The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction 22nd Annual Collection (82 page)

Jieling reported the conversation to Baiyue. They were getting incubated cells ready to move to the tissue room. In the tissue room they’d be transferred to protein and collagen grid that would guide their growth – line up the cells to approximate an electricity generating system. The tissue room had a weird, yeasty smell.

“She’s fooling herself,” Baiyue said. “Line girls never get to be cadres. She might get onto special projects, but that’s even worse than regular line work because you’re never allowed to leave the compound.” Baiyue picked up a dish, stuck a little volt reader into the gel and rapped the dish smartly against the lab table.

The needle on the volt gauge swung to indicate the cells had discharged electricity. That was the way they tested to see the cells were generating electricity. A shock made them discharge and the easiest way was to knock them against the table.

Baiyue could sound very bitter about New Life. Jieling didn’t like the debt, it scared her a little. But really, Baiyue saw only one side of everything. “I thought you got a pay raise to go to special projects,” Jieling said.

Baiyue rolled her eyes. “And more reasons to go in debt, I’ll bet.”

“How much is your debt?” Jieling asked.

“Still 700,” Baiyue said. “Because they told me I had to have new uniforms.” She sighed.

“I am so sick of congee,” Jieling said. “They’re never going to let us get out of debt.” Baiyue’s way was doomed. She was trying to play by the company’s rules and still win. That wasn’t Jieling’s way. “We have to make money somewhere else,” Jieling said.

“Right,” Baiyue said. “We work six days a week.” And Baiyue often stayed after shift to try to make sure she didn’t lose wages on failed cultures. “Out of spec,” she said and put it aside. She had taught Jieling to keep the out of specs for a day. Sometimes they improved and could be shipped on. It wasn’t the way the supervisor, Ms Wang, explained the job to Jieling, but it cut down on the number of rejects, and that, in turn, cut down on paycheck deductions

“That leaves us Sundays,” Jieling said.

“I can’t leave the compound this Sunday.”

“And if you do, what are they going to do, fire you?” Jieling said.

“I don’t think we’re supposed to earn money outside of the compound,” Baiyue said.

“You are too much of a good girl,” Jieling said. “Remember,
it doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.”

“Is that Mao?” Baiyue asked, frowning.

“No,” Jieling said, “Deng Xiaoping, the one after Mao.”

“Well, he’s dead, too,” Baiyue said. She rapped a dish against the counter and the needle on the voltmeter jumped.

Jieling had been working just over four weeks when they were all called to the cafeteria for a meeting. Mr Cao from Human Resources was there. He was wearing a dark suit and standing at the white screen. Other cadres sat in chairs along the back of the stage, looking very stern.

“We are here to discuss a very serious matter,” he said. “Many of you know this girl.”

There was a laptop hooked up and a very nervous looking boy running it. Jieling looked carefully at the laptop but it didn’t appear to be a special projects computer. In fact, it was made in Korea. He did something and an ID picture of a girl flashed on the screen.

Jieling didn’t know her. But around her she heard noises of shock, someone sucking air through their teeth, someone else breathed softly, “
Ai-yah
.”

“This girl ran away, leaving her debt with New Life. She ate our food, wore our clothes, slept in our beds. And then, like a thief, she ran away.” The Human Resources man nodded his head. The boy at the computer changed the image on the big projector screen.

Now it was a picture of the same girl with her head bowed, and two policemen holding her arms.

“She was picked up in Guangdong,” the Human Resources man said. “She is in jail there.”

The cafeteria was very quiet.

The Human Resources man said, “Her life is ruined, which is what should happen to all thieves.”

Then he dismissed them. That afternoon, the picture of the girl with the two policemen appeared on the bulletin boards of every floor of the dormitory.

On Sunday, Baiyue announced, “I’m not going.”

She was not supposed to leave the compound, but one of her roommates had female problems – bad cramps – and planned to spend the day in bed drinking tea and reading magazines. Baiyue was going to use her ID to leave.

“You have to,” Jieling said. “You want to grow old here? Die a serf to New Life?”

“It’s crazy. We can’t make money dancing in the plague-trash market.”

“I’ve done it before,” Jieling said. “You’re scared.”

“It’s just not a good idea,” Baiyue said.

