But Heng couldn't be appeased, and was visibly jittery and grumpy whenever Kellman was in the restaurant, so Chinchin scheduled Maiyu and Heng for different shifts. As a result, Nan often filled in, waiting tables in the daytime. He made four dollars an hour as a busboy and was glad about the tips he got. Unlike him, the waitstaff were each paid only $1.50 an hour because they kept the tips.

Nan would phone Pingping in the morning before he set out for work. Occasionally she called him, especially when she had run into difficulties. One recent day she was unable to use his credit card to order things on the phone because she couldn't recall his mother's maiden name. Neither she nor Nan actually knew what a maiden name was. Three years ago, when they were opening a joint bank account and a woman representative asked Nan for his mother's maiden name, he had been stumped, but on the spur of the moment had told her, "Fengkou," which was a rural town where his grandparents had lived. When Pingping was asked, she said to the woman, "My mother has same maiden name." The representative said, "How did that happen?" Nan explained, "It's common in China, where a billion people have only a hundred family names." From then on, both of their mothers had shared the same maiden name- "Fengkou," a word that might never have been applied to a human being before.

Once in a while Nan didn't have time to call Pingping before going to work; then she'd phone him at the restaurant around noon. His fellow workers often teased him, saying his wife was an insomniac without him in bed, and asking him if he and she had grown up together. He once answered with a poker face, "Of course, we were engaged when we were tots. That's why I'm so henpecked."

They were amused but unsure if he had told the truth.

THREE WEEKS LATER Howard hired another busboy and promoted Nan to the chef 's assistant, because the former kitchen aide had left for Miami to marry a Cuban Chinese woman. Nan got a one-dollar raise too. Chef Zhang needed a lot of help, and Nan 's job was mainly to cut meats and vegetables, fry chicken cubes, and wrap dumplings. Nan watched carefully how the chef cooked. Zhang told him to memorize the entire menu and the ingredients of every dish, so that Nan could assemble all the things needed for each order in a bowl or a plate or a Styrofoam container before the chef cooked it. On occasion Zhang would let Nan make fried rice or noodle soup while he stood by to supervise. He also taught Nan how to concoct various sauces. When it wasn't busy, Nan would go upstairs to chat with the waitstaff. Chef Zhang, always cooped up in the basement, told Nan not to "gab too much with those bitches up there."

The waitstaff disliked the chef, partly because they made money in different ways. The chef was paid by the hour and so were Nan and Chinchin, but the waiter and waitresses depended mainly on tips. When business was good, both the boss and the waitstaff would get excited, whereas the chef would become grouchy, having to cook without respite. Old Zhang often struck his legs with his fists to help the blood circulate. He revealed to Nan that he suffered from piles because for many years he had stood for more than ten hours a day in the kitchen. Whenever the work turned hectic, his pain and itch would grow more intense, insufferable. He said to Nan, "Lots of people in this business have this problem with their asses. Be careful-don't end up like me."

At last Nan understood why there were advertisements for treating hemorrhoids everywhere in Chinatown. No matter how tired he was, he'd take a shower before going to bed. Also, at night he'd place his pillow under his feet instead of his head to prevent his legs from developing varicose veins, which were also a professional hazard as a consequence of standing for long hours. He wasn't interested in managing one of Howard's dumpling houses, but he was eager to learn how to cook. Neither did he feel he could be a good waiter, who would have to carry a loaded tray on his shoulder steadily while climbing up the narrow stairs. Worse yet, a waiter had to put on a smile in front of customers, some of whom were nasty and wouldn't leave tips on the grounds that the service wasn't good enough. So Nan felt that by nature he belonged in the kitchen, where he wouldn't have to face any customers. Chef Zhang seemed fond of Nan and taught him how to cook and how to make dumpling stuffings whenever it wasn't busy. He often said, "You're lucky, Nan. When I started, I was not allowed to touch the rim of the wok during the first year."

Nan had heard a lot of stories about the difficulties in finding a job at a Chinese restaurant in New York. The waitresses told him that if you were unable to speak Cantonese, most places wouldn't hire you. Ding's Dumplings was one of the few restaurants in Chinatown where the owners didn't know Cantonese. Heng said he had once worked at a place where all the waiters had had to wear a short bow tie, which made him miserable, unable to breathe freely. Chinchin, the hostess, had worked in other restaurants before and also talked about how the Chinese waitstaff were exploited and humiliated by their bosses, and even mistreated by barkeeps, most of whom were Caucasians. In contrast, Howard was by far a better boss, who wouldn't dock your pay if you came to work an hour late because of an emergency. Nan felt lucky he had this job.

THE CIRCULATION of New Lines had dropped by nine percent in recent months. Bao was worried and held an editorial meeting, at which five people were present, counting himself and Nan. They were to decide whether they should expand the journal, namely to include articles on current events and social issues, and even a few advertisements. There were a good number of Chinese dissidents living in North America and willing to contribute political essays to the journal. However, except Bao, those at the meeting all opposed the idea, arguing that New Lines should remain strictly literary. Bao complained that there wasn't another way to revitalize the journal. As a compromise, they agreed to print two or three pieces of fiction in each issue, though at present they couldn't pay the authors.

Bao knew many Chinese dissidents living in New York. One Saturday morning he and Nan went to visit Mr. Manping Liu, the well-known scholar in political economy who lived near Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn. They wanted to get the older man's endorsement for their journal. Nan had seen Mr. Liu at Harvard last June and was eager to meet him again. Mr. Liu opened the door, his eyes and mouth both sunken, and said to them, "Welcome to my hovel." His apartment had only two rooms and was on the ground floor, but in his tiny backyard were some wilting sunflowers and chrysanthemums, and also some tripods for supporting vegetables, made of whittled branches tied at the tops but all unloaded now. The living room cum study was lined with books, and a small desk stood next to the window, strewn with manuscripts. Liu was well respected in the Chinese community, not only for his incisive writings but mainly for his integrity. In June 1989, when the field armies began attacking civilians in Beijing, he had bought a large wreath and intended to take it to Tiananmen Square personally, but his friends had restrained him despite his wailing and struggling to break loose. Within a few days his name appeared on the Most Wanted list; fortunately he and his wife managed to flee to southern China and from there were smuggled to Hong Kong through an underground channel. Unlike the other dissidents in the United States, he had always refused to accept financial aid from any organization and to date had supported himself mainly by writing for Chinese-language newspapers and magazines. Also, his wife was very adaptable and worked in a gift store in downtown Manhattan.