Having crossed Northern Boulevard, he saw a brick building to his right, partly boarded up. He took a brief measure of it — it was high enough, five stories. Also, this was a deserted spot and his death might not disturb many people in the neighborhood. So he decided to use this building, which must once have been a factory and still had metal ventilators on its roof.
As he was laboring up the sagging stairs, a flock of pigeons took off, their wings flickering explosively, and a few bats flitted about, catching mosquitoes while emitting tinny squeaks in the glow of the sinking sun. The distant houses and the spires of the churches were obscured, half hidden in the golden smog. At a landing the floor was strewn with needle-less syringes, takeout containers, cigarette butts, beer cans. He wondered if some people lived in here at night. Well, if they did, they shouldn’t continue using this place when it got cold. On the top floor he leaned over a few unboarded windows to survey the base of the building. Down there in the empty parking lot a lone seagull with black wing tips was wrestling with a paper bag, dragging out balled-up napkins and plastic cups and plates to pick up bits of fries. Ganchin decided to use the backyard to avoid the traffic on the front street. He propped two thick boards on a windowsill that had lost its wood and was just lined with bricks. He pictured himself running all the way up the boards and springing out of the building headfirst. That would do the job for sure. He backed up a dozen steps, ready to dash.
Suddenly his stomach churned and sent up a chunk of scallop and a few rice grains that he hadn’t chewed thoroughly. Oh, they still tasted good! He swallowed the morsel while tears were trickling down his cheeks. He started running, up and up, until he hurled himself into the air. As he was falling facedown, somehow all the years of training in martial arts at once possessed him. His body instinctively adjusted itself and even his arms spread out, swinging to ensure that he wouldn’t hurt himself fatally. With a thump his feet landed on the ground. “Ow!” he yelled, thunderstruck that he had just cheated death. A tearing pain shot up from his left thigh while his right leg twitched.
“Ow, help me! Help!” he hollered.
How ludicrous this whole thing turned out! He kept yelling, and some people came over, most of them high school students playing basketball nearby. A man dialed 911 and another comforted him, saying, “Don’t move. Everything’s cool, man. I know this hurts, must hurt like hell, but help’s on the way.”
“Oh, let me die, let me finish myself!” Eyes shut, Ganchin was screaming and shaking his head, but nobody understood his Mandarin.
In addition to a broken leg, the doctors found, he also suffered from tracheitis. No wonder he was running a temperature and coughing nonstop. They kept him in the hospital for three days until his fever was gone. Meanwhile, his attempted suicide had become news in the Chinese communities across North America, reported by numerous small newspapers; a charitable organization offered to pick up his medical bills; and even the owner of Teng’s Garden got famous for a week, having appeared twice on local TV. Everyone knew that the master of Gaolin Temple had exploited young monks and pocketed their salaries. Many declared that they would never donate anything to the temple again. A pretty thirtysomething named Amy Lok, running for a seat in the state senate, paid Ganchin a visit and told him to contact her office if he needed any assistance. Several lawyers called, eager to represent him in a lawsuit against the temple. All the notoriety befuddled and unnerved Ganchin.
Cindy took him in after he was released from the hospital with a pair of crutches, and she persuaded him to let her speak with the attorneys on his behalf so that they might not take advantage of him. She urged him to use Jon Mah, an older man who spoke both Mandarin and Korean and was known for handling this kind of case. Ganchin was worried about the legal fee, but Mr. Mah told him, “You don’t need to pay before you get the damages from the defendant.”
Cindy said to Ganchin, “They’ll get a third of the money the court awards you.”
“This is America,” Mr. Mah resumed, “a land ruled by law, and nobody is entitled to abuse others with impunity. Rest assured, you’re in safe hands.”
After the attorney left, Ganchin was still antsy. He asked Cindy, “What will the INS do to me? If they deport me, can I get enough money for the debts back home?”
“Now there’ll be ways for you to avoid deportation — you can apply for political asylum, or marry a citizen or a legal resident. You know, you’ll be rich, but not filthy rich like a millionaire who doesn’t have to work.”
Amazed, Ganchin thought about her words, then sighed. “I guess I’m not a monk anymore, and no temple will ever take me in.”
“That also means you’re free to date a girl.” She giggled, rubbing her nose with a knuckle.
“Well, I hope that’s something I can learn.” He gazed at her and smiled.
Acknowledgments
I’m grateful to the American Academy in Berlin for the Mary Ellen von der Heyden Fellowship for fiction and to Boston University for a sabbatical leave. The generous support from both institutions enabled me to complete this book.
I would like to thank Dan Frank for his comments and suggestions and Lane Zachary for her enthusiasm.
A Note about the Author
Ha Jin left his native China in 1985 to attend Brandeis University. He is the author of the internationally best-selling novel Waiting, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award and the National Book Award, and War Trash, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction; the story collections The Bridegroom, which won the Asian American Literary Award, Under the Red Flag, which won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, and Ocean of Words, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award; the novels A Free Life, The Crazed, and In the Pond; three books of poetry; and a book of essays, The Writer as Migrant.