“Because of the girl they caught in Guangdong. We’re not skipping out on our debt. We’re paying it off.”

“We’re not supposed to work for someone else when we work here,” Baiyue said.

“Oh come on,” Jieling said. “You are always making things sound worse than they are. I think you like staying here being little Miss Lei Feng.”

“Don’t call me that,” Baiyue snapped.

“Well, don’t act like it. New Life is not being fair. We don’t have to be fair. What are they going to do to you if they catch you?”

“Fine me,” Baiyue said. “Add to my debt!”

“So what? They’re going to find a way to add to your debt no matter what. You are a serf. They are the landlord.”

“But if —”

“No but if,” Jieling said. “You like being a martyr. I don’t.”

“What do you care,” Baiyue said. “You like it here. If you stay you can eat pork buns every night.”

“And you can eat congee for the rest of your life. I’m going to try to do something.” Jieling slammed out of the dorm room. She had never said harsh things to Baiyue before. Yes, she had thought about staying here. But was that so bad? Better than being like Baiyue, who would stay here and have a miserable life. Jieling was not going to have a miserable life, no matter where she stayed or what she did. That was why she had come to Shenzhen in the first place.

She heard the door open behind her and Baiyue ran down the hall. “Okay,” she said breathlessly. “I’ll try it. Just this once.”

The streets of Shanghai were incredibly loud after weeks in the compound. In a shop window, she and Baiyue stopped and watched a news segment on how the fashion in Shanghai was for sarongs. Jieling would have to tell her mother. Of course her mother had a TV and probably already knew. Jieling thought about calling, but not now. Not now. She didn’t want to explain about New Life. The next news segment was about the success of the People’s Army in Tajikistan. Jieling pulled Baiyue to come on.

They took one bus, and then had to transfer. On Sundays, unless you were lucky, it took forever to transfer because fewer busses ran. They waited almost an hour for the second bus. That bus was almost empty when they got on. They sat down a few seats back from the driver. Baiyue rolled her eyes. “Did you see the guy in the back?” she asked. “Party functionary.”

Jieling glanced over her shoulder and saw him. She couldn’t miss him, in his careful polo shirt. He had that stiff party-member look.

Baiyue sighed. “My uncle is just like that. So
boring
.”

Jieling thought that to be honest, Baiyue would have made a good revolutionary, back in the day. Baiyue liked that kind of revolutionary purity. But she nodded.

The plague-trash market was full on a Sunday. There was a toy seller making tiny little clay figures on sticks. He waved a stick at the girls as they passed. “Cute things!” he called. “I’ll make whatever you want!” The stick had a little Donald Duck on it.

“I can’t do this,” Baiyue said. “There’s too many people.”

“It’s not so bad,” Jieling said. She found a place for the boombox. Jieling had brought them to where all the food vendors were. “Stay here and watch this,” she said. She hunted through the food stalls and bought a bottle of local beer, counting out from her little horde of money she had left from when she came. She took the beer back to Baiyue. “Drink this,” she said. “It will help you be brave.”

“I hate beer,” Baiyue said.

“Beer or debt,” Jieling said.

While Baiyue drank the beer, Jieling started the boombox and did her routine. People smiled at her but no one put any money in her cash box. Shenzhen people were so cheap. Baiyue sat on the curb, nursing her beer, not looking at Jieling or at anyone until finally Jieling couldn’t stand it any longer.

“C’mon,
meimei
,” she said.

Baiyue seemed a bit surprised to be called little sister but she put the beer down and got up. They had practiced a routine to an M.I.A. song, singing and dancing. It would be a hit, Jieling was sure.

“I can’t,” Baiyue whispered.

“Yes you can,” Jieling said. “You do good.”

A couple of people stopped to watch them arguing, so Jieling started the music.

“I feel sick,” Baiyue whimpered.

But the beat started and there was nothing to do but dance and sing. Baiyue was so nervous, she forgot at first, but then she got the hang of it. She kept her head down and her face was bright red.

Jieling started making up a rap. She’d never done it before and she hadn’t gotten very far before she was laughing and then Baiyue was laughing, too.

