The Border of Paradise. Esmé Weijun Wang

if I allowed honesty to dictate the conversation.

      “You’ve been after Marianne for some time now. She has known no other beau, as I’m sure you are aware. She is a pious, hardworking young lady. She is going to provide a home and children for you. That is your expectation, I guess?” He was gasping now, spluttering with rage and unwept tears and the desire to tear me limb from limb. “And what will you do then? In this home my girl provides for you? Have you considered it? Are you going to sit there in your fancy house, counting your money, and thinking of ways to embarrass her with your insanity? Because that’s all I can imagine you doing with no company, no job, no responsibilities.”

      I opened my mouth and closed it. He was right. I was worth less than nothing, and would be worth less than nothing to his daughter. But I loved her, and I selfishly wanted to be with her no matter what this furious, drunken man was saying to me, even if it was the truth.

      “So, then, David Nowak,” he continued, “why did you sell your family’s company? Because you’re a lunatic. Everyone knows that you are fundamentally incapable of living a functional life. And still we supported you. Gave you the benefit of the doubt. When people talked, my wife and I insisted on giving you a chance to prove yourself. To take forward everything your father has built. You dare insult me, my wife, my son, my daughter—my daughter!—by doing this—giving up the one thing that could save you. And now you think that you can be my son-in-law. Is that what you think?”

      I was not going to say yes. I was not going to say no. I began to close the door, but Bunny Orlich was a quick drunk. He hurled himself against the door, and before I could realize what was happening his fist was slamming into my face with a noisy cracking sound, which sent me blindly backward and clutching at my nose.

      “Do you hear me? Leave her alone, and I’ll leave you alone. But I find out you’re an even bigger idiot than I think, and your poor mother will be all alone in this big house of hers, with no husband to sleep next to and no son to see her on Christmas, and with two gravestones to lay flowers on.” He stared at me, flapping his punching hand. Had Matka heard? Was there even a commotion? There were drops of blood on his fingers. Matka in Monserrat. Matka underground. Please, never let her know about my Motel Ponderosa. Let her be dead.

      Something was visibly wrong the next morning when Marianne came to my home, the sky blue-black behind her. Surely it pained her to be there, but she was that kind of girl—and I say “girl,” but she was a woman dressed in a floral blouse, a wool skirt; the girl whom I had loved was already grown, and the boy who I had been was still halfway in front of her and hardly a man.

      “Your nose,” she said. She reached out as if to touch it, and then drew her fingers back. “I can’t believe he did that. And your eye. Oh, it looks so terrible. Is your nose broken?”

      “I don’t know. Maybe. Probably.”

      She began to touch my cheek with the very tips of her fingers, patting the skin.

      I asked, “Did you sneak out of the house?”

      “Yes, but it doesn’t matter. I’m so sorry.” She told me that she was leaving for Chicago. It was her parents, of course. They didn’t want her in Greenpoint anymore, never mind that I hadn’t attempted to see her since Mr. Orlich came. Better to assume the worst of me. She was so beautiful, and was growing only more beautiful by the day, I was certain of it. Her eyes had a perpetually soft sleepiness to them; her silvery hair was mixed with cream. Already I was ticking off her attributes in my mind—good-bye, good-bye…

      I said, “That’s ridiculous. They don’t own you. You’re an adult. We could marry. I have more than enough to sustain us financially.” Briefly I thought of Mr. Pawlowski. “You’ve always known this.”

      “You want me to marry you. You think we can have a full and happy life together.”

      “Yes. Of course. Why not? Isn’t that what you’ve thought all this time?” But when she raised her eyes to me again I saw how sad she was, and how plain her doubt was at that prospect, perhaps imagining herself as a nursemaid to me as I disappeared further into lunacy; then I felt the gentlest flicker of hatred in my rib cage, where all my love for her was living, and soon we were both crying out of stupidity and helplessness and uncertainty.

      “Come in.”

      “I—no. I do, I want to, but I don’t think I should.”

      “Just come in. For God’s sake.”

      “Why? What difference does it make?”

      “To talk. To figure something out.”

      “No, it’s all set up, I don’t have a choice. It’s my parents, I swear, it has nothing to do with how I feel.”

      “You’re going to Chicago? And where will you go after Chicago?”

      She wiped her eyes. “I don’t know! I don’t know anything. He said he would kill you. No matter where we went, David, he would find us.”

      Quickly Marianne turned around and hustled her solid body down the stoop. I watched the back of her head and its inelegant, lopsided bun travel, bobbing slightly of its own accord, moving like a head gently agreeing yes, but it was only hope, I was frozen, it was only a dream, and I finally called out, sure that she could still hear my voice: “I love you. Write to me.”

       PART II

       DAVID AND JIA-HUI