The Interior (15 page)

Again Zai attempted to act as peacemaker. “What David says is true. You don’t need to go to the countryside to find corruption. You can find it right here in Beijing.”

“I don’t like to hear you say those words,” she said.

“And I don’t like the idea of you, my true heart daughter, going into that place.”

“Uncle, you trained me. You taught me how to look. There is something going on in that factory. I feel it.”

“If there is, then leave it to the local police,” Zai said.

“And what if they’re involved?”

When Zai jutted his chin, dismissing the accusation, Hulan felt David’s hand cover hers.

“I don’t like it,” David said to Zai. “You don’t like it. But can we stop her? Let her come down with me. She might not even be able to get into the factory. Then this whole thing will be over.”

“And if I don’t agree?” Zai asked.

“She’ll probably do it anyway.” David turned to Hulan. “I’m telling you, nothing’s going on at Knight. I’ve seen the records. But if you want to spend a day in the factory, if that will put your mind at ease, then fine. Do it. But then let’s not hear about it ever again.”

“One day in the factory. No more,” Zai conceded. “And I have one other condition. Investigator Lo accompanies you to the countryside. He can act as David’s driver if you choose, but I want someone nearby who can look out for you if things go bad.”

“They won’t,” David said. “She’ll be perfectly safe, because the factory is perfectly safe. At the end of the day she’ll come out of there tired, and that will be the end of it.”

“She needs to be back in the office on Monday,” Zai insisted, continuing the negotiation. “No more days off until the baby comes.”

“Agreed,” David said.

The men, having reached an understanding, looked at Hulan for her approval. But in listening to them debate what she could and could not do, Hulan had the strangest sensation of her life options drifting out of her control. She weighed what David had said. She trusted his judgment, but what if he was wrong and something criminal
was
going on at Knight? What if he was reading this with the same eyes that told him that his own reputation had brought in his first round of clients and not Miss Quo’s connections?

There were deeper issues too. She didn’t like to show her emotions either in public or private. Yet when David said he’d come here for work and not for her, she’d immediately revealed her hurt. When David made the comment about corruption in Beijing, she’d reacted by criticizing the U.S. Two hours ago she’d seen happiness before her; now she felt trapped. But had these feelings come from the realities of the conversation, from her own fluctuating hormones, or from a deeper belief that she didn’t deserve happiness?

Finally, if something illegal was going on at Knight and it was somehow connected to Miaoshan’s suicide, then going into the factory
could
put her and her child in danger. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Why hadn’t she thought of that all the way down the line—when she’d gone out on those easy cases in Beijing, when she’d hopped the train to go out to Da Shui, when she’d traipsed through the fields to see Tsai Bing, when she’d entered that strange café, when she’d visited the local police, or when she’d questioned Sandy Newheart and Aaron Rodgers?

Hulan raised her eyes to meet Zai’s. “One week,” she said, “and I will go back to my place.” Those words could have many meanings, and she wasn’t sure she understood any of them.

9

H
ULAN HAD FORGOTTEN HOW EASY IT WAS TO TRAVEL
with a foreigner. By paying almost double what a typical Chinese national would pay, Miss Quo picked up two round-trip airline tickets from a travel agency. David gave instructions for Investigator Lo to fly down tomorrow, rent a car, and meet him at the Shanxi Grand Hotel. Hulan packed clothes that would be appropriate for any official meetings that might come up, as well as some old work clothes she found in the back of her closet.

An hour and twenty minutes after takeoff, they arrived in Taiyuan. A half hour after that they registered in the hotel. Upon check-in David was handed several envelopes. In their room, while Hulan unpacked, David read the faxes. Most were inconsequential, but two were important. One was from Miles, saying that Tartan saw no problems with David representing Governor Sun. In fact, it might prove useful. The second was the promised waiver from Tartan. The last was from Rob Butler; no new leads had turned up in the Rising Phoenix investigation. David wrote a couple of letters himself, and on their way through the lobby he handed them to the concierge to be faxed ASAP.

