The Lady Boss Yongming Wang
It is a cold raining December evening. I am riding the train, going home after work, when suddenly I hear someone calling my name. I quickly lift my eyes from the book. Right across the aisle is nobody but Master Liu. He is smiling broadly at me. I am thrilled. I have not seen him for a long time. It is much an unexpected event bouncing into him on the train.
“Hey, Master Liu, long time no see. Why are you here?” I yell at him, in Chinese. Master Liu speaks very limited English. We always talk in Chinese. By the way, Master Liu is not, as you think, a Chinese Gongfu or Karate master. Master Liu is a chef in a Chinese restaurant. We Chinese like to call everyone with special skill the Master, to show our respect. A few years ago, when I was a graduate student in the university, I worked at the same restaurant for one summer. And Master Liu and I became good friends. We had a lot to talk about. Talking, or chatting if you like, was the only entertainment in the restaurant. Master Liu would like to tell me stories: his stories, including his adventure in New York Chinatown whorehouse; stories of his friends, stories of people he knew or heard of, all of them working in the restaurants, all of them Chinese immigrants, legal or illegal. I was fascinated by their life stories, their troubles, adventures, and struggles. After I left there I still kept in touch with him, calling him on the phone from time to time. But, Since I got married a couple years ago, bought a small house in the suburb, and found a job in the city, my life seemed to become busier everyday, I was on the way towards realizing the American dream. My phone call to Master Liu became less frequent. Eventually I stopped calling him at all.
“Yes, long time no see, no talk,” he yells back at me, at the meantime he stands up from his seat, walks over, sits at the empty seat next to me. “Today is my day off. I went to the city. I haven’t been to the city for almost a year. Now I’m going back to the restaurant. How is everything with you? We haven’t talked for so long. Is everything alright?”
I blush a little. It is I who is to blame for the lost communication. But I am so eager to know what has happened at the restaurant for the past year that I just ignore his questions and instead ask him tons of questions. “I’m alright. Just a little busy. Now tell me everything that happened at the restaurant. How is the business? Still very busy? How is your family back in China? any progress on getting them coming to America? And…” I hesitate a little, “How is Mrs. Chen, the lady boss?” I lower my voice.
“The business is so so, just so so,” he says, still smiling, in his usual tone and usual saying --- no matter how good the restaurant business is, he always says jus so so. “My family is ok. They are still waiting for the American visa. Hope they can get it next year. We are separated for more than ten years. My son may not recognize me anymore.” He laughs at himself a little. “As for the lady boss,” he lowers his voice too and with strange expression on his face, “She is pregnant, six months.”
I am shocked. “How come? Whose?” I throw the questions at him.
“Whose? Who do you think? Nobody else except my cousin, her husband.” Master Liu replies quickly, “About seven months ago my cousin suddenly came back to the restaurant. Now Mei is pregnant, and alone. What a fate!” he sighs, rubbing his two hands together.
Master Liu and I keep talking, but I hardly pay any attention; I just sit there, saying something meaningless mechanically. Appeared in front of my eyes is the face of Mrs. Chen, a face of tender and firm, of delicate and touch. I still remember vividly the first day when I went to work at the restaurant. It was the time of high noon, I got off the train, walked out of the train station, stood under the bright sun of May, waited. A fancy red car quickly turned up in front of me; stepped out a young woman about the age of thirty. “Hurry. Let’s go. It’s the busy lunch time.” She even didn’t ask who I was. We drove to the restaurant in five minutes. I started working immediately. Oh, my goodness, it was such a busy place. The restaurant was located at the center of busy downtown business area of the city. Never in my whole restaurant working life had I seen so many customers. There were seven people working at the kitchen, two persons --- I was one of two --- at the front counter taking orders, answering phones, and attaining the money register; Mrs. Chen was supervising everything, doing everything, at the counter and kitchen. She was the busiest person the whole time, and I could feel that she still glanced at me from time to time. She was watching me, to see if my skill matched the required salary which was two thousands per month. When finally the busy lunch time slowed down, it was almost two o’clock. I took a break, wiping the sweat on my face. Then Mrs. Chen told me I could only get one thousand eight hundred based on my performance. She said to me, “look at him,” she pointed to the other person, “he is better than you, and he only earned two thousands.” I had no complains. Mrs. Chen continued, “Actually you are not going to stay here. I have another restaurant which is about fifteen minutes of walking from here. You go to work there. And my older cousin-in-law, Mr. Liu is the chef and the manager there.”
