” he kids Mr. Wu.

  “Soon I will be ready.”

  “And me,” adds Mrs. Wu in English.

  In class Wednesday, Mr. Wu sits beside Mrs. Aliviera, a small brunette troubled by silent “e.” As Mr. Wu answers question after question —although the semester has just started, he is already studying for the midterm —she smiles at him, one hand crumpled around a pen, a dark line in the open V of her blouse shifting like the needle of a gauge. “That is the modifier, sir,” he answers, but his foot, he notices, veers off to the right. At first he wonders why. He has been attracted to other women before, but never this dangerously. Is she serious? Has she approached him before? Involuntarily, facts and possibilities arise. Her husband has left her; she has one small boy and rents on Glenville. She must have been looking past him. For the last twenty minutes of class he watches her feet.

  At home that night Mrs. Wu pampers him. It is a hard day, she thinks, working all day at the store and then at class all night. She strips his clothes off and fetches a bowl of cold soup. In shorts he sits on the old couch in the living room, his feet propped on the coffee table. A fan in the doorway pushes hot air across his chest.

  They watch television before bed. As police fire into curtained windows, Mr. Wu describes his day. He feels guilty for leaving Mrs. Wu alone, so that instead of studying, he spends forty-five minutes discussing candy bars, Mrs. Winningham and Bugs, deliveries —details of any Wednesday. Mrs. Wu has heard it before but still enjoys his stories. Is it her imagination, or is he more eloquent tonight? They smile and laugh, comforted by routine.

  But Mr. Wu, thinking of Mrs. Aliviera, wishes Mrs. Wu would go to bed. As she speaks, he watches her eyes, the words passing through him. He nods and smiles, returns her gaze, his mind a list compiling. After a while she picks up her slippers and warns him, “Don’t stay up too late. You need to sleep too.”

  He collects his books and sits down at the desk. Under the covers Mrs. Wu sighs. He clicks off the overhead light and turns on the desk lamp. Giant shadows of his hands menace the walls.

  First, the words. He copies a column of “-ight” words: “fight, flight, fright, night, right,” then folds the page over and copies them on the other side, again and again until he has them memorized. To avoid waking Mrs. Wu, he closes the bathroom door before saying them aloud to the mirror. Improvising gestures for each word, he turns out the light, turns it on again, raises his eyebrows, wiggles his elbows up and down. Memory, his instructor says each class, memory is knowledge. Mr. Wu watches himself smile “ight.”

  All morning he thinks of tonight’s homework help session. In the walk-in, rearranging the frozen foods, he divides the day into four sections: work, dinner, homework, and sleep. Later, in the middle of reading Life at the counter, he stops and plots the day on paper, filling time slots with red, green, blue, and yellow magic marker. Next to each chore he draws a star. He realizes it is unnecessary —he can shop without a list, remember appointments weeks ahead —but, hoping to make room for English, he purges his mind. On paper, in cramped, childish print, his life appears as simple as a recipe.

  Around noon, customers start piling in for tonic, chips, and sandwiches. Mr. Wu jerks the sheer back and forth. He has set the blade level at an eighth of an inch. Four slices equal a quarter-pound. The lettuce, onions, and tomatoes lie in plastic tubs on the counter, letting him make any sandwich, any combination, in less than a minute. The line at the register moves but stays three deep. Practiced fingers play the register; the other hand slides cans along. He makes change by touch. He works faster now, spearing cigarettes, slapping mustard on buns, wrapping, bagging, ringing. The Foodstop Corporation rewards his performance. Every week Mr. Wu makes fifty dollars more than any other Food-stop clerk. His evaluation invariably reads, “Highly motivated,” and each year they name him Employee of the Month once or twice. Last year when they asked him if he would speak at their annual awards dinner, he declined. He has thought of giving a speech this year (the new February plaque hangs by the Pepsi clock) but doubts they will ask again. As he takes care of the stragglers, he slows, as if the number of customers determines his speed. Finally, the last nickel deposit returned, lunch ends.

