A Free Life (26 page)

AFTER Thanksgiving Nan would call the lawyer's office once a week, but the secretary always answered ambiguously, saying Mr. Shang was not in and the Wus would receive the notice from the deeds registry soon, so they should set their minds at rest. But she couldn't confirm whether the papers had been filed. Sometimes Nan felt that Mr. Shang was actually in his office when he phoned but that the man avoided speaking to him.

The more Nan thought about the impasse, the more befuddled and outraged he was. Mr. Shang, as his business card indicated, had gone to law school in California and must have grown up in the United States. It was unlikely that he'd act like a corrupt official, yet Nan felt as helpless as if he were again under the thumb of a bureaucrat, like back in China. But what should he do? He was at a loss.

One day at noon, Janet came in to have Dandan Noodle. Pingping and she chatted again while Janet was eating. By chance Pingping mentioned their predicament. Janet was surprised. "You should sue this obnoxious lawyer!" she told Pingping, her violet-colored eyes flickering.

"But we're not sure about his crime."

"Press charges for your suffering, for the mental damage he has done to you. This is outrageous."

"That cost more money. He's lawyer and know how to guard himself."

"Maybe he does, so?"

"We just want our business back, no more trouble." "Don't worry. He won't get away with this. Let me ask Dave. He may have a better idea what to do."

Nan wasn't positive about Pingping's revealing their trouble to Janet, who he felt gossiped too much. He was afraid she might spread their story, and that would make them appear stupid in others' eyes. Yet if she could help them figure out a solution, he'd be more than grateful. He simply couldn't bear this uncertainty any longer.

Janet came in the next afternoon and told the Wus, "Dave said it wasn't a big deal. You can always go to the deeds office and file the papers by yourself."

"Reelly?" Nan felt dumb for not having thought of this before. "Zer lawyer said he must do zat."

"He just wants extra business. People file their business deals by themselves all the time. That's what Dave told me."

"Where is zer deeds awffice, do you know?" asked Nan.

"It's inside the courthouse in Lawrenceville."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

The next morning Janet and Pingping went to the lawyer's office together. Mr. Shang was with a client when they arrived, so Cathy let them sit in the waiting room, saying her boss would be with them shortly. She offered them each a cup of coffee.

When Mr. Shang was done and came up to them, Pingping asked him whether he had filed the papers. He answered, "I've been too busy to go to the deeds office these days." He glanced at Janet, who was glaring at him.

"Can we file it by ourself?" asked Pingping.

"You sure can. Cathy, get her papers from my office and give her the refund. Mrs. Wu, I'm pleased you can do this by yourself." Somehow he sounded relieved. He went on, "Excuse me, ladies. I have to meet a client who's waiting." He motioned to a young woman sitting near the entrance of the waiting room and riffling through a fashion magazine. "Come in, Miss Han," he said.

Pingping noticed that the attorney's socks were not mates, one black and the other blue. For sure Mr. Shang wasn't an absent-minded man, so he might have been color-blind.

The secretary wrote Pingping a check for eighty dollars and handed her the papers. Pingping and her friend left the office and headed for Janet's passenger van. "He isn't that bad," Pingping said as they pulled out of the parking lot.

"Lawyers are all the same," Janet replied. "You should know your rights when you hire them."

"I didn't expect he refund the money."

"He had to. That's for the filing fee."

They stopped at Asian Square to pick up a World Journal for Nan. Nan always read the Sunday newspaper, especially the enclosed weekly magazine that carried a number of articles written by well-known journalists and experts. Mr. Liu, the dissident living in New York City, had a column in the weekly, and Nan enjoyed reading that old man's writings. On their way to the deeds office, Pingping wondered whether Mr. Shang had refunded the eighty dollars because Janet had accompanied her, ready to challenge him. He couldn't possibly have forgotten to file the papers, since he went to the courthouse frequently, representing his clients. Yet somehow she didn't feel that the attorney was as greedy and sneaky as she had imagined, though she knew he had intended to torment her and Nan. They should have registered the transaction by themselves long ago to save all the doubts and miserable feelings that could easily poison one's mind and spawn hideous thoughts. She wondered why Mr. Shang had looked relieved when she said she'd handle the papers by herself. Probably having tormented the Wus enough, he had felt it was high time to bring the whole thing to an end. Or perhaps her request foiled his attempt to rob his clients and thus checked the crime he had been hesitating to commit. If so, this meant he still had a heart and dared not act like an outright crook.

Pingping and Janet found the deeds registry in the courthouse and filed the papers. The whole procedure took just a few minutes, and Pingping was amazed.

