Ha Jin - The Bridegroom - Stories

“If only we had a gun!” Baisha whispered through her teeth.

Peter was in a happy mood. With a ruddy face he began singing a song, which must have been made up by some overseas Chinese:

I’m not so carefree as you think,

My feelings never unclear.

If you can’t see through me,

That’s because again you waste

Your love on a worthless man.

Oh my heart won’t wander alone.

Let me take you along.

Together we’ll reach a quiet place

Where you can realize

Your sweetest dream. .

For some reason I was touched by the song. Never had I known he had such a gorgeous baritone voice, which seemed to come a long way from the other shore. A flock of ducks quacked in the darkness, their wings splashing the water lustily. A loon let out a cry like a wild laugh. Then all the waterfowl turned quiet, and Peter’s voice alone was vibrating the tangy air chilled by the night.

Feilan whispered, “What a good time he’s having here, that asshole.”

“He must miss his American sweetheart,” Baisha said.

Feilan shook her chin. “Makes no sense. He’s not the romantic type.”

“Doesn’t he often say American girls are better than Chinese girls?”

“Shh—” I stopped them.

When the fire almost went out, Peter unzipped his fly, pulled out his dick, and peed on the embers, which hissed and sent up a puff of steam. The arc of his urine gleamed for a few seconds, then disappeared. He yawned, and with his feet pushed some sand over the ashes.

“Gross!” said Feilan.

Peter leaped on his motorcycle and dashed away, the exhaust pipe hiccuping explosively. I realized he didn’t mind riding four miles to work because he could use some of the gasoline provided by our boss for burning the leftovers with.

“If only I could scratch and bite that bastard!” Feilan said breathlessly.

“Depends on what part of him,” I said.

Baisha laughed. Feilan scowled at me, saying, “You have a dirty mind.”

The next day we told all the other workers about our discovery. Everyone was infuriated, and even the two part-timers couldn’t stop cursing capitalism. There were children begging on the streets, there were homeless people at the train station and the ferry house, there were hungry cats and dogs everywhere, why did Mr. Shapiro want Peter to burn good meat like garbage? Manyou said he had read in a restricted journal several years ago that some American capitalists would dump milk into a river instead of giving it to the poor. But that was in the U.S.; here in China, this kind of wasteful practice had to be condemned. I told my fellow workers that I was going to write an article to expose Ken Shapiro and Peter Jiao.

In the afternoon we confronted Peter. “Why do you burn the leftovers every night?” Manyou asked, looking him right in the eye.

Peter was taken aback, then replied, “It’s my job.”

“That’s despicable,” I snapped. “You not only burned them but also peed on them.” My stomach suddenly rumbled.

Feilan giggled. Baisha pointed at Peter’s nose and said sharply, “Peter Jiao, remember you’re a Chinese. There are people here who don’t have enough corn flour to eat while you burn chicken every night. You’ve forgotten your ancestors and who you are.”

Peter looked rattled, protesting, “I don’t feel comfortable about it either. But somebody has to do it. I’m paid to burn them, just like you’re paid to fry them.”

“Don’t give me that crap!” Jinglin cut in. “You’re a capitalist’s henchman.”

Peter retorted, “So are you. You work for this capitalist company too.”

“Hold on,” Manyou said. “We just want to reason you out of this shameful thing. Why do you waste chicken that way? Why not give the leftovers to the poor?”

“You think I enjoy burning them? If I gave them away, I’d be fired. This is the American way of doing business.”

“But you’re a Chinese running a restaurant in a socialist country,” said Jinglin.

As we were wrangling, Mr. Shapiro came out of his office with coffee stains around his lips. Peter explained to him what we quarreled about. Our boss waved his hand to dismiss us, as though this were such a trifle that it didn’t deserve his attention. He just said, “It’s company’s policy, we can’t do anything about it. If you’re really concerned about the waste, don’t fry too many pieces, and sell everything you’ve fried.” He walked to the front door to have a smoke outside.

Peter said, “That’s true. He can’t change a thing. From now on we’d better not fry more than we can sell.”

I was still angry and said, “I’m going to write to the Herald to expose this policy.”

“There’s no need to be so emotional, Hongwen,” Peter said with a complacent smile, raising his squarish chin a little. “There have been several articles on this subject. For example, the Beijing Evening News carried a long piece last week about our company. The author praised our policy on leftovers and believed it would reduce waste eventually. He said we Chinese should adopt the American way of running business. In any case, this policy cannot be exposed anymore. People already know about it.”

That silenced us all. Originally we had planned that if Mr. Shapiro continued to have the leftovers burned, we’d go on strike for a few days. Peter’s words deflated us all at once.

Still, Jinglin wouldn’t let Peter off so easily. When it turned dark, he pressed a thumbtack into the rear tire of the Honda motorcycle parked in the backyard. Peter called home, and his wife came driving a white Toyota truck to carry back the motorcycle and him. This dealt us another blow, because we hadn’t expected he owned a brand-new pickup as well. No one else in our city could afford such a vehicle. We asked ourselves, “Heavens, how much money does Peter actually have?”

We were all anxious to find that out. On payday, somehow Mr. Shapiro mixed Peter’s wages in with ours. We each received an envelope stuffed with a bundle of cash, but Peter’s was always empty. Juju said Peter got only a slip of paper in his envelope, which was called a check. He could exchange that thing for money at the bank, where he had an account as if he were a company himself. In Juju’s words, “Every month our boss just writes Peter lots of money.” That fascinated us. How much did he get from Mr. Shapiro? This question had remained an enigma ever since we worked here. Now his pay was in our hands, and at last we could find it out.

Manyou steamed the envelope over a cup of hot tea and opened it without difficulty. The figure on the check astounded us: $1,683.75. For a good moment nobody said a word, never having imagined that Peter received an American salary, being paid dollars instead of yuan. That’s to say, he made twenty times more than each of us! No wonder he worked so hard, taking care of Cowboy Chicken as if it were his home, and tried every trick to please Mr. Shapiro.

That night after work, we gathered at Baisha’s home for an emergency meeting. Her mother was a doctor, so their apartment was spacious and Baisha had her own room. She took out a packet of spiced pumpkin seeds, and we began chatting while drinking tea.

“God, just think of the money Peter’s raking in,” Jinglin said, and pulled his brushy hair, sighing continually. He looked wretched, as if ten years older than the day before. His chubby face had lost its luster.

I said, “Peter can afford to eat at the best restaurants every day. There’s no way he can spend that amount of money.”

Feilan spat the shells of a pumpkin seed into her fist, her eyes turning triangular. She said, “We must protest. This isn’t fair.”