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“You promised Zai and me—”
“I know.”
“I’ll be at the factory tomorrow at ten. I don’t want to see you there.”
“You won’t,” she said.
They exchanged good nights. Hulan punched the OFF button, put the phone back in her pocket, and went around to the entrance to the dormitory. She opened the door and waited for her eyes to adjust to the inky blackness. Suddenly a light flicked on.
“What are you doing out here?” Madame Leung asked.
Hulan looked down at the floor and didn’t answer.
“You know the rules.”
“I’m new, Party Secretary,” Hulan said tremulously. “I got lost.”
“Your name?”
“Liu Hulan, and I promise it won’t happen again.”
Hulan felt Madame Leung’s eyes appraising her.
“Are you the one who was asking those questions today?”
“No, Party Secretary.”
Looking at the ground, Hulan could see Madame Leung’s foot slowly tap on the concrete floor.
“I will look the other way this one time,” the party secretary said at last. “There will be no penalty.”
“Thank you.”
“You may go back to your room. I’ll turn on all the lights so everyone will see you. If they ever see someone up and out again, they will know whom to report. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Party Secretary.”
Madame Leung reached up and threw a series of switches. Without looking up, Hulan scurried past the party secretary. Hurrying back to her room, she felt the eyes of hundreds of women upon her. Moments after she settled onto her bunk, the lights were turned off. Hulan held her hand in front of her face and couldn’t see it. She lay there for a few minutes, listening to the breathing and occasional shifting of the other women in the room. Her thoughts were on Miaoshan. The mattress was only a few inches deep, but from within it Hulan could smell a distinctive scent that she remembered from America. It was White Shoulders perfume. No wonder the women who slept here talked of ghost spirits. The oppressively sweet odor had always reminded Hulan of death. As Hulan drifted off, she wondered how White Shoulders had found its way into a dormitory room deep in the interior of China.
By quarter to seven the next morning Hulan had already had a cold shower, had dressed in her pink smock, had
stopped in the company store to buy toilet paper and bottled water at three times Beijing prices, had slurped down a breakfast of congee with pickled turnip, and had finagled a spot in line with Siang to enter the Assembly Building. At 6:50 a bell rang and the line began to move. Madame Leung and the guard Jimmy stood in the middle of the lobby. If Jimmy recognized Hulan, this would all be over. When she reached him, he stared directly at her, but she was just another woman in a pink smock with a pink bandana covering her black hair. Madame Leung put an arm out to stop the line. She handed Hulan and Siang passes, looked around, spotted Peanut, and said, “Take them to your post and teach them what to do.” Peanut nodded, and Hulan thought how strange it was that this place seemed to have so much security and the workers were so much under the control of the managers, and yet actual assignments could be as haphazard as who happened to be standing nearby at the time.
“We’ll be watching you today,” Madame Leung said. “Remember, if you do well, you’ll be promoted. We reward good work. If you cannot do the work, do not despair. There are many jobs here at Knight. We will find something for you.”
The line moved forward again. Peanut showed Hulan and Siang how to wave their passes over the bar code reader. Then they entered the door. The women ahead of them automatically divided into two groups, each going down different corridors. Hulan’s line snaked left and right through the halls until she felt completely disoriented. Siang must have felt the same way, because she reached out and grabbed a pinch of Hulan’s smock. Peanut bounced along rapidly, once turning her head back over her shoulder to say, “Everyone feels lost in here when they start, but you’ll get used to it in a few days.” They entered the main workroom, the women moving briskly to their positions before the various machines. At 7:00 the machines clamored to life. Within minutes the clatter and clanking of the machines had created a deafening roar.
Fortunately, Hulan and Tang Siang had been assigned to work with Peanut, who, although young, had a cheerful disposition and a great deal of patience. Peanut explained that they had been given the easy job of punching strands of plastic hair into minuscule holes in the heads of the dolls. Hulan remembered this task from the day before and thought that she’d gotten a lucky break. She was mistaken. Yesterday she’d been seated and she hadn’t yet hurt her hand. Today she stood before a conveyor that sped up as the morning progressed. What had seemed relatively easy the day before as the trainees had moved from station to station soon became impossibly difficult. As the machines continued to churn, the room’s temperature rose until the only respite came in the form of the slight oven-hot breeze that came off the moving parts of the equipment. After three hours Hulan’s hands burned with fatigue, her wound throbbed, her fingers were scratched, and her smock was damp with sweat.
Siang’s hands, however, moved deftly, competently. After the morning break Aaron Rodgers, who circulated between this room and the final assembly area, stopped to compliment Siang on her abilities. “Thank you very much,” she said in heavily accented English.
Aaron’s face broke into a smile. He leaned his head toward Siang’s and spoke into her ear. With the sound of the machines, Hulan couldn’t hear what he said, but she could see Siang blush, return his smile, and reply, “No, I am not a city girl. I am educated here in our local school. My father says English is very important.”
Aaron Rodgers agreed, massaged Siang’s shoulders for a moment, then turned his attention to Hulan. Again there was absolutely no sign of recognition. Aaron looked right into her face and, keeping a proper distance, spoke Mandarin in a tone loud enough to be just barely heard over the din of the machines. “Your fingers are bleeding. We can’t have that on the figures.”
“I’m sorry,” she responded in Mandarin.
Aaron reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple of Band-Aids. “Use these. During the break, come to me. I will try to find you another job.”
