A Free Life (22 page)

"Shoot what?" asked Pingping.

"Shoot zer breeze. Zat means just to chat away."

At twilight, they crossed the tip of Maryland and a little strip of West Virginia in less than forty minutes. As soon as they had passed the border between the Virginias, they stopped for the night at an Econo Lodge at Winchester. Once inside the room, Pingping started cooking noodles on her single burner while Nan, exhausted, dropped off to snooze in the bed near the window, breathing ster-torously. The instant Taotao clicked on the TV, his mother told him to turn the volume down. He was watching The Simpsons. Whenever he cracked up in response, Pingping would say, "Don't disturb Daddy. "

When dinner was ready, Pingping woke Nan up, saying he mustn't sleep like this for long and ought to take a shower after the meal. Grog-gily, he sat up and began eating the noodle soup and canned ham.

That night Nan snored thunderously, which frightened Pingping. She worried he might hurt his larynx and made him turn on his right side so as to reduce his snoring. She and Taotao slept in the other bed. Despite the noise Nan made, despite the air conditioner's whirring, mother and son did get a good night's sleep. The motel offered continental breakfast, and the Wus ate bagels with cream cheese and a plate of cantaloupe. Nan drank two cups of coffee. Then they started out to cross Virginia.

Nan loved seeing the farms and the mountains along the way. Even the animals seemed comfortable and docile in the grasslands. He asked Pingping time and again: How about settling down in Virginia? She said that would be great. What impressed him most was the openness of the land, whose immensity and abundance seemed to dwarf humans. Farmhouses with red or black roofs, barns, trucks, all looked like toys. There were few people in sight except that once in a while a stalled vehicle sat on the roadside, its driver and passengers sitting inside or nearby. Somehow Nan couldn't help but think that if he died, he'd like to be buried in such a place, so open, so unpolluted by human beings. This was indeed a pristine piece of land.

When Nan felt tired, he let Pingping take over the wheel so that he could nap. The most pleasant part of the trip was central Virginia. Toward noon a fine shower washed the temperature down, and the air became cleaner, shining softly. Everything seemed to have turned clear in the sunlight. The green hills rising ahead and moving on both sides looked impenetrable with foliage, though in the distance the massive mountains, still under the rain clouds, were indigo. Traffic was sparse on the highway, with only a few semis in view. What's more, all the automobiles seemed subdued-no horn blared and every car was gliding smoothly along the glistening asphalt like a boat.

The landscape changed when they got onto I-77, crossing the spine of the Appalachian Mountains down to North Carolina. As Nan drove along, heading south for Charlotte, the soil became a lighter color, more reddish. More and more cars appeared on the two-lane road. After Charlotte and along I-85, they began to see peanut and tobacco fields. Holsteins, with drooping dewlaps and bald patches, were grazing in pastures, their tails languidly thrashing their hindquarters. Then orchards emerged, peaches studded the luxuriant crowns of the bulky trees, with branches curving down under the weight of the fruit. Once in a while they came across a bunch of mobile homes sitting on the edge of an orchard. Those trailers looked vacant; apparently their occupants had gone deep into the groves to pick peaches. Whenever Nan and Pingping saw a cottage or a small house, they'd say they would have been content with a home just like that. They wouldn't mind living in one of those trailer homes. They asked Taotao what he was thinking, but the boy didn't respond; perhaps he preferred something better.

TOWARD EVENING they arrived in Gwinnett County, Georgia. Peachtree Terrace was easy to find, just off Stone Mountain Highway. Nan parked before a brick building and went away to look for the woman who had the key to the apartment. As Pingping and Taotao waited outside their car, a few black and Mexican boys, who had been roller-skating in the parking lot, came over to look at the new arrivals. They didn't speak to Pingping and Taotao and just stared at them curiously, some chewing bubblegum. They nudged and jostled one another. Pingping couldn't fully understand what they were saying.

"Dey ain't Japs," said a boy with a chipped tooth.

"How d'you know?" asked another.

"Dis ain't fancy car."

"Is Ame'can car. Yuh know what I'm sayin'?" a heavyset boy in short pants said and kicked the rear wheel of the car, its Ford logo missing.

"Yeah. Them Japs don' wanna live here."

