The Stone Monkey (19 page)

But highest in the pantheon of gods for most Chinese are their ancestors.

And it was to the Chang progenitors that this red altar was devoted, decorated with the only ancestral likenesses that had survived the sinking of the ship: seawater-stained snapshots from Changs wallet of his parents and grandparents.

"There," he announced. "Our home."

Chang Jiechi shook his son's hand and then gestured for tea, which Mei-Mei poured for him. The old man cupped the hot brew and looked around the dark rooms. "Better than some."

Despite the man's words, though, Sam Chang felt another wave of shame, like a hot fever, that he was subjecting his father to such a mean place as this. The strongest duty after that owed to the ruler of the government, according to Confucius, is that which a son owes to his father. Ever since Chang had planned their escape from China he'd worried about how the trip would affect the elderly man. Ever quiet and unemotional, Chang Jiechi had taken the news of their impending flight silently, leaving Chang to wonder if he was doing the right thing in the old man's eyes.

And now, after the sinking of the
Dragon,
their life wasn't going to get better any time soon. This apartment would have to be their prison until the Ghost was captured or went back to China, which might be months from now.

He thought again about that place they'd stopped at to steal the paint and brushes—The Home Store. The rows of glistening bathtubs and mirrors and lights and marble slabs. He wished he could have moved his father and family into a home outfitted with the wonderful things he'd seen there. This was squalor. This was—

A firm knock on the door.

For a moment no one in the family moved. Then Chang looked out through the curtain and relaxed. He opened the door and broke into a smile at the sight of the middle-aged man wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. Joseph Tan walked inside and the men shook hands. Chang glanced outside into the quiet residential street and saw no one who looked like enforcers for the snakehead. In the humid, overcast air was a foul smell; the apartment, it turned out, was not far from a sewage treatment plant. He stepped inside, locked the door.

Tan, the brother of a good friend of Chang's in Fujian, had come over here some years ago. He was a U.S. citizen and, since he had no history of dissident activity, traveled freely between China and New York. Chang had spent several evenings with him and his brother in Fuzhou last spring and had finally grown comfortable enough to share with Tan the news that he intended to bring his family to the Beautiful Country. Tan had volunteered to help. He had arranged for this apartment and for Chang and his oldest son to work in one of Tan's businesses—a quick printing shop not far from the apartment.

The easygoing man now paid respects to elderly Chang Jiechi and then to Mei-Mei and they sat down to tea. Tan offered cigarettes. Sam Chang declined but his father took one and the two men smoked.

"We heard about the ship on the news," Tan said. "I thanked Guan Yin you were safe."

"Many died. It was terrible. We nearly drowned, all of us."

"The TV said the snakehead was the Ghost."

Chang replied that it was and that he'd tried to kill them even after they came ashore.

"Then we will have to be very careful. I will not mention your name to anyone. But I have people around the shop who will be curious about you. I had thought you should start work right away but now, with the Ghost... It would be better to wait. Maybe next week. Or the week after. I'll train you then. Do you know about American printing equipment?"

Chang shook his head no. In China he'd been a professor of art and culture—until his dissident status had gotten him fired. Just like the displaced, and despised, artists who'd lost their jobs during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, Chang had been forced to do "right-thinking" work—labor. And like many of the calligraphers and artists from that earlier era he'd gotten a job as a printer. But he'd operated only outdated Chinese or Russian presses.

They spoke for a time about life in China and life here. Then Tan wrote out directions to the shop and the hours Chang and his son would be working. He asked to meet William.

Chang opened the door to the boy's bedroom. He stared—first in surprise, then in dismay—at the empty room. William was not there.

He turned to Mei-Mei. "Where is our son?"

"He was in the bedroom. I didn't see him leave."

Chang strode to the back door and found it was unlocked. William had left it unlatched when he'd snuck out.

No!

The backyard was empty. The alleyway behind it too. He returned to the living room. He asked Tan, "Where would a teenage boy go around here?"

