A Free Life (39 page)

Then an older man, who looked dyspeptic and professorial, rose and said, "I've always sympathized with you Tibetans, although I'm from China originally. Can you tell us how much Tibetan culture has been lost under the Communist rule?" Many eyes stared at the man, who obviously hated the current Chinese government.

The Dalai Lama sighed. "Some Tibetans just came out and told me, a lot of people don't eat barley and buttered tea anymore. They eat steamed bread-mantou-and rice porridge. Even children curse each other in Mandarin now, and many young people can write only the Chinese characters, not the Tibetan script."

From this point on, the meeting turned lively, and His Holiness laughed time and again. So did the audience. His humble manner and witty words were infectious. Most of the audience could feel the generosity and kindness emanating from him. When the last question was answered, His Holiness said, "Please forgive my old, slow English because the Dalai Lama is old too."

The audience broke into laughter again. Then they all went to the front to take photos with His Holiness. Nan and Pingping stepped forward and stretched out their hands; to Nan's surprise, His Holiness, after shaking their hands, put his left palm on Nan 's shoulder while signing a book a girl held open before him. A crushing force suddenly possessed Nan, as though he were going to collapse under that powerful hand. He was trembling speechlessly. When the hand released him, he still stood there, spellbound. The holy man kept nodding as numerous people surrounded him for a photo opportunity. The crowd pushed the Wus aside.

Mr. Liu came up to Nan and said he appreciated his invitation, but couldn't come to the Gold Wok because he was leaving that very evening. Then he said about the Dalai Lama, "He's quite shrewd."

"But he's a great man, isn't he?" Nan said.

"You're always naive, Nan Wu. With an M.A. in political science, how come you still don't understand politics?" "That's why I quit my Ph.D. candidacy."

Mr. Liu slapped Nan on the shoulder and laughed, saying, "You should be a poet indeed." They shook hands again, for the last time, and said good-bye.

"Let's go." Pingping tugged Nan 's sleeve.

Arm in arm they headed for the garage. "I'm disgusted with some of them," Nan said, referring to the audience at the meeting. "Yes, they're malicious."

"We'd better avoid them." Nan jutted his thumb backward.

"They take pleasure in torturing others."

"They seem to know everything but humility and compassion."

Touched by his meeting with the holy man, for several days Nan felt almost ill, as if running a temperature. What moved him most was that the Dalai Lama had never shown any anger while talking with those bellicose Chinese. He was sweet and strong, probably because he was beyond destructive emotions, though Nan believed that deep inside, His Holiness also suffered like a regular man, and was perhaps even more miserable than most.

THE WEEK AFTER the meeting with the Dalai Lama, Nan went to Borders in Snellville to buy a book by His Holiness. There were several volumes on the shelf, and he picked the most recent one, Ocean of Wisdom: Guidelines for Living. It gave him pure pleasure to visit the bookstore, where he'd stay an hour or two whenever he was there. Today he went through books on some shelves, especially the poetry section, to see what books had come out recently. He found Sam Fisher had published a new volume, All the Sandwiches and Other Poems. He bought that book too.

On his drive back, he couldn't help touching his purchases in the passenger seat from time to time. The minute he stepped into the Gold Wok, Pingping handed him a letter and said, "From your dad." Eyes rolling, she stepped away.

On the envelope was a stamp of a red rooster stuck askew. Nan took out the two sheets, pressed them on the counter, and began to read. The old man had written with a brush and in India ink:

August 22, 1993

Nan:

Not having heard from you, your mother is deeply worried. Write us more often from now on. Let Taotao write a few words too.

Recently I read several articles on the Chinese dissidents in the United States. Beyond question those are devious people, whom you must shun. Nobody can be a good human being without loving his country and people, and nobody can thrive for long by selling his motherland. Some of the dissidents are just traitors and beggars, shamelessly depending on the money proffered to them by the American capitalists and the reactionary overseas Chinese. Do not get embroiled with them. Do not do anything that may sully the image of our country. Always keep in mind that you are a Chinese. Even if you were smashed to smithereens, every piece of you would remain Chinese. Do you understand?

