Ha Jin - A Good Fall

Minna said she’d rewrite the thing in Chinese. The next morning, as I was seated beside Mr. Sheng and reading a newspaper article to him, Minna stepped in and motioned for me to come into the kitchen. I went over, and she handed me the agreement. I read through it and felt outraged. It sounded like I was planning to swindle her father out of his property. The last paragraph stated: “To sum up, Jufen Niu agrees that she shall never enter into matrimony with Jinping Sheng or accept any inheritance from him. Their ‘union’ shall remain nominal forever.”

I asked Minna, “So you think I’m a gold digger, huh? If you don’t trust me, why bother about this fake marriage in the first place?”

“I do trust you, Aunt Niu, but we’re in America now, where even the air can make people change. We’d better spell out everything on paper beforehand. To tell the truth, my dad owns two apartments, which he bought many years ago when real estate was cheap in this area, so we ought to prevent any trouble down the road.”

“I never thought he was rich, but I won’t ‘marry’ him, period.”

She fixed her cat eyes on me and said, “Then how can you continue working here?”

“I won’t.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you, Aunt Niu. Can’t we leave this open and talk about it later when we both calm down?”

“I just don’t feel I can sell myself this way. I don’t love him. You know how hard it is for a woman to marry a man she doesn’t love.”

She smirked. I knew what she was thinking — for a woman my age, it was foolish to take love into account when offered a marriage. Indeed, love gets scarcer as we grow older. All the same, I nerved myself and said, “This is my last day.”

“Well, maybe not.” She turned and made for the door, her hips jiggling a little. She shouldn’t have worn jeans, which made her appear more rotund.

• • •

Ning Zhang called the next day and asked me to come to his office downtown for “a heart-to-heart talk.” I told him I wouldn’t feel comfortable confiding anything to a thirtysomething like him. In fact, he was pushing forty and already looked middle-aged, stout in the midriff and with a shiny bald spot like a lake in the mouth of an extinct volcano. Still, he insisted that I come over, so I agreed to see him the next morning.

For a whole day I thought about what to say to him. Should I refuse to look after Mr. Sheng no matter what? I wasn’t sure, because I was in Ning Zhang’s clutches. He could keep me out of work for months or even for years. Should I sign the humiliating agreement with Minna? Perhaps I had no choice but to accept it. How about asking for a raise? That might be the only possible gain I could get. So I decided to bargain with my boss for a one-dollar-an-hour raise.

Before setting out the next morning, I combed my hair, which was mostly black, and I also made up my face a little. I was amazed to see myself in the mirror: jutting cheekbones, bright eyes, and a water-chestnut-shaped mouth. If twenty years younger, I could have been a looker. Better yet, I still had a small waistline and a bulging chest. I left home, determined to confront my boss.

At the subway station I chanced on a little scarecrow of a woman who pulled a baby carriage loaded with sacks of plastic bottles and aluminum cans. No doubt she was Chinese and over seventy, in brown slacks and a black short-sleeved shirt printed with yellow hibiscuses. The cloth sacks holding the containers were clean and colored like pieces of baggage. A rusty folding stool was bound to the top of the huge load. On the side of the tiny buggy hung a string pouch holding a bottle of water and a little blue bag with a red tassel, obviously containing her lunch. There were also three large sacks, trussed together, separated from the buggy-load, and holding two-liter Coke bottles. All the people on the platform kept a distance from this white-haired woman. She looked neat and gentle but restless, and went on tightening the ropes wrapped around the load. A fiftyish man passed by with two little girls sporting loopy honey-colored curls, and the kids turned to gawk at the sacks of containers and at the old woman, who waved her small hand and said to them with a timid smile, “Bye-bye.” Neither of the wide-eyed girls responded.

The train came and discharged passengers. I helped the crone pull her stuff into the car. She was so desperate to get her things aboard that she didn’t even thank me after the door slid shut. She was panting hard. How many bottles and cans has she here? I wondered. Probably about two hundred. She stood by the door, afraid she wouldn’t be able to get all her stuff off at her destination. Time and again I glanced at her, though no one else seemed to notice her at all. She must have been a daily passenger with a similar load.

A miserable feeling was welling in me. In that withered woman I saw myself. How many years could I continue working as a health aide who was never paid overtime or provided with any medical insurance or a retirement plan? Would I ever make enough to lay aside some for my old age? How would I support myself when I could no longer attend to patients? I must do something now, or I might end up like that little crone someday, scavenging through garbage for cans and bottles to sell to a recycling shop. The more I thought about her, the more despondent I became.

The woman got off at Junction Boulevard, dragging away her load that was five times larger than her body. People hurried past her, and I was afraid she might fall at the stairs if one of her sacks snagged on something. Her flimsy sneakers seemed to be held together by threads as she shuffled away, pulling the baby carriage while the three huge sacks on her back quivered.

Ning Zhang was pleased to see me when I stepped into his office. “Take a seat, Jufen,” he said. “Anything to drink?”

“No.” I shook my head and sat down before his desk.

“Tell me, how can I persuade you to go back to Minnas?”

“I want a pension plan!” I said firmly.

He was taken aback, then grinned. “Are you kidding me? You know our agency doesn’t offer that and can’t set a precedent.”

“I know. That’s why I won’t go look after Mr. Sheng anymore.”

“But he might die soon if he continues refusing to eat.”

Pity suddenly gripped my heart, but I got hold of myself. I said, “He’ll get over it, he’ll be fine. He doesn’t really know me that well. Besides, he has a memory like a bucket riddled with holes.”

“Do you understand, if you don’t work for us, you may not be able to work elsewhere either?”

“I’ve made up my mind that from now on I’ll work only for a company that provides a pension plan.”

“That means you’ll have to be able to speak English.”

“I can learn.”

“At your age? Give me a break. How many years have you been in this country? Ten or eleven? How many English sentences can you speak? Five or six?”

“From now on I’ll live differently. If I can’t speak enough English to work for a unionized company, I’ll starve and die!”

The determination in my voice must have impressed him. He breathed a sigh and said, “Quite frankly, I admire that, that jolt of spirit, although you make me feel like a capitalist exploiter. All right, I wish you the best of luck. If I can do anything for you, let me know.”

When I came out of his office, the air pulsed with the wings of seagulls and was full of the aroma of kebabs. The trees were green and sparkling with dewdrops in the sunshine. My head was a little light with the emotion still surging in my chest. To be honest, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to learn enough English to live a different life, but I must try.

LINA PUT A PINECONE CANDLESTICK on the dining table, then sat down on a love seat to wait for Panbin. This was the first time she had cooked dinner since they lived together. They were both married, their spouses still in China, and about a year ago she had moved into Panbin’s house as his partner. They had become “a wartime couple,” a term referring to those men and women who, unable to bring their spouses to America, cohabit for the time being to comfort each other and also to reduce living expenses. For some men such a relationship was just a way to sleep with women without having to pay, but Panbin had never taken advantage of Lina. He even claimed that he’d finally fallen for her and might go berserk if she left him. Still, they had separate phone lines in the house. Whenever he was speaking to his wife, he’d keep his door shut, whereas Lina wouldn’t mind his listening when she called her husband.