They ate in the hotel dining room, where they ordered the specialties of the region—thick
tounao
soup, steamed pork with pickled greens, and a plate of flavorful noodles. Hulan drank tea, while David sipped
fen jiu
, a strong wine from vineyards located to the north of the city. After dinner Hulan packed a separate bag with simple clothes, kissed David good-bye, promised that she would be back the next night, and left. She took the local bus back out to the crossroads near Da Shui Village and walked the final few
li
to Suchee’s home.

The following morning, as David was taking a hot shower, Hulan washed her face with cold water. While David shaved, Hulan took a pair of Suchee’s blunt scissors and cut her hair until the edges were uneven. While he put on a lightweight suit, Hulan slipped on some loose gray pants that came mid-calf and a short-sleeve white blouse, both of which were soft and thin from years of wear and many washings. (As the saying went: New for three years, old for three years, mending and fixing for another three years. These clothes fit the last category.) Then, while David perused the many dishes adorning the hotel’s elaborate breakfast buffet, Hulan joined Suchee for a simple breakfast of a green onion pulled fresh from the earth tucked into a bun. At about the time that David opened his laptop to check his e-mail, Hulan took one last look at herself in Suchee’s hand mirror and then set out across the fields.

By seven, when Hulan arrived at the Silk Thread Café, the old-timers had already taken their places for the day and were sucking at cups of tea, picking their teeth with toothpicks, and smoking cigarettes. The man who’d so brazenly spoken to Hulan during her last visit called out, “Good morning! You have come to see us again. Perhaps you have reconsidered our offer!”

Hulan kept her eyes lowered. She spoke softly, humbly. “I have.”

The man pulled himself out of his chair and crossed to Hulan. “Where have you been all this time?”

“I went to Beijing. People in my village say it’s easy to go there and find work, but no one would hire me.” Hulan’s voice filled with anxiety. “They are not nice to country bumpkins like me.”

“Like you? Like me, too!” The man signaled the waitress to bring tea, then said, “Sit down. I can help you.”

The waitress brought the tea, poured it, and left without a word. Hulan’s fingers shyly edged across the tabletop to her cup. The man said, “Take the tea. It will relax you and we can talk.” As Hulan sipped, she kept her eyes focused on the greasy tabletop. The whole time she could feel the man appraising her. “Do you still have the papers I gave you?” he asked at last.

Hulan nodded and gave them back already filled out. She’d tried to answer each question as simply as possible, knowing that the closer to the truth her lies were, the easier they would be to remember.

“Liu Hulan,” the man read aloud, glancing up at her. “A good, common name for women your age. There are probably some other Liu Hulans at the factory. You might enjoy meeting them. Your birthplace? Umm…” He crossed out what Hulan had written, then wrote in new characters. “We’ll say Da Shui Village. It’s less complicated that way. Now, what are your special skills?”

“Until my husband died, I worked in our fields. I can also cook, sew, clean, wash…”

The man shook his head impatiently. “They will teach you everything you need to know. Any illnesses?”

“No.”

“Good,” the man said. “Now sign here.” When Hulan faltered, he said, “What is it?”

“How much will I earn?”

“Ah,” he said, drawing out the syllable and assessing her again. “You are a thinking woman. Impudent but thinking.”

Hulan stared at the man noncommittally.

“The contract is for three years,” he said. “As I told you before, the factory will pay you five hundred
yuan
a month, plus room and board. You will have Saturday afternoons and Sundays off. You may leave the compound during those times, but since you don’t live in a neighboring village, you will be allowed to stay in the dormitory for a small fee. You won’t be lonesome, because most of the women who work there are from far away.”

Hulan picked up the pen and signed.

The man’s solicitous attitude instantly evaporated. “The bus comes at eight o’clock. It will stop right outside the village. Please wait there.” With that he scooped up her contract and walked away.

