China Mountain Zhang Read online

  I sit at the karal. Surname: Zhang. Given name: Zhong Shan. China Mountain Zhang. My foolish mother. It’s so clearly a huaqiao name, like naming someone Nikolai Lenin Smith or Karl Marx Johnson. Zhong Shan, better known in the west as Sun Yat-sen, one of the early leaders of the great revolution in China, back in the first days, the days of virtue. The man who held up the sky, like a mountain. Irony.

  But better that than Rafael Luis.

  I give my address, really Peter’s address out in Coney Island as I’m Without Residence. When one has no job one cannot afford the decadent luxury of paying one’s landlord, and one must accept government housing or stay with friends or family. I have been staying with Peter for almost six months. Soon I’ll have to apply for government housing, I can’t keep living with Peter. Living in Virginia won’t be so bad, it is only ninety minutes to Journal Square Station in New Jersey, lots of people do it everyday. If one is unemployed, the train is free at off-peak hours.

  IDEX: 415-64-4557-ZS816. Trade Designation: Construction Tech. Job Index: Comex Constr., 65997. Comex Constr. wants administrative experience I don’t have, but I have three years experience in construction. In school, I wanted to be an Engineering Tech and my math scores were good, but there were no openings that year. I have an Assoc. Certificate instead of the full Bach. Sci.

  I should study on the side, teach myself, take the exam. I should. Maybe when I get a job, have a place of my own again, I’ll study in the evening after I get home from work, spend less time going out, waste less time and money. I’ve said it before, every time I was without a job.

  I hand my application to the man at the desk, he glances up at me, his lips move while he keys into the network and puts my application on file, then he peels the contact off his wrist. “Have a seat,” he says. I sit and read my paper. The waiting room is large, large enough to be a cafeteria or something. There are a lot of people, twenty or thirty, but that’s not enough for the size of the room. While I’m reading more people hand in applications, people waiting are called for interviews. I want to check the time, but why? Time doesn’t matter to me, I’m unemployed.

  Still, I notice it is almost an hour before I’m called. My interviewer is a woman, a huaqiao I am sure. She looks too New York to be from China itself.

  “Zhang,” she says in English, “you have insufficient administrative experience for the job you are applying for.” Her hair is pulled smoothly back from her face, shining as if lacquered. It is caught with a red cord, and the short ponytail curves under like a ‘c’.

  I nod.

  She looks at the screen in front of her. “You have turned down two alternative offerings.”

  “I had hoped to stay in New York,” I say. One job was in Maryland, the other was in Arizona. If I turn down another alternative it will go on my record. Perhaps she won’t have an alternative.

  She says to me in Mandarin, “You are from New York?” She is clearly huaqiao, she has a New York accent.

  “I’m from Brooklyn,” I say.

  “I’m from Brooklyn, too,” she says. “You like Coney Island?”

  “I am staying with a friend, but I like it much better than I expected,” I say. “When I get a job I expect to get a place there.”

  “I am thinking of joining a co-op group,” she says.

  So nice! An interviewer has never talked to me so personally. No doubt it is because of the address, but maybe she’ll give me the job. I study her. Watch her bite her bottom lip in concentration. She has lines at the corners of her eyes, but the way she frowns makes her look very young.

  Finally she sighs. “Bukeqi, tongzhi,” she says. ‘I am sorry citizen.’ “I cannot give this to someone with so little admin experience.” The polite address softens the blow.

  I nod. I understand. I thank her.

  “Let me check new listings,” she says, “Sometimes things do not get posted.” She feels badly, she wants to offer me something.

  It is a kindness, I should not expect anything but I cannot help hoping. She is relieved she can do something. I watch her flick through entries. She stops and I become more hopeful. She reads quickly then flicks expressionlessly forward. At each flick she shakes her head slightly. Her lips are the perfect rose of a doll’s mouth. They shine like satin. She begins to flush, she is not so happy now. Something is wrong. An alternative, not a good one, I am sure. Do not offer it, I think, pretend you didn’t see it.