Wode meimei hen haixiude

Mei ta shi xuli

Tai hen xiuqi –

My little sister is so shy

But she’s pretty

Far too delicate –

They almost stopped because they were giggling but they kept dancing and Jieling went back to the lyrics from the song they had practiced.

When they had finished, people clapped and they’d made thirty-two yuan.

They didn’t make as much for any single song after that, but in a few hours they had collected 187 yuan. It was early evening and night entertainers were showing up – a couple of people who sang opera, acrobats, and a clown with a wig of hair so red it looked on fire, stepping stork-legged on stilts waving a rubber Kalashnikov in his hand. He was all dressed in white. Uncle Death, from cartoons during the plague. Some of the day vendors had shut down, and new people were showing up who put out a board and some chairs and served sorghum liquor; clear, white and 150 proof. The crowd was starting to change, too. It was rowdier. Packs of young men dressed in weird combinations of clothes from plague markets – vintage Mao suit jackets and suit pants and peasant shoes. And others, veterans from the Tajikistan conflict, one with an empty trouser leg.

Jieling picked up the boombox and Baiyue took the cash box. Outside of the market it wasn’t yet dark.

“You are amazing,” Baiyue kept saying. “You are such a special girl!”

“You did great,” Jieling said. “When I was by myself, I didn’t make anything! Everyone likes you because you are little and cute!”

“Look at this! I’ll be out of debt before autumn!”

Maybe it was just the feeling that she was responsible for Baiyue, but Jieling said, “You keep it all.”

“I can’t! I can’t! We split it!” Baiyue said.

“Sure,” Jieling said. “Then after you get away, you can help me. Just think, if we do this for three more Sundays, you’ll pay off your debt.”

“Oh, Jieling,” Baiyue said. “You really are like my big sister!”

Jieling was sorry she had ever called Baiyue “little sister.” It was such a country thing to do. She had always suspected that Baiyue wasn’t a city girl. Jieling hated the countryside. Grain spread to dry in the road and mother’s-elder-sister and father’s-younger-brother bringing all the cousins over on the day off. Jieling didn’t even know all those country ways to say aunt and uncle. It wasn’t Baiyue’s fault. And Baiyue had been good to her. She was rotten to be thinking this way.

“Excuse me,” said a man. He wasn’t like the packs of young men with their long hair and plague clothes. Jieling couldn’t place him but he seemed familiar. “I saw you in the market. You were very fun. Very lively.”

Baiyue took hold of Jieling’s arm. For a moment Jieling wondered if maybe he was from New Life, but she told herself that was crazy. “Thank you,” she said. She thought she remembered him putting ten yuan in the box. No, she thought, he was on the bus. The party functionary. The party was checking up on them. Now that was funny. She wondered if he would lecture them on Western ways.

“Are you in the music business?” Baiyue asked. She glanced at Jieling, who couldn’t help laughing, snorting through her nose.

The man took them very seriously though. “No,” he said. “I can’t help you there. But I like your act. You seem like girls of good character.”

“Thank you,” Baiyue said. She didn’t look at Jieling again, which was good because Jieling knew she wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face.

“I am Wei Rongyi. Maybe I can buy you some dinner?” the man asked. He held up his hands, “Nothing romantic. You are so young, it is like you could be daughters.”

“You have a daughter?” Jieling asked.

He shook his head. “Not anymore,” he said.

Jieling understood. His daughter had died of the bird flu. She felt embarrassed for having laughed at him. Her soft heart saw instantly that he was treating them like the daughter he had lost.

He took them to a dumpling place on the edge of the market and ordered half a kilo of crescent-shaped pork dumplings and a kilo of square beef dumplings. He was a cadre, a middle manager. His wife had lived in Changsha for a couple of years now, where her family was from. He was from the older generation, people who did not get divorced. All around them, the restaurant was filling up mostly with men stopping after work for dumplings and drinks. They were a little island surrounded by truck drivers and men who worked in the factories in the outer city – tough grimy places.

“What do you do? Are you secretaries?” Wei Rongyi asked.

Baiyue laughed. “As if!” she said.

“We are factory girls,” Jieling said. She dunked a dumpling in vinegar. They were so good! Not congee!

“Factory girls!” he said. “I am so surprised!”

Baiyue nodded. “We work for New Life,” she explained. “This is our day off, so we wanted to earn a little extra money.”