NAN was anxious, because the Wangs, having stayed in Taiwan for three months, would be coming back in two weeks. The Wus would have to move again. For days Nan had been considering where to go. He and his wife were a little spoiled by living so close to their workplace that they now felt reluctant to move far away. If only they could afford the Wangs' bungalow. These days Nan often looked through ads in Gwinnett Creative Loafing in hopes of finding a safe, affordable apartment nearby.

By now the Wus had $32,000 in the bank. They noticed that there were some smaller houses for sale for less than $90,000, though all of them were far away from the Gold Wok. With their business worth so little, they couldn't possibly get a mortgage from the bank. It seemed impossible for them to think of buying a house now.

Then one morning in early February Janet stopped by and said, "Pingping, I saw a home for sale on Marsh Drive. It's not big, can't be too expensive."

That street was just a five-minute walk from Beaver Hill Plaza, so the Wus were all ears. Nan asked Janet, "Do you know zer price?"

"Uh-uh. I guess a hundred grand, tops."

"But we have no that kinda money," Pingping said.

"And we can't get a loan eizer," added Nan.

"If I were you, I'd talk to the owner and see if there might be a way."

Early the next morning, the moment Taotao left for school, Nan and Pingping went to Marsh Drive to see the house. It was a brick ranch sitting on the northern side of a small lake and in the middle of a lot bigger than a third of an acre. The backyard, covered by grass and gently sloping toward the green water, was flanked by two steel fences, and a flock of Canada geese perched on the edge of the lake, basking in the sunshine. A dozen pines and sweet gums cast shadows on two semicircles of monkey grass, which resembled two large flower beds but with only a few young cypresses and some dead leaves in them. A woodpecker began hammering away on the other shore, and except for the rapid knocking, all the other sounds subsided at once. Having looked at the outside of the house, the Wus went to its front and rang the doorbell.

An old man came out. Seeing that the Wus were potential buyers, he let them in. His name was John Wolfe, and he was a retiree living alone. He wore a hearing aid but looked in good shape, with thick shoulders, a flat belly, thin legs, and a bush of white hair. After giving them a brief tour through the house, which had a half-finished basement, two small bedrooms and one large master bedroom, and two bathrooms, he told the Wus that the asking price was $85,000. Somehow the house felt smaller than it looked from the outside. Seated on a sofa in the living room, Nan explained their interest and difficulty. "We can't get a mortgage from zer bank because our business is too small," he told Mr. Wolfe.

"I know the Gold Wok. Its soups are delicious. Has Mr. Wang retired?"

"Yes. We have zer place now."

"Do you own it or run it?"

"We two own it togezzer." Nan put his hand on his wife's shoulder. "How much down payment can you plunk down if I let you buy this house?"

Nan looked at Pingping, then said, "Maybe sirty percent."

"Holy smokes! I didn't expect you'd pay that kind of cash. That will do-I mean, we can figure out a way. Now, how about the rest of the payment? Are you willing to pay some interest, say seven percent?" He tapped his right foot on the beige carpet.

"Zat's a little bit too high for us," Nan said. He turned to Pingping and asked, "What do you think?"

"Seven percent is fine if he doesn't change it," she said.

"Seven percent fixed," he told the old man.

Pingping added, "We'll try to pay all your money in three and four years."

That was indeed possible, since the restaurant could fetch a profit of more than $30,000 a year. Mr. Wolfe seemed unconvinced and said, "I don't mean to be nosy. Tell me, how much can you two make a year?"

"Maybe sirty-five thousand," Nan answered.

The old man's face crinkled into a smile while his bell-shaped nose quivered. He confessed that he hated to let an agent take a five percent cut from the sale, so this would be a good arrangement. After some calculation, an agreement was reached: besides the thirty percent down payment, the Wus would give him at least $1,000 a month until the mortgage was paid off.

Nan was eager to buy this place mainly because he liked the lake on the south of the property; according to feng shui, that symbolized the abundance of life. What's more, a nameless creek flowed in the east, about two hundred yards away from Mr. Wolfe's property, meandering along the edge of the woods. That was also an auspicious sign, which might embody the spring of life. Nan had never taken feng shui seriously, but at the sight of this house, somehow he couldn't stop thinking of that occult system. As their conversation continued, the Wus realized why the old man actually couldn't wait to sell his home. His ex-wife had left him the year before and he had a girlfriend down in Florida, near Pompano Beach, and was anxious to join her there.