Hulan raised her eyes and saw the man hunker back down into his group. She picked up her satchel, left the village, and went to stand on the dusty patch of land that passed for Da Shui’s parking lot. At quarter to eight two other women arrived. Hulan ascertained that one of them, Jingren, about eighteen, had—like Hulan’s cover story—retraced her steps to this town after failing to find work in Beijing. The other, Mayli, was about fifteen. She’d come here from Sichuan Province after some labor scouts had come to her village promising work in either Guangdong Province or Shanxi Province, even though she was below legal hirable age. The salaries were the same, Mayli explained, but if she came here, she was only a six-day bus ride from her village.

“And no other women came with you?”

“Oh, there were many girls from my village who got on the buses. Have you been on a bus before?” When Hulan said she hadn’t, Mayli said, “Everyone has her own meals packed. This is okay on the first day, but on the second day, with the smells and the winding road, many people were getting sick. For me it was very bad. The other girls are complaining, because I am so sick. Finally the bus driver can’t stand it anymore. He leaves me in another village. I am there for five days. Can you believe it? But I had signed my contract, and the bus had to come back for me. I got here last night.” She gestured back toward the village. “They found me a place to sleep. They said they usually send new girls to the factory on Sunday nights, so they can get processed first thing in the morning and work a full week. But they also have a bus that comes every day to nearby villages to pick up stragglers.” Mayli looked at Hulan and Jingren. “What does that mean, to be processed?”

Before either woman could answer, the bus rounded the corner. It was neither a city nor a provincial bus, for it was far older than even those that usually plied country roads. The bus stopped and the door wheezed open. The three women picked up their parcels and climbed aboard. About a dozen women were already on the bus. Most of them had spread out their possessions so that no one would sit next to them. The driver ground the gears and began to pull away even before the three newcomers had found seats. Then someone at the back of the bus shouted, “Wait! Someone’s coming!” The driver stopped, threw open the door, and Tang Siang, her hair a windblown mess, hopped up the steps. “I don’t wait for people,” the driver said. “Next time I will keep driving.”

“It won’t happen again,” Siang called out over her shoulder as she came down the aisle, trailing her belongings behind her. She plopped down in a seat across from Hulan. After she’d arranged her gear, she looked across the aisle at Hulan, trying to place her. “I know you.”

“I am the friend of Ling Suchee.”

“Yes, I remember now, but you look different.”

Hulan ignored the remark, introduced her to Mayli and Jingren, then said, “I’m surprised to see you here.”

Tang Siang ran her fingers through her hair. “It will surprise everyone, I think.”

“Did you run away from home?” Mayli asked.

“Something like that, yes.” Looking at the expectant faces, Siang said, “My father is a strong man. I can even say he is a wealthy man in our village, but he is old-fashioned. He thinks he can tell me what to do, but I don’t have to do it.”

“What about Tsai Bing?” Hulan asked.

When Siang didn’t answer, Mayli, her voice filled with girlish excitement, asked a series of questions. “Do you have a boyfriend? Are you betrothed? Is it for love or is it arranged?”

Listening to the three young women, Hulan thought back to her own girlhood—first on the Red Soil Farm, then later as a foreign student at the boarding school in Connecticut. She remembered her own naïve dreams of how her life would be and realized that those dreams weren’t much different on either continent, nor had they been truly changed by time or culture.

“I am not engaged,” Siang said. “Not yet anyway.”

“Your father doesn’t approve,” Mayli said sympathetically.

“Men want a lot of things,” Siang said, trying to sound worldly. “But that doesn’t mean I have to give it to them.”

Hulan wondered if Siang was talking about her father or Tsai Bing.

“So, did you run away?” Mayli repeated.

Siang tossed her long black hair over her shoulder. “Last night I went to the café. I said I wanted a job. But those men are cowards. They said they couldn’t hire me. They said they would tell my father. You want to know what I said?”

Mayli and Jingren nodded.

“I said they would have far more trouble if they didn’t hire me. So they let me sign the paper. Then this morning when my father went out to walk his land, I packed my things and came running.”

“Won’t your father come after you?” Mayli asked.

“My father will not interfere with the foreigners’ business. That is one reason I know my plan will work.”