  In the afternoon Mr. Wu circles words he doesn’t know in magazines, then reads the Globe and the New York Times to keep up with the world. At two he crosses Work off his list. He pays himself for a Coke and reads another magazine.

  Half an hour before quitting time Mrs. Winningham pushes into the store, dragging fat, sad-faced Bugs by his leash. “Hel-lo, Mr. Wu,” she says. “And how are you to-day?” Her face wrinkles with each exaggerated word.

  “I am OK, Mrs. Winningham. And you are?” It is from the first class, page one in his notes.

  “I am fine.” She hesitates. “Thank you.”

  “You are welcome.” Mr. Wu thinks his first reflexive thought in English, advice from his instructor: she means well. Excited but cautious, he says, “I am glad you came.”

  “Why, thank you.”

  “You are welcome.” Shouldn’t have said it again, he thinks in Cantonese, and then, the triumph still fresh, ushers them into the back for Bugs’s daily treat.

  At dinner Mr. and Mrs. Wu argue.

  “You said later this year,” Mrs. Wu says over the steaming chicken. “You said we’d be moved in by winter.”

  “I said I was thinking of retiring.”

  She picks at it with her fork.

  “What am I supposed to do,” Mr. Wu asks, “quit?” He puts his napkin on the table; it recoils under his hand. “Well?”

  “You’re supposed to relax. We have enough money to retire. Lee has a good job, and Tommy’s almost done with school. You don’t have to work yourself into the grave.”

  “We’ll talk about this later,” Mr. Wu says. “This is ruining my dinner.”

  Dropped. Forgotten. Mrs. Wu digs into her chicken breast. Mr. Wu shoves the napkin back in his lap, and they eat, clinking.

  At first Mr. Wu believes Mrs. Aliviera is late, but as the instructor pairs the students off, he realizes she isn’t coming. Mr. Lin, now enrolled in Northeastern’s restaurant management program, helps Mr. Wu with his homework. They run through irregular verbs, Mr. Wu taking notes as Mr. Lin conjugates. Around the room, a high-ceilinged hall filled with pool tables and air hockey games, groups of two huddle over books. From the second floor come the squeaks and thunder o
f a basketball game. Lee and Tommy played here. In the main hall, behind heavy glass, their names gleam on cast-bronze-and-marble trophies. As Mr. Lin recites, Mr. Wu remembers his sons standing thin and long-muscled as the anthem played. Mr. Lin taps his notebook. “Drink, drank, drunk,” he says.

  “Drink, drank, drunk,” Mr. Wu says.

  After the session the instructor stays to talk with Mr. Wu. He has noticed his progress and wonders if he is too advanced for the class. He suggests a night course at Boston University, “Basic Compositional Skills.” What does Mr. Wu think? Mr. Wu answers with a shrug, not knowing if he is ready for such a big step. He has been studying hard, and his homeworks have been perfect, but he sees himself as part of the class, not the head. Telling him to take his time (but the session starts in two weeks), the instructor hands him a brochure.

  A year before, faced with the same question, Mr. Wu would have abstained and finished the class; now, before he reaches home, before he even opens the brochure, he says yes. Once home, he goes immediately to bed. Mrs. Wu does not ask what’s wrong.

  Over breakfast the Wus reconcile, conferring in slower, softer voices. Seeing Mr. Wu worn and tired, though no different from any other morning, Mrs. Wu decides to give him more time. In his pajamas, his hair morning-mussed, he looks like a teenager too tall for his weight. He pours himself a second cup of coffee as she clears the table, drinks it on his way to the shower.

  Friday is always busy. People stock up for the weekend, remember items while driving back from the supermarket. In the early afternoon, students empty the ice machine, filling stolen shopping carts. They ravage the snack shelves, buy out the beer. Amid the frenzy, Mr. Wu studies automotive magazines. The intricate engines impress him, but there are no instructions, not even hints on driving. He covers a page and a half with new words, promising himself to ask Anne what they mean. Mrs. Winningham and Bugs visit; Mr. Ridley, the super at Chiswick Towers around the corner, stops in for a pony beer. At five, when he sums the day’s receipts and hands the keys over to the swing man, Mr. Wu feels ready for bed.

