A Good Fall (19 page)

She tittered. “Didn’t you used to feel you too were my husband?”

“That was four months ago when I still had my family.”

“You feel differently about me now?”

“Things have changed and I’ve changed too. My wife found the love of her life and took my son away from me. That almost killed me, but I resurrected myself and have become a different man.”

“How different?”

“I’m going to Kiev to see my girlfriend next week.”

“Your girlfriend?”

“Yes, I got to know her online.”

Lina couldn’t help but sneer. “So you want to become an international womanizer?”

“Oh, you can call me a cosmopolitan playboy, but I don’t give a damn. From now on I won’t date a Chinese woman again. Just sick of it—every Chinese has so much baggage of the past, too heavy for me to share and carry. I want to live freely and fearlessly with nothing to do with the past.”

“Without the past, how can we make sense of now?”

“I’ve come to believe that one has to get rid of the past to survive. Dump your past and don’t even think about it, as if it never existed.”

“How can that be possible? Where did you get that stupid idea?”

“That is the way I want to live, the only way to live. If you hadn’t worried so much about all the ties to your past, you wouldn’t have left me, would you? That’s the reason I’ve been dating a Ukranian woman, who is lovely.”

“She just wants to get a green card; she can’t be serious about a yellow man. Even if she agrees to marry you, she might not give you children. Or maybe you’ll dump her once you’re done toying with her.”

“That’s not something for you to speculate about. Didn’t you do that to me? Anyway, you mustn’t think ill of my girlfriend. I believe in names. Do you know any woman named Olga who is an adventuress?”

She laughed. “You’re so silly. You haven’t even met her yet, but you call her your girlfriend. Doesn’t she have siblings?”

“She has a younger brother, she told me.”

“Doesn’t she have parents?”

“She does, and grandparents.”

“See, are those not a kind of baggage? The same sort of past as we have?”

Stumped, he looked at his wristwatch and stood. “I have to go to the UPS store.”

She got to her feet too and refrained from saying she wished to remain his friend, but told him she missed his cooking, to which he didn’t respond. She lifted the cold coffee and downed it to the last drop, then stepped out of his house without another word. She wasn’t sure how serious he was about Olga or whether he’d bought the plane tickets for Kiev. Maybe he couldn’t help but act out of character. Whatever he might do, she hoped he wouldn’t make a fool of himself.

The House Behind a Weeping Cherry

WHEN MY ROOMMATE MOVED OUT
, I was worried that Mrs. Chen might increase the rent. I had been paying three hundred dollars a month for half a room. If my landlady demanded more, I would have to look for another place. I liked this colonial house. In front of it stood an immense weeping cherry tree that attracted birds and gave a bucolic impression, though it was already early summer and the blossoming season had passed. The house was close to downtown Flushing, and you could hear the buzz of traffic on Main Street. It was also near where I worked, convenient for everything. Mrs. Chen took up the first floor; my room was upstairs, where three young women also lived. My former roommate, an apprentice to a carpenter, had left because the three female tenants were prostitutes and often received clients in the house. To be honest, I didn’t feel comfortable about that either, but I had grown used to the women, and especially liked Huong, a twiggy Vietnamese in her early twenties whose parents had migrated to Cholon from China three decades ago, when Saigon fell and the real estate market there became affordable. Also, I had just arrived in New York and at times found it miserable to be alone.

As I expected, Mrs. Chen, a stocky woman with a big mole beside her nose, came up that evening. She sat down, patted her dyed hair, and said, “Wanping, now that you’re using this room for yourself we should talk about the rent.”

“I’m afraid I can’t pay more than what I’m paying. You can get another tenant.” I waved at the empty bed behind her.

“Well, I could put out an ad for that, but I have something else in mind.” She leaned toward me.

I did not respond. I disliked this Fujianese woman and felt she was too smooth. She went on, “Do you have a driver’s license?”

“I have one from North Carolina, but I’m not sure if I can drive here.” I had spent some time delivering produce for a vegetable farm outside Charlotte.

“That shouldn’t be a problem. You can change it to a New York license—easy to do. The motor registration office is very close.” She smiled, revealing her gappy teeth.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked.

“I won’t charge you extra rent. You can have this room to yourself, but I hope you can drive the girls around in the evenings when they have outcalls.”

I tried to stay calm and answered, “Is that legal?”

She chuckled. “Don’t be scared. The girls go to hotels and private homes. No cops will burst in on them—it’s very safe.”

“How many times a week am I supposed to drive?”

“Not very often—four or five times, tops.”

“Do you pay for the girls’ meals too?”

“Yes, everything but long-distance phone calls.”

At last I understood why my female housemates always ate together. “All right. I can drive them around in the evenings, but only in Queens and Brooklyn. Manhattan’s too scary.”

She gave a short laugh. “No problem. I don’t let them go that far.”

“By the way, can I eat with them when I work?”

