A Free Life (70 page)

"Ten bucks."

Before Nan could say another word, Danning banged the greasy tabletop with the heel of his palm and crowed, "Yes, dance for us."

The girl turned around, swaying her hips, and began slipping out of her bra little by little. Nan lifted his eyes and saw her youthful breasts, the nipples erect and the areolas pink, flecked with a few pimples; he forced his eyes farther up, to her face. She was affectedly ogling him, the tip of her tongue wiping her teeth and lips, while she raised her rump at Danning, wagging it from side to side. She craned her neck, gently kissed Nan below his ear. He wondered if she'd left a smudge there. She groaned in a whisper, "Don't you want me?" Smiling, she opened her mouth, a tiny pearl sitting at the center of her tongue. Nan was breathing hard, his mouth dry, and he had no idea how to answer. He wondered whether the pearl had been fixed to her tongue permanently. How could she eat with that thing in her mouth? It wouldn't be easy for her to brush her teeth either. What did it stand for? Why did it have to be kept in there? As he was speculating, she lifted her upper body a little and began grinding her behind against Danning's lap. The music went faster and noisier while her gyration turned wilder. Danning's laughter grew louder and louder as her bottom kept revolving.

"Ouch!" she cried, and straightened up. "No tarching!"

Danning laughed, baring his buckteeth. "Keep going!" he grunted.

She resumed lap dancing, but a moment later stopped again. She looked annoyed and sputtered out at Danning, "If you tarch me again I'm gonna tell security."

Danning grinned and kissed the tips of his plump fingers. "You're delicious," he said.

Nan glanced at the front entrance, where a big hulk of a man, wearing a flattop, was looking in their direction, flexing his corded arms and bulging pectorals; the top of his right ear was missing. But Danning was already too befuddled to care. He said in Chinese to the girl, who refused to dance anymore, "You, little whore, you want to throw me out? Do you know who I am? Look at this face." He pointed at his nose. "Don't you know me? I'm a major novelist, an award winner, famous in the whole country. Give us a good dance. We want the same service for our money. You danced for that man longer and better just now. Why don't you smile at us like you smiled at him?" He pointed at a hairless white man, whose eyes were half closed while a girl leaned supine over him with her arms raised backward, hooked around his neck.

"Stick to English," the lap dancer fired back. "I don't know Korean."

Nan was frightened. He stood up and handed a twenty-dollar bill to her. "Take zis, miss. Keep zer change. I'm sawrry, he's drunk. I'm taking him away."

The girl stretched out her right leg and pulled open the elastic string around her thigh, with which some singles and fives were already attached. Nan inserted the twenty, but a bill fell on the floor.

He picked it up and put that in as well. She smiled and gave him a peck on the cheek, whispering, "Thank you, sweetie." Then she went away to the bar counter to join the girls perching on the mushroom seats.

Danning took out a business card that bore his official titles as a committee member of the Beijing Writers' Association and an adjunct professor at Peking University. "Let me give her this, all right?" he said to Nan, grinning, then turned to the girl.

"Please, let's go!" Nan grabbed his upper arm.

The hulky bouncer came and helped Nan support Danning toward the door. The business card dropped on the floor, faceup.

IT WAS Sunday the next day, and Danning wanted to go to the morning service. The request puzzled Nan, but he drove his friend to the Chinese church in Duluth where Mr. Shiming Bian had been a pastor. There was little traffic on the street, and most of the shops weren't open yet except Dunkin' Donuts. A shower had poured down the night before, so the trees and roofs looked cleaner, their colors fresh and sharp. Nan pulled into the church's hedge-bordered parking lot, which was partly filled, and backed into a space. Walking toward the front entrance, he chaffed Danning, saying, "Are you going to the confessional box?"

" No, just to attend the service. I feel awful. I was out of my head yesterday evening."

