As May approached, Lina landed a bookkeeping job at a law firm. She was pleased and a bit relieved. Still, she was unsettled by Zuming’s determination to go to business school despite the hardship it would cause. She was prepared to pay his tuition, even though she might have to borrow some money. But what would he do after he got his MBA? Would he still want this marriage? Anything could happen during the next two years. If he met a woman he liked and hit it off with her, he might file for divorce. He must have been waiting for such an opportunity while squeezing whatever he could out of her, his unfaithful wife. The more Lina thought about the future, the more agitated she became. Sometimes she felt sure he must despise her. Back in Beijing, she’d planned to give him a child once they settled down, but now she was no longer willing to do it.
At night they slept in the same bed, and he would make love to her once or twice a week. She didn’t enjoy it, so she wouldn’t mind if he left her alone. It was after the lovemaking that she’d feel miserable, listening to him snoring while she felt used. Sometimes he’d grind his teeth or whisper something she couldn’t make out. She wondered if he felt she was dirty and rotten, tainted by another man’s lust. Shrewd and inscrutable, Zuming must have harbored quite a few plans, which he would never confide to anyone. When they had sex, he was sometimes rough as if intending to hurt her. That would make her miss Panbin, who, when doing it, had always spent what seemed like an hour with her and kept asking how she felt this way or that. He’d made her eager to open herself and indulge her passion. Sometimes she thought of recommending to her husband a book like The Joy of Sex or She Comes First, which he could borrow from the library, but she never dared to bring that up, knowing he might think her shameless.
• • •
She suggested that they sleep separately, and Zuming didn’t object. His compliance convinced her that he would leave her someday. Even so, she was willing to pay his tuition, as a way to make up to him. She didn’t regret having brought him here, though she felt it might have been a mistake to have broken up with Panbin in such a rush.
Meanwhile, she’d called Panbin at work several times, but he never picked up the phone, nor had he returned her calls. Then, one day, he did answer. He was cold and businesslike, saying he had no time to talk for long and his boss was awaiting him upstairs.
“How are you?” she asked almost timidly.
“Still alive.” He sounded so bitter that she felt a twinge in her chest.
As she continued talking, he cut her short. “I have to go.”
“Can I call you again sometime this week?”
“Didn’t you say it was over between us? I won’t have a mistress anymore. I want a wife, a home.”
She remained silent and knew that something had happened to his marriage. Before she could ask, he hung up. She turned tearful and went to the law firm’s bathroom to compose herself.
Later, through a mutual acquaintance, she found out that Panbin had granted his wife the divorce and the custody of their child. Over the past five years he’d sent his wife more than seventy thousand dollars, which made her rich; even after paying off her mortgage, she still had a good sum in the bank. Crushed, Panbin rarely stepped out of his house these days except when he had to go to work. Lina also learned that some young women had been recommended to him, but he wouldn’t meet with any of them. He just said he wouldn’t date a Chinese woman again. He seemed to have changed and now avoided people he once knew.
Soon after taking all the tests, Zuming found a job at the martial arts institute called Wu Tang on Parsons Boulevard. He was hired as an assistant instructor, mainly tutoring a tai chi class. Lina was amazed, although it was a part-time job that required Zuming to mop the floors and clean the restrooms as well. He was a survivor, full of vitality.
In late June a university in Louisiana notified him that its one-year MBA program had admitted him. Lina knew he’d planned for a more expensive school, but he’d missed most of the application deadlines. He jumped at the late admission; he wanted to go. She felt he’d begun leaving her. God knew what would happen in New Orleans once he was there. After he had his degree, where would he go? Back to China, where a U.S. MBA was worth a lot and he had already built up a business network? That was unlikely. He would probably start a career here, even though Wall Street might be beyond his reach.
She felt wretched but had no one to talk to. If only Panbin were still around. He used to listen so quietly and attentively that she had often wondered if he fell asleep as she was speaking. Afterward he would help her figure out what to do and whom to see. He was full of strategies and, despite his training in computer science, loved reading practical philosophy, especially Machiavelli and a modern book on the ways of the world titled The Art of the Shameless.
One Saturday afternoon in early July, Lina took a shower, let her hair fall loosely on her shoulders, slipped on a pastel blue dress that highlighted her slender waist, and went to Panbin’s house as if she just happened to be passing by. He answered the door and looked surprised, but let her in. He was a lot thinner, yet spirited as before.
“Tea or coffee?” he asked her when they’d entered the living room.
“Coffee, please.” She sat down on the love seat, which felt as familiar as if it belonged to her. The room with bay windows was the same, except for the floor, which had been recently waxed and was shiny throughout. He seemed to be doing fine.
He put a cup of coffee in front of her and sat down. “Well, why did you come to see me?” he asked in a flat voice.
“Is it illegal?” She tilted her oval face, her chin pointed at him as she smiled, her lips curling a little.
“I thought you’d already washed your hands of me.”
“I’m still worried about you.”
“No need. I’m tough and I know how to get by.”
“Zuming’s going to New Orleans in a couple of weeks.”
“So? What does that have to do with me?”
She tittered. “Didn’t you used to feel you too were my husband?”
“That was four months ago when I still had my family.”
“You feel differently about me now?”
“Things have changed and I’ve changed too. My wife found the love of her life and took my son away from me. That almost killed me, but I resurrected myself and have become a different man.”
“How different?”
“I’m going to Kiev to see my girlfriend next week.”
“Your girlfriend?”
“Yes, I got to know her online.”
Lina couldn’t help but sneer. “So you want to become an international womanizer?”
“Oh, you can call me a cosmopolitan playboy, but I don’t give a damn. From now on I won’t date a Chinese woman again. Just sick of it — every Chinese has so much baggage of the past, too heavy for me to share and carry. I want to live freely and fearlessly with nothing to do with the past.”
“Without the past, how can we make sense of now?”
“I’ve come to believe that one has to get rid of the past to survive. Dump your past and don’t even think about it, as if it never existed.”
“How can that be possible? Where did you get that stupid idea?”
“That is the way I want to live, the only way to live. If you hadn’t worried so much about all the ties to your past, you wouldn’t have left me, would you? That’s the reason I’ve been dating a Ukranian woman, who is lovely.”