"Zen why are you working at Hampden Park?"
"Look, I'm making money just sitting here while I can work with Russian companies for big deals. This way is better to use my time. Time's money."
"Zat's true." Nan remembered that back in China, where you had nothing but time, no one was paid by the hour but all by the month. But here you made money by selling your hours. He asked Ivan again, "You don't work during zer day?"
"Of course I do. I visit people for business. That's why I work here at night most the days."
"Do you already own a house here?"
"No. My wife and I lease an apartment in Dorchester."
"Why didn't you buy your own house?"
"What's a house? It's just shelter. Like a car, it's just a vehicle. There's no need for fancy products. Why should I let a house waste my capital? Tell you what, we own a very expensive apartment in Switzerland."
"Reelly?"
"On Lake Geneva, beautiful place. Did you ever visit Europe?" "No. How mahch does it cawst? I mean zee apartment." "That's classified information. We bought it to invest. Real 'state was skyrocking over there, you know."
"How come you got rich so quickly here?"
"I followed my ways."
"You don't share your expertise?"
"All right, let me offer you one advice, Nan," Ivan harrumphed, his large eyes gleaming in the dimly lighted room. "In America there're only two ways to acquire riches. First, use others' money; second, use others' labor. I'm doing both." He hee-hawed.
Although Nan knew what Ivan said was true, he felt discomfited. He had once spent a year and a half poring over Marx's Das Capital, and he understood how capitalists accumulated their wealth. In theory, all profits resulted from surplus labor, the blood and sweat of workers. Evidently Ivan had intuitively grasped the essence of capitalism. But how could he- Nan -act like a capitalist? Besides having no capital to invest, he simply couldn't imagine himself using others' money or labor. That would amount to exploitation, wouldn't it? Yet to succeed in this place, shouldn't he do something like what Ivan had been doing? Maybe he had to, but how?
In a way the situation at Hampden Park was quite unusual. If what Ivan said was true, then the boss, Sandy Tripp, was poorer than some of the guards he supervised. Sandy must have known that. That might be why he was polite to Tim and Ivan. He didn't interfere with Ivan's working on the computer at night even though some residents had complained about it. Nan liked his boss better than his fellow workers. Sandy wasn't strict with his staff and was often absent from the premises, leaving the place entirely to the care of the guards.
15
IN LATE FEBRUARY, a letter came from the Chinese consulate in New York, informing Nan that they couldn't renew his passport because he hadn't attached the approval from his former work unit, Harbin Teachers College. The official letter told Nan to write to the school's personnel office and obtain their permission to let him continue studying in America. Only then could the consulate renew his passport. Nan was outraged. None of his former leaders, all jealous of his being in America, would ever grant him such an approval. Worse, he had quit graduate school here, and if they knew his current non-student status, they'd demand he return with dispatch. Nan wasn't sure whether there was official contact between Harbin Teachers College and the Chinese consulate, which seemed determined to make things difficult for him. Probably so-officials were always in cahoots to bully and torment people. He called Danning, who had heard that recently several people couldn't get their passports renewed on account of their involvement with the student movement the summer before.
What should Nan do? He couldn't write to the head of the personnel office at his former college. That devious man had once asked Nan to buy him a refrigerator, but Nan, disgusted, hadn't answered his letter. Perhaps he should appeal for help from the chairwoman of his former department, pretending he was still registered at Bran-deis. That could be a long shot, though, for he had never been close to her and hadn't written her a word since he was here. He wasn't even sure if she'd bother to respond. How miserable he felt as he walked around in the back lot of Hampden Park, brooding about his predicament. Why should he trouble so much about his passport if he'd get his green card soon? Why let himself remain in the clutches of those invisible hands? Why shouldn't he break loose and set out on his own? What a misfortune it was to be born Chinese, for whom a trifle like a passport renewal would be tantamount to an insuperable obstacle! If you were Chinese, any petty official could torment you and make your life unbearable. And wherever you went, the powers-that-be would demand your obedience. If only he were an American.
With those thoughts on his mind, Nan returned from work in the evening. He was hungry, but couldn't go into the kitchen to eat until the Masefields finished dinner.
Pingping cleared the table and took out of the oven the meal she had cooked for her family-a whole chicken, Tater Tots, and rice porridge. To this she added a salad of cucumber and lettuce. Taotao didn't like the roast chicken and wouldn't eat the drumstick his mother had cut off for him. He complained about the porridge too and left half a bowl unfinished.
Nan always hated to see food wasted, never having forgotten the hunger pangs he'd had during the three famine years in the early 1960s. "We should send you back to China! Totally spoiled," he said to his son.
"Bullshit!" the boy grunted in English.
"What did you say?" Nan sprang up and grabbed at him.
"Please don't!" Pingping wedged herself between them. "We're not in our own home, please!"
Nan sat down, glowering at Taotao. He demanded, "Where did you learn that word?"
The boy, stunned, looked tearful. Pingping ordered, "Apologize to Daddy."
But Taotao wouldn't say anything. This incensed Nan more. He blasted, "Such a heartless brat! I've lived in this country slaving away just for your sake. Instead of being grateful, you hold me in contempt and insult me at every turn. Let me tell you, if not for you, I'd go back to China tomorrow."
"That's not true," Pingping said. "We can't go back because of our own doings. You shouldn't have mixed our decision with his fault."
"Of course it's true. I can always go back, but I want to waste my life here, for him!" He pointed at their son.
"Then why wouldn't the consulate renew your passport? Stop blaming others. We decided to live here, and we must cope with all the difficulties. Come, Taotao, apologize to Daddy."
The boy muttered, "I'm sorry."
" Sorry is not enough, too late," said Nan.
Pingping got up and held the boy's arm. "Let's go. Leave him alone." She took him away.
"If you use foul language again, I'll send you back to China by the express mail," Nan shouted after Taotao.
Without another word, mother and son went out of the kitchen, climbing the stairs to their quarters.
Nan resumed eating. He didn't feel hungry anymore, but was so angry that his appetite knew no bounds. He didn't care what he put into his mouth and just ate and ate and ate, chewing the food ferociously while not tasting it.
To his astonishment, he finished the whole chicken and most of the Tater Tots without noticing how much he had eaten. Strange to say, he didn't feel stuffed. He was sick at heart and regretted his eruption and began blaming himself. Taotao is right. You're full of it. You use self-sacrifice as a pretext for your own failure and useless-ness, and you want others to pity you and share your bitterness. You're silly and pathetic!