Nan made no comment, still troubled by the scene at the strip club. Together they entered the foyer of the church, but to Nan's surprise, the schedule had changed-the service in Mandarin wouldn't start until eleven and they were one hour early. However, the English service was about to begin in a chapel next to the nave, so they decided to go to that. In the chapel there were rows of chairs in lieu of pews, and in a corner was a black organ at which sat a small woman. On the chancel, which was just a regular platform below a large cross on the wall, stood a soft-faced young woman wearing a bob, as well as two young men, one holding an electric guitar and the other, the bespectacled one, a sheaf of paper. As soon as Nan and Danning sat down in the last row, the nearsighted man invited the congregation to rise and the three young people at the chancel started a hymn, the words projected on the front wall for the worshippers to follow. The three singers sang into the microphones with their eyes half closed. From the front ceiling hung a pair of Yamaha amplifiers. The music was expansive and uplifting, played by both the organist and the guitarist, while the entire room sang: "Come, now is the time to worship, / Come, now is the time to meet God…"

The song moved Nan. Danning, caught by the music, was singing loudly with the others. His baritone voice was as distinct as if he were leading a choir. Nan was amazed that his friend could sing the hymn with such abandon. Danning shook his head from side to side as he was chanting. After the song, they belted out another one. Then Mr. Bian went to the front and read out his prayer in English. He spoke haltingly as if his tongue were stiff and his nose blocked, but his voice was charged with feeling. He begged God to bless the parish, to forgive the sinners among them, to console a family who had just lost a child in a traffic accident, to provide strength for everyone in this community so that they could fight evil and do more good. Mr. Bian was thinner than he had been two years earlier, but his face was radiant and his manner more dignified, as if he were no longer a dissident but a pure clergyman. He looked energetic and even his hair seemed thicker than before. Unlike the others, who all bowed their heads, Nan lifted his eyes from time to time to observe the pastor. Mr. Bian had published several articles in the past two years to revise his political views and urge people always to differentiate China from the Chinese government. He argued that with such a distinction in mind one could resist the Communist propaganda and avoid letting patriotism dominate one's life, because there were values higher than a country or nation.

After Mr. Bian said the prayer, Reverend Robert MacNeil, tall and skeletal, took the lectern and delivered a sermon entitled "Take Advantage of Our Opportunities." He read out Ephesians 5:8-20, then elaborated on the phrase "making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil." He said God's mercy was like a big party to which everyone was invited. Whenever a sinner repented, God would delight in his return to him. But the sad truth was that the majority of people wouldn't attend God's party because they were like sleepers who wouldn't wake up, too lazy and too foolish. That was why the Lord announced, "For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." The reverend declared that the genuine way to rejoice in God's love and generosity was to avoid evil and spread the words of the Lord. Every real Christian must work constantly to lead others to Jesus Christ. Nan was impressed by the preacher's eloquence. The old man quoted from the Bible without touching the book and even pointed out the exact numbers of chapters and verses. He urged the congregation to seize every day to follow the Lord's way. He also mentioned that Sir Walter Scott had gotten these words carved on his sundial: "I must home to work while it is called day; for the night cometh when no man can work." Because Scott was always aware of the approach of death, he had never wasted his time and managed to finish his books.

Nan listened, fascinated. Yet unfamiliar with the New Testament, he couldn't understand everything Father MacNeil said. Meanwhile, Danning was totally engrossed, his eyes glued to the reverend's shriveled face. As Nan glanced sideways at his friend, a red offertory bag was handed to him. He hadn't expected this and hurriedly pulled a dollar out of his pants pocket and put it into the bag. To his amazement, the instant he passed the bag on to Danning, his friend thrust his fist into it. Obviously Danning had prepared his offering like a regular churchgoer.

When the reverend was done with the sermon, people rose to their feet and sang another hymn, following the lines projected on the wall. As they were singing the last refrain of the song, Nan saw Danning's face bathed in tears. His friend was genuinely touched and chanting with the others:

And we cry holy, holy, holy And we cry holy, holy, holy And we cry holy, holy, holy Is the Lamb!

Father MacNeil raised his leathery hand and gave a benediction in a sonorous voice: "May God grant us the wisdom as bright as daylight. May God give us the courage to expose ourselves fully to the Holy Spirit so that we can make ourselves new every day. May God bless us with joy and love so that we can spread his love to everyone in the world!"

"Amen!" the whole room cried.

The dark-complected woman struck up the relaxing postlude on the organ, and the reverend announced, "Now you are dismissed."

