A Good Fall Read Free

his surprise, he saw a blister on Bori’s left foot in the shape of half a soybean. He wondered if the plastic perch was too slippery for the parakeet to hold, and if the wire cage the bird gripped instead while sleeping had blistered his foot. Maybe he should get a new cage for Bori. He flipped through the yellow pages to locate a pet store.
    That evening as he was strolling in the Queens Botanical Garden, he ran into Elbert Chang, the director of the opera project. Elbert had been jogging, and as he stopped to chat with Fanlin, Bori took off for an immense cypress tree, flitting into its straggly crown before landing on a branch.
    “Come down,” Fanlin called, but the bird wouldn’t budge. He just clasped the declining branch and looked at the men.
    “That little parrot is so homely,” observed Elbert. He blew his nose, brushed his sweatpants with his fingers, and jogged away, the flesh on his nape trembling a little. Beyond him a young couple walked a dachshund on a long leash.
    Fanlin turned as if he were leaving, and Bori swooped down and alighted on his head. Fanlin settled the bird on his arm. “Afraid I’m going to leave you behind, eh?” he asked. “If you don’t listen to me, I won’t take you out again, understood?” He patted Bori’s head.
    The parakeet just blinked at him.
    Fanlin realized that Bori must like the feel of the wooden perch. He looked around and found a branch under a tall oak and brought it home. He dismantled the plastic bar, whittled a new perch out of the branch, cut a groove on either end, and fixed it in the cage. From then on, Bori slept on the branch every night.
    Proudly Fanlin told Supriya about the new perch, but she was too preoccupied to get excited. She sounded tired and merely said, “I’m glad I left him with you.” She didn’t even thank him. He had planned to ask her about the progress of the filming, but refrained.
    The composition for the opera was going well. When Fanlin handed in the first half of the music score—132 pages in total—Elbert Chang was elated, saying he had worried whether Fanlin had embarked on the project. Now Elbert could relax—everything was coming together. Several singers had signed up. It looked like they could stage the opera the next summer.
    Puffing on a cigar in his office, Elbert gave a nervous grin and told Fanlin, “I’m afraid I cannot pay you the first half of the advance now.”
    “Why not? Our contract states that you must.”
    “I know, but we just don’t have the cash on hand. I’ll pay you early next month when we get the money.”
    Fanlin’s face fell, his mothy eyebrows tilting upward. He was too deep into the project to back out, yet he feared he might have more difficulty getting paid in the future. He had never worked for Elbert Chang before.
    “The bird looks uglier today,” Elbert said, pointing his cigar at Bori, who was standing on the desk, between Fanlin’s hands.
    At those words, the parakeet whooshed up and landed on Elbert’s shoulder. “Hey, hey, he likes me!” cried the man. He took Bori down, and the bird fled back to Fanlin in a panic.
    Fanlin noticed a greenish splotch on Elbert’s jacket, on the shoulder. He stifled the laughter rising in his throat.
    “Don’t worry about the payment,” Elbert assured him, his fingers drumming on the desktop. “You have a contract and can sue me if I don’t pay you. This time is just an exception. The money is already committed by the donors. I promise this won’t happen again.”
    Feeling better, Fanlin shook hands with the man and stepped out of the office.
    Upon signing the contract for The Blind Musician three months earlier, the librettist, an exiled poet living on Staten Island, had insisted that the composer mustn’t change a single word of the libretto. The writer, Benyong, didn’t understand that, unlike poetry, opera depends on collaborative efforts. Elbert Chang liked the libretto so much he conceded to the terms the author demanded.