That was how I ended up with Master Liu, and soon we two became buddies. That restaurant was much smaller. Only three of us, Master Liu, me, and another young fellow who was the hot fry cook. I worked at the cashier, answered the phone.
I remember it was after ten o’clock one night, the second week after I got there. There was this phone call. I picked up. A man’s voice, speaking something I didn’t understand, not English, not Spanish, and not Chinese, because I understand all three languages. But the man spoke none of them. After a few exchanges between him and me without understanding each other, finally he changed to Chinese and asked me if I’m the new guy. I said yes. Then he asked for Master Liu. Master Liu talked with him on the phone for more than half an hour. By the way, I didn’t understand what they were talking about. They were speaking some local dialect of Fujian Province of China. I didn’t understand a single word. Master Liu talked very fast. He sometimes raised his voice to a very high level. Obviously he was arguing with the man. After they finished, I couldn’t help asking him who the man was. After a long sigh, he told me the following story.
The man’s name was Jian Chen, Master Liu’s cousin, a few years younger than Master Liu. They used to live in the same village back in China. Jian is a handsome boy, and full of energy. He married the beautiful Mei from the same village. Immediately after their marriage they followed the footsteps of most other young people in their village, coming to America. Illegally, of course. They had no money. After Jian’s uncle in the United States agreed to pay the human smuggler forty thousand American dollars, the smuggler arranged for Jian and Mei traveling and entering the United States. It was a perilous trip. They spent one month on the road. First they took airplane, using faked passports, to a small Europe nation. From there flew to Mexico, finally they had to walk for several days crossing the border. In the end they arrived in New York. Jian’s uncle paid the money. The smuggler let them go. They started to work in the restaurant immediately. It took them three full years to pay back Jian’s uncle. Another three years to save enough to open their own restaurant. After two more years, they opened their second restaurant. Everything looked bright for them. At this moment Jian started to gamble.
At first he would go to the casino at Atlantic City once every week. It was very convenient to go there. He just took the free bus from the bus stop a few blocks from where the restaurant was. The trip to gambling took less than three hours. Usually Jian would go there on the night of Monday after the restaurant was closed, and came back next afternoon. Mei went with him for the first several times, then stopped going. She didn’t like the place. But Jian liked it. It was the only entertainment out of the dull and busy restaurant life. Jian was young and energetic. But Jian was a cautious person. He gambled not big, losing about several hundreds dollars each time on average. It was acceptable. For Mei, as long as Jian was happy and came back the Tuesday afternoon on time, she had no complains. She loved Jian. She felt that Jian deserved some fun after so many years working as a slave in the restaurant. It went like this for almost a year. Then things started to change.
Gradually Jian would not return to restaurant on time. Either he came back very late on Tuesday or even on Wednesday. That caused much trouble for the restaurant work flow. Nobody knew what happened. Then one day Jian confessed to Master Liu that there was a woman involved.
Master Liu told me he didn’t know much about this woman, because Jian only told him very little about his affair. All he knew was that she was a waitress from a Chinese restaurant which Jian visited often when he was at Atlantic City. Gradually Jian was away three or four days each week. Mei had to hire a new worker to replace him. They started to quarrel in public. Then one day they had a big fight.
On that day, six months ago, Master Liu told, it was ten in the night when Master Liu and other two workers were eating the dinner, they had that big fight. Mei and Jian lived on the second floor, right above the restaurant. Master Liu heard the quarreling and Mei’s crying, and Jian’s cursing. It was the first time Mei refused to give Jian money. A few minutes later, Jian stormed down to the restaurant, rushed to the cash register. Mei was running behind. Somehow Mei got to the cash register first. She grasped the machine in two arms, her upper body slanting forward pressing firmly onto the machine. She was crying and shouting Jian Jian I don’t want you to go there anymore I don’t want you to see that woman anymore I don’t want you to ruin our restaurant our family our home. Jian stood there, saying nothing. His face turned to pale. Master Liu was about to say something to him. Jian jerked him off, walked towards the restaurant door. Before he stepped outside, he said to Mei, “keep your money, you won’t see me again.” He disappeared into the dark. He never came back. Nobody knew where he went. This is Jian’s first phone call after he left, Master Liu told me, finishing the sad story.
“Where is he now?” I asked
“Las Vegas.”
“What did he want from you? I saw you two arguing on the phone,” I asked again.