Once in the foyer, Nan asked Danning, "Do you want to attend the Mandarin service as well?"

"No, I've had enough for today."

Through the opened door to the nave Nan saw hundreds of people sitting in the pews in there and waiting for the service. Mr. Bian was seated on the chancel, about to deliver his sermon in Mandarin. In the lobby a few men stood around engaging in small talk, and two women at a long table were handing out flyers to new arrivals. Nan and Danning went out of the church. The pavement was glinting a little in the sunshine, and the air seemed brighter than it had an hour before. Pulling out of the parking lot, Nan asked his friend, "Could you understand everything the old preacher said?"

"No, but he made me feel better, much better. I'm cleaner now." Danning sounded serious and meditative, as if exhausted.

"Do you believe in Christianity?"

"Not really, but I like to attend the service once in a while. In Beijing I can't go to any church or temple because I'm a petty cadre at the writers' association. I'd get into trouble if I went." He sighed. "Ah, like a small fish I too yearn for clean water."

Slowly Nan followed the traffic on Beaver Run Road, still puzzled by Danning's claim to be cleaner than before. On the other hand, he was convinced that if his friend had often gone to a church or temple or mosque, Danning might indeed have become a better man.

Nan was broody after seeing Danning off on a quarter-filled Greyhound bound for Oxford, Mississippi. He felt he might not see his friend again. Danning seemed tormented by a kind of desperation, which might not subside as long as he lived in Beijing and held his official position. Nan had never thought that his friend would go downhill as a result of his fame, which seemed to have let loose the demon in him.

Danning's visit had upset Nan. For the following week he went on telling his wife that success was the mother of failure, transposing Chairman Mao's famous quotation "Failure is the mother of success."

EVER SINCE his return from China, Nan had been restless for another reason as well. He couldn't make any progress in his writing. As he had failed in his search for an ideal woman, his project on a bunch of love poems had come to a halt. He wondered if he was suffering a writer's block. One afternoon, when the busy lunchtime was over, he was sitting at the counter and had his nose in a book entitled Good Advice on Writing. Both Pingping and Niyan were taking a break, seated at a booth, drinking tea and cracking spiced sunflower seeds. Janet was with them and from time to time lifted her cup and blew away the tea leaves. She was talking excitedly about how happy she and her daughter were in the weekend school at Emory, which, managed by a Chinese graduate student, had more than 160 pupils now. Time and again she uttered a word or phrase in Mandarin.

Nan stopped at a quotation from Faulkner. It stated: "The writer must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed- love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice."

The first part of the sentence jolted Nan, who suddenly understood the real cause of his predicament. For all these years he had bumbled around and shilly-shallied about writing because of fear: the fear of becoming a joke in others' eyes, of messing up his life without getting anywhere, of abandoning the useless, burdensome part of his past in order to create a new frame of reference for himself, of moving toward the future without looking back. It was this fear that had driven him to look for inspiration elsewhere other than in his own heart. It was this fear that had misled him into the belief that the difficulties in writing poetry in English were insurmountable and that he couldn't possibly write lines that were natural and energetic. Now this realization overcame and disgusted him. He read Faulkner's words once more. His mind hardly registered the meaning of the second part, but the first half again astounded him. Tears were rolling down his cheeks. How he hated himself! He had wasted so many years and avoided what he really desired to do, inventing all kinds of excuses-his sacrifice for his son, his effort to pay off the mortgage, his pursuit of the American dream, his insufficient command of English, his family's need for financial security, the expected arrival of a daughter, and the absence of an ideal woman in his life. The more he thought about his true situation, the more he loathed himself, especially for his devotion to making money, which had consumed so many of his prime years and dissolved his will to follow his own heart. A paroxysm of aversion seized him, and he turned to the cash register, took all the banknotes out of the tray, and went to the alcove occupied by the God of Wealth, for whom they had always made weekly offerings. With a swipe he sent flying the wine cups, the joss sticks, and the bowls of fruit and almond cookies. Around him were scattered pistachios and salted cashews. The three women in the booth stopped chatting to watch him. He thrust a five-dollar bill on the flame of a candle and instantly the cash curled, ablaze.