Hurriedly I toweled him and helped him into a change of clean clothes. I didn’t say a word the whole time, but my mind was in turmoil. How should I handle this? Should I talk to his daughter about this turn of events? He wasn’t a bad man, but I didn’t love him. Besides our age difference, twenty-one years, I simply couldn’t imagine having an intimate relationship with a man again. My ex-husband had left me eight years ago for an old flame of his, a woman entrepreneur in the porcelain business in the Bay Area, and I was accustomed to living alone and never considered remarrying. I’d been treating Mr. Sheng well mainly with an eye to making him like and trust me so my work would be easier, but now how should I cope with this madness?
Having no clue what to do, I pretended I didn’t understand him. I began to distance myself from him and stay out of his way. Still, I had to take him outdoors and I had to coax him like a child at mealtimes. Also, he’d break into a cry and let loose a flood of tears if I said something harsh to him. He’d murmur my name in a soft voice—“Jufen … Jufen …,” as if chewing the word. He could have been interesting and charming if he weren’t so sick. I felt sorry for him, so I tried to be patient.
About a week later, he began to touch me whenever he could. He’d pat my behind when I stood up to get something for him. He’d also rest his fingers on my forearm as if to prevent me from going away and as if I enjoyed this intimacy. Finally, one afternoon I removed his hand from the top of my thigh and said, “Take your paw off of me. I don’t like it.”
He was stunned, then burst out wailing. “No fun! No fun!” he cried, pushing the air with his open hand while his face twisted, his eyes shut.
Minna heard the commotion and came down, a huge bun of hair on top of her head. At the sight of her heartbroken father, she asked sharply, “Aunt Niu, what have you done to him?”
“He — he kept harassing me, making advances, so I just told him to stop.”
“What? You’re a liar. He can hardly know who you are, how could he do anything like that?” Her fleshy face scrunched up, showing that she resolved to defend her father’s honor.
“He likes me — that’s the truth.”
“He’s not himself anymore. How could he have normal feelings for you?”
“He said he loved me. Ask him.”
She placed her hand, dimpled at the knuckles, on his bony shoulder and shook him. “Dad, tell me, do you love Jufen?”
He looked at her blankly, as if in confusion. I hated him for keeping mute and humiliating me like this.
Minna straightened up and said to me, “Obviously you are lying. You hurt him, but you pinned the blame on him.”
“Damn it, I told you the truth!”
“How can you prove that?”
“If you don’t believe me, all right, I quit.” I was surprised by what I said; this job was precious to me, but it was too late to retract my words.
She smirked, fluttering her mascaraed eyelashes. “Who are you? You think you’re so indispensable that the Earth will stop spinning without you?”
Speechless, I walked into the doorway to collect my things. It was late afternoon, almost time to call it a day. I knew Minna had befriended Ning Zhang, the owner of my agency; they both came from Nanjing. The bitch would definitely bad-mouth me to that man to make it hard for me to land another job. Even so, I had to keep up appearances and would never beg her to take me back.
I didn’t eat dinner, and I wept for hours that night. Yet I didn’t regret having given Minna a piece of my mind. As I anticipated, my boss, Ning Zhang, called early the next morning and told me not to go to work anymore.
For several days I stayed home watching TV. I liked Korean and Taiwanese shows, but I wanted to learn some English, so I watched soaps, All My Children and General Hospital, which I could hardly understand. Using a friend as an interpreter, I talked to Father Lorenzo of our church about my job loss; he said I shouldn’t lose heart. “God will provide, and you’ll find work soon,” he assured me. “At the moment you should use the free time to attend an English class here.”
I didn’t reply and thought, Easier said than done. At my age, how can I learn another language from scratch? I couldn’t even remember the order of the alphabet. If only I were thirty years younger!
Then one evening Ning Zhang called, saying he’d like to have me take care of Mr. Sheng again. Why? I wondered to myself. Didn’t they send over another health aide? I asked him, “What happened? Minna’s not angry with me anymore?”
“No. She just has a short temper, you know that. Truth be told, since you left, her dad often refuses to eat, sulking like a child, so we want you to go back.”
“What makes you think I’ll do that?”
“I know you. You’re kindhearted and will never see an old man suffer and starve because of your self-pride.”
That was true, so I agreed to restart the next morning. Ning Zhang thanked me and said he’d give me a raise at the end of the year.
Minna was quite friendly when I returned to work. Her father resumed eating normally, though he still wouldn’t stop saying he loved me and he would touch me whenever he could. I didn’t reproach him — I just avoided body contact so I might not hurt his feelings again. To be fair, he was obsessed but innocuous. It was the incurable illness that had reduced him to such a wreck; otherwise, some older woman might have married him willingly. Whenever we ran into a friend of his on the street or in the library, Mr. Sheng would say I was his girlfriend. I was embarrassed but didn’t bother to correct him. There’re things that the more you try to explain, the more complicated they become. I kept mum, telling myself I was only doing my job.
Once in a while he would get assertive, attempting to make me touch his genitals when I bathed him, or trying to fondle my breasts. He even began calling me “my old woman.” Irritated, I griped to Minna in private, “We have to find a way to stop him or I can’t continue to work like this.”
“Aunt Niu,” she sighed, “let us be honest with each other. I’m terribly worried too. Tell me, do you have feelings for my dad?”
“What do you mean?” I was puzzled.
“I mean, do you love him?”
“No, I don’t.”
She gave me a faint smile as if to say no woman would openly admit her affection for a man. I wanted to stress that at most I might like him a little, but she spoke before I could. “How about marrying him? I mean just in appearance.”
“What a silly thing to say. How could I support myself if I don’t hold a job?”
“That’s why I said just in appearance.”
I was more baffled. “I don’t get it.”
“I mean, you can keep your job but live in this apartment, pretending to be his wife. Just to make him content and peaceful. I’ll pay you four hundred dollars a month. Besides, you’ll keep your wages.”
“Well, I’m not sure.” I couldn’t see what she was really driving at.
She pressed on. “It will work like this — legally you’re not his spouse at all. Nothing will change except that you’ll spend more time with him in here.”
“I don’t have to share his bed?”
“Absolutely not. You can set up your own quarters in there.” She pointed at the storage room, which was poky but could be turned into a cozy nest.
“So the marriage will be just in name?”