Ha Jin: A Good Fall

“One eighty,” Lili replied.

“Doesn’t he have a wife?” I asked.

“Not anymore. She died long ago,” Huong said, cracking a spiced peanut.

“Why wouldn’t he marry again?” I went on. “At least he should find someone who can take care of him.”

Nana let out a sigh. “Money’s the root of the trouble. He’s so rich he can’t find a trustworthy wife.”

Huong added, “I’ve heard he owns a couple of restaurants.”

“Also your sweatshop, Wanping.” Nana looked me straight in the face, as if forcing down a laugh.

“No, he doesn’t,” I shot back. “My factory is owned by a girl from Hong Kong named Nini.”

That had them in stitches. Actually, the owner of my garment shop was a Taiwanese man who taught college before coming to America.

Many of the johns were married men. They were reluctant to spend time and money on a mistress for fear of complications that might destroy their marriage. So they tried to keep up appearances while indulging in a sensuous life on the sly. But there were always exceptions. One day, Huong said a middle-aged client had told her that he hadn’t had sex for almost two years because his wife was too ill. Huong had advised him to come more often, at least twice a month, so that he could recover his sex life. As he was now, he was totally inadequate. “He’s a good man,” Huong told us. “He couldn’t do anything with me at all, saying he felt guilty about his wife, but he paid me anyway.”

“Then he shouldn’t have come to a whorehouse in the first place,” Lili said.

I could tell that Huong and Nana didn’t really like Lili either. She often bitched about misplaced things, and once accused Nana of using her cell phone to call someone in San Francisco. They had a row and didn’t speak to each other for days afterward.

The story about the man with a bedridden wife made me think a lot. If I were a policeman, knowing about his family situation, would I have arrested him for visiting a prostitute? Probably not. I used to believe that all johns were bad and loose men, but now I could see that some of them were nothing but wrecks with personal problems that they didn’t know how to handle. They came here hoping that a prostitute might help.

I was in bed one night when a cry rose from Nana’s room. At first I thought it was just an orgasmic groan she had faked to please a client. Sometimes I was unsettled by the noises the women and the men made, noises that kept me awake and fantasizing. Then Nana screamed, “Get out of here!”

I pulled on my pants and ran out of my room. The door of Nana’s room was ajar, and through the gap I saw a paunchy man of around sixty standing by the bed and madly gesticulating at Nana. This was the first time I had seen an older john make trouble. I moved closer but didn’t go in. Mrs. Chen had told me to give the women a hand whenever they needed it. She hadn’t made it explicit, but I’d guessed that she wanted me to provide some protection for them.

“I paid you, so I’m staying,” the man barked, and flung up his hand.

“You can’t make a night of it. Please go away,” Nana said, her face stamped with annoyance.

I went in and asked him, “What’s your problem? Didn’t you already get your time with her?”

He lifted his eyes to squint at me. His face, red like a monkey’s ass, showed he was drunk. In fact, the entire room reeked of alcohol. “Who are you?” he grunted. “This is none of your business. I wanna stay here tonight, and nobody can make me change my mind.”

I could tell that he thought this was like China, where it’s commonplace for a john to spend a night with a girl if he pays enough. “I am just a tenant,” I said. “You’ve been kicking up such a racket that I can’t sleep.”

“So? Deal with it. I want my money’s worth.”

As he was speaking, I glanced at Nana’s bed. Two wet spots stained a pink sheet, and a pair of pillows had been cast aside. On the floor was an overturned cane chair. By now both Huong and Lili were up too, but they stayed outside the door, watching. I told the man, “It’s the rule here: you fire your gun and you leave. No girl is supposed to be your bed warmer.”

“I paid her for what I want.”

“All right, this is not my problem. I’m going to call the police. We simply cannot sleep while you’re rocking the house.”

“Oh yeah? Call the cops and see who they’ll haul away first.” He seemed more awake now, his eyes glittering.

I pressed on. “All the tenants here will say that you broke in to assault this woman.” I was surprised by what I said, and I saw Huong and Lili avert their eyes.

“Cut that shit out! I paid this ho.” He pointed at Nana.

“She’s not a whore. Nana, you didn’t invite him here, did you?”

“Uh-uh.” She shook her head.

I told him, “See, we’re all her witnesses. You’d better get out of here, now.”

“I can’t believe this. There’s no good faith in this world anymore — it’s worse than China.” He grabbed his walking stick and lumbered out of the room.

The three women laughed and told me that the old goat was a first-time visitor and that they felt lucky to have me living on the same floor. We were in the kitchen now, all wide awake. Nana put on a kettle to boil some water for an herbal tea called Sweet Dreams.

I wasn’t pleased by what I had done. “I acted like a pimp, didn’t I?”

“No, you did well,” Huong replied.

“Thank God we have a man among us,” Lili added.

Lili’s words made me uneasy. I’m not one of you, I thought. But afterward, I felt they were more friendly than before, and even Lili started speaking to me more often and with her eyes fully open. They’d ask me what I would like for dinner, and cooked fish three or four times a week because I was fond of seafood. My factory provided steamed rice for its workers at lunch, so I just needed to bring something to go with it. Whenever it was Huong’s turn to cook, she would set aside the leftovers in a plastic container for me to take to work the next day. Nana and Lili often joked that Huong treated me as if I were her boyfriend. At first, I felt embarrassed, but little by little I got used to their teasing.

One morning in late July, I woke up feeling as if my lungs were on fire. I must have caught the flu, but I had to go to the factory, where a stack of cut pieces was waiting to be ironed. Unlike the sewing women, I couldn’t sit down at the ironing table. The shop provided tea in a samovar, which tasted a little fishy, but I drank one mug after another to soothe my throat and keep my eyes open. As a result, I went to the bathroom more frequently. Some of the floorboards were crooked, and I had to be careful when walking around. By midafternoon I was sweating all over and my pulse was racing, so I decided to rest on a long bench by the wall, but I tripped and fell before I could reach it. The moment I picked myself up, my foreman, Jimmy Choi, a broad-shouldered fellow of about forty-five, came over and said, “Are you all right, Wanping?”

“I’m okay,” I mumbled, brushing the dust off my pants.

“You look terrible.”

“I might be running a fever.”

He felt my forehead with his thick, rough hand. “You’d better go home. We’re not busy today, and Danny and Marc can manage without you.”

Jimmy drove me back to Mrs. Chen’s in his pickup and told me not to worry about coming to work the next day if I didn’t feel up to it. I said I would try my best to show up.

I felt too awful to join my housemates at dinner. Instead, I stayed in bed with my eyes closed, forcing myself not to moan. Still, I couldn’t help moaning through my nose occasionally, which made me feel better. Before dark, Huong came in and put a carton of orange juice and a cup on the nightstand, saying I must drink a lot of liquid to excrete the poison from my body. “What would you like for dinner?” she asked.