So Pnin was nothing like my parents—they weren’t clumsy, had never heard of Pushkin, didn’t pronounce difficulty as dzeefeecooltsee. But weren’t they, after all, more like Pnin? Didn’t they have Pninian moments? My mother: “Do lots of yogurt,” thinking yoga and yogurt were the same word. Talking about her first years in America and her discovery of the hamburger, she sighed with happiness. My father slurped his noodles in large ghastly gulps of saliva and hunger; his glasses fogged up—he took off his glasses to improve his speed.
My parents put on no airs. They had been shocked by the amount a lawyer made because they didn’t know a lawyer. My parents’ lack of advice for college, beyond telling me to become a doctor and not to date, was really evidence of how innocuous they turned out to be. So this, after all, explained their dogmatic style of advice—they suspected they couldn’t help me beyond what they’d already done: given me a childhood filled with opportunity. It turned out that, just as I knew Pnin was on the wrong train, I had the power to situate my parents in the world, to write them down. I was stronger than they were.
Thoughts of my parents continued to flood my mind as I turned in to their driveway. Pnin was lovable because his trauma was hidden. One never said: Foreign Pnin! Immigrant Pnin! Pnin Burdened by History! Here was the pleasure of Pnin: His failure to comprehend was so consistent, and so stubborn, and so masterful, that you forgot the world that failed him. I thought about my parents, who, like Pnin, were products of forces beyond their control. My dad himself was the child of immigrants: His mother and father had left China for Taiwan in 1949, and, like most in that generation of refugees, never saw their family members again. My parents had grown up under martial law in Taiwan and left before it democratized. Their memories of Taiwan remained frozen in the 1970s, when they left. Perhaps, more than they admitted to themselves, they no longer knew the Taiwan that had reared them. And maybe this was why they often reminded me that they’d lived in America longer than I had. They wanted me to regard them as Americans.
In the garage my parents rushed out to greet me, even though it was chilly, already autumn. My dad reached for my luggage; my mother touched my hair. They hadn’t eaten, they’d waited for me.
What would they think of my decision to return to the Delta? I knew they wanted me to get on with my life. They believed I made decisions selfishly, without consideration of them. And they were right: Learning how to disregard their opinions was essential to my life. I hoped they knew I did think of them tenderly.
Over dinner, I tried to speak more Mandarin than usual, something I do whenever I’m attempting to ingratiate myself. I told myself to speak slowly, in short, patient sentences. I’d always spoken English too fast. Though my father could catch most of it, my mother could not. How had we even communicated all these years? What did we talk about? We had needed grades and awards to mediate our relationship. How did the world view me? Did my teachers like me? Was I smart? The grade had answered these questions. The grade had made me legible.
And now that I was done with receiving grades for the rest of my life, it seemed that in place of grades we had only one thing: the story. Could I tell a story that moved them, that made them understand? This was the urgent thing.
Switching between Mandarin and English, I told them I’d seen Patrick. I told them that the jail was like the school where I’d taught. Decrepit and accountable to nobody. I told them that Patrick didn’t even know the name of his lawyer. At this, my dad shook his head. Then I said it seemed as if Patrick had forgotten just about everything he’d learned. I had him read out loud. He was scared of getting words wrong. I told them that in spite of everything that happened, Patrick was still sweet. He had thanked me for visiting him. As if he expected me to never show up again. As if he didn’t expect anything from anybody. He put everything on himself. I told them I was probably never going to live in the Delta again. “You were right,” I said. “I wasn’t happy there. But I need to go back for just enough time to make peace with it. So I think I need to stay,” I said finally.
I knew from my mother’s face that she understood. She was quiet; she wanted to hear more.
My father asked, “How are you going to pay for it?”
I reminded him that, back when I taught, my monthly portion of the rent for a three-bedroom house, with hardwood floors and a fig tree out front, had been a stunning one hundred fifty dollars. If you added that up over a year, it was about a month’s rent in San Francisco.
“Yes,” he said matter-of-factly. “Because nobody wants to live there.”
My mother mourned the labor it would take me to transport my clothes from San Francisco to Arkansas.
Then her face lit up at a thought: We had so many books no one was using, old books from when I was a kid; maybe Patrick would like them?
My father was pleased at the idea that I might clean out the basement.
5
* * *
Crime and Punishment
THE CHINESE RESTAURANT IN HELENA was a place I usually tried to avoid, entering only on masochistic occasions of extreme desperation. Nonetheless, Aaron, my former student with perfect attendance, wanted to eat here, and so I said yes.
Opening the door, I triggered a hanging bell. Two customers, both white, turned to stare at me. I understood at once: They were observing how I, Asian-looking, would speak to the restaurant owner, also Asian-looking.
I greeted her, speaking in English.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hello,” she returned.
At this, the men turned back to their food.
Aaron and I approached the buffet. He packed his plate, accepting every option. “I love me some chicken chow mein,” he said, beaming.
Aaron was doing well. He had graduated from Central and was getting a degree in environmental science at the community college, while working part-time at McDonald’s and supporting his baby boy.
“You hear what happen to Tamir?” he asked, his mouth full of noodles.
My heart jumped at hearing Tamir’s name.
“No,” I said. “How is he?”
“You won’t recognize him,” Aaron said. “He don’t look like nobody. He got no look to himself. He just blend in.”
“Blends in?”
“With the homies on the street.” Aaron wiped some grease off his lips, then plunged back into the chicken. “He’s in Little Rock; he’s a crackhead on the street. Begging for money.”
The last time I’d heard Tamir’s name was a month after I left the Delta, some three years ago. Tamir’s ninth-grade English teacher had left me a voice message. She said she’d asked students to respond to a question, Who is a person who changed your life? Tamir had chosen to write about me.
“How can I find him?” I asked, my voice uneven.
Aaron shrugged at the futility of the question. Once off the grid, you stayed off: no phone number, no email address.
I saw something familiar in Aaron’s manner, something I recognized from my teaching days. What was it? Schadenfreude? No, I thought; it was less glee than relief, with a tincture of pride: That could have been me but it isn’t. In Aaron the tone was tempered by his solid sense of worth, but I heard it nonetheless.
“What about Miles?” I asked.
“Miles? He not doing nothing. He’ll be another Tamir. Lately Miles been shooting at people.”