A Free Life (71 page)

"My God, he's burning money!" gasped Janet.

They all got up and rushed over. Niyan clapped her palm over her mouth as Nan was setting aflame a whole sheaf of banknotes. "What are you doing?" his wife cried, and yanked his shoulder from behind.

His fell on his bottom, the cash still blazing in his hand. He looked entranced and dewy-eyed. Pingping yelled again, "Don't burn our sweat money!"

Niyan wrenched a few unburned banknotes out of his other hand, and he tossed the rest at the smiling God of Wealth. Pingping shoved him aside and tried to save the flaming bills while Nan flung up his hands and cried, "I want to burn it all, all zis 'dirty acre.' "

"He must be having a breakdown," Janet said.

"I hate this mahney, this 'dirty acre'!" he yelled in a voice verging on a sob. His eyes gave a flare.

"What he talking about?" Pingping asked Janet, who shook her head, having no clue either.

Nan had meant to say "filthy lucre," but in the throes of frenzy he got the idiom wrong. He picked himself up from the floor and stamped on the half-burned cash, saying through his teeth, "Dirty acre! Dirty acre!" His face was misshapen, his eyes smoldering with pain.

The women were too confused to respond. He turned and stormed away to the kitchen. Pingping was wiping her eyes while Niyan clucked her tongue and said as if to herself, "Why he hate money so much?"

Janet wagged her chin. "Maybe his mind just snapped. It often happens to people who have too much stress."

"He's really crazy," Niyan said, as if out of schadenfreude.

"He's just sick man," Pingping wailed, and doubled over, her face twisted. "Now you see this is real Nan. He always want to torture me."

Nan thundered from the kitchen, "Yeah, I'm sick, sick of every-sing here, sick of myself, sick of every one of you, sick of zis goddamned restaurant!"

They were stunned. None had expected he had such a harsh, menacing voice. "Maybe he should go see a shrink," suggested Janet, patting Pingping on the back as she continued to convulse with sobs.

Nan went out the back door to traipse around the shopping center awhile, his mind still whirling. The sun was scorching overhead, and in no time perspiration soaked the back of his T-shirt. The walk calmed him down some, though he still couldn't focus on any thought. Near the entrance to the photo studio toward the east end of the plaza, a mottled gray pigeon that had to be a crossbreed of a pigeon and a dove limped over, walking on the back of its crippled left foot. Its head kept bobbing at a cockeyed angle as it tottered toward Nan, who had often fed it. Nan fished in his pockets but found only a handful of coins, so he stepped aside to avoid obstructing its path. Before the pigeon passed by, it paused to flutter its wings, which suddenly gleamed in the sunlight. If only Nan had had some crumbs or leftovers on him. He liked this lone bird, which was tough, unafraid of people.

When Nan went back to the Gold Wok twenty minutes later, he became himself again, and without a word set about cutting a basket of eggplants, which were all tender and seedless, handpicked by Pingping at the Cherokee farmers' market. For the rest of the day he was very quiet and did everything he was supposed to do.

PINGPING was still angry with Nan for burning the money. For three days she'd avoid rubbing elbows with him at work, and neither would she speak to him. However hard he tried to induce her to talk, she'd compress her lips. At most, she'd give a faint smile if he said something funny or silly.

On Monday morning the truck that delivered groceries came as usual and left two crates of celeries and napa cabbages and a bucket of tofu at the back door to the restaurant. Without telling Nan, who was supposed to move them, Pingping began carrying them in by herself. As she was lifting a crate, suddenly a tearing pain shot through her back and her knees buckled. She fell on the cement doorstep, unable to pick herself up. " Nan, come and help me!" she called out. Two flies, startled, took off from the tofu, whirling around at a high pitch.

Nan rushed out with a towel over his shoulder and saw his wife lying on her side. Her face was contorted while her hand covered the small of her back. "What happened?" he panted, bending over her. "Why didn't you use the hand truck?"

"Oh, I broke my back!"

"Can you move?"

"I can't. My back snapped." On her eyelashes tears glistened.

