“This is America and you can’t throw your customers out, d’you know?” the shorter girl kept on.
“You’re not our customer. You two didn’t pay last time. I follow you to parking lot, and you saw me, but you just drived away.”
“How can you be so sure it was us?”
“Get outta here, thief!”
“Don’t be so nasty, China lady,” the tall one said, smirking while her tongue wiped her bottom lip. “How can you prove we didn’t pay you? You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“Don’t call me dog! Go away!” The hostess flung up her hand, rattling the jade bangles around her wrist.
The girl in yellow put in, “You can’t accuse us like this. See, I have money.” She took out a sheaf of singles and fives and waved them in front of Mayling’s face.
Purple with anger, the hostess warned, “If you don’t leave now, I call police.”
“Oh yeah?” the tall girl shot back. “We’re the ones who can use a cop. You accuse us of theft with no evidence. D’you know what this means in America? It’s called slander, a crime. We can sue you.”
“Yeah, we’re gonna sue your pants off,” added the one in yellow.
Mayling looked confused, but Mr. Meng strolled up to them, his hands clasped behind his back. In an even voice he said to the girls, “Ladies, you mustn’t take advantage of us again. Please leave.”
“God, I’m so hungry! Why can’t we just have a little bite?” persisted the shorter one in yellow.
Mayling roared, “Get the hell outta here, you robber! We don’t want to serve you.”
“How dare you call us that?”
“You are robber. You rob us. What else you are? If you want to eat here again, give us thirty-seven dollars you didn’t pay.”
“C’mon. Like I said, you’re talking to the wrong people.” The tall girl put on a suave smile. “Did you ever see this pair of sunglasses before?”
“No, but I remember your earring.”
“Give me a break. Lots of women wear this type of earrings. You can get these at Macy’s for eighteen bucks.”
Mr. Meng said again, “We have kept a record — your car’s plate number is 895 NTY, right?”
“Yes,” Mayling picked up. “If you don’t go away now, I call Officer Steve again, and you can’t see your mama tonight.”
The girls both gave a gasp. Observing them from where I sat, I wanted to laugh but checked myself. The one in yellow grasped her friend’s elbow and said, “Come, let’s get out of here. This is nuts.”
They both went out, teetering in wedge heels toward their scarlet coupe, their purses flapping. As they were pulling away, both Ah Min and I stood to look at the license plate, which matched the number Mr. Meng had declared.
“Bravo!” my coworker cried.
“Wow, that was extraordinary,” I told my teacher.
Michael Chian, Mayling’s husband, had witnessed the scene, but was unable to put in a word the whole while. Now he kept saying to Mr. Meng, “Amazing. You remembered their plate number, tsk tsk tsk. I can never do that, not even if you beat me to death.”
Later Mr. Meng told me in private that he had just snuck out and looked at the license plate while Mayling and the girls were quarreling. That cracked me up. Indeed, he was a clever man, worldly wise.
His resourcefulness impressed his boss so much that Michael offered him the manager’s position at the new place in upper Manhattan that the Chians were about to open, but Mr. Meng said he was too old for a job like that.
One night in the following week he returned with a copy of Big Apple Journal, a local Chinese-language newspaper, and slapped it on the dining table. “Damn Michael, he blabbed to some reporter about the two shameless girls!”
I looked through the short article, which gave a pretty accurate account of the incident and described Mr. Meng as “Professor Liu.” Lucky for him, he’d been using an alias all along. I put down the paper and said, “It’s no big deal. Nobody can tell you’re the wizard with an elephant’s memory.” I knew he feared that the consulate might pick up his trail.
He said, “You don’t know how long the officials can stretch their tentacles. I’ve heard that this newspaper is financed by the mainland government.”
“Still, it’s unlikely they can connect ‘Professor Liu’ with you.”
“I hope you’re right,” he sighed.
But I was not right. Three days later the phone was ringing when I came back from work. I rushed to pick it up, panting a little. The caller, in a mellifluous voice, said he was Vice Consul Gao in charge of education and cultural exchanges. He wanted me to come over to the consulate. Flabbergasted, I tried to keep a cool head, though my temples were throbbing. I told him, “When I was there last time, I was not allowed to set foot inside the building and someone on your staff even called me a gasbag. I was so mortified I thought I’d never go there again.”
“Comrade Hongfan Wang, I personally invite you this time. Come and see me tomorrow.”
“I’ll have to work.”
“How about the day after tomorrow? That’s Saturday.”
“I’m not sure if I can do that. I’ll have to speak to my boss first. What’s this about, Consul Gao?”
“We would like to know if you have some information on your teacher Fuhua Meng’s whereabouts.”
“What? You mean he disappeared?”
“We just want to know where he is.”
“I don’t have the foggiest idea. The last time I saw him was at Columbia, where we visited Professor Natalie Simon.”
“That we know.”
“Then I have nothing else to report, I’m sorry.”
“Comrade Hongfan Wang, you must level with me, with your motherland.”
“I told you the truth.”
“All right, let me know when you can come.”
I said I’d phone him after speaking to my boss. Hanging up, I couldn’t stop fidgeting. Whenever I had to deal with those officials, I felt helpless. I knew they might view me as an accomplice in Mr. Meng’s case and might give me endless trouble in the future. Perhaps I wouldn’t be able to get my passport renewed.
That night when I told my teacher about the phone call, he didn’t show much emotion. He merely said, “I knew all along they were on my trail. I’m sorry to have dragged you into my trouble, Hongfan. You must be careful from now on.”
“I know they may have put me on their list as well. But they can’t do much to me as long as I live here legally. What are you going to do?”
“I can’t stay in New York anymore. In fact, I’ve been in touch with a friend of mine in Mississippi. He opened a restaurant there and asked me to go down and work for him.”
“That’s a good idea. You should live in a remote place where the officials can’t find you. At least stay there for a year or two.”
“Yes, I’ll live in complete obscurity, dead to the world. I won’t go to Panda Terrace tomorrow. Can you return my uniform for me and tell Mayling and Michael that I’m no longer here?”
“Well, I shouldn’t do that because they could easily guess I know where you are, and then the consulate might demand a tip from me.”
“Right. Forget about the uniform, then.”
He decided to leave for the South the next day, taking the Greyhound directly to Jackson. I supported his decision.
To my surprise, he pulled his suitcase out of the closet and opened it. He took out a big brown envelope stuffed with paper. “Hongfan,” he said with feeling, “you’re a good young man, one of my best students. Here are some articles on Hemingway I brought out with me. I planned to translate them into English and publish them as a book with a title like Hemingway in China, and to be honest, also as a way to make some money and fame. Now I’m no longer in a position to work on this project, so I’m leaving these papers with you. I’m sure you can make good use of them.”