“Sure thing. I’ll tell them.”

“Thank you.” I paused. “You know, sometimes it can be lonely here.”

A sly smile crossed her face. “You can spend time with the girls—they may give you a discount.”

I didn’t know how to respond. Before leaving, she made it clear that I must keep everything confidential and that she had asked me to help mainly because she wanted the women to feel safe when they went out. Johns would treat a prostitute better if they knew she had a chauffeur at her disposal. I had seen the black Audi in the garage. I hadn’t driven for months and really missed the feeling of freedom that an automobile used to give me, as though I could soar in the air if there weren’t cars in front of me on the highway. I looked forward to driving the women around.

After my landlady left, I stood before the window of my room, which faced the street. The crown of the weeping cherry, motionless and more than forty feet high, was a feathery mass against a sky strewn with stars. In the distance, a plane, a cluster of lights, was sailing noiselessly east through a few rags of clouds. I knew Mrs. Chen’s offer might implicate me in something illicit, but I wasn’t worried. I was accustomed to living among the prostitutes. When I first figured out what they did for a living, I had wanted to move out right away, like my former roommate, but I couldn’t find a place close to my job—I was a presser at a garment factory downtown. Also, once I got to know the women a little better, I realized that they were not “bloodsuckers,” as people assumed. Like everyone else, they had to work to survive.

I too was selling myself. Every weekday I stood at the table ironing the joining lines of cut pieces, the waists of pants, the collars and cuffs of shirts. It was sultry in the basement, where the air conditioner was at least ten years old, inefficient, and whined loudly. We were making quality clothes for stores in Manhattan, and every item had to be neatly ironed before being wrapped up for shipment.

Who would have thought I’d land in a sweatshop? My parents’ last letter urged me again to go to college. But I couldn’t pass the TOEFL. My younger brother had just been admitted to a veterinary school, and I’d sent back three thousand dollars for his tuition. If only I had learned a trade before coming to the United States, like plumbing, or home renovation, or Qigong. Any job would have been better than ironing clothes.

The brothel had no name. I had once come across a newspaper ad in our kitchen that read: “Angels of Your Dream—Asian Girls from Various Countries with Gorgeous Figures and Tender Hearts.” It gave no contact information other than a phone number, which was the one shared by the women. I almost laughed out loud at the ad, because the three of them were all Chinese. Of course, Huong could pass for Vietnamese, speaking the language as her native tongue, and Nana could pretend to be a Malaysian or Singaporean, since she came from Hong Kong and spoke accented Mandarin. But Lili, a tall college student from Shanghai, looked Chinese through and through, even though she spoke English well. She was the one who handled the phone calls. I guessed Lili would return to school when the summer was over, and then Mrs. Chen might hire another twentysomething who was fluent in English. I wasn’t sure if my landlady was the real boss, however. The women often mentioned someone called the Croc. I had never met the man, but I learned from them that he owned some shady businesses in the area and was a coyote.

I liked having dinner with my housemates. We usually ate quite late, around eight p.m., but that was fine with me, since most days I didn’t leave the factory until seven. Often I was not the only man dining with them; they offered free dinner to their clients as well. The meals were homely fare—plain rice and two or three dishes, one of which was meat while the others were vegetables. Occasionally the women would prepare a bowl of seafood in place of a vegetable dish. There would also be a soup, usually made of spinach or watercress or bamboo shoots mixed with dried shrimp, tofu or egg drops, or even rice crust. The women would take turns cooking, one person each day, unless that person was occupied with a john and another had to step in for her in the kitchen. Some of their clients enjoyed the atmosphere at the table and stayed for hours chatting.

Whenever there was another man at dinner, I would remain quiet. I’d finish eating quickly and return to my room, where I would watch TV or play solitaire or leaf through a magazine. But when I was the only man I’d stay as long as I could. The women seemed to like having me around and would even tease me. Huong was not only the prettiest but also the best cook, depending less on sauces, whereas Lili used too much sugar and Nana deep-fried almost everything. One day Huong braised a large pomfret and stir-fried slivers of potato and celery, both favorites of mine, though I hadn’t told her so. None of them had a client that evening, so dinner started at seven thirty and we ate slowly.

Nana told us, “I had a guy this afternoon who said his girlfriend had just jilted him. He cried in my room—it was awful. I didn’t know how to comfort him. I just said, ‘You have to let it go.’”

“Did he pay you?” Lili asked.

“Uh-huh. He gave me eighty dollars without doing anything with me.”

“Well, I wonder why he came here,” I said.

“Maybe just to have someone to talk to,” Huong said.

“I don’t know,” Lili pitched in. “Maybe to find out if he could still do it with another girl. Men are weak creatures and cannot survive without having a woman around.”

I had never liked Lili, who would speak to me with her eyes half closed as if reluctant to pay me more mind. I said, “There’re a lot of bachelors out there. Most of them are getting on all right.”

