To my surprise, Haili didn’t show up at the bar alone. With her was a slight young woman dressed in a yellow raincoat and polka-dot boots. I recognized her at once—her name was Shao Niya. She was a staffer at NYU and also ran the website of a Chinese-language newspaper, The North American Tribune, which circulated mainly in New England. She was from Harbin and spoke Mandarin impeccably, like a radio broadcaster, as many people from that area did. Haili introduced Niya as her best friend, and the woman stretched out her tiny hand, which felt forceful when I shook it. The bar was noisy and crowded, packed with businesspeople, yuppies, and tourists, so we requested a quieter place to sit. A reedy girl wearing an orange apron led us into a small karaoke room. She turned up the lights a little and shut off the soft Hong Kong music when I asked.
After we sat down on the synthetic leather sofas, I ordered tea, fruit salad, and spiced peas and nuts for all of us. The moment the girl left, Haili said to me, “What’s up?” Her eyes bored into me, her brows furrowed.
“I’ve discovered more about your salacious novel,” I told her. I glanced at Niya, who had removed her raincoat to reveal a mauve silk shirtdress and was now looking around absentmindedly.
“What’s up?” Haili repeated.
“Your brilliant novel, which you claim is being worked on by the most famous translator in the industry? I called Edward Silverwood and he said he’d never heard of you.”
“I didn’t say he was my translator, did I? That was wrong information someone else gave, perhaps due to a misunderstanding. In fact, I’m doing the translation myself.”
Her audacity astounded me—I knew that her written English was still puerile. True, she spoke the language with only a trace of an accent and could toss out expressions like “I’ll be damned,” “long time no see,” and “twenty-twenty hindsight,” but every once in a while she still made mistakes, calling out “break your leg” instead of “break a leg,” or urging someone to “crack your brain” in place of “rack your brains.” She used to tell others that sweepstakes had “cheated on” her, because she had paid a $19.95 fee twice but never been able to collect the big prizes they’d promised her. Exasperated once, she had declared “I’m mad about Cicely,” Larry’s youngest sister, who had ignored her advice and dropped out of college to join a local band.
In fairness, Haili had always been above the kinds of silly mistakes made by her former schoolmates. She’d told me that one of them, while filling out a visa application form at the U.S. consulate in Shenyang, had even put down “twice a week” on the line for “Sex.” But it would take years for Haili to be able to produce publishable English prose. What she was capable of now was bubbly and ridden with clichés.
The waitress stepped in and served the tea and snacks. With a toothpick I lifted a piece of pineapple, which tasted fresh and succulent. I said to Haili, “Truth be told, George Bush might not enjoy your translation.”
“I’ve never said the White House was interested in my book. Don’t play the wise old man again.”
Before I could respond, Niya chimed in, “It was Gu Bing who announced the completion of the English translation and the possible endorsement from President Bush. Haili has nothing to do with those announcements.”
I was struck that Niya was so well informed about the case. What’s it to her? I wondered. Is she involved too? Is she playing Haili’s publicist? Do we have a gang of four now?
“See, you made a false assumption about me again,” Haili continued, pointing at my nose. “For good or ill, you and I shared the same roof and bed for two years, we ate from the same pot, and for more than three years we were a married couple. You should at least have treated me more decently.”
“Hang on a second,” I said. “I haven’t finished yet. I spoke with the manager of Panorama Pictures as well. They’d never heard of your grand novel or any movie script based on it. Where did you get your fortune of 1.3 million dollars?”
Silence ensued. Haili was biting down on her lower lip as though she had too much to hold back.
Then she said, “I have written a script, and a movie company has been considering it.”
“It must be a studio in Changchun or Kunming or Chengdu, right?” These were provincial capitals where some old-fashioned movie companies were based, mostly in dormancy.
“No, it’s a U.S. filmmaker.”
“Which one? Can you disclose its name to Niya and me?”
“I already know which one,” Niya put in.
“We can’t share the information with you,” Haili said, “or you will rain on our picnic.”
“That’s a load of bull. If you cannot name the company, I’ll have to take the movie deal as a pack of lies.”
“Danlin,” Niya resumed, “I can guarantee you that Haili is finishing a movie script. Your doubts are groundless.”
