Ha Jin - A Free Life

ON SATURDAY MORNING a UPS van came to deliver their boxes, all of which bore the sticker FRAGILE, a few wrapped with duct tape and a broken one spewing foam peanuts. Nan found that a box, number 21, was missing. This upset him. He was sure it contained some of his poetry books, though he couldn't name the titles at the moment. The deliveryman promised to check on it and have it sent over within a day or two, which actually never happened. Nan used a hand truck to move the boxes into their apartment through the screen door of the living room, but the Wus had to leave for work and couldn't open them until they were back at night.

That night, after unpacking them, they found the microwave broken. Taotao helped his father set up the computer, which was out of order too. Only the Sanyo TV set still worked, but it had more noise now and could pick up merely two channels. Nothing had been insured, so there was no way to claim damages.

" This is a minor loss that will preempt real disasters," Pingping said, just to console her son and husband. Yet Taotao was inconsolable and eager to have his computer fixed so that he could play chess with it again. For this machine assembled in a barn in Keene, New Hampshire, Nan had paid only seven hundred dollars, so it wasn't worth repairing. Taotao then wanted a new computer, but his parents refused to buy that, saying they'd have to save every penny for the home they'd purchase in the future.

"Do you want to throw away five hundred and fifty dollars every month?" Pingping asked him, referring to the rent they paid.

"No."

"Then we mustn't continue to waste money this way. Once we have our own home, we'll get you a computer."

The boy knew it was futile to argue, yet he wouldn't drop the topic without another try. He said, "I don't want to go to the restaurant anymore. Leave me at home."

"That's illegal," put in his father.

"It's not safe here," his mom added anxiously. "What if somebody breaks in and snatches you away? He'll sell you to a stranger and you won't be able to see us again. Would you like that?"

"No. I just don't want to stay in the damned restaurant anymore. It makes me sick just to smell the air in there."

"You have to come with us."

The couple living upstairs started fighting again. That stopped the Wus' argument. Neither Nan nor Pingping had ever met the man and woman, having to go to work early in the morning and come back late at night. Yet they had heard enough of their exchanges to know them almost intimately.

Would that couple ever be quiet and peaceful? They always yelled at each other as if they couldn't live for a day without a fight. Sometimes they'd wake Pingping up in the middle of the night.

Taotao kicked a squashed box, sullen and tearful.

"You're a sex maniac," said the woman upstairs. "I've already let you have it twice this week-when will it ever be enough for you? I can't sleep afterward. I'm having an interview tomorrow morning. Just leave me alone tonight, okay?"

"Don't talk to me like that," the man snapped. "If you hate sex so much, why live with me?"

"Get real here. You begged me to shack up with you. I still hate myself for listening to you."

"I'll be damned if I can understand this."

"You can never understand a woman. Else your wife wouldn't have left you for the other guy." "Shut the hell up!"

Then came a crash. Shoes started scraping the floor. They must have been grappling with each other.

Pingping noticed her son prick up his ears. She said, "Taotao, go to bathroom and brush your teeth." That also meant it was time for bed.

The next day they cleared out a space in the storage room in the back of the restaurant and put in a small desk, at which Taotao could do his work for the time being. Both Pingping and Nan felt for him. Every day the boy had to stay with them for more than twelve hours, and not until ten p.m. could they go back together. To make Taotao more comfortable, Nan got a thirteen-inch TV for him, but they made him promise not to watch it too often. They also put in a love seat bought at a Goodwill store, on which the boy could nap. When it wasn't busy, Pingping would go to the back room and check on him. If he was idle or watching TV, she'd urge him to do his "homework," assigned by her. Seldom would he come to the front to see his parents.

Pingping scolded her son one afternoon, saying, "Don't be so lazy and watch TV all time."

"Duh, I'm tired." He looked peeved.

"Tired? We're all living fast life here. You must do same."

"That's not proper grammar, Mom."

"What?"

"People say 'We're living a busy life,' not 'a fast life.' "

"I mean burn candle at two ends."

"How can you do that?"

"I mean make two hundred percent effort."

"Impossible!"

"All right, you live busy life. After this show, go back to homework." "Okay, okay!"

Whenever she said something wrong in her unique ungrammati-cal English, the boy would correct her. Sometimes he even did that in the presence of others. She was annoyed but never discouraged him, because she was determined to learn the language. What she and Nan didn't know was that Taotao had been simmering, angry about their awkward English, which sometimes embarrassed him. He was especially discomfited by Pingping. She'd toss out malapropisms right and left, such as "gooses," "watermelon skin," "deers," and "childrenhood." One day the boy threw a tantrum, accusing his parents of having messed up his English, because that morning, his second day in school, he had blurted out the term "peach hair" instead of "peach fuzz," for which some of his classmates had ridiculed him. He knew he had picked it up from his mother. "You're ruining my career!" he screamed at Pingping that afternoon. She broke into peals of laughter after hearing him explain why, and she went into the kitchen to laugh more to herself.

Every day she assigned him some math problems in addition to his schoolwork. However much he complained, she'd make him finish the assignments before they closed up.

WHEN they moved to Atlanta, the Wus hadn't known that the children at Peachtree Terrace went to schools farther south, which belonged to another district. This meant Taotao wasn't supposed to attend an elementary school in Lilburn. If there had been a grownup in their apartment to accompany him after school, his parents wouldn't have minded letting him go to Shiloh Elementary in Snell-ville, which had a fine reputation. As it was, the boy would have to join them when he got off the bus in the afternoons, so he needed to attend a school near the Gold Wok. Fortunately, the Wangs allowed the Wus to use their address so that Taotao could go to Rebecca Minor Elementary. When the secretary at the principal's office called the Wangs, Mrs. Wang said Taotao was their grandnephew, who had come to stay with them. Mr. Wang told the Wus that they ought to live closer to the restaurant, to save the time and hassle of traveling back and forth every day. Also, gasoline was expensive nowadays as a consequence of the Gulf War. The Wus realized they'd have to move to Lilburn soon, but this town had few apartments for rent, which were all expensive besides. Every weekday they dropped their son at Rebecca Minor Elementary before going to the Gold Wok, and in the afternoon Taotao would get off the school bus at the east side of Beaver Hill Plaza and join his parents at the restaurant.

At work, the Wus couldn't stop feeling antsy about what might happen to their apartment, because Peachtree Terrace wasn't a safe place. Sometimes at night they heard gunshots in their building. Police cruisers would come, strobe lights slashing the parking lot, and people would gather around to watch the police making arrests.

Whenever such an incident happened, Nan would say they must move out soon.