“Did you work hard to make the sales?” Rusheng asked.
“Not really. I just brought the first volume with me when I went to visit some families in my parish. They were pleased to buy the whole set, because they have school-age kids who can use the encyclopedia for their homework. What do you do, Rusheng?”
“I teach at a college.”
“Part-time or full-time?”
“Full-time.” Rusheng dropped his voice a little.
“That means you’re a professor.”
“Sort of.”
“To be honest, if I were you, I wouldn’t bother with this sales job.”
“How come?”
Billy burped, then lowered his voice to a whisper. “A lot of the information in the encyclopedia will be available online soon. In a couple of years nobody will want to have such a big set of books at home anymore. I bet even the publisher won’t reprint the thing again. What we’re selling must be the remainder. You can’t take this job as a profession.”
“Then why are you in it?”
“I’m doing it just for fun, to make a bit of cash for my church.”
Rusheng didn’t return to the afternoon session, leaving his blue folder on a coffee table in the lobby. He stepped out of the hotel and headed for the train station in the warm sun, wearing a blue T-shirt with his button-down shirt tied around his waist. His lean body cast a squat shadow at a slant.
• • •
The semester was coming to an end. Rusheng graded papers. He could hardly concentrate, but he kept reminding himself that these were the final batch. Afterward, he wouldn’t have to read this sort of garbage anymore. “You’ll be liberated soon,” he told himself. Yet whenever the foreboding of his imminent humiliation came to mind, a pang would seize his heart. Recently he’d been thinking of the Buddhist temple near Niagara Falls, on the Canadian side. He’d visited two years before and had a wonderful time there, conversing with a short-bearded monk while drinking chrysanthemum tea and cracking spiced pumpkin seeds. The night he spent at the temple’s inn was the most peaceful time in his life. It wasn’t just peace that he enjoyed there — he felt clear-minded for days after. If not married, he would go there again to see if they would accept him. They might, since he could be useful, at least as an English translator and literary pundit. How he was longing to settle in some place where nobody knew about his past.
Then, one evening in mid-May, Sherry came home with shiny cheeks and smiling eyes. She waved a letter at Rusheng and trilled, “Great news!”
“What?” he grunted, not in any mood for levity.
“You got tenure.”
“Really? You’ve got to be kidding me.” He stood but didn’t move, his slightly bulging eyes fixed on her.
She stepped over and handed him the letter from Peter Johnson. Rusheng skimmed through the chairman’s writing, which said:
Dear Professor Rusheng Tang,
I am delighted to inform you that our department voted to promote you to associate professor with tenure. We appreciate your accomplishment as a scholar and your devotion to teaching, and we believe you are an invaluable asset to our department …
Johnson went on to explain that the promotion still must be reviewed and approved by the college, but he also said that would be a formality, because to his knowledge the dean had never overruled one of their department’s tenure decisions. After reading the heartwarming letter, Rusheng was still rooted, as if in a trance. He wasn’t sure if he could believe what the chairman had written.
“What’s wrong?” Sherry asked. “You’re not pleased?”
“If the department voted to grant me tenure, Nikki would be the first one to notify me.”
“Read the letter again. They held the meeting the day before yesterday.”
“Still, this information shouldn’t have come from Peter Johnson first. He can’t bear the sight of me. You know that.”
“You’re too paranoid. Johnson wouldn’t dare to pull a prank like this on you. Give Nikki a call and find out if it’s true.”
“All right.”
He dialed Nikki’s number, and at the third ring her carefree voice came up. When he mentioned his misgivings, she laughed. “Of course it’s true,” she assured him.
He wondered why she hadn’t told him, but he didn’t come out and ask her. Then she added, “Peter was quick. He was supportive this time.”
“Oh, I didn’t expect such an upshot.”
“You earned it, Rusheng. I planned to call you yesterday, but my daughter was leaving for a Scholar Bowl tournament today, so I was busy helping her pack. Then, after seeing her off this afternoon, I was stopped on the way home by a friend I hadn’t seen for years. So I came back late and meant to call you tonight. Sorry I wasn’t the messenger of the good news, but I’m really, really happy for you. In fact, except for three or four people, our whole department supported you. Yours is a strong case, and I’m sure the dean will approve it. You should celebrate, Rusheng.”
Before hanging up he thanked her and said he would let her know the date for his celebratory party. Finally he was convinced. Oh, sometimes even good old Homer nods — how absentminded those erudite professors could grow when they devoted themselves to their magnificent papers and books, preoccupied heart and soul with all the marvelous, cutting-edge theories, like intertexuality, polyphonic narratology, deconstruction, and new historicism. They’d never even noticed a simple wrong word, “respectly.”
“I’m tenured, wow, I’m tenured!” Rusheng cried out. He rushed over to his wife and grabbed her by the waist, swinging her around and around and around.
“Put me down! Put me down!” she shrieked.
So he did. “I’m tenured. Wow, I don’t have to worry about being fired anymore. I’m a real professor now! This can happen only in America!”
“And you’ll get a big raise.”
Suddenly he burst into laughter. He laughed and laughed until he doubled over, until Sherry began slapping his back to relieve his coughing. Then, straightening up, he broke out singing “Born to Be Wild,” a song Molin’s band often performed.
“Born to be wild!” Rusheng chanted, stunning his wife.
Not knowing the whole song, he went on belting out the refrain with garbled words: “Born to be happy! Born to succeed!”
“Calm down, calm down!” his wife pleaded. But he wouldn’t stop giggling and kept chanting, “What a wonderful world! Born to be tenured! Born to stand out!”
Sherry picked up the phone and dialed a number. “Molin, come over quickly. Rusheng has lost his mind … No, he’s not violent. We just heard he got tenure and he was shocked by the good news. Come and help me calm him down.”
A few moments later Molin arrived. Rusheng was still singing, though he spewed out snatches of Beijing opera now: “Today I’m drinking a bowl poured by my mother / Ah, the wine makes me bold and strong …”
“Give him some Benadryl,” Molin told Sherry. He pulled Rusheng up from the sofa and guided him away to the bedroom.
No sooner had Rusheng sat down on the bed than his wife came with a cup of warm water and two caplets. She made him swallow the soporific, then sister and brother put him into bed. A film of sweat glistened on his domed forehead. She threw a blanket over him and said, “You must have some sleep, dear.”
Rusheng was still humming something, but his voice was subdued, and his exhaustion was now apparent. Sherry dimmed the light on the nightstand and went out with her brother. “What should I do if he goes hysterical again? Take him to the hospital?” she asked Molin.