Mountain Girl River Girl (9 page)

“I’m not sure about the details. The reason I’m bringing it up is that the labour dispute was initiated by a group of migrant workers from Sichuan. Before you knew it, everyone came on board. As a group they requested better living and working conditions, and some medical coverage. As you may know, the once-proud universal medicare run by our government went down the drain long ago. The owner accused the workers of getting fancy ideas from the West.” Lao Zhou raised one of his eyebrows, producing a funny face. “Did I tell you that every pair of shoes made in the factory is for foreign markets only? Anyway, I’m not allowed to sign on any workers from Sichuan Province.”

He looked straight at Shui-lian, who stared back at him as she wiped cookie crumbs off her lips. He then wiggled his first finger at her. “After what I’ve experienced today, I can’t blame her too much, can I?” Not waiting for an answer, he threw back his head and let out a heartfelt laugh. “Little Sichuan, you sure are a firecracker.”

As the last of the passengers rushed to take their seats, Lao Zhou stood on his toes on the platform so he was at eye level with Pan-pan and Shui-lian, who had taken seats next to an open window. He lowered his voice, giving them his final advice. “Look out for yourself and for each other when you are there. Watch what you say, and stay out of trouble. China may still call itself a socialist country, ruled by the Communist Party, but it’s capitalism inside the factory walls. Remember: When you live in someone else’s house, bend your head if the ceiling is lower than what you’re used to.”

His last words released a gush of homesickness in Shui-lian. Her mother had often used the same saying. For the past two days, ever since she had left Jin-lin and the other women at the inn, she had been up with the rising sun, walking and begging all day, sleeping in shabby hostels, where she paid three yuan a night for a top bunk. For two days she had thought about nothing but her destination—Shanghai—and starting a new life there. It had been hard to keep her mind off her mother and her family, the rivers and mountains of Sichuan, but she knew she had to, otherwise her will might soften, and she might break down right in the middle of road and give up her plan.

As the bus rumbled out of the station, Shui-lian wondered where Jin-lin was. She found herself choked with emotions she thought she had lost forever after that horrible night. Quickly she turned her head aside, away from the window. She didn’t want Pan-pan to see her tears.

Chapter
Twelve

The bus rattled and grumbled, heading north. Pan-pan sat quietly, a ten-yuan note crumpled in her fist. She had tried to push the money into Lao Zhou’s hand when he shook hands with her before the bus pulled out of the station, but failed. She knew it would cover only part of the bus fare, but it was all the money she had left. Ordinarily, the workers bought their own tickets and were repaid by the factory once they passed their three-month probation. But Lao Zhou was kind enough to buy her and Shui-lian’s tickets for them. Pan-pan stared down at the wrinkled note in her hand, feeling a thickness in her throat. She wondered whether by the end of the day, week, or month, the old man would ever break even, never mind earning money as he hoped, if he kept helping out people like her and Shui-lian.

Next to her, Shui-lian, gazing at the back of the seat in front of her, spoke quietly. “I never said goodbye to my family, nor did I wave at anyone during the entire trip, even though we were constantly in and out of trains and on and off buses.” She looked out the window as if retracing her journey. “But saying goodbye to Lao Zhou, someone I had just met, made me sad. It’s very strange, but you know what? I kind of like it—it’s a good sad-feeling.”

Pan-pan didn’t reply.

According to Lao Zhou, the bus ride to the factory was about three hours. It would take them to the north shore of the Hui River and onto the North China Plain, where Anhui Province bordered Henan Province. Although the factory was less than a year old, Lao Zhou said, a bus stop had already been set up and named after it. “A stone’s throw from the factory,” he assured them. “Trust me, you won’t miss it.”

It turned out that six other young women on the bus were heading for the same destination. “The new shoemakers,” the driver had called them.

The bus was jammed full. Every seat was taken, including the flip-downs that blocked the centre aisle. Bags and parcels filled up the remaining space—piled on the overhead racks, heaped on raised knees, and enclosed by anxious arms. Two galvanized-wire cages sat on top of the engine cover. One held half a dozen scrawny chickens, the other a pair of ducks that seemed in better spirits than the chickens, quacking and flapping their wings each time the bus horn sounded.

As the sun slanted down the western sky, Pan-pan and Shui-lian experienced their first traffic jam while the bus fought its way out of Bengbu. They laughed at the chaos outside the window, the noise, the tangled disorder among the vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians, and the loud curses from their driver. When the bus finally reached the countryside, the daylight was fading and the relative calm seemed to bring quiet among the riders. Animated conversations, carried on in several dialects, each louder than the other, had diminished to hushed murmurs and soft snores.

Shui-lian dozed off, her head on the bedroll Pan-pan had placed on her knees. It’s probably the first time she’s had a decent rest since she left her family’s boat more than a week ago, Pan-pan thought as she watched a trickle of saliva gather at the corner of Shui-lian’s mouth. Shui-lian had told her about Da-Ge’s lies and betrayal, her troubled journey, that she had almost been sold as a wife to a stranger. Pan-pan couldn’t have imagined that such terrible things happened. Listening to Shui-lian’s story, Pan-pan had felt guilty about her own so-called adversity. She wondered if she would have chosen to return home like the rest of the women Shui-lian had travelled with. Shui-lian was so brave, Pan-pan admitted. Yet taking off without telling her family was something she herself would never do.