  After a calm supper, Mr. Wu attends class. Again, Mrs. Aliviera is absent, but Mr. Wu, more confused by his own presence —there is no reason for him to be here, yet he is furiously taking notes —notes the empty chair without emotion. It should bother him, the loss of tense meetings for coffee, the shadowed rooms of Glenville Street, but to him the affair has already occurred, become a future memory. Now, the instructor scratching at the board, Mr. Wu can think of only tomorrow’s driving lesson. His pen moves, a simple recorder.

  Class over, the instructor and Mr. Wu discuss the advanced course. Many of the words the instructor uses Mr. Wu does not know, but unable to stanch the flow of congratulations, Mr. Wu nods and smiles, listening intently so as not to miss the time, date, and place. Tuition, which Mr. Wu has so far ignored, must be paid in advance. The instructor gives him another brochure on financial aid. “Do you have any questions?” he asks.

  “No,” Mr. Wu says.

  The instructor rises, Mr. Wu rises, and they shake hands. “I’m giving you an A for the term. I’ll mail you a card.” He puts on his coat, grabs his briefcase, and heads for the hallway.

  “Thank you,” Mr. Wu calls after him.

  “Take care now.”

  Mr. Wu watches him go, the midterm vanished, then collects his notebooks and walks the long, echoing hall. The janitor locks the front doors behind him.

  Walking home slowly, he thinks about Waltham, about retirement. The streets are humid after a shower, and he folds his jacket over his arm. His age, Mrs. Wu, the apartment, Tommy, Lee, Anne —everything seems related, no single thing dominates, so that instead of weighing the family’s hopes against his own fears, he concentrates on the literal changes the move will bring. He enjoys the city, the rush of life always a door away. He has traveled through the country, though fewer times than he now remembers, and like most city people sees it as a vacation, a quiet replaced within a week by the screaming real life of the streets. And he has passed through the suburbs, but so briefly that his memory remits only fragments, trees and shopping centers and roads, landscapes emptied of people. He walks on, the silhouettes of hanging plants and curtains soothing him. For twenty minutes he has walked and thought, but only now, fitting his key into the building’s outer door, Mrs. Wu waiting for him upstairs, does he decide to decide.

  Mrs. Wu snores, the back-rush and whistle as light and steady as the ticking of a metronome. Above her breathing, Mr. Wu’s pen rolls a fugue. Before him lies a page, right side headed “Boston,” left “Waltham.” For five lines he manages counterpoint, then slips into monody. He scans the list, doodling. Giant hands menace.

  Both Mr. and Mrs. Wu are up when Anne buzzes. Mrs. Wu makes bacon and eggs and toast, Mr. Wu’s favorite breakfast. They eat quickly, Anne having only toast, telling them how simple the car is to drive, the options included in the list price, and several other items Mr. Wu immediately memorizes. While Mrs. Wu hunts for her blue dress —worn every special occasion —Mr. Wu and Anne do the dishes.

  Anne explains the differences between standards and automatics and why she chose the latter. “I like to have my hands free for coffee or the radio,” she says. They are sitting in the parking lot of Digital Electronics, the big mirrored block-and-ell throwing a wavy red Toyota back across the asphalt. Anne shifts into D and the car rolls forward, into N and it coasts, the motor murmuring. She traces figure eights over the numbered spaces, forward, backward, forward. In the backseat Mrs. Wu laughs. Mr. Wu watches Anne’s hands on the wheel, her feet on the pedals. After a review of the signals and lights (“Is it safe to drive at night?” Mrs. Wu asks), Anne jerks the emergency brake up, removes her safety belt, and steps out. “Come on,” she says, “don’t be afraid.”

  It is all decided, he thinks, releasing the emergency brake. He is pleased it is over, the waiting. They will move at the end of August, before winter. Tommy will take care of the store. Class will be over by then.

  Anne reaches over and shifts into D and the car inches forward. Mr. Wu stares through the windshield, his arms straight and stiff, feet flat on the floor. Overhead, gulls wheel. Why so far inland?

