Ha Jin - A Free Life

The transaction was quite simple. Mr. Wolfe had already written out their agreement on the price and the format of payment, and the attorney was just supposed to go over the contract, serve as a witness, and ascertain the validity of the sale. Mr. Shang took the sheets of paper from the old man and read them carefully. Then he said to the three of them, "This is fine. Everything is clearly spelled out. Because there's no mortgage from the bank, the sale is very simple. It's just between you two parties."

"So we should go ahead and sign zis contract?" asked Nan.

"Yes."

Mr. Wolfe shook his head, but scrawled his signature without a word. The Wus followed suit, signing their names as cobuyers. Then Pingping took out an envelope that contained a certified check for $25,000 and handed it to Mr. Wolfe. At the sight of it, the old man was elated. He scrutinized the check and put it back into the envelope. Smiling faintly, he inserted the money into the inner pocket of his jacket.

In the parking lot of the office he praised Mr. Shang to the Wus. "He's a good guy and doesn't rip off his clients. I should've used him for my divorce."

MR. WOLFE departed for Florida a week later. The Wus went to clean the home every morning before they began their day at the restaurant. Along with the house, the old man had left them some furniture and all the household tools, which came in handy for their cleaning. One morning they happened upon a vase standing on the doormat and holding a bunch of mixed snow crocuses. Attached to it was a note saying, "Welcome to the neighborhood-Mrs. Lodge." They placed the bouquet on the round coffee table in the living room, which at once brightened as if the yellow and white flowers had become a vibrant center. They had no idea who Mrs. Lodge was and whether they should return the vase. Knowing that colored people weren't always welcome in a predominantly white neighborhood, the Wus hadn't expected such warm greetings. Mrs. Lodge's present made their day. On their way to work, they read the names on some mailboxes while walking along the left-hand side of the street so as to avoid the traffic coming from behind, since there was no sidewalk anywhere in this neighborhood. They found that the Lodges lived about a dozen houses away from theirs. On the front porch of that raised ranch hung a large wicker swing, and on the well-kept lawn stood a willow oak and a colossal magnolia, its broad leaves scintillating with dewdrops in the sun. A flock of grackles were walking on the grass, most of them with their bills ajar as if they were choking. Suddenly one of them took off, then the entire flock followed, whirring and swirling in the air like a twisting blanket. And a few were crying gratingly. Nan and Pingping thought of going in to thank Mrs. Lodge, but decided against it, unsure that this was an appropriate time. "There's no hurry. We can always do something in return," Nan told his wife.

It was said that Lawrenceville, an adjacent town to the east, had once been a base of the Ku Klux Klan. The Wus had heard some white men sing the praises of the Klan and claim to feel proud of being rednecks, but they had never seen a Klansman in the flesh. And they were convinced that the area was safe and peaceful, though not without racial prejudice. For instance, at A amp;P the supermarket at the plaza, where the Wus usually went shopping, two women cashiers, one twentyish and the other middle-aged, had often scowled at them. One day the younger one, with thin limbs and honey-colored hair in loose ringlets, even overturned every one of the Wus' purchases as she was ringing them up, while the older woman watched with a smirk. Thereafter, the Wus always gave those two women a wide berth. Nan noticed that their shunning them seemed to have embarrassed the older one. She once motioned for them to check out through her lane, but they pretended they hadn't seen her. A month later the supermarket went out of business. Despite their treatment by the two women, the Wus were upset and disturbed by its disappearance, because from now on they'd have to do their shopping at Kroger or Winn-Dixie, which were farther away. Also, if a big store had failed like that, the Gold Wok could easily go under if they didn't manage it well.

Pingping was always attached to old things. Once she got used to something, she'd automatically take it as a part of her life, so she missed the now defunct supermarket a lot. Two years earlier Heidi had gotten her worn-out washer and dryer replaced, and Pingping had been so disappointed that for months afterward she'd mention the old machines, saying they could still have run properly. Now, for weeks she talked about the vanished A amp;P and wondered what would become of its employees. Nan told her to stop worrying about that. This was America, where everything came and went quickly. Deep down, however, he too was shaken and was more determined to run their business well and never to miss the monthly payment to Mr.

Wolfe.

The day before the Wangs returned, the Wus moved out of the bungalow and set up their residence at 568 Marsh Drive.

NAN remembered noticing a sly, gleeful look passing Mr. Wolfe's face when the contract was signed at the Shang Law Office two weeks before. He couldn't figure that out until his neighbor Alan Johnson talked with him. Alan, an engineer of fifty-three who worked for General Motors, was rearranging the worm fence on his lawn. At the sight of Nan he stopped to greet him. The two men chatted about the schools in this area. Recently the districts in the county had been redivided and the older teenagers on Marsh Drive had begun attending Parkview High, a top school in Gwinnett County, so their parents were all pleased. This also meant the houses on the street would appreciate more in value. As their conversation went on, Alan switched the topic and said, his chunky face grinning, "Have you spoken to Gerald?" Gerald's house was next to the Wus'. "No, about what?" asked Nan.

"You should make him keep his property nice and clean. John, the former owner of your house, used to have an exchange of words with him every once in a while and even tried to take him to court once."

"For what?"

"Gerald is lazy. He's the shame of this neighborhood. People are mad at him. Look at the mess he's made of his property." Alan pointed at Gerald's house and yard. Indeed, the mailbox, flagless and partly squashed, sat on a stack of building blocks as unsteadily as if it could be swept down by a gust of wind. Numerous brown patches marred the lawn, on which stood a few spindly pines almost choked by wild vines. The front porch of the house was half shielded by plywood, and on it was piled all kinds of stuff Gerald had brought back from construction sites where he had worked as an electrician: bundles of rubber-sheathed wire, cans of paint, scraps of rug, buckets of plaster, bricks, ceramic tiles, boxes of nails and screws, broken fans, even a used air conditioner. On the east side of the house was parked a truck, its windshield and a front wheel missing, and it was propped up with wood blocks. Although the Wus had noticed the sorry state of Gerald's house, they hadn't been concerned. The idea that the mess would affect the appearance and value of their property hadn't crossed their minds, because they had never owned any real estate before.

"What happened to him?" Nan asked Alan. "Out of work?"

"No, he makes good money. His wife divorced him two years ago and he has to pay child support."

"He has children? I haven't seen zem."

"He has a boy and a girl, nice kids. It's a shame the family fell apart."

Nan thought of asking him about John's wife, but held back. Why had there been so many broken marriages in this neighborhood? Wasn't this a bad omen? The other day he and Pingping had talked with Gerald, who said he made sixteen dollars an hour but had to pay so many bills that he couldn't have his roof replaced. Indeed, its brown shingles looked decayed, already bleached by the sun and partly damaged by hailstones. There was even a family of squirrels living in the roof, who had gnawed off the tip of the northwestern eaves and used a missing louver board on the west side of the roof as an entrance.