A Free Life

Two years later, after his son was born, Nan ran into a former classmate who talked at length about the wild Beina, who had recently gone to Beijing to take a test for an English interpreter position at the UN but hadn't even made the first cut. Nonetheless, that impressed Nan, and coming home, he couldn't help but confess to his wife that he still missed his ex-girlfriend terribly. Pressed by Pingping, he admitted he had married her not out of love but out of convenience and compassion. "No," he confessed, "I have no strong feelings for any woman except for Beina. If only I had never met her."

Wordlessly Pingping turned her face away. Tears, as if forced up from her constricted chest, rolled down her cheeks. His confession upset her so much that her breasts, swollen with milk, went dry the next day.

After coming to America, Nan lived alone during the first one and a half years. He assumed that the distance of an ocean and a continent might help develop his affection for his wife into love, since sometimes he did miss her, but the numbness in his heart never went away. He also thought he'd forget Beina; yet she wrote to ask him to help her pay application fees at some American universities. He did that, but afterward he never heard a word from her. Obviously no graduate school admitted her. Somehow even her failure gave him more pain.

Every once in a while he felt attracted to women, especially if they had red hair, but he knew he couldn't love anyone ardently. He had desire, yet little passion. So he didn't try to know any woman. As a matter of fact, as far as desire was concerned, he was normal and strong. Pingping often said he was good in bed, yet he knew that wasn't the reason she had stayed with him: it was because of their child. And he was grateful for that, since he too wanted an intact family for Taotao. In this place neither he nor she had another person to turn to. They were stuck together and had to depend on each other to survive.

If only he were able to love her passionately! If only he weren't so sick at heart! He was tired, and this emotional fatigue had been sinking deeper and deeper into his being. Yet strangely enough, these days the desire for writing often stirred him and demanded an instant release. At work in the factory he wrote several poems, none of which turned out promising, so he put them aside and spent his time poring over Frost's Selected Poems.

13

EVER SINCE Don had told him about the factory's move, Nan had been looking for a job. He had also been reading books on poetry writing. Sometimes at night he tried to write poems, but the words he put on paper ended up seeming flat and incoherent. Usually the begi

He wished he could hold on to his current job. Just a few years more would give him a period of apprenticeship, during which he could read many books and learn more about literature besides the craft of poetry writing. But that was just a fantasy. He had to find another job soon. He went to a steakhouse in Watertown and told the manager that he had waited tables at a Chinese restaurant. The balding man looked askance at him, twisting his swallow of a mustache with his long fingers. Apparently Nan couldn't lie without blushing. He was relieved two days later when the man told him they couldn't hire him. He had been daunted by their menu, which contained many Italian words. Just a glance at it gave him a headache, let alone the long wine list on which almost all the names were unfamiliar to him. Nan turned up at a drugstore near Harvard Square in Cambridge; its owner, a portly gentleman, was interested in hiring him as an evening-shift supervisor, but first the applicant would have to show him his green card. Nan produced his work permit, but the man wouldn't accept it, saying he'd be fined thousands of dollars if the INS caught him. He'd take nothing except a green card, which Nan had applied for but couldn't get until the next year. Then Nan entered a used bookstore with a HELP WANTED sign leaning against a stack of moldy, leather-bound tomes in the window. A fortyish woman wearing pince-nez said they needed someone to work at most twelve hours a week, not a full-timer.

At last, a week before Christmas, a security guard's position opened up at Hampden Park, a condominium complex in Newton, just off Route 9. Sandy, the manager, told Nan to come in and fill out some forms. He went there the next morning. The place consisted of three co

Sandy was a stocky man of around forty, with salt-and-pepper hair, a squarish face, pale skin, and narrow eyes. Nan sat in the manager's office in the basement, a metal desk between him and Sandy. After describing the job and asking Nan a few questions, Sandy said, "You'll make good money here."

Nan gri

"You have a cynical smile, young man. You don't believe me?" asked the manager.

"Honestly, no. How can I make good mahney eef you pay me jahst five dollars an hour?"

"Well, I can't do better than that."

"I know I ca

"Believe me, for this kind of a job you won't get any benefits elsewhere."

"Zat's true."

"I like your honesty, though."

"The troos is that no matter how hard I work, I can never be more zan a Social Security nahmber." Nan blurted out the sentence that had echoed in his mind for days.

Sandy stared at him in amazement, then his face relaxed. He said, "I can't either. You're a smart guy and I know what you mean. Here's a uniform. Always put it on when you come to work."

Usually there were two security guards working on the same shift at Hampden Park. One serving as a concierge stayed in the office at the front entrance, which was so tiny that it could contain only one chair, while the other patrolled the parking lot behind the buildings. Nan was pleased to take charge of the backyard, because the guard at the front office had to pay attention to the people passing by, since every visitor must be a

The guard in the parking lot was also supposed to help the residents load and unload their cars. If they returned from shopping, he was supposed to give them a hand, carrying the grocery bags to their apartments. This was no problem for Nan; besides, most times people would tip him a dollar or two. If it was a good shift, he could make an extra ten dollars. Some middle-aged people avoided using him, reluctant to waste money on tips, especially those who drove cheap cars. A Hispanic woman named Maria, around thirty, always asked him to carry stuff for her. She was very close to Ivan, another guard who usually worked the night shift, and she tried to be friendly with Nan too, calling him "a great guy." But she'd never tip him. At most she'd offer him a drink, which he always declined. She had thick auburn hair and a fine figure, and would wave at Nan whenever she came to the parking lot.