Siang had left out some crucial details, but the two other girls didn’t seem to mind.

Hulan, who’d listened quietly to their prattling, trying to parse truth from fiction, now went back to a conversation that had started on the dusty street outside the village. “Mayli, when the scouts said you could go to Guangdong or come here, did they say what the difference was in the kinds of work you’d be doing?”

Mayli frowned. “Work is work. What does it matter?”

The other girls agreed. “At least it isn’t the fields,” Jingren said. “I saw my mother and father die in those fields. Now I’m alone. Maybe now I can earn enough money to go back to my home village and start a business.”

Mayli smiled. “My dream is to open a little shop, maybe for clothes.”

“I was thinking maybe I’d open a place for hair cutting,” Jingren said. “What about you, Siang?”

“My future is beautiful, that I can tell you.”

The bus stopped at the big gates to the Knight compound. The driver handed down a clipboard, which the guard checked before stepping back into his kiosk. The gate lifted and the bus drove inside. Now everyone on the bus was silent as they took in the new sights. For Hulan, however, nothing seemed different from when she’d visited before.

As soon as the bus stopped, everyone stood up and started to gather together their belongings until the driver called out, “Stay seated.” He left the bus, disappeared into a building marked
PROCESSING
, and came back five minutes later with a woman dressed in a powder blue gabardine suit, white blouse, nude knee-highs, and black pumps. Her hair was cut in a bob, making her look as familiar as an auntie.

Taking a place at the front of the bus, she said, “Welcome to your new home. I am Party Secretary Leung. I am here to serve the needs of the workers. If you have problems, you come to me.” The party secretary motioned to the building to her right. “Your first stop today is the Processing Center. You may now stand and follow me. Talking is not necessary.”

The women on the bus did as they were told. Once inside, other uniformed women guided the new arrivals into two lines. From here Hulan and her companions went through a dizzying round of paperwork. Then they were gathered into another large room and ordered to strip down to their underwear. A nurse did a cursory inspection of all the women, inquiring about rashes, checking eyes and throats, asking about infectious diseases. But all this was perfunctory. There were no reproductive questions, and Hulan didn’t volunteer any information about her pregnancy. Even naked she looked almost as thin as the others.

Next they were herded into an auditorium of sorts—a great hangar of a building where the air temperature hovered at about forty degrees centigrade. There were enough benches to seat perhaps a thousand people, but today the handful of new arrivals dotted only the first couple of rows. As soon as the last woman had taken a seat, the lights dimmed and a video about the facility began to play. Narrated by Party Secretary Leung, the video tour was far more complete than what Sandy Newheart had shown Hulan on her previous visit. The dormitories looked clean if utilitarian. This was followed by quick shots of the clinic (with the voice-over explaining that the one-child policy was strictly enforced at this facility), the cafeteria (where smiling women lined up to receive trays of steaming food), the company store (where workers could buy snacks, feminine hygiene products, and Sam & His Friends dolls for friends and family at deep discounts), and the assembly room (which looked no different from what Hulan had seen on her tour).

When the lights came back on, Madame Leung went to stand at a podium. Speaking rapidly, she described the routine—lights on at 6:00, breakfast at 6:30, at your station not one minute later than 7:00, fifteen-minute break at 10:00, a half-hour lunch at 1:00
P.M.
At 7:00 the workers were dismissed from their stations. At 7:30 dinner was served. Lights-out occurred promptly at 10:00. “If all the workers meet their quotas,” she said, “you can expect to be rewarded with the occasional
xiuxi
.” Looking around her, Hulan saw the shock on the other women’s faces.
Xiuxi
, late-afternoon naptime, was considered customary throughout the country. “Yes, I know it sounds harsh,” Madame Leung acknowledged. “But this is an American company. These foreigners have different ideas about workdays and workers’ rights. They expect you to be on time. They do not want to see you eating, spitting, or sleeping at your workplace. Again, I must emphasize, no sleeping on the factory floor, on the cafeteria benches, or anywhere on the grounds outside.”