Pingping, however, was suspicious about the feng shui of this place, where at least one marriage had disintegrated. She couldn't share Nan 's enthusiasm and superstitious thoughts, but she supported the deal and had paid a five-hundred-dollar deposit. The house was close to the shopping plaza and solid in every way despite its low ceiling. Mr. Wolfe had built it himself, so the brickwork and the woodwork were fine-the living room walls were oak-paneled and even the carport was constructed of cherry red bricks with zigzag furrows on their sides, the same as those used for the house.

Coming out of Mr. Wolfe's, Nan and Pingping headed back to the Gold Wok. They were excited, never having dreamed they might soon own a house on a piece of land they could call their own.

ON THURSDAY MORNING they took Mr. Wolfe to Mr. Shang's office to sign the contract. They used the attorney again because his fee was $120, half the price Mr. Wolfe's lawyer would charge. Ping-ping was surprised by the change of the law office in less than a month. Now the suite was divided into two parts, one of which had become a gift shop lined with shelves displaying merchandise for overseas Chinese to buy for their families and friends in Taiwan and on the mainland-Wisconsin ginseng, multiple vitamins, capsules of fish oil, dried sea cucumbers, Spanish fly, love lotions, growth hormone release formulas, cosmetics, electronic gadgets-whereas the other half of the suite was still used by Mr. Shang as his office. Apparently the attorney wasn't doing well. These days so many small businesses had gone under in this area that some suites and rooms in Chinatown were vacant, marked with FOR RENT signs. But Mr. Shang was effusive and congratulatory when he saw the Wus again. Beyond his desk sat a Chinese girl, plump and pimply, typing at a computer and wearing headphones. Beside the mouse pad was a tiny CD player. She was wagging her head rhythmically while punching the keyboard. Mr. Shang declared to Nan, "I told you that you were going to be a millionaire." Nan wondered why Cathy, the secretary, wasn't here. Probably she had been laid off.

"It's just small house," Pingping told him, smiling.

"This is a big step, though," said the lawyer.

Mr. Wolfe chimed in, "A home is where you start to build your fortune."

"That's right," Mr. Shang agreed. "This is a major step toward realizing your American dream."

Nan couldn't help but wonder why Mr. Wolfe suddenly sounded like an old Chinese. What fortune had he built at the house on Marsh Drive? Just a broken marriage.

The transaction was quite simple. Mr. Wolfe had already written out their agreement on the price and the format of payment, and the attorney was just supposed to go over the contract, serve as a witness, and ascertain the validity of the sale. Mr. Shang took the sheets of paper from the old man and read them carefully. Then he said to the three of them, "This is fine. Everything is clearly spelled out. Because there's no mortgage from the bank, the sale is very simple. It's just between you two parties."

"So we should go ahead and sign zis contract?" asked Nan.

"Yes."

Mr. Wolfe shook his head, but scrawled his signature without a word. The Wus followed suit, signing their names as cobuyers. Then Pingping took out an envelope that contained a certified check for $25,000 and handed it to Mr. Wolfe. At the sight of it, the old man was elated. He scrutinized the check and put it back into the envelope. Smiling faintly, he inserted the money into the inner pocket of his jacket.

In the parking lot of the office he praised Mr. Shang to the Wus. "He's a good guy and doesn't rip off his clients. I should've used him for my divorce."

MR. WOLFE departed for Florida a week later. The Wus went to clean the home every morning before they began their day at the restaurant. Along with the house, the old man had left them some furniture and all the household tools, which came in handy for their cleaning. One morning they happened upon a vase standing on the doormat and holding a bunch of mixed snow crocuses. Attached to it was a note saying, "Welcome to the neighborhood-Mrs. Lodge." They placed the bouquet on the round coffee table in the living room, which at once brightened as if the yellow and white flowers had become a vibrant center. They had no idea who Mrs. Lodge was and whether they should return the vase. Knowing that colored people weren't always welcome in a predominantly white neighborhood, the Wus hadn't expected such warm greetings. Mrs. Lodge's present made their day. On their way to work, they read the names on some mailboxes while walking along the left-hand side of the street so as to avoid the traffic coming from behind, since there was no sidewalk anywhere in this neighborhood. They found that the Lodges lived about a dozen houses away from theirs. On the front porch of that raised ranch hung a large wicker swing, and on the well-kept lawn stood a willow oak and a colossal magnolia, its broad leaves scintillating with dewdrops in the sun. A flock of grackles were walking on the grass, most of them with their bills ajar as if they were choking. Suddenly one of them took off, then the entire flock followed, whirring and swirling in the air like a twisting blanket. And a few were crying gratingly. Nan and Pingping thought of going in to thank Mrs. Lodge, but decided against it, unsure that this was an appropriate time. "There's no hurry. We can always do something in return," Nan told his wife.