Ha Jin: A Free Life

The Wus' order came with plain rice. The steaming soup was made with slivers of chicken, shrimp, snow peas, and slices of bamboo shoot. Both dishes tasted good, though Taotao didn't like the squid in the casserole. He wanted more portabella mushroom, and his mother put several pieces on his plate. "Why don't we have big bowls?" he asked.

" Here people use only small bowls for soup in a restaurant," Ping-ping answered.

Gingerly he took a bite of a sliver of chicken as if afraid it was underdone. But soon he became more confident, chewing without hesitation.

Halfway through lunch, Nan said to Taotao, showing him the photos in the newspaper, "Look here, all these are civilians slaughtered by the People's Liberation Army."

"Put that away! He's eating," Pingping protested.

" I just want him to see the truth. Well, Taotao, see how many people they butchered? Here are some bodies and bikes crushed by a tank."

His wife begged, "Please let him finish lunch in peace." "Dad, isn't this an army uncle?" The boy pointed at the hanged soldier.

"Yes. But he killed some civilians and got his punishment. Don't you think he deserved it?"

Taotao was silent for a moment, staring at his plate, then mumbled, "No."

"Why not?" Nan felt frustrated and thought his son was stubborn and hopeless. His bushy mustache bristled.

"Even for that, people shouldn't kill each other," Taotao said in a small voice.

Stupefied, Nan didn't know how to respond for a good while. His wide-spaced eyes gazed at his son as something stirred in his chest, which was so full that he lost his appetite. He managed to finish the food on his plate, then refilled his teacup.

"Don't you want some more?" Pingping asked.

"I've had enough," he sighed. Then his voice turned husky. "This boy is too good-natured and must never go back. He can't survive there. I don't know where I'll end up, but he must become an American. "

"I'm glad you said that," she agreed.

"I don't want to be American, Mama!" Taotao wailed. "I want to go home."

"All right," she said. "Don't talk. Eat. You're a Chinese, of course."

Nan 's eyes glistened with tears, and his cheek twitched. He turned to look out the window. On the narrow street tourists were strolling in twos and threes, and a few Asian men wore cameras around their necks.

The waitress came again and placed in front of Nan a tiny tray that contained three fortune cookies, three toothpicks sheathed in cellophane, and a bill lying facedown. Although the lunch cost only twenty-six dollars, Nan left a five for tip. He meant to show the woman that some FOJs also had a fat wallet. Taotao had never seen a fortune cookie before; he pocketed them all.

In the hotel the TV was showing a Chaplin movie. Taotao was at once captivated by it, laughing so hard that he coughed and gasped continually. He kept brandishing his hands above his head and would jump on the bed whenever a funny scene came on. Pingping was worried and told him to sit down and not to laugh so loudly lest people in the adjacent rooms hear him. Yet when the starved shorty appeared on the screen, wearing a patch of mustache and walking with splayed feet and bowed legs, visualized his fellow worker as a plump chicken and set about chasing him with an ax, Taotao sprang to his feet again, skipping around and shrieking gleefully. Nan was amazed that, all at once, the boy had become so at home here. He couldn't help but grow thoughtful. Indeed, for a child, home is where his parents are and where he feels happy and safe. He doesn't need a country.

Nan was exhausted and soon fell fast asleep in spite of the racket Taotao was kicking up. After the silent film, the TV showed Tom and Jerry. Although Taotao didn't understand it all, the wild cartoon kept him rolling all the same. Pingping was afraid that he might get sick, he was so excited.

HEIDI MASEFIELD'S house sat at the center of two and a half acres of prime land in Woodland, a suburban town twenty miles west of Boston. Near the southern side of this antique colonial stood an immense maple, whose shade fell on several windows in the summertime and kept the rooms cool. From one of its thick boughs hung a swing, two pieces of rope attached to a small legless chair. Except for the terrace at the back of the house and the driveway that led to a country road, the land was covered entirely by the manicured lawn. A line of lilac bushes encircled the property, replaced by low field-stone walls at the front entrance to the yard. During the summer the Masefields were staying on Cape Cod, in a beach bungalow near Fal-mouth, so the Wus could use the Woodland house for themselves. Heidi would be coming back every other week to pick up mail and pay bills. She and her two children wouldn't return until early September, when the elementary school started.

Two years ago Dr. Masefield, a plastic surgeon, had drowned in a sailing accident, so his wife had needed someone to help her with housework and to care for her son and daughter. Her sister-in-law, Jean, under whose supervision Nan had once worked as a custodian in a medical building, introduced the Wus to her. Heidi was so pleased when she saw the young couple, who looked steady and were so polite and cleanly dressed, that she hired them on the spot. She let the Wus use the two bedrooms in the attic in exchange for work- Pingping was to cook and do laundry while Nan would drive the children to school in the mornings, and, if their mother was too busy to fetch them, he'd pick them up in the afternoons as well. In addition to free lodging, Heidi paid Pingping two hundred dollars a week.

Although she was rich, Heidi was determined not to take her children to restaurants very often, to prevent them from falling into the habit of dining out. So Pingping cooked breakfast and dinner for them on weekdays. The housework wasn't heavy. Two black women, Pat and her daughter, Jessica, would come once a week to vacuum the floors and clean all the bathrooms except the one in the attic apartment-the mother did most of the work while the daughter, almost twenty, sat around reading. There was also Tom, a firefighter who worked the night shift at the Woodland Fire Station. He came regularly to mow the lawn and prune the flowers and bushes. He also plowed snow and sanded the driveway in the wintertime. Working for Heidi gave the Wus another great advantage they hadn't foreseen-their son now could go to the excellent public school here.

Amazingly, Taotao wasn't jet-lagged at all. For a whole day he skipped up or bounced down the stairs, his footsteps echoing in the house. But he didn't dare go out by himself yet. Now and then he looked out the windows of the kitchen and the study. He marveled at the detached garage that had recognized their car from a distance last night and opened automatically, as if welcoming them home. The lawn impressed him so much that he said, "Mama, I'm going to tell Grandpa there's green carpet everywhere outside our house."

"It's just grass." Pingping smiled. "Why don't you go out and see it?"

" Can you come with me?" " Are you still scared?" "Don't know."

Mother and son went out so he could touch the grass with his hands. She wore a lavender wraparound skirt, and Taotao had on white shorts and maroon leather sandals. The boy loved the feel of the grass under his feet and kept running about as if chasing a phantom ball. His legs were sturdy but slightly bandy, like his father's. After he had frolicked for a while, Pingping took him to the woods beyond the northern end of the Masefields' property to see if they could find a few mushrooms. Under her arm was a thick book; she had to depend on the pictures to tell the edible mushrooms from the poisonous ones here. Together mother and son left the yard, where parts of the grass were glimmering softly and the lawn was shaded in places by the long shadows of the house and the trees.