“Like yourself,” Nana broke in, giggling.

“I’m single because I’m too poor to get married,” I confessed.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” Huong asked.

“Not yet.”

“So would you go with me if I wasn’t a sex worker?” Nana asked, her oval face expressionless.

“Your taste is too expensive for me,” I said, laughing, though it was only partly a joke.

They all laughed. Nana continued, “Come on, I’ll give you a big discount.”

“I can’t take advantage of you like that,” I said.

That cracked them up again. I meant what I said, though. If I slept with one of them, I might have to do the same with the other two, spending a fortune. Then it would be hard to keep a balanced relationship with all of them. Besides, I wasn’t sure if they were all clean and healthy. Even if they were, I disliked Lili. It was better to remain unattached.

Then the phone rang, and Lili picked it up. “Hello, honey, how may I help you?” she intoned in a sugary voice.

I resumed eating as if uninterested, but listened carefully. Lili told the caller, “We have many Asian girls here. What kind of a girl are you interested in, sir? … Yes, we do…. Of course pretty, every one of them is pretty…. At least one-twenty … Well, that’ll be between you and the girl, sir…. Wait, let me write it down.” She grabbed a pen and began jotting down the address. Meanwhile, Huong and Nana finished their dinner, knowing that one of them would have business to take care of.

Lili said into the phone, “Got it. She’ll be there within half an hour…. Absolutely, sir. Thank you, bye-bye.”

Hanging up, Lili turned around and said, “Huong, you should go. The man’s name is Mr. Han. He wants a Thai girl.”

“I can’t speak Thai!”

“Speak some Vietnamese to show him that you’re not from China. He can’t tell the difference anyway, as long as you know how to charm him.”

Huong went back into her room to brush her teeth and put on some makeup, and Lili handed me the scrap of paper with our destination—a room in the Double Luck Hotel. I knew how to get there, having driven the women several times. I clapped on my brown duckbill cap, which kept my eyes hidden.

A few minutes later Huong came out, ready to go. “Wow, you’re beautiful!” I said, quite amazed.

“Am I?” She lifted her arms while turning a little to let me view her from the side. Her waist was concave at the small of her back.

“Like a little fox,” I said.

She slapped me on the arm. She wore a beige miniskirt and had applied lipstick, but she seemed more like a teenager who had messed up her makeup, so that her face appeared older than her petite body, which was curvaceous but tight. As she walked with her denim purse hanging from her thin shoulder, her legs and hips swayed a little as if she were about to leap. Together we went down to the garage.

The hotel was on a busy street, and two large buses stood at its front entrance, one still puffing exhaust out of its rear. Flocks of tourists were collecting their baggage, while a guide shouted to gather them for check-in. I found a quiet spot around the corner and let Huong out. “Call if you need me to come up,” I told her. “I’ll be waiting for you here.”

“Thanks.” She closed the door and strolled away, her gait as casual as if she were a guest at the hotel.

My heart sagged as I lay back in the seat to take a nap. She was young and beautiful and shouldn’t be selling herself like that. For sure she had to send her parents money regularly, but there were other ways of making a living. She wasn’t stupid, and she could have learned a respectable trade. She had finished high school in Vietnam and could speak some English by now. But from what I had gathered at the dining table, she was an illegal alien, whereas Nana had a Canadian green card and Lili held a student visa. They could make some money, definitely, but nothing like what the newspaper ads promised for the “massage” profession—“more than $20,000 a month.” Usually, the women charged a john one hundred at the house, but they had to give Mrs. Chen forty of that. Sometimes a client would give them a tip, between twenty and sixty dollars. Nana was rawboned and on the homely side, with a slightly cavernous mouth, so her price for incalls was eighty dollars, unless the men were older and had more cash to throw around. On a good day, they could each make more than two hundred after paying our landlady. Now and then an obnoxious client would not only refuse to tip them but also walk off with their belongings. Lili had once lost a pair of silver bracelets, stolen by a man who claimed to be from Shanghai, like her.

I had asked Huong about visiting hotels and private homes. She said she could make thirty or forty dollars more per client than at the house, though there were more risks. One night I had driven her to see a john at the International Inn, but on arrival she had found two men in the suite. They dragged her in before she could back out, and worked her so hard that she felt as if her legs no longer belonged to her. She had to take off her high heels to walk back to the car. She wept all the way home. She was sick the next day but wouldn’t go to a clinic, as she had no health insurance. I suggested she see Dr. Liang at Sun Garden Herbs. She paid ten dollars for a diagnosis fee. The old man put his fingers on her wrists to feel her pulse and said her kidneys were weak. Also, there was too much angry fire in her liver. He prescribed a bunch of herbs, which helped her recover. After that, I offered to accompany her into hotels and wait in the hallway, but she wouldn’t let me, saying it would be too conspicuous.