  “Give it some gas,” Anne says.

  He responds.

  The Doctor’s Sickness

  Doctor Markham loved Monday morning and the start of another workweek. One eye closed by his pillow, he remembered business he had left hanging Friday and arranged his coming day. Downstairs, his housekeeper Mrs. Railsbeck was sautéing margarine for his one over-easy, the radio on higher than it need be to wake him. Even her Muzak couldn’t discourage him. Monday! He pitched out of bed, tossing the covers behind him, and glanced off the bathroom door frame. He made a practice of not lingering on the pot, though the Geographic piece on the endangered African elephant attracted him. Monday, the weekend’s lethargy lifting like a wet fog, invigorating as the cold shower he drew, flooding him with names of patients, forms half-filled and waiting, yellow tabs by the missing information. The people he would see today!

  Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, he would see her —blonde girl, make-up, terminal, a shame. Was it today or next Monday? Never mind, today he was bound to have a full slate. Flu season. Plus, plus —what? Lord, what was happening to his memory? He groped for the washrag hanging on the showerhead, swabbed his face, whipped the curtain aside, and climbed out. Through the crack in the door, he could see Mrs. Railsbeck making his bed.

  She watched him eat, trying to force a second piece of toast on him, another glass of the white grape juice he didn’t like in the first place. She seemed disappointed, and he made up for it by promising to have something at coffee break. He never did; she’d given up asking when he got home. It was a ritual, and out of courtesy he deferred to her. If Helen were alive, he imagined he would be doing the same for her. He left her to do the dishes and went upstairs for the tie and handkerchief she had laid out for him. He was two minutes ahead of schedule when he went downstairs to get his hat
and coat and gloves before starting out for Utica, forty miles away.

  Doctor Markham drove a Chrysler Imperial, forest green, with a white landau roof. The odometer, which in the course of the doctor’s ministering to parts of three towns had rolled over twice, now read a constant 70,153 miles. The commute was one of the job’s few drawbacks. In private practice, the doctor had covered upwards of three hundred miles a week, but driving the same route over and over at the same time every day, half of it creeping along the Thruway in rush hour traffic, he could not get used to. He was afraid the city driving was hurting the Imperial. It was idling higher, he could hear it at lights. Now that Junie was gone, his place on Main boarded up, the doctor often took the Rabbit he’d bought for Mrs. Railsbeck, and left her the big car for around town, knowing she would never use it. This on nice days; when it was raining or snowing, or threatening to, Doctor Markham made the commute to Utica in style, trying not to worry about the wear and tear, the gallons the big V-8 gulped down.

  This morning, it was sleeting, treacherous, and the doctor could see himself in the Rabbit, tucked under the grille of a cement mixer. Monday seemed to call for the plush silence of the Chrysler, the news nattering away beneath the heater’s whir. He pinched off one glove, put the Rabbit’s keys in the nut dish they used for the paperboy’s stubs, and began to search his pockets.

  “Gray coat,” Mrs. Railsbeck called from the kitchen sink, “right front-hand pocket, where you always keep them,” and came steaming up the hall, wiping her hands on her apron. He stepped aside to let her at the closet. “Here,” she said, “now how about a hat?”

  He touched his head. He was sure he’d had one on.

  She fixed his brim. “You’re gorgeous,” she said, and steered him to the door.

  Up 17 to 27, 27 to the Thruway, the Thruway in. He got the heater going and fell into the flow of the road, Doughty Creek snaking along on his right, looping wide then hugging a curve. Snow sat on rocks in midstream. There was nothing to see. The woods were empty this time of year, the farmers kept their herds inside; the cows watched TV —or so the TV people would have you think. TV, that’s what it would come to. The black-and-white weekends were starting to get to him, cooped up in the house with her. Purgatory, he imagined, would be a living room at four in the afternoon in winter, gray fading grayer, a pendulum clock in the next room, her forever reading a mystery novel under an amber lamp shade. On TV would be Ronald Coleman, John Garfield, George Raft. That’s what he had to look forward to, and soon.