Having failed to get the job, she came up with another idea, which surprised us. She began trying to persuade Chigan to go to America with her. This terrified him. He didn’t know Eng-lish except for a few phrases like “Good morning,” “Long live China!” “Friendship.” For three decades, no family in our city had moved that far — clear across the Pacific Ocean — though a few had left for Hong Kong and Japan. One young woman, we were told, had been sold by her husband to a whorehouse in Hong Kong the moment they landed there. Understandably Chigan was frightened by his wife’s suggestion. He believed that once they were in New York she’d sell him as a laborer or a gigolo. Physically he looked all right, a bit short but solid, with a flat face and round shoulders, but he would perish in America in no time if he did that kind of work. So, he resolutely refused to go with her, saying, “I’m a Chinese, I don’t want to be a foreign devil!”
“You know,” she said, “New York has a big Chinatown. You don’t have to speak English there. There’re so many Chinese around. Books, newspapers, TV, and movies are all in Chinese. You don’t have to become an American devil at all.”
“I won’t go!” His beady eyes glittered and his nostrils were flaring.
“Come on, we’ll make lots of money. Life’s better there than here. You can eat meat and fish every day.”
“Then why did you come back?”
“I came back to take you with me.” Her apricot eyes winked at him, the long lashes flapping. “Did I go abroad just for myself? Didn’t I say I was leaving to look for a new life for our family four years ago?”
“Yes, you did.”
“You see, now I’m back to fetch you and our child. If we work hard, we’ll get rich there and have a big house and two cars. Don’t you want to drive a brand-new Ford?”
“No, I don’t know how to drive.”
“You can always learn. I can drive, it’s much easier than riding a bicycle.” Her hands gripped an imaginary wheel, turning it left and right, while her head tilted back, her eyes half shut.
He swallowed. “No. Even if you give me a gold mountain, I won’t go.”
“You know, Chigan, we can have more kids there.” She winked again and smiled with a dimple on her chin.
This seemed to sink in, because he always wanted a son but wasn’t allowed to have another child here. Yet after a moment’s silence, he said, “Dandan is enough for me. I don’t want another kid.”
“Come on, will you be happy to remain a mechanic in the boatyard for the rest of your life?”
“Happy is the man who’s content.”
“All right, if you don’t want to leave, let Dandan go with me. She’ll have a good future there. She will go to Harvard.”
“What’s that?”
“The best university in the world.”
“No, it can’t be better than Oxford.”
“Please, let her go with me.” She tried to smile again, but her face twisted.
Of course he wouldn’t trust her with the child. She couldn’t bear his refusal anymore and burst into tears, begging him to let her see Dandan just once. Her crying softened him a little, and he agreed to talk to their daughter and see what the child thought.
The next afternoon he pedaled to his parents’. Onto the carrier of his Flying Pigeon bicycle was tied a long carton containing an electronic keyboard, a gift Jinli had brought back for her daughter.
Chigan’s father scolded him and called him a thickhead, saying that if Jinli saw the child she could easily talk her into leaving with her. “Why can’t you see through such a simple trick?” the old man asked, pointing a half-eaten tomato at his son.
The keyboard was put away; they would give it to Dandan at the right time. The grandparents then asked the child, who was upstairs watching the TV program “Baby Science,” to write to her mother. Chigan returned with the short letter before nightfall. After reading it, Jinli was heartbroken and locked herself in her room, weeping quietly. The letter said: “Go away, bad woman. I don’t want a mother like you!”
That stopped her from attempting to take the family abroad. What was she going to do next? Probably she would return to New York soon. But when asked about that, she said she would stay, since neither her husband nor their child wanted to leave.
To our surprise, a week later Chigan filed for divorce. Who could have imagined this feckless man was capable of taking such a step? It must have been his parents who planned it and used their connections to make the court give priority to the case, for without delay the divorce was granted. Jinli didn’t seem to mind losing her husband, though she did fight in court for custody of her daughter. The judge said she was an irresponsible parent, then announced to her, “Out of our concern for the child’s physical and mental health, this court declines your request.” She was, however, ordered to pay thirty-yuan in child support a month. Strange to say, she insisted on paying a hundred instead. This puzzled us. People began to wonder how much money she actually had. Perhaps she was a lady of wealth.
Then word went about that Jinli had a lot of money. Some people said she was small-minded and stingy. If she was so rich, why not buy her parents-in-law a twenty-seven-inch color TV — either a Sony or a Sanyo? Had she done that, surely they’d have let go of the child. Yet some people didn’t believe she was rich. They proved to be wrong.
On a windy afternoon Jinli arrived at Five Continents Commons to buy a new apartment. Recently our city had put up a few residential buildings on the riverbank to attract foreign customers, mainly overseas Chinese from Southeast Asia and businesspeople form Taiwan. Jinli seemed still set on staying in Muji, or at least spending a few months a year here.
“Your passport, please,” said a slender young man, the manager of the estate.
Having handed him her passport, she felt something was wrong and wiggled slightly in the chair.
The man looked through the maroon-covered passport and said without raising his eyes, “This was issued by the People’s Republic of China. You’re a Chinese citizen?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I can’t help you. These apartments are only for foreign customers. We want hard currencies.”
“I’ll pay you U.S. dollars.” She blushed a little and clasped her hands. Her interlaced fingers made the ring invisible.
A gleam crossed his dark eyes, but he shook his head and said, “No. I’m allowed to do business with foreigners only.”
“What’s the difference if I pay the same money and the same price?”
“I’m sorry, Comrade. This is a rule I have to follow or I’ll lose my job.” He combed back his soft hair with his fingers.
So she gave up the idea of buying an ultramodern apartment, which would cost twenty thousand dollars — about a quarter-million yuan according to the exchange rate on the black market at the time. None of us would dare dream of having so much money! Not even a medium-sized factory here would have that amount of cash. Finally we realized we might have a millionairess among us. Some people began to suck up to Jinli, saying they would help her find a job or a place to stay. But she didn’t seem interested anymore. Whenever people condemned Chigan and his parents in front of her, she would say drily, “When I left I thought I could always come back.” And she began to avoid others.
Nobody knows when she disappeared from Muji City. It’s said that she left for Shenzhen or Hong Kong. Professor Fan, however, claims Jinli returned to New York to rejoin the old man and has changed her name. Chigan refuses to comment; maybe he doesn’t know her whereabouts either.