Ha Jin - A Good Fall

He had no appetite for vegetables and would have preferred meat or seafood. He spoke listlessly while she tried to cheer him up. “Don’t think you’re down and out,” she said. “You’re still young and can always restart.”

“How do you mean?” He looked at her heart-shaped face blankly.

“I mean it’s foolish to think you’re done for. Lots of people here are illegal aliens. They live a hard life but still can manage. In a couple of years there might be an amnesty that allows them to become legal immigrants.” She cut a cube of tofu in two with her chopsticks and put a half into her mouth, chewing it with her lips closed.

“I really don’t know what to do. I hope I can go home soon.”

“Continue to be a monk?” She gave a pixieish smile.

“I’ve never been someone else since I grew up.”

“You can always change. This is America, where it’s never too late to turn over a new page. That’s why my parents came here. My mom hated her ex-mother-in-law — that’s my grandmother — and wanted to restart her life far away from the old woman.”

He grimaced again, having no idea what to say. He thought of borrowing money from Cindy to clear the debt of sixty dollars he owed Fanku, but refrained. He would prefer to leave her only good memories of him.

“You look better with your crew cut, you know.” She pointed at his head, which used to be shaved bald.

“I didn’t mean to keep it this way at all.”

“You should let your hair grow longer. That will make your face look stronger — more masculine, I mean. Are you okay at your current place?”

He took a bite of a fake meatball made of minced mushroom and soy flour and answered, “It’s all right for now. I don’t know how long I can stay with Fanku. I might already be a burden to him.”

“Keep in mind you can always use my place. I live on planes and in hotels these days.”

“Thank you.” His eyes went moist, but he averted his face and squeezed his lids. “If only I had been born here,” he sighed.

“Except for the Indians, nobody’s really a native in the United States. You mustn’t think of yourself as a stranger — this country belongs to you if you live and work here.”

“I’m too old to change.”

“How can you say that? You’re just twenty-eight!”

“But my heart is very, very old.”

“You still have fifty years to go, at least.” She giggled and patted his hand. He smiled and shook his head as if to admit he was beyond help.

After talking with Cindy, he realized that Master Zong had kept his passport with an eye to preventing him from changing his status, because illegal aliens had to produce their papers when the U.S. president issued an amnesty. It would be impossible to apply for a green card in good time if you couldn’t prove your country of origin and your date of entry into the United States. Zong must be determined to get him back to China.

Fanku told Ganchin to stay in the next morning, because the superintendent of the tenement would come around eleven to check the smoke detector. Ganchin promised not to go out before the man showed up. He was lying on the cot, thinking about whether he should ask for a smaller amount of cash from Master Zong, say twenty-five thousand, since apparently the temple had never paid any monk a salary. How he regretted having tried so hard to come here! He’d been misled by the people who bragged about the opportunity found in America and wouldn’t reveal the hardship they’d gone through here. They all wanted to appear rich and successful in their hometowns’ eyes. Silly, how silly. If he went back, he would tell the truth — the American type of success was not for everyone. You must learn how to sell yourself there and must change yourself to live a new life.

As he was musing, someone knocked on the door. He got up to answer it. The instant he opened it a crack two men burst in. One was Master Zong and the other a brawny young fellow Ganchin had never met. They grabbed his arms. “Don’t resist,” Zong hissed. “We won’t hurt you. We’re just helping you go home, to keep you from deteriorating into a bum.”

“Where are you taking me?” Ganchin gasped.

“To the airport,” Zong said, as they hauled him away. Ganchin was too weak to struggle and so he obeyed them.

They shoved him into the back of the BMW, buckled him up, and dropped on his lap two paper napkins for his phlegm. Then they got into the front seats, and the car pulled away. In a placid voice Zong explained to him, “Don’t be upset. I bought the plane ticket for you and will give you some cash for your travel expenses. When you check in at the counter, I’ll let you have your passport.”

“You’ve kidnapped me. This is against the law.”

The men both guffawed. The squint-eyed young fellow said, “Please don’t accuse us like this. You’re a Chinese and soon will board a plane for China.”

“Yes, you can grouse as much as you like to the elders of your monastery,” Zong told him.

Realizing it was useless to argue, Ganchin clammed up the rest of the way, though he was thinking hard about how to break loose.

They parked in a garage and then took him to Air China. A large uniformed black woman stood at the entrance to the ticketing counter; Ganchin wondered if he should shout to get her attention, but thought better of it. The three of them entered the zigzag cordoned lane filled with people. This wasn’t personal, Master Zong kept telling him. They just didn’t want to sully China’s image by letting an ocher-robed monk roam the streets of New York. That would tarnish the temple’s reputation as well.

What should Ganchin do? He could get rid of his robe as he had slacks underneath. Should he go to the men’s room and see if he could find a way to escape from there? No, they would see through him. How about calling to the fully armed security guards with the big German shepherd near the checkpoint? No. Master Zong might still be able to get him on the plane, claiming he was mentally ill, dangerous like a terrorist, and must be sent home for treatment.

As he was wondering, a passenger cart with three rows of seats on it was coming up, an old couple sitting in the first row. Ganchin glanced at his kidnappers — both of them were looking at the counter, where two young women were lugging a family’s baggage onto the conveyor belt. Ganchin lifted the blue cordon beside him, slunk out of the lane, and leapt upon the last row of seats on the cart, then rolled down into the legroom. He pulled in his feet so his kidnappers couldn’t see him. The battery-powered vehicle was running away when he heard Zong shout, “Ganchin, Ganchin, where are you?”

“Come here, Ganchin, you dickhead!” another voice barked.

“Ganchin, come over, please! We can negotiate,” Zong cried.

Ganchin realized they didn’t know he was on the vehicle, which veered off and headed for another terminal. He stayed put, letting it take him as far away as possible.

Finally the cart stopped, and he raised his head to look around. “Hey, this is for disability only,” the black driver told him, flashing a smile while helping the old couple off.

Ganchin didn’t know what the man meant, and just said, “Thank you.” That was all the English he had besides “goodbye.” He got off and went into a men’s room, where he shed his robe. He dumped it into a trash can and came out wearing black slacks and an off-white sweatshirt.

• • •

He managed to get back to Flushing by a hotel shuttle, following the suggestion of a middle-aged Taiwanese woman. Terrified, he could not return to Fanku’s place. Evidently that man and Master Zong were in cahoots. Where to go now? Where was a safe place? Never had Ganchin imagined that Zong would resort to force to fly him back. A pain tightened his chest and he coughed again.