Ha Jin - A Free Life

Unlike him, Pingping had never missed her ex-boyfriend, compared with whom Nan was a better man; Nan hadn't hesitated to marry her and wouldn't shirk his responsibilities as a husband and father. If only he were more responsive to her love and devotion. If only there were a way to soften his hardened heart.

The kitchen door opened. At the sight of Nan, Pingping averted her eyes and took a short drag on her cigarette. He said harshly, "You're not supposed to smoke in this house." The instant he let out those words, he changed his tone. "This isn't our home." He took out the Virginia Slims and inserted something into the case.

She blew out a puff of smoke. "I don't care." Despite saying that, she stubbed out her cigarette in a saucer serving as an ashtray.

"Then I have another pack for you." He smiled and handed her the opened Virginia Slims. "It has two thousand lucky pennies in it too."

"You bought this for me?" She looked puzzled, her eyes wider. She shook the case. "My, twenty dollars!"

"I told you, didn't I?"

" Where did you get this? You smoke too?"

"No. I found it on the street."

" Who lost it, do you know?"

"No idea."

He also showed her the brand-new watch on his wrist. She was amazed he had gotten it free. Hurriedly she made oatmeal for both of them. After breakfast, together they walked to work as if their squabble had never happened. Nan was amazed that just a free wristwatch had actually averted the crisis between them. He felt rather trivial as he remembered he had never been like this before. He had despised money back in China and never cared to save any, and before he met Pingping, he had always spent every penny of his salary each month. On the other hand, he felt that a good life should be uneventful, having few dramatic moments; instead, it should be filled with small delights, each of which should be appreciated and enjoyed like a gift. Pingping and he had too few such delights in their life, so a tiny windfall, a free watch, could bowl them over and switch their emotions to another gear. He wondered whether this piece of luck had come his way at the critical moment purely by accident. Life was truly mysterious. If he were a Christian, he'd have believed this might be a gift from God, but he didn't belong to any church and so he didn't allow his thoughts to stretch heavenward.

AT BEAVER HILL PLAZA a jewelry store had opened recently. It was five doors down from the Gold Wok to the east. Its owner was Janet Mitchell, a woman in her late thirties, with rusty hair and sloping shoulders. She had come from New Jersey to Atlanta the previous year with her husband, who worked for GE. Despite her trim figure, Janet walked with a lurch, the result of a traffic accident three years before. The damages she had collected enabled her to start her own business, whose clientele consisted mostly of young women living in Gwinnett County. She hired a salesgirl to work at the counter of her store while she herself made earrings and necklaces in the back room, which had a glass cutaway. Two or three times a week she would come to the Gold Wok for lunch and was particularly fond of the noodles and Ma Po Tofu offered there. Janet had caught the Wus' attention from the very beginning, because she wouldn't use a fork and would pick up a sliver of meat or a piece of stir-fried vegetable with her fingers if her chopsticks couldn't do the job. She and Ping-ping liked each other, and whenever she was there, the two of them would chat and giggle. Janet was amazed that Pingping, having learned English mainly by osmosis, could read local newspapers.

Sometimes when it wasn't busy at the restaurant, Pingping would go to Janet's store to see how she made jewelry. Besides showing her the craft, Janet also told her where to buy the beads, shells, stones, pearls. She even let Pingping assemble a necklace, just for fun; the piece turned out as elegant as those for sale. Janet was greatly impressed. Whenever they were together they'd talk about all kinds of things. Janet asked Pingping many questions. Why did Chinese children do so well in school? How come there weren't many fat Chinese? What did she think of the one-child policy in China? Why did some families abandon girl babies there? Did the Chinese really respect old people? Must Pingping take care of her parents even if she was far away from home?

To the last questions Pingping replied "Not really," though every year, before the Spring Festival, she'd send five hundred dollars to her parents, as well as to Nan 's. Their parents had all retired with full pensions and free medical care, so the remittances were mainly meant to make their holiday more festive.

One afternoon at the Gold Wok, Janet asked Pingping why Chinese women looked better than Chinese men. The question stumped Pingping, who had never thought about it before, but she admitted that some Chinese men were skinny perhaps because they had starved when they were young. If a man didn't look physically strong, he might be viewed as a weakling, especially in America. "But there is many handsome men in China," she told her friend. " Nan is handsome, right?"

Janet smiled without speaking; apparently she didn't think so. She then came up with another question. "I saw on TV the other day that Chinese women prefer double-fold eyelids, like the Western type. Some girls in Shanghai went through cosmetic surgeries to reshape their eyes. They already looked pretty, why did they bother to do that?"

"They like double eyelid, but that isn't really Western. Look, I'm double, right?" Pingping's forefingers pointed at her dark brown eyes while she flapped her lids. "I'm natural, right?"

"That's true. People tend to assume Chinese have slit Mongol eyes."

" China is big country, have all kinds people."

Nan was slicing pork tenderloin in the kitchen and pricked up his ears to listen in on them through the window that opened onto the dining room. He liked Pingping best when she was happy and bubbly. Despite feeling uncomfortable about Janet's curiosity that bordered on nosiness, despite having warned his wife not to tell her friend too much about themselves, he wouldn't think ill of Janet, who was a regular and was so fond of Taotao that she often bragged about him to her husband, Dave Mitchell. Dave, a husky man with a boyish face and a barrel chest, would come to dine at the Gold Wok with his wife on weekends.

Nan craned his neck to glance through the window at Pingping and Janet, who were sitting in a nearby booth, a pot of tea between them. He returned to the cutting board, working slowly so that he could eavesdrop on them more. Janet said in her contralto voice, "Come on, don't tell me this place doesn't make money. Everybody can see it's a cash cow. You and Nan have transformed it totally."

"I tell you truth," said Pingping. "We need money for house. This business can't make enough for that."

"Well, it depends on what kind of home you're looking for."

"Just small house, enough for three of us."

"That shouldn't be expensive here. If you were living in New York or San Francisco, you could say you can't afford it, but here real estate is cheap."

"We really don't have enough money."

To Nan, the business of the Gold Wok wasn't bad, but it didn't fetch a large profit. By now he understood that a tiny restaurant like theirs could never make a lot of money, but it could save a good part of its earnings through tax breaks. His family's living expenses had been reduced considerably since they took over this business. They ate at the restaurant, and most of the stuff they bought was tax deductible, things like lightbulbs, coffee, tea, detergent, paper towels, even gasoline. Eventually they could save most of the profit the restaurant made. No wonder a lot of Americans kept a small business even though they held regular jobs in large companies. Everyone tried to outsmart the IRS.