As Nan tried to help her get up, she gave a loud moan, which frightened him. He left her there and hurried to the parking lot to fetch their van. He wasn't sure if she had really broken her back, but she looked partly paralyzed. He must take her to the hospital immediately. He told Niyan to ask Shubo to come in and help. If her husband was unavailable, she could just close the restaurant for the morning.

Pingping was rushed into a small room in the ER at Gwinnett Hospital. A lanky male nurse said she couldn't have broken her back. "Maybe she slipped a disk, you know," the fellow told Nan.

Then a tall, rugged-faced man stepped in and introduced himself as Dr. Gritz. He looked at the bruise on Pingping's elbow, already bandaged by the nurse, and then began pressing her back here and there. "Does it hurt here?" he kept asking in a soft voice.

The injury was on her spine, just above the small of her back, but to the naked eye there seemed nothing abnormal. The doctor said to Nan, "I'm going to give her an X-ray to see if there's any bone injury."

"Sure. Do whatever is necessary, please."

The X-ray showed everything was normal, so Dr. Gritz decided to use MRI, which could reveal muscle and ligament damage. Following the male nurse pulling the gurney with his mealy hand, Nan pushed Pingping through a long corridor to the scanning lab. In the semidark room, a woman technician and Nan helped Pingping lie on a narrow table. Before sliding her into the tube of a stout MRI scanner, the woman told Pingping, "If it bothers you too much, just raise your leg to let me know." Pingping nodded, then her head disappeared into the tube. The technician began to produce the images of her lower back.

The machine made rumbling noises like a rickety washer while Pingping lay still as if asleep. Nan wondered whether she was hurting. That was unlikely, as she seemed at ease.

The film of the MRI indicated that a disk was protruded, pressuring some ligaments between two vertebrae. Dr. Gritz said this didn't look like a ruptured disk, so it wasn't an emergency case, and all Pingping should do was rest in bed for a few weeks. He prescribed ibuprofen and a steroid and told her not to move around too much until the pain subsided. She could walk a little when she felt up to it, but she mustn't do any hard exercise. Gritz also referred her to Dr. Levin at a clinic in Norcross. "I'm an orthopedic surgeon," he said to Pingping. "A back pain specialist can do more for you."

Though their substandard medical insurance covered a larger part of the cost, the first hospital bill surprised the Wus, altogether more than three hundred dollars. Both Nan and Pingping were unsettled, knowing this was just the beginning. If only they had bought a better policy. Nan took his wife to Dr. Levin two days later and paid another eighty dollars for the visit. From now on she'd have to see Dr. Levin twice a week. If her pain persisted in two months, the specialist said, they should seriously consider a surgery that helped most back pain patients recover fully. Despite the professional assurance, Nan and Pingping didn't believe it necessary for her to undergo an operation, fearing that any mishap might mess up her spine and paralyze her.

Besides that fear, they had no idea how much they'd have to spend for her medical bills, which became a concern because the restaurant hardly made any money these days-most of the profit went to Niyan and Shubo. What's more, Pingping might have to see a physical therapist or chiropractor, according to Dr. Levin. Goodness knew how long those therapeutic sessions would take. Every day Nan wrapped a hot water bottle with a towel and tucked it against Pingping's back. He also gave her massages, manipulating her spine gently in hopes of restoring the slipped disk fully to its original position. She groaned whenever he touched the injured area, yet after each massage she felt slightly better, so she let him work on her twice a day. She was easily depressed, irritated at herself, and often said she was a total nuisance.

"That's all nonsense," Nan would tell her.

He was afraid Pingping might never be normal again; worse still, that she might suffer sciatica even if the injury healed. Dr. Levin had said that Pingping's long working hours had taken a toll on her lumbar muscles, which must have precipitated the disk prolapse. This also meant it might be difficult for the Wus to continue running the restaurant as before. These days Nan had been thinking of looking for a full-time job that provided full health care benefits. If he found such work, he'd sell the restaurant. He talked to his wife about his thought, and she agreed to let go of the Gold Wok, though she wept afterward, hating to part with their business. Yet both of them knew this might be the only sensible thing to do.

