Lost in Translation Page 0,38

you could never marry a man without my blessing. Right? Because I’m part of you and you’re part of me."

"I’m not part of you. I have my own life."

He made a dismissive gesture. "You can’t even finance your own life! Speaking of which, can this man support you? I doubt it. How much money does he make?"

Now her eyes burned. "It doesn’t matter how much money he makes."

"Well. It’s not as if I can keep sending you money forever."

"Why do you have to make it about money!"

"I don’t," he said instantly. "I just want my little girl to be happy. Be happy and find the right man. And you will, Alice. If you’ll just come back to the States and look."

"This is where I live. This is where I want to find a man."

"I thought you already had. Find a man! Find a man! Maybe you don’t even love this man—what’s his name?— Jian?"

"I do love him! I told you that."

"No, you didn’t."

"Well, I do."

"I’m not convinced." He looked at her hard.

"How dare you!" She felt herself flaring, anger and discomfort all mixed up because in that unerring way of his he’d gone right to her weak point. Did she truly love Jian? She did, of course she did. He was the best, most appropriate Chinese man she’d ever met. But at her core she still didn’t feel they were completely connected. How could Horace know? It wasn’t something she even acknowledged to herself, consciously. "Don’t tell me what I feel."

"Then you tell me. What do you feel?"

"I feel that I love him and I want to marry him!" Inside, she knew it was not a clear certainty. It was messy, ambivalent, a hot-wire confusion of needs, desires, and ideals for the future. Do I love Jian? she thought desperately. Have I ever loved anyone?

"Alice." He was asking for her attention.

She looked up. Tears stood in his eyes. When was the last time Horace had cried? Ages. Years.

"I just want you to be happy," he was saying, quietly now, with feeling.

"Then don’t interfere! Let me marry him."

"Are you in love with him?"

"Yes, I told you—"

"No. Are you?"

"Horace—"

"Are you?"

She groaned and covered her eyes.

"I think that’s an answer."

"Stop it!" She was crying now. "It’s wrong for you to do this. You can’t force me!"

"Force you?" He looked at her hard, fully in control. "Of course I wouldn’t force you. I would never force you."

"But you—"

"Oh, no, sweetheart. I had to say what I’ve said, but you are a grown woman. You’ll have to choose for yourself. Here. When I got your letter I took all these out of the safe deposit." He removed a folder from his briefcase and reached into it.

Her eyes grew wide.

As she watched he slapped down her birth certificate, photos of herself as a child, alone, with Horace, as a baby with her mother.

"Take these, if you marry him. Leave this Mannegan family, this family of you and me. You want to be Chinese? Go ahead. Be Chinese. But you won’t be my daughter any longer."

She still remembered how, without anger now, without sharpness, but with infinite sadness and his eyes still brimming, he had clicked the briefcase shut, risen, and walked from the restaurant. As if it were not some personal, vengeful choice of his own but inescapable natural forces which drove him to do what he did.

Now, standing in the doorway of the Meng apartment, she suddenly remembered what she was holding. She thrust the grease-spotted, paper-wrapped ham into the Chinese man’s arms. "Jian," her voice came cracking out, "if I could say how sorry I—"

"Zenmole?" What is it? sang a pleasant female voice from the cooking area at the rear of the apartment. A woman in her twenties with a plump, tight-porcelain face sauntered out, baby riding her hip. Alice stared, feeling something die inside her. She knew about Jian’s wife, of course she knew, but she hadn’t seen Jian face to face since his marriage and she’d never seen the bride. Now here she was. With their baby. "Shui-a?" the young woman asked, glancing to Mother Meng, Who is this?

"A family friend," the old lady murmured.

"Jian?" the wife asked.

"Shi, " he clipped. It’s so.

Alice saw the young woman look openly at her, innocent of their whole situation. There must be a million things about him you don’t know, Alice thought in a brief, violent burst of satisfaction.

"Ta jiu yao likai-le," Jian added crossly, She’s about to leave.

Alice threw a desperate glance to Meng