China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. McHugh Read Free Book Online Page A

you call me, okay?”
    “Something is wrong?” I ask.
    “A misunderstanding,” he says. “She is staying with one of her friends.”
    I nod, we stand looking at the crew for a moment in apparent camaraderie. Then I trot back and Foreman Qian goes into the trailer. I don’t like being in the middle of this, tonight I’ll tell her to call him. That will take care of my problems.
    In the afternoon we have a box playing—we always have a box playing, sounds of Brooklyn—and I catch a weather report. Rain tomorrow. The crew watches me, obviously they already know. I rest a polisher on the edge of the granite planter I am working on.
    “Okay,” I say, “I hear it. Work starts at noon tomorrow. Tell your mothers to put your dinners on the counter, we’ll be working under the lights.”
    “Shit,” someone says. But I turn the polisher back on and go back to work. I pretend not to notice them bitching. They knew what I was going to say, but hell, bitching is one of the few satisfactions they have.
     
     

    It is seven-thirty when I leave work. I get my dinner on the way home, stopping for a hamburger on the way to the subway. The subway isn’t crowded. Above me a paper sign says “Una luz brillara en tu camina/Ven a la iglesia. Descubre lo que has perdido. ” I think whatever I have lost was gone before I was born. I fall asleep on the subway and nearly miss my stop.
    The apartment is dark, for a moment I think she has left, but then the lights come up and I see her bag sitting by the door. I check through the whole apartment. No sign, no note.
    Perhaps she, like me, is working late? Maybe she went to dinner with someone from work?
    So I sit in my chair and go to sleep with the vid on.
    The door wakes me and I sit up. The system has shut the vid off, which means I’ve been asleep for more than twenty minutes, I am confused and feel as if it is later than that.
    “San-xiang?” I say.
    “Hello,” she sings out, “I thought you’d be asleep.”
    I was. “I was watching the vid. Did you work late?”
    “Tonight is my political study meeting.”
    Oh yes, the optimum size of a community. Now what? Tell her she has to go. “Your father is very worried about you,” I say.
    “Did you talk to him today? What did he say?”
    “He asked me to call him if I saw you. I think you should talk to him. And I think you should decide what you are going to do.” Well put, I think to myself.
    She sits down on the couch. “If I call him, he’ll make me come home.”
    “But he threw you out,” I say.
    She makes a gesture with her hand, waving that away. “He didn’t really mean it.”
    “What are you going to do?” I ask.
    “I don’t know.” She looks down at her feet, “Call him, I guess. Do you mean tonight?”

    Shit. Grow up. All right, if you want me to be the parent. “Yeah, tonight.”
    She sits there for a moment, then gets up and goes into the kitchen. There is a long silence, longer than it takes to jack in and connect. Finally I hear her say, “Baba? Shi wo. ” Papa, it’s me.
    A pause. “Zai Zhang gongchengshide jiali.” At Engineer Zhang’s place.
    A long pause. Dui, she breathes. “Wo dengideng. ” I’ll wait.
    I hear the snap when she takes off the contact. “He’s coming to get me,” she says. She is about to cry and escapes into the bathroom. I think about getting a beer but decide I am too tired. At least I can sleep late tomorrow and there won’t be anyone here.
    I try not to listen to San-xiang crying in the bathroom.
    She comes back out and sits down on the couch. It is not my fault she is ugly, I have no reason to feel guilty. I have always had tremendous trouble defining the limits of responsibility.
    “My father is very upset,” she says, and has to regain her self-control.
    I nod.
    “I am in big trouble,” she says.
    “You’re an adult,” I point out.
    “Sometimes my father makes that hard to remember. He is pretty good at making people do what he wants.”
    “You can