I'm also writing on behalf of Uncle Zhao. He has finished a large series of paintings lately. He wants you to help him hold a show in America. Nan, Uncle Zhao has been my bosom friend for more than three decades. He had a tough childhood and is an autodi-dact. For that people think highly of him. When you were leaving for America eight years ago, he presented you with four pieces of his best work. You must not forget his generosity and kindness. Now it's time to do something in return. Please find a gallery or university willing to sponsor his visit to the United States. It goes without saying that the sponsor of the show should cover his travel expenses. Also, try to explore the possibility of having him invited as an artist in residence so that he can stay there a year. He is already sixty and this may be his only chance to have an international exhibition. He told me that his visit to America would automatically eclipse all his rivals and enemies here. So do your utmost to help him.

Blessings from far away,

Words of your father No need for my signature

Nan sighed, then said to Pingping, "What is this? He thinks I'm a curator of a museum or a college president? I told him on the phone that I couldn't help Uncle Zhao hold a show here. I'm nobody."

"Your dad still treats you like a teenager. You're already thirty-seven. "

"This is sick. I won't write back."

"We have to respond to his letter one way or another."

"You write him."

"What should I say?"

"Tell him I regret having accepted Uncle Zhao's paintings. Tell him we're working like coolies every day and have nothing to do with the art world. Tell him he and my mother should know we're merely menial laborers at the bottom of America -we're useless to them."

"He'll be mad at you."

" Let him. The old fogey is full of crap, as if he owns me forever. He's too idle and has too much time on his hands. He just wants to use me. If our business goes under, we'll lose our home and everything. Can my parents help us? They'll continue to ask for money every year. They'll never understand what life is like here. They still believe I'm heading for a professorship, even though they know I'm working my ass off in a restaurant. They're just selfish. Damn them, let them disown me! I couldn't care less."

"They'll never do that," Pingping said cheerfully.

"Sure, they think we're making tons of money here, eating nutritious food, drinking quality wine, and living like gods."

The more Nan spoke, the more vehement he became, so Pingping left him alone and went to the storage room with a bundle of towels to wash.

Indeed, Uncle Zhao had presented Nan with four paintings, but two of them had fallen apart on account of the shoddy mounting. The other two had gone to Professor Peterson and Heidi Masefield respectively many years before. Nan had wondered why Uncle Zhao had mounted those paintings with such cheap materials that just a little damp air could warp them. The two broken pieces, still in the closet of Pingping's bedroom, were absolutely unpresentable, and he didn't know what to do with them, unwilling to spends hundreds of dollars to have them framed.

After the letter from his father, Nan never wrote to his parents again. He felt they couldn't possibly understand or believe what he told them. Taotao didn't write to his grandparents either, because he had lost most of his characters, which he had been able to inscribe when he came to America four years before. These days, despite his protests, Pingping and Nan made him copy some ideograms every day, but he had been forgetting more of them than he learned. Evidently he'd never be really bilingual, as most Chinese parents here hoped their children would become. He could speak Mandarin but might never be able to read and write the characters.

Every time a letter from Nan 's parents arrived, Pingping would reply. She didn't complain about this, since Nan devoted himself entirely to their business. In a way she relished handling the correspondence, because after they married, Nan 's mother had often bragged to Pingping, "A monkey is smart enough to ride a sheep and supervise her." Nan was born in the year of monkey, whereas Ping-ping was a sheep, so according to his mother, he was supposed to keep her under control. Now, her writing letters to his parents would show that the relationship between Nan and her was reversed. That surely wouldn't please her mother-in-law, that control freak, and Pingping secretly gloated over the old woman's irritation.