  She straightens her shoulders. “Zhang, I have a job available for someone of your experience,” she says, in English. She names a salary which is three times my present salary. She doesn’t look at me. “It is working at a research center, the salary is high because you will have to live at the facility, but it is a six month contract with the option to extend or renew.”

  “Where is it?” I ask.

  ” Baffin Island.”

  Baffin Island? Where the hell is Baffin Island?

  “It is in the Arctic Circle,” she says primly, handing me a card with the specs, but not looking at me. “You have forty-eight hours to decide on the job, should you want me to hold it for you, otherwise you risk someone taking it from you while you make up your mind.”

  “Don’t hold it,” I say.

  The Arctic Circle, Arctic Circle, Arctic Circle, the train to Brooklyn rumbles. We stop at Arctic Avenue, and then I realize it is Atlantic and I get out to transfer. It is my third alternative. If no one takes it in forty-eight hours, I will have turned it down. That means I will be dropped from the category of prime candidates, I will only be offered jobs that have been available to prime applicants for fourteen days. No New York job will be available after fourteen days.

  Why did she offer it? Maybe there is some rule that she had to. But who would ever know? It wasn’t even posted. She knew I wanted to stay in New York. She was angry at something. She is a bitch. She has ruined my life. If only she didn’t try to do me a favor. I would never have applied for so risky a position as the Comex Constr. job if they had Arctic Circle posted for fear it would be my alternative.

  I go back to Peter’s. Peter is at work, he works in an office, doing paper sorting and filing for a dental clinic. I find beer in the box and sit down. Peter is supposed to get off work at 4:30, but I’m not surprised when he doesn’t get home by six. At 9:30 he comes home. “Rafael?” he calls as he comes in, and the lights come up. I have been sitting in the dark.

  “Hello, Peter,” I say.

  “What are you doing sitting in the dark?” He goes into the kitchen to put away groceries. I hear a low whistle. “Drink our dinner, did we. Good day at the employment office, no doubt.”

  “Celebration,” I call, a little thick. “I think I have a job.”

  “Congratulations,” he says, “In that case I don’t care if you drank most of the beer.” He sings something quietly as he puts things away, I hear him open a beer and he comes in to sit down. Blond Peter with his Eastern-European heritage and his easy, sleepy way. He is a good friend, bright yang to my dark yin. “Tell me the particulars,” he says.

  “It is a six month contract,” I say, “with option to renew or extend.” I name the salary. His pale eyebrows arch, he is waiting for the punchline, but I draw it out, saying it is my third alternative.

  “What’s the kick,” he says.

  I smile, “It is on Baffin Island, somewhere up around the north pole.”

  “Oh shit,” he says. “You didn’t take it, did you?”

  “Not yet,” I say. “There is a chance that during,” I check my watch, “the next forty-two hours, someone will snatch this wonderful opportunity away from me.”

  “You think maybe the salary will tempt someone?”

  “No, do you?”

  “It can’t be that bad,” Peter says gamely, “lots of people would be willing to do it for six months. Turn it down, you can stay here.”

  Good of him, the apartment is really too small for two roommates who aren’t in love with each other. It is not that I don’t love Peter,
I love Peter more than anyone in the world, but I’m not in love with him. I was once, and he with me, but that was years ago.

  “It’s only six months,” I say. “I’ll use the extra time to study for my engineering license.”

  “Six months in Siberia,” he says. “Six months for you to brood yourself into catatonia.”

  “But then I will have three alternatives when I get back. I can get a job in New York.” I am being very practical. “Besides, catatonia is a symptom of bourgeois or maladaptive thinking, something swept away by the revolution.”

  Peter is looking at me in a way that says he is exasperated with me, that he doesn’t trust me. Normally he would laugh, since we are clearly maladapted by virtue of our preference. Angry, he says, “Don’t drink any more beer tonight.”

  “It’s your beer,” I say.

  “That’s right,” he says.

