Repeat After Me by Rachel Dewoskin Page B

know a lot about America. And my father can speak English,” he said.
    “Right, you said that in your essay.” I thought of his father, speaking into an empty house, his wife dead and his son in America. I wondered what he was like; maybe he had a mistress-wife like my father. “He must miss you, now that you’re here.”
    “I don’t think so,” Da Ge said. He dropped the cigarette, didn’t light a fourth. “Anyway, I don’t have choice to stay in China. I am dissident.” He gave the word an extra hiss,either proud to call himself one or to pronounce the word properly.
    “A dissident. Really?” I asked this with interest, which he mistook for doubt.
    His voice sped up, turned white like heat. “You don’t think I am? You think it was only bookworm like Wang Dan?”
    “Who?”
    He looked at me, and his face softened as if he had remembered something.
    “It’s nothing,” he said. “Don’t worry that.” I hoped it was me that he had remembered, that had made his face sweet like that. But then he said he had business, and left.
    At nine that night Da Ge rang my doorbell, unannounced, carrying groceries. “I can cook some food for you,” he said, when I buzzed him in. He set down the University Food Market bags hanging from his arms.
    “Wow,” I said. “Okay. Come in.” I did not ask what he had been planning to do if I wasn’t home. I thought maybe this kind of pop-in was culturally acceptable in China.
    In my kitchen, he chopped chicken and bell peppers into quarter-inch pieces as perfect as jewels, and expressed such shock over my lack of a wok it was as if I had killed a person he loved. I watched his arms move over the food. He saw me looking and pushed the sleeves of his cream sweater up. Then he mixed thick condiments he’d brought and coated the cubes of chicken. He threw roots into a frying pan, put the chicken in, took the chicken out, and braised pepper gems until they turned neon green and red. As a finale, he fried everything together in a splash and sizzle that turned my entire kitchen into a stir-fry. I had never seen a bigger mess.
    I was rapt, spelling out I’-m i-n l-o-v-e w-i-t-h h-i-m on my fingers as he presented his glistening chicken exhibition and apologized that it was inauthentic.
    “It’s perfect,” I said, “I don’t cook.” I was thinking should I be nervous? That he’s in my house, that I don’t know him, didn’t ask him over? That he’s my student?
    But it was cold outside, and I wasn’t nervous. I was happier to have him in my apartment than I can express, even now. He made me feel dangerous and interesting even as I dreamed that I might make him feel safe. Da Ge was like having a working fireplace; every room he entered heated up with him in it, and just out the windows was instant winter wherever he wasn’t.
    He was rummaging through my silverware drawer, and I was relieved to have a few pairs of disposable chopsticks left over from takeout. We stood across the table from each other, and I poured water from a Brita into mugs while he spooned rice into my bowl and put chicken and peppers on top.
    I sat down. He sat, too, waited for something. I took a bite of chicken, and the sesame oil and ginger and sugar bloomed in my mouth.
    “It’s fantastic,” I said. “Thank you for making dinner.”
    “It’s nothing,” he said, delighted. “Many Chinese men are excellent cook. Next time I make a fish.” Then he served himself, picked his chopsticks up, and mysteriously rubbed them together before taking a bite. The food seemed to cheer him up. He smiled at me. It was very quiet in my living room.
    “So.” I thought I should probably ask what he was doing coming over uninvited to make dinner at my apartment, but couldn’t think of a polite way to frame it. He took another bite, chewed.
    “What’s your scar from?” I asked, surprising myself.
    He reached up as if remembering it was there, and ran his fingers over the rise of flesh. “It’s from