Recently Nan had reorganized the service at the Gold Wok, which now offered a lunch buffet on weekdays and the regular menu at dinner. This change improved the business considerably. A lot of people working in the area would come in for lunch, which consisted of two soups, four appetizers, and ten dishes, all for $4.75. Nan and Pingping would arrive at work before eight a.m. and cook the food and get everything ready by eleven-thirty. After they closed up at night, he'd stay a little longer preparing the meats and vegetables for the following day. This made him busier, but the restaurant fetched ten percent more profit than before, and even Niyan got extra tips. The Wus were determined to pay off their mortgage in the near future.

_PART
FIVE

IN THE SPRING of 1994, the Mitchells were preparing to leave for Nanjing to bring back their daughter, Hailee. "Hailee" was a name they had given her, though they'd kept her original first name, Fan, as her middle name. Her family name was Zhang, which had actually been assigned to her by the orphanage. Dave arranged to take a ten-day leave from work; Janet's jewelry store would remain open when she was away. She told Susie, the salesgirl, to contact the Wus if anything turned up that she couldn't handle by herself.

The Mitchells had originally thought of stopping in Hong Kong for a day or two as a transition, because Dave had been to that city before and liked it very much. But they decided to go directly to mainland China together with two other couples living in Atlanta who were also adopting Chinese babies. Janet called them "our group," and indeed they often met to compare notes and share their anxiety, frustrations, and happiness. All of them would have to go to the U.S. embassy in Beijing to get visas for their babies, so the Mitchells decided to use the capital instead of Hong Kong as their base in China. Janet had bought a Mandarin phrase book, and both she and Dave had been learning to speak some words and simple sentences. She often went to ask Pingping how to say pleasantries and order things in Chinese. Despite her good memory, she had trouble with the four tones, speaking some words as if she had a blocked nose.

The Mitchells had recently decorated Hailee's nursery on the second floor of their home with a band of wallpaper, two feet wide and just high enough for a toddler to reach. The paper had frolicsome animals on it-dancing bulls, bears playing the violin, wobbling penguins, elephants rearing up, dogs blowing the saxophone. On the ceiling of the room were numerous phosphorescent stars that would shine in the darkness but were almost invisible when it was light. A new crib sat by the window that overlooked the back garden, fenced in by white palings. On the floor were stacks of baby clothing, some of which the Mitchells would take to Nanjing and donate to the orphanage. They'd also bring formula and diapers for their daughter to use. Pingping had seen the stuff they planned to take along. There were so many things that she wondered if the Mitchells could possibly carry them all. They were going to pack in two lap robes, a bunch of baseballs, a stack of hats with the Braves logo on them, granola bars, water crackers, fruit candies, laundry soap, clotheslines and clothespins, fanny packs, billfolds, batteries, painkillers, tubes of sunscreen and insect repellent, a shortwave radio, not to mention a luggage trolley and a dozen boxes of Polaroid film. They'd shoot a lot of photos as mementos of Hailee's native place. Pingping told them to take pictures of the people they wanted to thank and give them the photos on the spot, which would be a small present, appreciated by most Chinese.

The Wus talked between themselves about the Mitchells' preparations. In the past they had noticed that Dave was very frugal, almost stingy, and would always ask for a doggie bag after he dined at the Gold Wok, even if the leftovers were just a morsel. In the early days of their friendship, whenever Nan had offered him a beer or soft drink, Dave would beam but wouldn't indicate that he planned on paying for it. Nan and Pingping never minded that, amused to see Dave was easy to please. But now he and Janet must have spent thousands for the trip and would donate an extra $5,000 to the orphanage that had kept Hailee.

Four days before the Mitchells' scheduled departure, out of the blue the Chinese side informed them that they had to postpone their trip for two months. Why such a delay all of a sudden? The Mitchells called around and couldn't find a definitive answer. Their agent told them that the Chinese side wanted to ascertain that the girl was really an orphan. This threw the Mitchells into turmoil. What upset them more was that the other two adopting couples would leave for China as planned. Confused, Janet and Dave went to the Gold Wok and talked with the Wus, who couldn't figure out a reason either. Janet kept saying, "We've already bonded with Hailee. Now we feel like someone has snatched our child away from us. This is more than we can bear."