  And now we are both hurt and angry. He makes himself some dinner, I am too drunk to be hungry. There is not much to say. He goes into his room where he probably watches a vid, and I make my bed on the couch and go to sleep.

  I don’t see much of Peter the next day, which is my fault. The day after that I go back to the employment office. The Baffin Island job is still posted. I take it.

  Two weeks later, the first week in October, and I am sitting in a copter. Five hours ago I was in Montreal, changing flights. Now, since I only had a fifteen minute transfer in Montreal and barely made my plane, I am torturing myself about whether my luggage was transferred. We will land in Hebron, Labrador. I have discovered that Labrador is part of the province of Newfoundland. I have already heard my first Newfie joke. In Hebron they still have the old-fashioned manhole covers that can be pried up with a crowbar, big round metal things. A Newfie is jumping up and down on the manhole cover saying, “Sixty-seven! Sixty-seven!” every time he jumps. A man visiting on business stops to stare and the Newfie beckons him over, explains that what he is doing is a way of relieving stress. (This is told with a Newfie accent, every sentence ends with, ‘ay?’) He tells the business man to try. The business man is not sure that he wants to, but slowly he is convinced to step on the manhole cover. He jumps into the air and says “Sixty-seven.”

  The Newfie says that he’s got to put more into it (ay,) really shout it out. So the business man jumps and shouts “Sixty-seven!” He finds it is kind of fun, so he jumps higher, shouting “Sixty-seven!” louder and louder, until he’s red in the face and his long coat tails are flying. He jumps really high, shouts “Sixty-seven!” and the Newfie whisks the manhole cover off and the business man disappears into the manhole. Then the Newfie puts the cover back on and starts jumping up and down shouting, “Sixty-eight!”

  I wonder what Baffies do to American Born Chinese.

  The field at Hebron, Newfoundland is small, most of the traffic seems to be freight. It doesn’t have the usual amenities of public fields, there’s no arcade of shops, and no vendors wandering around hawking things. It just slowly stops being an airfield and becomes a town. The town is all ancient pre-fabricated housing (the kind shipped on trucks and fitted together) but the units have been painted and added onto, sometimes fantastically ornamented in vividly tinted aqua and red aluminum and plastics. It is terribly tacky and antique looking, but very very real. I think I like it. There is one little restaurant. Once I have convinced myself that my luggage has transferred, I go into the little restaurant. It is run by Thais, which surprises me, although I guess there are Thai restaurants everywhere. I order Thai-Moo Shu, and it comes, pork and cabbage in a spicy coconut sauce, wrapped up in a pancake. The restaurant has a screen door that leads to what looks like a mechanic’s yard where a gray and white dog with pale eyes is tied to a doghouse made out of blue tinted chrome/aluminum, but the Thai food tastes exactly like it would at any little Thai hole-in-the-wall back in New York. The restaurant is filled with men and women in coveralls. I feel a little conspicuous, everybody knows everybody else, but the beer and the food are reassuring.

  Maybe there will be a Thai restaurant on Baffin Island, too. If so, I will probably go every day for the whole six months.

  My last flight is a copter, smaller than the one I came in on. There is no one on it except for myself and the pilot and co-pilot. I imagine Baffin Island will be like Hebron. I left New York at 8:00 a.m., at 7:22 p.m. we land at Borden Station, Baffin Island.

  The cold hits as soon as the door is opened, blown in by a shockingly cold wind that smells like water. It is minus three Celsius, and already it is black as midnight. There is nobody there but the crew that ties down the copter, and the bright, white outside lights illuminate the copter, it casts long insect shadows in three directions. The only building I see is the research complex, I glance around quickly, looking for the town, but it’s too cold to look much. I walk across the tarmac and into the research complex with the pilot and co-pilot. “It gets dark early,” I say.

  The pilot says, “Sunset was at 15:10 this afternoon.” Five p.m. I think, then realize I’m wrong. Three o’clock. Sunset was at three, because we are north of the frigging Arctic Circle.

