Ha Jin - A Map of Betrayal - A Novel

“Which of the museums do you like most?” I asked.

“The air and space museum. I had never seen one like that.”

Before dinner I showed him my study. He looked through my little library, shelves crowded with books floor to ceiling, and admitted, “I’ve read only seven or eight of these books. I wish I were a scholar like you, Aunt.” He was seated in a rattan lounge chair, drinking almond milk.

“You’ve been doing pretty well in your computer business. I’m just a woman of books, not suitable for anything else.”

I showed him the six volumes of diary left by Gary. He opened one and began skimming some pages. I said, “I’m still working on your grandfather’s story. Once I’m done, I’ll let you have his journal.”

“Well,” he replied thoughtfully and put down the volume, “I might have to know more about his life to make sense of this.”

“I’ve been trying to understand him too.”

Ben and Henry seemed to have hit it off. They talked a lot about basketball and football games; both were fans of the New England Patriots. After Ben had left, my husband kept saying about him, “What a fine young man. I wish I had a nephew like that on my side.”

“You’ve met him just once,” I said.

“Look, Lilian, I’m about to be sixty-two. In a couple of years I won’t be very active anymore. If Ben can manage this building for us, that will make our remaining years free of lots of trouble. Don’t you think?”

“Can you trust him entirely?”

“Not yet. Like I said, we can try to get to know him better. I’m fond of him, that’s the honest truth.”

I was pleased to hear that. Sometimes I did feel a stirring of maternal feeling for my nieces and nephew and couldn’t help but try to get involved in their lives. Yet Ben seemed too ambitious to become a building superintendent. He’d once told me that he dreamed of living on Cape Cod, in a colonial home with a garden and a dog. And a boat, if he could afford it.

This was the third time Gary had resolved not to see Suzie anymore. He wanted his life to be simple and focused, but a few weeks later she called him and wanted to meet again, saying she missed their “confabulations.” Could he see her just one more time? She promised she wouldn’t misbehave or yell at him again. He did not agree at first and urged her to find something that could fill her idle hours, like yoga or meditation, both of which had come into fashion recently. Or it would be better if she could see another man, a bachelor. He wouldn’t give her the illusion that he’d leave his wife, non-Chinese though Nellie was, and abandon his child on account of another woman. No, under no circumstances would he further complicate his life. But there was no way to communicate the deeper reason to Suzie. She kept calling him, at times even when he was in meetings. She knew he was a kind man at heart in spite of his phlegmatic appearance, so she was not afraid of pushing him. What she liked about him was that he wouldn’t impose anything on her and always treated her as his equal, as a friend. When they were together, she felt at ease, didn’t need to suppress a hiccup or a cackle, and could always speak her mind. Never had she been so relaxed and comfortable with a man. If only she could spend some time with him every day.

At last he agreed to see her just one more time. When they met in a café near Christ Church on an early summer afternoon, she said to him, “You must admit there’s a lot of chemistry between us.”

“Suzie,” he countered, “please don’t act like this, don’t mess yourself up. My life is more complicated than you can imagine. You’ll be better off if you stay away from me, a married man with a child.”

“I’d have done that long ago if I could.” She lowered her eyes, her lashes fluttering a little, as though she was ashamed of her confession. “Sometimes I wonder if this is due to bad karma. It feels like I owed you something in my previous life and came to this world just to pay you back.”

“We’ve known each other for only a few years,” he said.

“But I feel we’d met generations ago.”

Her words touched him to the core, so the affair resumed and lasted till the end of his life. He’d go and see her once a week, usually in the evening, giving his wife the excuse that he had to put in extra hours at the CIA. Nellie never questioned him about the evenings he spent away from home. Besides the secretive nature of his work, she assumed that a man, especially a professional man, should have another life outside his home. As long as he brought back a paycheck every month and took care of their family, she didn’t complain.

Yet in the early summer of 1964 she discovered the affair, informed by a neighbor, Mrs. Colock, a tall string bean of a woman whose husband had often bumped into Gary and Suzie together in bars and restaurants. Nellie and Gary fought that night, hurling furious words that frightened their daughter. This was the first time Lilian had heard her parents shout at each other profanities they had forbidden her to use. She locked herself in her room, crying and listening in on them.

The next morning her father drove her to school as usual. They spoke little, though the girl still kissed him before running to the school entrance. She was glad that summer break was about to start, that soon she wouldn’t need her father to drive her to school anymore. But her mother seemed to have changed from that day on; she’d become more subdued and taciturn, as if she had a sore throat and had to save her voice. Actually, Nellie was thinking of divorce, which Gary said he would accept if she let him keep their daughter. In truth he couldn’t possibly raise the girl alone, given his career and his absentmindedness; he insisted on sole custody of their child in order to save the marriage. That made Nellie hesitate, because she couldn’t entrust Lilian to Gary alone.

But their fights had affected their daughter differently — the girl began daydreaming about leaving home. How she wished she could live far away. If only her piggy bank were full.

It was in the fall of 1964 when Nellie started her own affair with her boss, John Tripp, Jr., the manager of Outstanding Fences. John, a beefy man in his early forties with a lumpy face, would take Nellie to a nearby motel after they lunched together, and they would stay in bed there until her daughter’s school was about to let out.

In fact, Nellie didn’t enjoy the time she spent with Tripp, because he was too demanding in bed. He’d make her do difficult things for him as if she were “an entertainer.” As a result, her body would grow sore and she feared there might be damage to her insides; still, she dared not refuse to give him what he wanted. Finally one afternoon, with a pounding heart, she asked him whether he might be willing to form a family with her if she asked her husband for a divorce. Tripp was taken aback, then said, “No, Nellie, I’m sorry I can’t do that. I’m awfully fond of you, but I’ve been single all my life and it’s too late for me to change my ways. But I’ll be around.”

She had asked that mainly to see how much he cared for her; she hadn’t made up her mind about a divorce yet. His answer upset her and cooled her down. What a flameout.

The affair, which had been halfheartedly carried on by both parties for about three months, finally came to an end. Soon Nellie quit bookkeeping for the fence company and stayed home, knowing that for better or for worse Gary wouldn’t abandon her and Lilian. He had promised her to keep the family together and wasn’t a man who’d break his word.

Still, Nellie couldn’t suppress her thought of divorce altogether and would talk about it with her sister, Marsha, on the phone. Lilian didn’t like her aunt, a blonde with thin arms and long dimples on her cheeks. When the girl was a toddler, Aunt Marsha had called her China Doll, a nickname Lilian hated. It was good that the woman lived on the West Coast now.