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“Maybe that’s where my father was sent. Who knows?” Siang said. “But always I have thought this was kind of funny, because it isn’t so easy to live here even now. The whole time that my father was gone from Da Shui, the villagers held criticism meetings against our family. Eventually they sent away my aunties. They never returned. Then the team leaders of the commune assigned my grandparents the worst jobs—filling buckets of shit from the public latrine and carrying them to the fields. My grandparents, already weak, died very quickly. By the time my father returned, he no longer had a family. His home, tools, and land had long been confiscated and incorporated into the commune.”
“This was life for people everywhere,” Peanut observed. “Your family is not so unique.”
“A little less talking and maybe the new girls would get more work done,” a voice cut in. Hulan looked over her shoulder to see Madame Leung.
“Sorry, Party Secretary.”
“Peanut, I gave these two to you because you are fast. But”—she pointed at Hulan—“look at the job this one here is doing.” Then she turned her attention from the work to the person doing it and instantly recognized Hulan. “You’re the one from last night.”
Hulan bowed her head. It was an admission of guilt and an act of repentance.
“This work will never pass inspection,” Madame Leung said. Then she grabbed Hulan’s hands. “And look at this! You’re bleeding through your bandages. No one wants your blood on our products. Here,” she said as she reached into her pocket and pulled out some gloves. “These ought to help your hands, but if I don’t see an improvement in the work, we’ll have to move you to a less demanding job.” Madame Leung surveyed the room for her next targets. Once she spotted them, she said, “Get back to work, and, Peanut, you’re responsible for this one.”
When she walked away, Peanut said, “You’ll have to try harder, Hulan. This is a bottom-rung job. I’m still here, but I’m team leader of Appendage Assembly. If you don’t succeed, you’ll be given an even lower job, like hauling water to the bathrooms or cleaning the floors. They’ll drop your salary even more and you’ll work longer hours. I know you didn’t come here for that. Now, watch exactly what I do…”
Peanut devoted the next hour to helping Hulan. The work itself wasn’t all that difficult, but Hulan’s left hand was bandaged and awkward. Peanut taught Hulan to modify her grip on the doll’s head. Soon enough muscles she didn’t know she had in her hand started to ache, but at least she wasn’t worried about driving the punching tool into her wound. The minutes ticked past and Hulan became aware of Siang’s growing impatience, as she bumped into Peanut and cleared her throat, inexpertly trying to get the team leader’s attention. Finally Peanut said to Hulan, “Your hands are clumsy and your arms don’t have much strength, but you are doing better. Try it on your own for a while. The next time Madame Leung comes around, you’ll be ready for her.”
As soon as Peanut picked up her own tool, Siang began to speak as though no time had passed since her earlier speech. “When the responsibility system came in 1984, everything changed for us,” Siang said.
“Things changed for everyone.” For the first time Peanut’s voice was edged with irritation. Then she leaned over and asked Hulan, “What about you? You haven’t told us where you’re from.”
“You’ve been talking to her for an hour!” Siang blurted. “Are you going to listen to me, or are you going to keep talking to her?”
Peanut sighed, picked up another Sam head, and expertly jabbed the hair into the small holes.
“The brigade leaders got together to redistribute the land, seed, animals, and tools,” Siang continued. “They took into consideration past hard work, familial ties to the land, the qualities of livestock and soil. Although the black marks against my mother and father had been removed through self-criticism, many villagers still held a grudge. So, while several people were reassigned to their ancestral land, my father wasn’t given any of his. The leaders gave him a poor tract on the other side of the village. All the time he is working hard. One year he’s so successful that he has enough money to buy extra seed. He went to one of the neighbors—an old couple—and said if they would let him plant it, he would provide for them the following winter. The next year that couple died and my father got their land. Since then, every year he gets a little here, a little there. And every day my father thanks Deng Xiaoping for instilling in us the desire to get rich.”
“Is he a millionaire?” Peanut inquired.
“My father? No! He’s a peasant like everyone else in our county. That’s why his family attitudes are so backward.”
The three of them kept working, their shoulders almost touching. Once Peanut leaned over and rewrapped Hulan’s fingers around her tool. “Don’t forget to do it this way,” she said. “The work will go faster.” Then again they drifted back into silence while all around them the machines roared and the other women chattered.
“After everything that happened to my family, what could my father do but obey ev
ery new law our country put forth?” Siang said at last. “The government said one child and that’s what my parents had, but my father has never forgiven me for being a girl.”
“Look around,” Peanut said. “Do you think anyone in this building has been forgiven for being a girl? Sometimes I think that’s why we’re all here.”
“I came here to break away from my father,” Siang confessed.
Peanut raised an eyebrow. “Like a lot of us.”
“But this is different,” Siang insisted. “My father has plans for me. He has a boy picked out for me to marry. He’s from Taiyuan City, not from the village.”
“But you love someone else,” Peanut said.
“My father says Tsai Bing is not good enough. He says Tsai Bing will never be more than a peasant. But more than anything he says I should be no man’s second choice. You see, Tsai Bing was engaged before. His fiancée used to work here, but she died. Ling Miaoshan was her name. Did you know her?”
“She shared our room,” Peanut said without much enthusiasm. “She was a troublemaker.”
Hulan would have loved to have questioned Peanut about this, but Siang continued. “Her death made us free to be together. If I work here and earn enough money, then Tsai Bing and I can go away. Have you ever been to Beijing, Peanut? I’ve gone there with my father several times. You can’t imagine what it’s like. So much opportunity…”
Despite her companions’ incessant gossiping and all of the information she learned about Siang’s character, Hulan could no longer ignore her physical discomfort. By three her hands ached. By four her arms felt as heavy as they had the first time she’d worked a full day shoveling manure back when she was twelve. By five her legs and feet throbbed from standing in one position for so many hours. By six her neck burned from constantly staring down. By seven, when the bell finally signaled the end of the workday, she was sore, tired, famished, and ready to be as far away from this place as possible.
Siang, who’d scrupulously ignored Hulan all afternoon, whispered a few words to Peanut, shot a last impertinent look in Hulan’s direction, and quickly headed for the exit. Peanut stretched her fingers out and closed them again.
“I like her,” Peanut said, nodding toward Siang’s retreating back. “But you see the landowner class all over her.”