  Inside the station is all smooth, clean white walls and blue carpet, very institutional and not shabby at all. There are big windows looking out at the tundra on one side, and over the bluff at Lancaster Sound on the other. The shore ice is whiter than the finest of sand beaches and the open water is shining like black glass.

  For a moment I think that the woman who has met me is Chinese.

  “Hi, you’re Zhang Zhong Shan?” she says. “I’m Maggie Smallwood, come on, I’ll show you your room.”

  “Just Zhang,” I say. She is Native American, Eskimo I suppose. Her face is round and her eyes are slanted. She chatters as we walk, she is the one that tells me the water is Lancaster Sound. She uses words I have never heard, polayna, belukha, bowhead. I finally figure out that belukha and bowhead are kinds of whales.

  “You’re studying whales,” I say.

  She laughs, “I’m sorry, we’re studying belukha migration patterns and their mating rituals.” She keeps talking as she opens the door to my room. It is actually two small rooms, the front room has a desk and two chairs, the back a closet and bed. The bathroom is off the back. There’s no kitchen. I was expecting an apartment, this is more like a dormitory.

  “I’ll bet you’re hungry,” she says. “I’ll show you where the caf is.”

  The cafeteria is full of people talking, playing cards, watching vids. Very few of them seem to be eating. There is food to flash heat, Maggie tells me that during breakfast and dinner hours the food is made fresh. The cost of my dinner is debited against my wages, but it’s cheap food. We sit down with a group of people, all natural behaviorists: Jim Rodriguez, bearded, with straight, pale-brown hair; Daniel Munk, blond, but not so blond as Peter, also bearded; Janna Morissey and Karin Webster (one has brown curly hair, and one has straight short hair, but I cannot remember which is which even though I can remember that the one with curly hair has a narrow face and a tough way of talking and the straight haired one likes to dress pretty. I’m very bad with names.)

  “Your English is very good,” Daniel says, “Aren’t you hired out of New York? How long did you live in New York?”

  “All my life,” I say. “I’m ABC,” I explain.

  They don’t understand.

  “ABC,” I say, “American Born Chinese. I’m from Brooklyn.”

  They laugh, they have never heard the phrase. I shake my head in wonder.

  They’re all Canadians. They are naïve in a nice way. There are not many Chinese in Canada because Canada has not had a socialist revolution, it’s still a constitutional monarchy. This is probably a little like the U.S. used to be before the revolution. They ask me if I can speak Chinese, and how I came to be born in New York. I almost tell them only my father is Chinese, my mother is Hispanic, but I don’t. I’ve put my Chinese name on my application; I’m not going to loose the advantage of being Chinese, not even here.

 
They are all very nice, tell me about the complex. I tell my Newfie joke, and everyone tells Newfie jokes.

  “How far away is the town,” I ask, remembering Hebron.

  “What do you mean?” Janna or Karin asks (the one with straight hair.)

  “The town, Borden Station, how far is it?”

  Jim says, “This is it. There’s nothing here but the station.”

  They laugh at my expression.

  When I wake up it is still dark. Of course, it is 7:00 a.m., not so late, but it is as dark outside my window as if it were much earlier. I stand and look out the window, there is nothing but the Lawrence Sound, far below me. I would really like a cup of coffee, I’m not accustomed to having to face other people before my first cup in the morning.

  The room is warm, difficult to believe how cold it is outside. I keep standing there, half asleep, looking out at the landscape. There are so many stars! The sky is thick with stars, from glittering points to tiny scatterings. No moon. But the snow is bright, it must be bright enough to read a paper. Right outside my window is tough, dried grass, then the steep fall to the water. There is a band of shore ice, like a long smooth desert from here.

  Looking at the shore ice, I see it is not perfectly smooth. There are shadows. I can see very far to the water. I don’t know if the shadows are indentations, cracks, or frozen waves. I have no sense of proportion, how far away is the ice?

  How far away is the next nearest person? How far is Hebron? Montreal? New York? If there was an emergency here that we couldn’t deal with, how long until someone could get here, how long until we could get to a hospital?