NAN told Shubo and Niyan of his decision to sell the restaurant, and to his relief, they wanted to buy it provided the price was reasonable. Nan said he would let them have it for $25,000, the same as the original list price, if he found a full-time job elsewhere. He knew he could have sold it for a few thousand more, but the two were friends and the Wus wanted to leave the Gold Wok in their hands.

That settled, Nan began reading ads in newspapers and hunting for a job. There were many openings advertised, but few offered medical insurance. In two days he went to nine places-three restaurants, four stores, and two offices, and filled out forms and questionnaires and was told to wait for them to call him. The working hours at all the places were in the daytime, and only one of the jobs offered decent health care benefits, but he wouldn't be entitled to them until he had worked three months at the store. He was frustrated, convinced that none of those places would hire him. What he needed was a job that provided full medical insurance right away.

At last he went to Sunflower Inn on Buford Highway, a motel owned by James Lee, a Korean man. It had advertised in World Journal for a front desk clerk. Nan was offered the job on the spot, probably because Mr. Lee was impressed by his English. The boss, licking his arched lip, said, "We only have night hours at the moment."

"Zat's all right," Nan replied. "As long as you offer good health insurance I'll take zer job. I have a child and can't run zer risk of not having my family cahvered."

"We do provide that, but you'll have to pay about three hundred dollars a month. Actually, some of our employees don't join the policy even though we offer them that. It's too expensive for them."

"I understand, but I would love to buy zee insurance from you."

So Nan started to work at the front desk the following night. His shift was from eleven p.m. to seven a.m. He'd be alone in the motel until six o'clock when the cook, Genia, a middle-aged Korean woman, came in to prepare the continental breakfast. Nan liked the job very much. After midnight it was quiet in the lobby and he could read and think, though his mind often turned to Pingping, who was still housebound. These days she, despite her pain and weakness, would cook for the family when Nan wasn't home. She herself could hardly eat anything other than a few spoonfuls of the grain porridge she made for herself. Her calves were so cold that she had to wear leg warmers all the time. Nan urged her to rest well and eat more, saying she might die if she didn't have normal meals. He couldn't imagine himself functioning without her. She had become an integral part of his life, having suffered silently and sacrificed unconditionally for the family all these years. The more he thought about her life, the more remorseful he felt. He hoped it wouldn't be too late for him to make atonement, to cherish and love her devotedly. He even prayed to God for her recovery.

HAVING followed the physical therapist's instructions, Pingping exercised lightly every day and began to feel better. The small of her back was less numb and painful than before, all the symptoms somewhat alleviated. She had also regained her appetite and color. At length Nan and Taotao were relieved to see that she was on the mend.

"I want to work at the restaurant when I'm well again," Pingping said to Nan one afternoon. She regretted having sold the business in a rush, but she too had thought she might not recover at all. Two days earlier, despite Nan 's objection, she had phoned Niyan, who had assured her that, after her recovery, Pingping was welcome to work at the Gold Wok.

"That's fine," Nan told her. "I'll talk with Shubo. They may need your help, but you should rest at least a few weeks more. I'm done with the restaurant myself. I like my job at the motel. Besides, I must have the health insurance for us."

A week later Nan went to talk with Shubo about Pingping's wish. To his astonishment, Shubo said Nan should have sold him the restaurant for less money if he had intended to leave Pingping at the Gold Wok, so now Nan mustn't interfere with his work. Infuriated, Nan blasted, "This is really low. I let you have this place at a big discount because I thought you were my friend. But when I need your help, you just give me a bunch of hogwash. What kind of friend are you?"

" Business is business," Shubo snorted, but he avoided looking Nan in the eye.

" I never thought you were such a businessman. " Nan slapped the top of the karaoke machine Shubo had just installed.

"We're living in America now and should be coolheaded about this sort of thing." Shubo's voice was harried, while his fingers were thrumming a table. Behind him a carpenter was busy building a bar.

Niyan said to Nan, "We don't have an opening right now. When we need Pingping's help, we'll let her know." Unconsciously she combed her upper lip with her teeth. Beyond her, on the beverage machine was taped a bottomless-cup sign.

"Yes, you can let Pingping fill in for you when you have to go to a party," Nan sneered.

"Wait a second," Shubo butted in. "Was I not a handy stopgap for you for several years?"