"Must be Chinese den."

"Naaah!"

Taotao clung to his mother, who was also a little unnerved. It was getting dark, and the damp air felt solid and oppressive. Large moths zigzagged around the orange lights in the parking lot. Beyond the lampposts and the treetops, the sky was spangled with clumps of stars, partly obscured by the clouds and smog. From the highway in the west came the whirring of the traffic.

Nan returned with the key twenty minutes later, massaging his sore neck with his hand. The apartment was in the basement of the building, whose hallways stank of so much synthetic lilac that Pingping held her breath as she walked through them. If only Nan had asked which floor the apartment was on before paying the deposit. No wonder the rent was so low. He couldn't help but blame himself for not having looked for a place two weeks earlier when he had been here. Pingping told him not to worry. They had arrived safe and sound, which was already something they should celebrate. As they went through the dingy rooms in the apartment, a fusty odor tickled their noses. The carpet in one bedroom and the living room was partly soaked with water. Dead cockroaches lay about, their claws stretched toward the ceiling. Nan picked up the telephone left by the former tenant-amazingly, it still had the dial tone. There was no time to think, and they had to unload the car without delay. Together Pingping and Nan carried in the bags and parcels and put them into the innermost bedroom, where the floor was dry, though also grubby.

Taotao was sitting on the only chair in the apartment, crying noiselessly. Pingping asked, "What's wrong?"

"I want a real home!" he wailed, chewing his lips.

"This is good home. Look how big it is." Indeed, the three bedrooms were spacious.

"No, this isn't a home I want. It's wet and dirty like hell."

"Don't worry your head about that. We can make it clean and comfy. That's why we have hands, right? You will see how nice it look in coupla days."

"Where can we sleep tonight?"

That was indeed a problem, to which she hadn't figured out a solution yet. They didn't have a mattress, and the floor in every room was filthy. The walls were so inadequately insulated that they could hear people yammering next door. Worse, since they'd come in, the ceiling hadn't stopped echoing the clatter of someone's heels.

They were all hungry, so Pingping went about cooking dinner. This was easy, since they had a lot of canned food. As the tomato soup was bubbling on the stove, she brought out a head of lettuce and a bag of poppyseed rolls. Nan opened a can of fried anchovies and a jar of spiced bamboo shoots. Fifteen minutes later they sat down to dinner on a pink sheet spread on the dry floor of the innermost bedroom. While eating, they talked about where to sleep. Because the linoleum floor of the bathroom could be wiped clean, they decided to spend the night in there. Done with dinner, Pingping began wiping the bathroom with paper towels while Nan was doing the dishes.

She spread a blanket on the floor, and together they lay down in the narrow space between the toilet and the bathtub. With Taotao in between the parents, the family tried to sleep. In spite of the two thick blankets keeping them warm, both Pingping and Taotao remained awake, but Nan slept soundly, though he didn't snore as he would when sleeping alone. As long as he was fatigued, he could always fall asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. If he wasn't exhausted, he would read for a while, which would induce him to sleep within an hour. Tonight, dead tired, he slept deeply regardless of the damp and the confining space in the bathroom. The toilet bowl against his right shoulder would whistle and hiss whenever somebody flushed in a nearby unit, but nothing could wake him up. Meanwhile, Pingping and Taotao tossed and turned beside him. If only they could have adjusted the central air-conditioning, which, on full force, went on without letup as if to refrigerate the rooms. What's worse, the floor was hard and musty. Pingping was afraid a roach or a mouse might crawl on her. For the whole night she drifted off fitfully. Whenever she was awake, she'd pat Taotao to help him sleep.

Unsure whether the apartment was safe, they went to the bank first thing the next morning to open an account and deposit the certified check they had with them. Nan and Pingping sat patiently, with Taotao on his mother's lap, while a clerk, a young woman with a receding chin, was getting through the paperwork with them. It took a solid hour to set up the account. Back in Boston such a matter would have taken at most twenty minutes, but this was the South. The woman seemed surprised that they deposited such a large check-$50,000-and glanced at them from time to time. Pingping understood the meaning in her eyes and knew they didn't look like people who could have so much cash. There was no way this woman could imagine the sacrifice and labor this check embodied. Pingping had never once bought new clothes for anyone in the family. She had always chosen the cheapest foods at the supermarket for themselves.