“See, she hasn’t even completed it yet, so how could it have been sold?”
“We’ve been negotiating,” Haili said.
“Even if that’s true, there’s still no contract. Where did you get your 1.3 million dollars? This sounds like pure fantasy to me.”
“We’re almost there. I’m positive my script will bring a price like that. My publisher is experienced in closing this kind of deal. Everything will work out to our advantage.”
“That’s not very convincing, is it? I don’t care about how big your fortune will be. I just want you to show the first page of your contract. How else can you prove your claims to the public?”
“The public is manipulated and misled by so-called journalists like you. The truth is, you can’t let a day pass without using your job to tear other people down. Why, why are you so determined to humiliate me? How the hell will my success diminish you? I can’t think of any reason except that you enjoy watching me suffer.”
“Don’t twist things around and accuse me of anything. Didn’t you tell a flat-out lie in the first place? Haven’t you been exploiting people’s pain and loss with this novel?”
Haili shaded her face with her narrow palm and broke into sobs, wiping her prominent cheeks with her fingers and sniffling. “What have I done to deserve this?” she wailed.
Niya shot me a hard look and spat, “What kind of man are you? Don’t you have a heart? Why do you take so much pleasure in tormenting her?”
“Honestly, I don’t enjoy meeting either of you. I just want to stop this hoax before it spins completely out of control. If it keeps snowballing, some names will be ruined and many of us will get embarrassed. A lot of Chinese here will be ashamed.”
“Then you ought to quit asking questions you don’t like the answers to.” Niya glowered at me, her large eyes smoldering.
“It’s my job,” I said. “I can’t do otherwise.”
“You just enjoy being a wet blanket.”
“Who are you? You’re a toady and a snob. As a reporter I cannot lie to the public.”
Niya looked astonished, her eyes going to discs and her cheeks reddening. But she pressed on. “You’re blowing everything out of proportion—this is overkill.”
Haili sniveled and blubbered, “He always looks down on me and treats me like dirt. He’s full of himself and is vendetta incarnate. He despises Chinese women and hates any of us who succeed, he’s malicious like a mad dog, he’s a snake coiling around my feet—”
“Goddamn it, stop acting the victim!” I cried. “Are you going to fall into a faint next?” I remembered the wrong she’d done me. Didn’t she hand me the divorce papers the day after my arrival in America? Didn’t she force me to share the legal cost of our divorce even though I hadn’t yet found my first job here? Didn’t she hide away her savings so the court could not award me a penny? Didn’t she malign me, saying I was incapable in bed but still behaved like a male chauvinist pig? Didn’t she lie in a personal essay that I had once given her a black eye in a bakery because she did not agree to buy two pounds of mung-bean cakes? Didn’t she say that Chinese men were good only as bookkeepers, cooks, waiters, gardeners, caregivers, masseurs, and hooligans? The more those memories swirled in my head, the more furious I got. If Niya weren’t there, I might have blown up. It was smart of Haili to have brought that woman along. I breathed in and out. I stood and picked up my umbrella. “Let’s be rational about the position we are in,” I told my ex-wife. “I can’t gloss over all the fraudulence, nor can I lie on your behalf. You owe the public an explanation and an apology. Don’t procrastinate—the longer you remain in denial, the more denunciations you’ll face. Better scramble out of the hole you dug for yourself as soon as you can.” I turned and headed out to the bar to settle the bill.
“Fuck you!” Haili yelled. “You only have the balls to bully a woman in distress.”
Turning my head halfway back, I cried, “Yes, I’m a male groupie crazy about a celebrity like you. That’s your price for fame.”
“Let me alone, you jerk! I know you’re a Taiwanese agent. Damn you!”
“Louder, louder, scream the house down if you can!” I flipped her off over my shoulder.
Some people, mostly from mainland China, called me a Taiwanese agent, believing that I was paid to write in support of Taiwan’s interests. But that accusation was groundless; I wrote only of my own volition. True, a businessman based in Taipei but acting as an official agent here had once approached me with a check for eighty thousand dollars and asked me to publish an article in defense of the Taiwanese government’s policies every month, but I declined the offer. I’ve heard that some exiled Chinese writers in North America do accept that kind of money, but I would never do that. I wanted to remain independent.