At first she reasoned that she’d get a real job soon, and after that she’d approach him. But it did not happen. Three months, she vowed. Six. Then it became a year, then two.
She had finally gone to see him a little more than a year before. She had given up on waiting. She carried a picture of Shuying. His response was to curse her out of his office for suggesting any child of hers could be his. He hadn’t seen her in years. It was outrageous. If she ever tried to do it again he would ruin her.
Gao Lan knew he was well connected. He could make it harder than ever for her to return to work if he wanted to. And she had to return to real work eventually or she was finished. She’d take a cut in pay when she did, and she didn’t yet know how she would manage, but she also knew she had no choice. In just a few more years she’d run out of time.
It was soon after that she heard that Matt had been killed. She still remembered her physical reaction, a jolt in her midsection. She knew then she had cared for him, despite the brevity of their encounter, for she’d found her body, in its visceral reactions, to be incapable of a lie. Yet she still didn’t believe Matt was Shuying’s father.
After the Treaty was passed, her parents pressed her to file a claim and she said all right, but not against the other man; against Matt. He was gone. He could not take revenge on her, at least not on this side of the veil.
Not that his wife would be pleased. Gao Lan shivered. That was the woman coming to meet her now. So be it. Just as they said all men were brothers, all women were sisters, and Gao Lan vowed to tell her the truth. She would regard her with respect. The two women already had a connectedness between them, because of Matt.
In the apartment, after she had prepared tea and set flowers in a plain jug, the doorbell rang. She pulled it open to two women. One was American, the widow – older, attractive in the sharp, speckled, brown-eyed way some Westerners had. Almost friendly. “Welcome, welcome,” Gao Lan said, drawing them in. She was relieved she would not have to use English. This big-glasses girl, Chu Zuomin, was obviously here to translate.
In the living room she poured tea, which sat untouched. She and the Chinese girl made small talk about the apartment, and Gao Lan waited for Matt’s widow to begin.
Yet the woman was not in a hurry. She followed right along behind the translator, observing manners, talking, laying small increments of relationship. She complimented the big, modern complex, the neighborhood. She asked about nearby restaurants, and Gao Lan told her of Ghost Street, a nearby stretch jammed with eateries, which was one reason so many men kept mistresses in the Dongfang Yinzuo, few things in life mattering more than proximity to a good meal. The widow even praised little Shuying for being bright and pretty. She seemed to be thinking of ways to advance the conversation, even as she studied Gao Lan centimeter by centimeter. Finally she said that she understood Gao Lan was working hard at the logistics company.
Gao Lan stared. “Logistics?”
“I thought you worked at a logistics company.”
“Oh. My parents must have told you that.”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s what they think. Would you blame me? Of course I tell them that. It’s not true. I haven’t been able to get that kind of job. I work for the man who rents this apartment. Naturally I would not want them to know this.” Gao Lan saw that the translator colored a slow pink as she put this into English.
“I thought this was your apartment,” said the widow.
“Not at all. Living here is part of my pay.”
“And what is it you do?” said the widow.
“Whatever he wants,” said Gao Lan. “Do you understand my meaning or not? He has a wife and children in Taiwan. He is only here sometimes.”
“Oh,” said the widow suddenly, when she heard the translation. “I didn’t know.”
“My parents also do not know,” Gao Lan reminded her.
“They won’t learn it from me,” the American said. “Don’t worry.”
“Bie zhaoji,” Chu Zuomin translated.
Gao Lan filled the ensuing silence by insisting they have melon seeds and small candies. They thanked her without actually eating any, again showing manners.
Then the wife of Matt sat up straight. “May I ask you a question?” she said.
“Please.”
“I do understand why you would seek support from the father of your child. Why you should. What I want to know is, why did you file against my husband? Why not the other man?”
A charged silence hung, like the kind before a storm’s first crack of thunder. How had the widow known? Finally Gao Lan broke it with a short, formal laugh. “You’ve made a wide cast of your net.”
“If it were your husband, would you do any less?”
“I suppose not.”
The woman went on. “Look. I know there is a chance Shuying is Matt’s, and a chance she’s this other guy’s. You’re the mother. You’re the only one who can say which is more likely. So all I’m really asking is, why Matt? Is it because you think she looks like him? Because I’ll tell you, I went there and met her with an open mind, and I’m going to be honest: I don’t see it.”
Gao Lan nodded. It was true; Shuying did not look much like Matt. She had been aware of it since the girl grew out of her split pants and left babyhood behind. “I did go to the other man first.”
The American woman sat higher in her chair. “And?”
Gao Lan was a woman who hated to show she was afraid, but this man she feared. She had done many things in her life which showed her bravery – she had struck out on her own; she had refused her parents’ suggestions for husbands and come to Beijing to make her way instead. This man was different. She didn’t say his name anymore. She didn’t even like to think it. “He threatened me,” she said.
“What?” The American widow almost rose from her chair, a fierce, instinctive movement.
“He said if I ever said such a thing again, implied Shuying was his daughter, or did anything about it, he would make sure I did not work in Beijing again.”
“He can’t do that.”
“But he can. He can spread talk about me easily, if he wants.”
“Does he know this work you do?”
“Not now,” said Gao Lan. “At least I don’t think so. But secrets are hard to keep. And if he found out, and passed this around” – she trailed her eyes over the apartment, the sparkling plaza down below outside the windows – “the door for me would close.”
“But if he’s the father, he’s responsible for Shuying under the Treaty. He must take care of her.”
“Asking him to do that is like asking a tiger for its hide.”
The American’s eyes softened in understanding. “I see why you’d feel that way. But he still can’t intimidate you. I don’t know about the laws here, but he couldn’t do it in the States. Impossible.”
Gao Lan felt a frisson of surprise. Something in the American woman had changed. It seemed as if she didn’t like hearing that this other man had threatened her. “Unfortunately, though, I don’t know of anything that could stop him here in China,” she said.
“I do,” said the widow. “Carey could stop him. He could straighten him out. Carey James? Remember? You met him.”
The name did not click at once in Gao Lan’s mind. She shook her head.
The foreign woman closed her eyes. “The night you met my husband. The night the two of you were together. The first time.”
“The only time,” said Gao Lan. “I remember. Your husband’s friend.” Now she could see Carey: tall, blond, remote. He was the one who had been with Matt, who had urged Matt over and over to say goodbye to her and go someplace else.
“He will help you,” the widow said. “I’ll make sure of it. That’s if the child is this other man’s and not Matt’s – and we’ll know the answer to that in a few more days.”