“That’s just a piece of paper. I love you. I know you better, I know every part of you, I know all your likes and dislikes, and I know you love me too.”
“Don’t talk like that, please! We’re both married and must be responsible. Can you abandon your wife and kid for another woman?”
“Well, I’m not sure.”
“See, don’t play the hypocrite. What we’ve done is wrong, and we ought to mend our ways, the sooner the better. Truth be told, I am fond of you, but I must take my heart back and tame it before Zuming comes.”
“Tell me, do you still love him?”
“This has little to do with love. I’ll try to be a good wife to him.”
“Can’t we remain friends?”
“Depends on what kind of friendship you have in mind.”
“I mean, we’ll meet once in a while.”
“And hop into bed?”
He grinned while nodding yes, his round eyes glimmering. “Honestly, I love you more than my wife, but I can’t divorce her because there’s no way I can take my son away from her.”
“So let’s part ways now,” she said, unsure if he was telling the truth. “The temporary pain will ward off all the miserable complications.”
“It’s not that simple. I won’t let you go.”
“But you cannot make me stay.”
“You know, I have a mouth that can talk.”
“God, are you threatening me? You will brief Zuming on our affair if I don’t remain your mistress?”
He made no reply, an awkward smile breaking on his face while small fans of rays appeared at the outside corners of his eyes. He exhaled a long sigh.
Not sure if he’d just issued her a warning, she was upset and went to the kitchen to call a cab. He followed her and pressed down the switch hook of the phone, saying, “I’m still your chauffeur and coolie, you know.” He grimaced and his eyes clouded over.
She wanted to say he was a free man now, but her voice failed her. Together they carried her boxes down to his SUV in the driveway.
Living alone was no longer easy for Lina. She was accustomed to Panbin’s house, to its spacious living room and the big, comfortable bed, and also to the meals he’d made for both of them. When they’d been together, he wouldn’t let her cook because she complained that too much exposure to kitchen grease would age her skin. He joked that she was just a lazybones, but he took over the cooking and liked it. Now, in her own apartment, she had to do everything herself. Sometimes she wouldn’t make dinner and would just pick up one or two things at a delicatessen. Since moving out, she’d expected Panbin to call, but he never did. Perhaps he was still full of spleen, as the saying affirms: “You hate as much as you love.” But he was not a young bachelor and shouldn’t have behaved as if she’d jilted him and wasted his life. At times she wanted to phone him, just to see how he was doing, and once she even dialed his number but at the second ring hung up. If only she could shut him out of her mind. If only her workplace weren’t in downtown Flushing so that every day she wouldn’t have to pass the building that housed his software company. Whenever she walked on the street, she was afraid of bumping into him.
On March 24, her husband arrived. She took the subway to JFK to meet him. They hadn’t seen each other for more than four years, and he’d changed quite a bit. He had gained some weight and his face looked wider, his eyes weary, probably thanks to the twenty-hour flight. When they hugged, she gave him a smack on the cheek, but he didn’t kiss her back. Instead he said with a smile, “Hey, we’re in public.” His voice was still strong, though less hearty. She had always loved his manly voice, which often sounded fearless and even commanding. She noticed a sprinkling of gray hair behind his temples, though he was only thirty-three, two years older than she. He must have worried a lot these last few years. Together they lugged his baggage out of the terminal and joined the line for a taxi.
Lina had bought fresh, uncooked dumplings. Back from the airport, she put on a pot of water to boil them. Zuming hadn’t brought much with him; at her suggestion, he had stuffed one of his two suitcases with books, which are triple-priced in the United States. She was pleased to see the brand-new dictionaries and self-help books, useful to both of them. Zuming had said several times on the phone that he would like to go to graduate school once he was here, but she had neither agreed nor disagreed about that.
In addition to the books, he’d brought along six cartons of Red Eagle cigarettes at the advice of a friend who had been to America. Zuming lit a cigarette and dragged at it ravenously, saying to Lina, “I couldn’t smoke the whole way. That almost drove me crazy.”
His smoking unnerved her. She wanted to tell him to smoke outside, but she stopped herself. This was his first day here, and she wanted to please him as much as possible. She poured half a cup of cold water into the boiling pot so that the stuffing inside the dumplings could get cooked some more. After replacing the lid, she turned around and smiled at him. “I’m so happy you made it to New York finally,” she said. “After dinner, you should take a shower and then go to bed. You must be exhausted.”
“I’m all right.” He looked at her questioningly, as if wondering whether the full-size bed was big enough for both of them.
“I thought you’d need to rest well after the long flight,” she explained.
“We’ll see what we can do.” He tilted his big head, his heavy jaw jutting to the side while his nostrils let out tentacles of smoke.
He enjoyed the chive-and-pork dumplings and ate them with raw garlic, which Lina didn’t mind. For a whole year she hadn’t tasted raw garlic because Panbin was a southerner, from Jiangsu Province, and couldn’t stand the smell. She peeled several cloves for Zuming and also ate one herself. She found it quite tasty. She thought of reminding him to brush his teeth after eating garlic, but she decided to save that for another time. Maybe she would buy him some gum and mints.
“Do we have a drop of liquor in here?” Zuming asked, licking his teeth.
“No, only some cooking wine,” she replied.
“That’s no good.”
“Maybe I can go down and get a bottle from a store.”
“No, no, don’t bother. I don’t like American wine anyway.”
An airliner roared by, the noise so loud that the ceiling seemed to vibrate. They both stopped talking. When the racket died down, he said, “Heavens, how can you sleep with airplanes flying right overhead?”
“They don’t cross the residential area at night.” She laughed.
“That makes sense.”
As they ate, Zuming told her about their families. His father had just retired and might start a kindergarten with the help of his mother and some other retirees in the neighborhood. His parents had demanded that Lina give them some grandchildren. He emphasized “some,” which meant they all knew there was no one-child policy in the United States. As for her parents, her mother missed her terribly and couldn’t stop talking to people, even to strangers, about her, the only daughter. Her father’s condition had improved a lot after the stroke, though he still couldn’t drive his cab and so had to rent it to someone younger. As they talked, Lina felt rather down, not because the news was bad but because the weight of the two families, despite the distance of an ocean and a continent, came back to her all of a sudden. She was still young, yet when she thought of her family she felt aged like an old woman.
She told her husband, “We cannot afford to have kids before we settle down.”
“I understand. There’ll be a long haul for us.”
Zuming insisted they make love that night, and she was willing. Afterward he fell asleep and left her awake for hours. She listened to his snores, which weren’t loud but sounded like a broken fan.