"He speaks English?"

"Better than we do."

"At the corner there's a Starbucks, do you know them?"

"Yes, the coffee place."

"A lot of Chinese teenagers go there. He won't say anything about the
Dragon,
will he?"

Chang said, "No, I'm sure. He knows the danger."

Tan, who had children himself, said, "He'll be your biggest problem. He'll watch that"—gesturing at the television set—"and want everything he sees on it. Video games and cars and clothes. And he'll want them without working for them. Because in the television you see people
have
things, you don't see them
earning
them. You came all this way, you survived the Atlantic Ocean, you survived the Ghost. Don't get deported because the police arrest your son for shoplifting and turn him over to the INS."

Chang understood what the man was saying but was panicking at the moment, not able to concentrate on the advice. The Ghost might have
bangshous
all over the streets here. Or men who would sell their whereabouts to him. "I must go find my boy now."

He and Tan walked outside to the sidewalk. Tan pointed him toward the corner, where the coffee shop was located. "I'll leave you now. Be strong with your son. Now that he's here it will be far more difficult. But you must control him."

Chang kept his head down as he walked past the cheap apartments, Laundromats, delicatessens, restaurants and stores. This neighborhood was less congested than Manhattans Chinatown, sidewalks wider, fewer people on the streets. More than half the people here were Asian but the population was mixed: Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean. There were many Hispanics too and a number of Indians and Pakistanis. Hardly any whites.

He glanced into the shops as he walked past and didn't see his son in any of them.

He prayed to Chen-wu that the boy had merely gone for a walk by himself and that he hadn't met someone and told them how they'd come here—perhaps trying to impress a girl.

A small park—no sign of him.

A restaurant. Nothing.

He walked into the Starbucks coffee shop and a number of cautious teenagers and complacent old men glanced at the immigrant's troubled face. William was not here. Chang ducked out quickly.

Then, happening to glance down a dim alley, he saw his son. The boy was talking with two young Chinese men, both wearing black leather jackets. Their hair was long and high, swept back with spray or oil. William handed one of them something Chang couldn't see. The man nodded to his friend and slipped a small bag into William's hand. Then the two turned quickly and walked back down the alley. William looked into the bag, examining what he'd just received, then stuffed it into his pocket. No! Chang thought in shock. What was this? Drugs.
His
son was buying drugs?

Chang ducked back out of the alley and, when his son stepped out, grabbed the shocked boy by his arm and pressed him against the wall.

"How could you do this?" Chang demanded.

"Leave me alone."

"Answer me!"

William glanced at the nearby coffee shop, where three or four people sat outside, enjoying the momentary absence of rain. They'd heard Chang's raised voice and glanced toward the boy and his father. Chang noticed them and released his son, nodding with his head for the boy to follow.

"Don't you know that the Ghost is looking for us? He wants to kill us!"

"I wanted to go outside. It's like a prison here! That fucking little room, with my brother."

Chang grabbed his son's arm again. "Don't use that language with me. You can't disobey me like this."

"It's a shitty little place. I want a room of my own," the boy replied, pulling away.

"Later. We all have to make sacrifices."

"It was your choice to come here.
You
can make the sacrifices."

"Don't speak to me that way!" Chang said. "I'm your father."

"I want a room. I want some privacy."

"You should be grateful we have someplace to stay at all. None of us have rooms of our own. Your grandfather sleeps with your mother and me."

The boy said nothing.

He'd learned many things about his son today. That he was insolent, that he was a car thief, that the iron cables of obligation to family that had so absolutely guided Sam Chang's life meant little to the boy. Chang wondered superstitiously if he had made a mistake in giving the boy his Western name when he started school, calling him after the American computer genius Gates. Perhaps this had somehow caused the boy to veer onto a path of rebellion.

As they approached the apartment Chang asked, "Who were they?"

"Who?" the boy answered evasively.

