" There has been a drought. The water is too shallow for the ships to come up here." Ning licked his thick lips. His baby face, narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, puffed up a little, his gaze focused on a moored rowboat.
" The river has changed so much. I never thought it was so meager," Nan said. He had dreamed of the Songhua many times and always seen it as an immense body of water like a lake. Now he guessed that the Hudson or Lake Lanier must have mingled with this river in his dreams.
"You should come and see what it's like here in the morning," said Ning. "It's thronged with people, like a sports ground. People exercise and dance everywhere."
"Didn't they build an amusement park over there some years ago?" Nan pointed at the wooded land in the middle of the river called Sun Island, over which a biplane was flying slowly, bobbing like a giant dragonfly caught in the wind.
"Yes, but if I were you I wouldn't go there. It looks better from here. It's too crowded there, just a tourist trap."
Indeed, viewed from this shore, the island was lovely, with picturesque buildings and bright-colored houses. It had been covered by bushes twelve years before. In his late teens Nan had often swum across the channel in the afternoons and napped on the warm beach that was now occupied by pavilions, boathouses, and a long platform on stilts which must have been a pier. He told Ning, "I thought I'd go and see the island, but there's no need now. The water is so narrow I feel I can wade across."
"Like this river, China has run out of strength. It's already rotten to the core. Brother, you made the right choice to stay in America." Ning took a swat at a horsefly hovering around his head but missed it.
" Life is hard there too," said Nan.
"Still, you have hope there, don't you?"
"Idon't know." Nan wanted to say "What hope?" but he held back, not wanting to upset his brother.
" Nan." Ning looked rather shy. "I'm thinking of going to Australia."
"For what?"
"To emigrate."
"That'll be very hard, Ning. It will take ages to get all the papers through. If you were a young woman, your life in Australia may be less difficult. Chinese men are often at a disadvantage compared with Chinese women in foreign countries."
"Why so?"
" Chinese women are more likely to be accepted because white males like them. Also, generally speaking, Chinese women can take more hardship than Chinese men. If you go to Australia with your wife, it'll be less difficult for her to adapt. To be honest, Minyan may not stay with you forever once you reach Australia. I've seen many broken marriages among the immigrants in America because the wives changed their hearts. I'm lucky. Pingping has been loyal to me. She can endure more suffering than I can. Without her I couldn't have survived there." He had to stop because a surge of emotion seized his heart and drove him to the brink of tears. Then it dawned on him that Minyan, his sister-in-law, might have wanted to take Ning to another country so that he'd have to give up his gambling friends here. Nan had met Minyan a few hours ago and liked her, but he didn't feel she was very reliable. She was a looker, also quickwitted. He was sure that if she and Ning went to Australia, she could make it there, whereas Ning, sensitive by nature, might get lost and lapse into his old ways, frequenting casinos and betting on horses.
His brother, the youngest in the family, had always been the baby and didn't have the strength to grapple with fortune in a foreign land.
Ning sighed. "I don't see any meaning in my life here. My job makes me go to parties almost every night. I hate alcohol but have to guzzle it, to get drunk a few times a week, or others would think I'm dishonest. I'm sick of this kind of life, sick of having to smile at the people I don't like to meet, sick of attending banquets at which I have to blab like a windbag. I want to go abroad for some peace and quiet."
" At least you have many friends here," Nan said. "Our life in America is very solitary. It would be hard for you to endure a lonely existence in Australia."
"I'm not afraid of loneliness, which is better than hopelessness. This place is totally ruined. You should see what it's like here in the winter-the smog is so thick that sometimes even the sun has changed its color, and whenever you go out, you have to wear a surgeon's mask, or your nose will be blocked by soot. I don't know if you've noticed that millions and millions of Chinese have lung problems, because China has no lungs anymore-all the forests are gone. Worst of all, there are lots of criminals roaming around. Too many people have lost jobs and are desperate to get along by any means. A colleague of mine was stabbed last spring under the bridge right outside our office building, because he didn't have enough cash on him for the mugger. In this place it's impossible to live honestly-you have to lie constantly because everyone else lies. If you don't, others will take advantage of you. In the marketplace more than half the scales are crooked. Our neighbor, Aunt Niu, bought a sack of sweet rice dumplings from a peddler one evening last January, but when she got home she found they were actually frozen donkey droppings. A friend of mine, a policeman, lost his marriage because he returned to the owner a full envelope of cash he'd picked up on a bus. His wife called him 'mental,' and even his parents-in-law said he was a dope."
"Look at it this way, Ning. You're almost thirty-five and don't speak any English. Even if you're lucky and get to Australia eventually after spending a fortune, it will take several years for you to settle down. In a foreign country it's almost impossible to restart your life once you're past forty, unless you have a lot of money or extraordinary talent. The struggle is too overpowering and can drive you out of your mind. Ning, you must think carefully before you decide to go to Australia. To my mind, you belong to this place. At least you have a comfortable job here and people respect you as a reporter."
"Actually, Minyan wants to go abroad more than myself. She's been attending a night school to learn English."
"I see. Think twice before you make up your mind, will you?" "I will."
A man began bellowing a folk song from a rowboat up the bank. A freight train blew its whistle, trundling across the dark, old bridge downstream built by the Japanese more than half a century ago. Numerous lights were already on, flickering lazily on the river. A moment later the two brothers turned back, each wheeling his bicycle with one hand on the handlebar. On their way home Nan gave Ning three hundred dollars and made him promise to let his wife keep the money.
11
NAN gave the same amount of cash to his sister, Ying, who didn't really need the money since her husband owned a profitable landscaping company. But the dollars were a hard currency, which pleased her.