Yiyun Li - A Thousand Years of Good Prayers

“Baba, I didn’t ask you before, but how long do you plan to stay in America?” his daughter says.

“Until you recover.”

His daughter stands up, the legs of the chair scraping the floor.

“We’re the only family for each other now,” Mr. Shi says, almost pleading, but his daughter closes her bedroom door before he says more. Mr. Shi looks at the dishes that are barely touched by his daughter, the fried tofu cubes stuffed with chopped mushrooms, shrimps, and ginger, the collage of bamboo shoots, red peppers, and snow peas. Even though his daughter admires his cooking every evening, he senses the halfheartedness in her praise; she does not know the cooking has become his praying, and she leaves the prayers unanswered.

“THE WIFE WOULD’VE done a better job of cheering the daughter up, ” Mr. Shi says to Madam the next morning. He feels more at ease speaking to her in Chinese now. “They were closer to each other. Wasn’t that I was not close to them. I loved them dearly. It’s what happened when you were a rocket scientist. I worked hard during the day, and at night I couldn’t stop thinking about my work. Everything was confidential so I couldn’t talk to my family about what I was thinking about. But the wife, she was the most understanding woman in the world. She knew I was so occupied with my work, and she wouldn’t interrupt my thoughts, and wouldn’t let the daughter, either. I know now that it was not healthy for the daughter. I should’ve left my working self in the office. I was too young to understand that. Now the daughter, she doesn’t have anything to say to me.”

Truly it was his mistake, never establishing a habit of talking to his daughter. But then, he argues for himself — in his time, a man like him, among the few chosen to work for a grand cause, he had to bear more duties toward his work than his family. Honorable and sad, but honorable more than sad.

At the dinner table that evening, Mr. Shi’s daughter informs him that she’s found a Chinese-speaking travel agency that runs tours both on the East Coast and the West. “You’re here to take a look at America. I think it’s best you take a couple of tours before winter comes.”

“Are they expensive?”

“I’ll pay, Baba. It’s what you wanted for your birthday, no?”

She is his daughter after all; she remembers his wish and she honors it. But what she does not understand is that the America he wants to see is the country where she is happily married. He scoops vegetables and fish into her bowl. “You should eat more,” he says in a gentle voice.

“So, I’m going to call them tomorrow and book the tours,” his daughter says.

“You know, staying here probably does more good for me. I’m an old man now, not very good for traveling.”

“But there’s not much to see here.”

“Why not? This is the America I wanted to see. Don’t worry. I have my friends here. I won’t be too much of an annoyance to you.”

The phone rings before his daughter replies. She picks up the phone and automatically goes into her bedroom. He waits for the bang of the door. She never takes a call in front of him, even with strangers trying to sell her something on the phone. A few evenings when she talked longer and talked in a hushed voice, he had to struggle not to put his ear on the door and listen. This evening, however, she seems to have a second thought, and leaves the bedroom door open.

He listens to her speak English on the phone, her voice shriller than he has ever known it to be. She speaks fast and laughs often. He does not understand her words, but even more, he does not understand her manner. Her voice, too sharp, too loud, too immodest, is so unpleasant to his ears that for a moment he feels as if he had accidentally caught a glimpse of her naked body, a total stranger, not the daughter he knows.

He stares at her when she comes out of the room. She puts the receiver back, and sits down at the table without saying anything. He watches her face for a moment, and asks, “Who was it on the phone?”

“A friend.”

“A male friend, or a female?”

“A male.”

He waits for her to give further explanation, but she seems to have no such intention. After a while, he says, “Is this man — is he a special friend?”

“Special? Sure.”

“How special is he?”

“Baba, maybe this’ll make you worry less about me — yes, he is a very special one. More than a friend,” his daughter says. “A lover. Do you feel better now that you know my life isn’t as miserable as you thought?”

“Is he American?”

“An American now, yes, but he came from Romania.” At least the man grew up in a communist country, Mr. Shi thinks, trying to be positive. “Do you know him well? Does he understand you — where you were from, and your culture — well? Remember, you can’t make the same mistakes twice. You have to be really careful.”

“We’ve known each other for a long time.”

“A long time? A month is not a long time!”

“Longer than that, Baba.”

“One and half months at most, right? Listen, I know you are in pain, but a woman shouldn’t rush, especially in your situation. Abandoned women — they make mistakes in loneliness!”

His daughter looks up. “Baba, my marriage wasn’t what you thought. I wasn’t abandoned.”

Mr. Shi looks at his daughter, her eyes candid with resolve and relief. For a moment he almost wants her to spare him any further detail, but like all people, once she starts talking, he cannot stop her. “Baba, we were divorced because of this man. I was the abandoner, if you want to use the term.”

“But why?”

“Things go wrong in a marriage, Baba.”

“One night of being husband and wife in bed makes them in love for a hundred days. You were married for seven years! How could you do this to your husband? What was the problem, anyway, besides your little extramarital affair?” Mr. Shi says. A disloyal woman is the last thing he raised his daughter to be.

“There’s no point talking about it now.”

“I’m your father. I have a right to know,” Mr. Shi says, banging on the table with a hand.

“Our problem was I never talked enough for my husband. He always suspected that I was hiding something from him because I was quiet.”

“You were hiding a lover from him.”

Mr. Shi’s daughter ignores his words. “The more he asked me to talk, the more I wanted to be quiet and alone. I’m not good at talking, as you’ve pointed out.”

“But that’s a lie. You just talked over the phone with such immodesty! You talked, you laughed, like a prostitute!”

Mr. Shi’s daughter, startled by the vehemence of his words, looks at him for a long moment before she replies in a softer voice. “It’s different, Baba. We talk in English, and it’s easier. I don’t talk well in Chinese.”

“That’s a ridiculous excuse!”

“Baba, if you grew up in a language that you never used to express your feelings, it would be easier to take up another language and talk more in the new language. It makes you a new person.”

“Are you blaming your mother and me for your adultery?”

“That’s not what I’m saying, Baba!”

“But isn’t it what you meant? We didn’t do a good job bringing you up in Chinese so you decided to find a new language and a new lover when you couldn’t talk to your husband honestly about your marriage.”

“You never talked, and Mama never talked, when you both knew there was a problem in your marriage. I learned not to talk.”

“Your mother and I never had a problem. We were just quiet people.”

“But it’s a lie!”

“No, it’s not. I know I made the mistake of being too preoccupied with my work, but you have to understand I was quiet because of my profession.”