"Those men you were with."

"Nobody."

"What did they sell you? Was it drugs?"

Irritated silence was the response.

They were at the front door to the apartment. William started to walk past his father but Chang stopped him. He reached into the boy's pocket. William's arms rose hostilely and for a shocked moment Chang thought his son would shove him away or even hit him. But after an interminable moment he lowered his hands.

Chang pulled out the bag and looked inside, stunned at the sight of the small silver pistol.

"What are you doing with this?" he whispered viciously. "So you can rob people?"

Silence.

"Tell me, son." His strong calligrapher's hand closed firmly on the boy's arm. "Tell me!"

"I got it so I can protect us!" the boy shouted.

"I will protect us. And not with this."

"You?" William laughed with a sneer.
"You
wrote your articles about Taiwan and democracy and made our life miserable.
You
decided to come here and the fucking snakehead tries to kill us all. You call that taking care of us?"

"What did you pay for this with?" He held up the bag containing the pistol. "Where did you get the money? You have no job."

The boy ignored the question. "The Ghost killed the others. What if he tries to kill us? What will we do?"

"We'll hide from him until the police find him."

"And if they don't?"

"Why do you dishonor me like this?" Chang asked angrily.

Pushing inside the apartment, William shook his head, a look of exasperation on his face, and walked brusquely into the bedroom. He slammed the door.

Chang took the tea his wife offered him.

Chang Jiechi asked, "Where did he go?"

"Up the street. He got this." He showed him the gun and the elder Chang took it in his gnarled hands.

Chang asked, "Is it loaded?"

His father had been a soldier, resisting Mao Zedong on the Long March that swept Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists into the sea, and was familiar with weapons. He examined it closely. "Yes. Be careful. Keep the safety lever in this position." He handed the gun back to his son.

"Why does he disrespect me?" Chang asked angrily. He hid the weapon on the top shelf of the front closet and led the old man to the musty couch.

His father said nothing for a moment. The pause was so long that Chang looked at the old man expectantly. Finally, with a wry look in his eyes, his father responded, "Where did you learn all your wisdom, son? What formed your mind, your heart?"

"My professors, books, colleagues. You mostly, Baba."

"Ah,
me?
You learned from your
father?"
Chang Jiechi asked in mock surprise.

"Yes, of course." Chang frowned, unsure what the man was getting at.

The old man said nothing but a faint smile crossed his gray face.

A moment passed. Then Chang said, "And you are saying that William learned from me? I've never been insolent to you, Baba."

"Not to me. But you certainly have been to the Communists. To Beijing. To the Fujianese government. Son, you're a
dissident.
Your whole life has been rebellion."

"But..."

"If Beijing said to you, 'Why does Sam Chang dishonor us?' what would your response be?"

"I'd say, 'What have you done to earn my respect?'"

"William might say the same to you." Chang Jiechi lifted his hands, his argument complete.

"But
my
enemies have been oppression, violence, corruption." Sam Chang loved China with his complete heart. He loved the people. The culture. The history. His life for the past twelve years had been a consuming, passionate struggle to help his country step into a more enlightened era.

Chang Jiechi said, "But all William sees is you hunched over your computer at night, attacking authority and being unconcerned about the consequences."

Words of protest formed in Chang's mind but he fell silent. Then he realized with a shock that his father perhaps was right. He laughed faintly. He thought about going to speak to his son but something was holding him back. Anger, confusion—maybe even fear of what his son might say to him. No, he'd speak to the boy later. When—

Suddenly the old man winced in pain.

"Baba!" Chang said, alarmed.

One of their few possessions that had survived the sinking of the
Dragon
was the nearly full bottle of Chang Jiechi's morphine. Chang had given his father a tablet just before the ship sank and he'd had the bottle in his pocket. It was tightly sealed and no seawater had gotten inside.

He now gave his father two more pills and placed a blanket over him. The man lay back on the couch and closed his eyes.