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loved animals. It made no sense to me. Animals meant food. Why would she waste her feelings on those brainless things? I sneered. She noticed but made no reply.
    We sat down and began eating smoked green beans and discussing whether Katherine was Chinese in her past life. Katherine was sure she was.
    “So then you must have eaten those animals,” I said. “Why not do it again?”
    “No! No one is going to make me eat meat!” she said, raising her voice.
    “But you said you were Chinese!” I shouted. “Let’s prove it.”
    Jim and Lion Head were laughing and saying, “Dog meat with soy sauce, deep-fried snake with fresh monkey brains, blowfish with pig eyes . . .”
    “You’re making me sick!” she yelled, and ran away like a child who saw a dead rat on the street. We had fun torturing her, makingher beautiful eyes widen. “Do you really eat monkey brains?” she would ask. “I know you’re fooling me. Tell me you’re fooling me. Teach me some more Chinese!” And I did. I taught her slang, dirty words with double meanings, like how “do an exercise” could also mean “go mate with a pig.” She would perform her newly learned phrases in class in an American accent. Everyone would have a wonderful time laughing. Her charm was indescribable. Sometimes she would accidentally forget the word order or tone and the sentence would become “Do exercise a mating pig.”
    We ate the food she made in her yard. We began to ask her questions. First Lion Head asked a little awkwardly whether Katherine was married. We all strained our necks like ducks trying to hear the answer. Katherine did not seem uncomfortable at all. She said she had been married and divorced. No children. She said she wanted a child though, badly.
    We all went quiet. We shot disapproving looks at Lion Head for asking the question. You don’t spread salt on someone’s wounds, our eyes said.
    Katherine’s response to this surprised us. “Hey, what’s wrong with you guys? It’s all right to ask me questions. You don’t have to feel bad for me. Divorce is not such a terrible thing. I chose to get married, I chose to get divorced. This is how you learn in life. I’ve put my past behind me. What’s there to be sad about?” She told us to be happy for her, for the freedom she enjoys.
    Still, we could not help feeling sorry for her. We had a hard time comprehending what she meant. In China nobody got divorced until a husband nearly murdered his wife or vice versa. We tried to comfort her because we believed she was suffering. We suggested that she try to work things out with her husband. We said, “Don’t worry. You can always forgive each other.”
    Katherine laughed and shook her head. She confused us. “Let’sdo something other than talking about my broken marriage, okay?” she said. “How about listening to some of my favorite songs?” We all nodded. She took out a tape recorder and stuck in a cassette. She treated the machine roughly. It jammed. She took the tape out and used her finger to clean the inside of the player. She reloaded the tape, patted the machine, and murmured, “Don’t you do that again.” She smiled as she turned to us. “Ready, class? It’s the Beatles!”
    “What’s Beatles?” Little Bird, a girl with a pair of alarmed eyes, asked. I was glad that she asked because I didn’t know what Beatles were either. Jim stood up and gave us an introduction. He asked us if we remembered a story in the Party’s newspaper in the early seventies about a group of young western musicians called Beatles—
pee-tou-shi
, in Chinese—men-with-long-hair. The translation itself made the Beatles into a bunch of jerks. I remembered reading the story criticizing them. The newspaper said they were the leaders of “a generation of destruction.” I forgot about them because I never heard their music.
    “Are they the same
pee-tou-shi?
” I asked Jim. He nodded. Katherine said she was glad to have Jim’s information. She