From the bank they went to Mattress King at a shopping center.

Pingping insisted on buying three full-size mattresses, plus the box springs, though Nan suggested they get at least one larger one so that they could sleep two in the same bed more comfortably. But she didn't want a queen- or king-size mattress. In the matter of shopping she always had the final say; Nan wasn't good at comparing prices and often felt a bit disgusted with money, for which he had worked jobs he loathed. The sales representative, a man with a beer belly hanging over his belt, said to Pingping with a smile, "Ma'am, I'm going to have these mattresses treated for you, to prevent bugs, okay?"

"How much that cost?" she asked.

"Ninety-nine dollars apiece, ma'am. You should have them treated, or they won't last in this climate."

"Hmm…fine, fine." She was pleased that he was so polite. Back in the Northeast salespeople had often followed her in stores, suspecting she might shoplift, and nobody had ever treated her as courteously as this gentleman.

The final bill was $962.82, including the delivery fee. Ping-ping handed the salesman ten one-hundred-dollar bills. He looked amazed, hesitating as if reluctant to touch the cash; then he took the banknotes and went into the back room to make sure they were genuine. A moment later he stepped out and gave Pingping her change and a receipt. He promised to have the mattresses delivered that very day.

After that, the Wus stopped at a large thrift store on Memorial Drive, where they chose some used furniture-a sofa, three chairs, a desk, and an hexagonal dining table. They paid $170 for those pieces and another $25 for delivery. They also bought a vacuum cleaner at a department store, getting a good price on the already-assembled floor sample.

As soon as they came back, they opened all the windows to air out the rooms and dry out the wet carpet. Nan plugged in the vacuum and began cleaning the floors. The living room had a screen door facing the backyard, where grass grew on a narrow lawn closed in by holly shrubs, which were dense and tall enough to keep people out. But Pingping and Nan kept that door shut most of the time, afraid someone might sneak in.

Both the mattresses and the furniture were delivered that afternoon, dragged in through the screen door of the living room. After Pingping checked and smelled the mattresses, she said, "I don't think these are treated." Nan took a look, but couldn't determine whether the salesman had made good on his promise or not. There was no time to regret or complain, so they went on cleaning. In a wink the apartment was transformed into something resembling a home. Even Taotao couldn't stop jumping on the mattresses in the dry bedroom. He laughed loudly and poked fun at Nan, kicking his shins and pulling his belt from behind. His mother kept saying to him, "Stop messing around! Do something to help."

That night Nan phoned Mr. Wang. Then he set about writing down some notes of the landscape he had seen on their trip to Georgia, hoping he could make a poem or two out of them eventually. He was still moved by the splendid views, though he didn't know how to describe them dramatically to make them vibrant. Meanwhile, Ping-ping was teaching Taotao how to solve some math problems that combined multiplication and division.

IN THE SHANG LAW OFFICE at the Chinatown Plaza in Cham-blee, the Wus and Mr. Wang were about to finalize the sale of the restaurant. To Nan 's surprise, the paperwork didn't include Ping-ping's name. The attorney explained that Mr. Wang had never mentioned her as a cobuyer. Although Nan had left his wife's name with him, the old man had forgotten, probably because he had always been the sole proprietor of the Gold Wok. Now Nan wanted to have Pingping mentioned as a cobuyer in the papers. Mr. Shang, the lawyer, looked displeased and said it would take several days to repre-pare the paperwork and to meet them again. Pingping intervened, saying this wasn't a big problem and there was no need to waste so much time. She urged her husband to complete the deal as quickly as possible. The truth was that she was worried about Taotao, who was staying with Mrs. Wang at the restaurant.

Nan signed the contract. Pingping wrote out a check for $19,800 and handed it to Mr. Wang. Then she made another check for $120 to the lawyer for his fee. "Congratulations!" said Mr. Shang, a spindly man wearing gold-rimmed glasses. "This is your first step toward becoming a millionaire," he said to Nan, scratching his fat ear. He leaned back on his large chair and laughed gratingly, his half-gray mustache waggling. He gave Mr. Wang and Nan each a copy of the contract, then shook hands with everyone.