“What else but the money,” Master Liu raised his voice, “he is with the woman, I knew it even he didn’t admit. He said he needed the money, and asked me send him the restaurant money and hide all these from Mei. I can’t do that. I had a fight with him on the phone. I begged him, cursed him. Even he is my cousin, I cursed him. I am heart-broken every time when I see Mei’s face.”
After that event, I received Jian’s call almost once a week for the whole summer. He usually called on Monday night around 11 PM, when we were going to close the business. Each time Jian would nicely ask to speak to Master Liu, and each time Jian would ask Master Liu to send him money. I didn’t know if Master Liu did send him money or not. I guessed he did. Anyway, Jian is his cousin, his only relative in blood in America. They grew up together in that little village. How could he refuse Jian? I also sensed that Master Liu was struggling with himself, because he had to lie to Mrs. Chen about Jian’s whereabouts, about that woman who was with Jian, about the money he sent to Jian. Mrs. Chen would know, I guess, that her husband had contact with Master Liu, and she still cared much about Jian who abandoned her. She asked Master Liu almost everyday about Jian. In the end, even I couldn’t stand looking at her, feeling guilty myself, as if I was an accomplice in this crime. Fortunately my school started in September and I left the restaurant and went back to school.
I wake up from my recollection. I look outside through the train window, and I see nothing except the rain, the pouring rain hitting hard on the glass, like tears. Inside the train, under the dim lights, the passengers are resting quietly; some are reading; some doze off into sweet dreams. After a hard day in the office, in the busy city, everyone longs for the comforting home, to wash away the dust and exhaustion and to get refreshed for next day’s battle. But someone out there, I can’t help thinking, doesn’t want to go home, doesn’t want to go back to his beautiful and caring wife but rather become a wanderer, drifting around, begging for money.
“I want to know what happened to Mrs. Chen? Why your cousin came back?” I ask Master Liu.
Master Liu says, “You know he called me a lot, for money. I sent him the money he asked but each time I argued with him, cursed him, and begged him to come home; but no use, he wouldn’t listen. Then about the same time last year, he stopped calling. During his last phone call he told me that he came back to the East. Then, one night seven month ago, when we were about to close the restaurant and I was ready to start counting the money, the person who sat in one of the tables with back to us suddenly stood up and turned around. I quickly raised my head. It was Jian.” Master Liu pauses a little, then continues, “He was much thinner than last time I saw him. He wore a shabby gray suit, a shirt inside I don’t know what color it is, wore no tie, underneath were a muddy snicker, and a dark pant. He was very tired, I can see that. He tried to smile at me. I stopped him right there. I was mad. I asked him why he came back. He said he was tired, and he had no money, and no place to go. I found out later that actually he borrowed money from a Chinese gang member in Chinatown, and lost again in gambling. Now he was chased by the gang to return the money. I asked him where his mistress was. He said he had no more mistress. She left him. I asked him why he came back, why he just didn’t spit some mucus and drowned himself in it. You see, I was really mad when I saw him like this. And suddenly he started to cry and went down to the ground, kneeling down in front of me. He kept saying he was all wrong before and he wanted to start over again. I told him I had no right to decide what to do with him. Only Mei had that right. And you know Mei. She let Jian stay.” Master Liu looks at me, shaking his head in disapproval.
“Then they got back together. That’s a good thing.” I say, “There is this old saying that a tramp who returns to goodness is worth more than the gold.”
“Gold? DOG SHIT GOLD!” Master Liu snaps back, “Look what he did. He made Mei pregnant. And he ran away again.”
“What? Ran away again! What happened this time?” I am more shocked the second time.
“Nothing. There was no sign of his action beforehand. Only thing was that a few days earlier he complained casually to me that he was bored, that the life in the restaurant was too dull to bear, and that he missed the wandering life, all those craps, you know,” Master Liu says, “I didn’t take it seriously. I thought you are going to be a father this time. Soon your life will be busy and colorful. Who would think that just a couple months before becoming a father, someone would flee?” Master Liu looks at me, as if asking me this unbelievable question, or asking himself. Then he shakes his head with a long sigh.
I start to shake my head too. Both of us sit there quietly for a long time. Master Liu keeps rubbing his hands. I can’t find anything to say, anything to do. Suddenly I feel the train is slowing down. I look outside. It’s my stop. I stand up, take my bag, and say good-bye to Master Liu, hurry to get off the train, as if to escape some sort of unbearable place. I even forget to ask Master Liu to pass on my regards and sympathy to Mrs. Chen, the lady boss.
March 2008 |