Mr. Wang was rushed into a trauma room in the ER. His wife and Nan waited outside, sitting on orange chairs. Nan told Mrs. Wang to take a nap, since she might have to stay here a whole day and should rest some now. Soon she dozed off in spite of all the activity in the lounge. Meanwhile, Nan paced the floor and regretted not having brought along a book. He inserted two nickels into a pay phone and called the Gold Wok to check on Pingping and tell her about Mr. Wang's condition, which seemed critical. His wife couldn't talk with him for long because she and Niyan were overwhelmed with work there.
About half an hour later, a young doctor with tired eyes and curly sideburns stepped out of the trauma room and said to Mrs. Wang, "He isn't doing too well."
"Please save him!" she begged.
"We're doing our best." The doctor handed his half-drained coffee cup to a nurse and returned to the patient.
"Is he on Medicare?" the nurse asked Mrs. Wang.
"Yes, here's his card." The old woman took the card out of her purse and handed it to her. The nurse gave her two forms clasped to a clipboard. Mrs. Wang didn't know how to complete them, so Nan filled them out for her.
Again she closed her eyes and tried to drop off while Nan sat there watching people milling around. His head was numb and couldn't focus on any thought, partly because he had drunk two mugs of coffee that morning to gear himself up to the work in the kitchen. An hour later, a tall nurse wearing a laminated ID badge around her neck came out and said that Mrs. Wang could now go in and see her husband. The old woman and Nan followed her into the trauma room. At the sight of them, the young doctor smiled, his eyes sparkling and his bulky nose filmed with perspiration. "Well, he's stable now," he told them. "We're going to move him into another room for observation. He can check out tomorrow if he's still stable by then. The nurse will let you know how to take care of him at home."
"Thank you, doctor," said Mrs. Wang.
"Sure. I'm going to put him on medication before we decide if he needs an angioplasty. That's a minor operation using a little balloon to clear the narrowed artery." The doctor also said he wanted Mrs. Wang to bring her husband back regularly so that he could see him on an outpatient basis.
Nan translated the doctor's words to Mrs. Wang while she nodded agreement. He was surprised that they wouldn't keep the old man in the hospital for a few days. He remembered that Uncle Zhao, his father's painter friend in China, had once suffered a minor heart attack and had been hospitalized for a good month.
Mr. Wang was lying on the bed and lifted his withered hand to wave at his wife and Nan. Color had returned to his face, and his eyes were animated again. A thin hose was still attached to his arm, and a yellow defibrillator perched beside the bed. He said almost naughtily to his tearful wife, "I thought I couldn't make it this time. Thank heaven, they brought me back."
A nurse pulled over a gurney. They moved Mr. Wang onto it and pushed him away. Nan didn't follow them to the ward, and instead told Mrs. Wang that he must go back to help Pingping and that she should call him when the old man was discharged so that he could come and drive them home. She looked a touch dismayed but didn't ask him to stay. Nan hailed a taxi and headed back to the Gold Wok.
Hearing that Mr. Wang had survived the heart attack, Pingping felt relieved. She was pleased that Nan had come back before midafter-noon; otherwise she'd have had to put Taotao, who was just ten, to work at the counter as the cashier.
Although Mr. Wang could walk around afterward, the Wangs had been shaken by his heart attack and decided to move back to Taiwan, where free medical care was available to everyone. They had thought of joining their daughter in Seattle, but her airline job there was temporary and she might be transferred elsewhere. Soon they put their house on the market, selling it for $145,000. The price had been drastically reduced, so a lot of people stopped by to look at the brick bungalow. Niyan and Shubo went there to see the property too. They loved it, especially its convenient location, but the price was still too steep for them. What's more, Shubo Gao hadn't defended his dissertation yet and might go elsewhere to take a job. Nonetheless, his wife said to Mrs. Wang, "We'll buy your house if you lop twenty thousand off the price."
"No way." The old woman shook her full head of gray hair. "We've already underpriced it for a quick sale. Ask Nan and Pingping whether we offered them the home for a hundred and fifty. That was two years ago."
Niyan and Shubo did ask Pingping, who proved that was true, so they gave up coveting the bungalow. A week later a retired couple from Illinois bought the house, and within a few days the Wangs left for good.
Their departure was a quiet affair that few people in the neighborhood noticed, but it saddened Nan and Pingping. The Wangs didn't like Taiwan that much; still, they could return to it. By contrast, the Wus, having no recourse to a place they could call home, had to put down roots here. They liked Georgia, yet they could see that life might be lonely and miserable here when they were old. They often talked to Niyan about the isolation the Wangs had experienced, but Niyan thought the old couple had asked for that kind of life, saying they could always have joined a community. Niyan said in a crisp voice, "They should have gone to a church. That could've made them feel more or less at home here. If they didn't think Taiwan was a safe place, they should never have gone back to it. Your homeland is where you live and die."
Niyan's words made Nan and Pingping think a good deal. Husband and wife talked between themselves about joining a church, but decided not to rush. By any means they mustn't make light of the matter of religion, and neither should they go to God's house just for human companionship. Nevertheless, isolation and loneliness often made Nan ill at ease. Unlike him, Pingping was unusually calm, saying they wouldn't need others as long as their family stayed together. "Who has many friends?" she said to him. "Most people only have associates. We have no need for lots of friends."
Nan was abashed as he realized she was much more enduring and solitary than he was. She didn't even miss her parents and siblings that much, although she'd write them regularly. He wasn't attached to his parents either, but he was unaccustomed to an isolated life and couldn't yet differentiate loneliness from solitude. By nature he was gregarious and had liked noisy, bustling crowds, but life had placed him at a spot where he had to exist as an individual completely on his own. How lucky he felt to have Pingping with him.
17
NAN also felt fortunate to have Dick Harrison as his friend, whose presence in his life had intensified his interest in poetry. One day Dick invited Nan to a reading given by a famous poet. At first Nan was reluctant to go, because whenever he was away, he'd have to ask Shubo to help at the restaurant. Shubo had been writing his dissertation in sociology at home, so he was available most times when the Gold Wok needed him. Still, Pingping would be unhappy about Nan 's absence, which would cost them six dollars an hour to Shubo, who would work at the counter. This also meant Pingping would have to cook in the kitchen. Yet fascinated by Dick's praise of the poet, Edward Neary, Nan begged his wife to let him attend the reading at Emory University. Pingping didn't want him to go at first, but she later yielded.
The reading was held in White Hall on campus, where many buildings had marble exteriors and roofs of red ceramic tiles. At the entrance to the auditorium stood two folding tables, on one of which were stacked Edward Neary's books for sale, the table manned by a strapping man from the university's bookstore. Nan, in a double-breasted blazer, went into the auditorium, which had already filled up with students, faculty, and people from the city. The crowd overflowed onto the steps alongside the walls. There were more women than men among the audience. Unable to find a seat, Nan stayed in the back and leaned against the steel banister of the stairs that led up to the projection booth.