With Shui-lian sleeping soundly, Pan-pan leaned closer to examine her face in the dim light. Although Pan-pan was four months younger and less experienced, she concluded that the bruises on Shui-lian’s face were definitely not from falling down the stairs as Shui-lian had claimed. More likely she had been punched. Did something else happen during her trip that Shui-lian didn’t want to tell me? Pan-pan asked herself. If so, does it cancel out my not revealing my fox smell? No wonder Lao Zhou called us
nan-jie-nan-mei—
suffering sisters—after he finished listening to the edited version of our stories.

Pan-pan knew that the popular expression was actually
nan-xiong-nan-di—
suffering brothers. Whoever came up with that old proverb seemed to imply that misery falls only on males. Xin-Ma would have said that was because it was always men who made up words and phrases. Then again, Lao Zhou used to be a teacher. He knew how to reinvent phrases. Is that why he took pity on us, two suffering young women, and signed us on by lying about Shui-lian’s birthplace and paying for our tickets? As soon as they, especially Shui-lian, were convinced that Lao Zhou wasn’t a phoney and his job offer was real, they had both tried to persuade, even pleaded for, the old man to hire them. No matter how tough the job turned out to be, they promised not to complain. Anything would be better than the situation back at home, and working in a factory seemed the only way for them to escape poverty and humiliation.

The bus rolled along in the twilight, letting passengers off and taking more on board. Pan-pan closed her eyes, trying to imagine what her worker’s life would be like. She had never made shoes for herself. How could she make shoes for foreigners? She’d be able to support herself, although Lao Zhou didn’t know exactly how much she’d earn. He did mention that the cost of water, electricity, and living quarters, including the rental of bunk beds, would be deducted from their monthly pay. And the workers were responsible for their own meals. If expenses were too high, maybe she and Shui-lian could share one bed. Instinctively, Pan-pan pressed her arms tight against her side. On second thought, it would be better if she slept by herself. Maybe she could save money on food instead.

“N
IAVIA STATION.
Shoemakers, your stop,” the driver called out, switching on the ceiling lights. The bus made a tight turn and stopped in the middle of a narrow road thronged with people. A streetlight cast its glare upon the crowd. The din and smells hanging thickly in the air could be grabbed by the fistful. No sooner had the bus come to a stop than the door flapped open and hands appeared outside the windows, thrusting and waving in the air like tentacles. Shui-lian jerked awake and bumped her head on the window sill. She rubbed her eyes and stretched her arms, then stopped in the middle of a yawn when her sleepy eyes caught sight of the hustle and bustle outside. Pan-pan was already up on her feet, also yawning. The last time she had looked out the window, the bus was travelling through serene farmers’ fields, earth and sky merged into a murky vastness.

Gingerly, Pan-pan, Shui-lian, and the six other recruits climbed down the steps, clutching their belongings tightly against their chests, their eyes shifting from side to side as they took in the intimidating commotion. Pan-pan hung onto her bedroll. Shui-lian huddled uneasily behind Pan-pan, protected by the bulky bag at her side.

As soon as the bus took off, before the trail of dust settled back to the ground, all eight newcomers were encircled by a wall of strangers and immersed in a sea of bellowing voices. Each hawker tried to top the next, urging the new workers, or “money bags” as they insisted on calling them, to purchase the best goods that money could buy and to sit down for the most delicious meal they would ever eat. Colourful dresses and blouses were waved in their faces. Pan-pan leaped to the side like a startled frog when she realized that someone was kneeling at her feet, attempting to snatch her leg.

“Get away from me!” she screamed. “What do you want?”

A tiny face looked up. A boy smiled at her, his front teeth missing. “Let me clean your shoes.” He pointed at Pan-pan’s mud-caked running shoes with their mismatched laces. “Cheap, Big Sister. One yuan per foot.”

Behind her, Shui-lian was fighting a much fiercer battle, struggling to free herself from fingers grabbing at her hair. One woman persistently shoved a picture torn from a magazine into Shui-lian’s face. “The newest hair style,” she crowed. “Only twenty yuan.”

Everyone seemed to be yelling. No one was listening or taking no for an answer. Shui-lian covered her head with Pan-pan’s bag. Around them, the other recruits were waging similar fights, breaking free from a tangle of intruding arms. If it were not for the arrival of Mr. Yao, Pan-pan was sure some of them would have ended up missing a limb or two. As soon as the short, bulky man barged into the melee, the crowd became quiet, as if someone had turned a knob and switched off the radio.

Mr. Yao introduced himself as the manager of the Department of People’s Affairs for the Niavia Shoe Company. “At least he isn’t calling himself Da-Ge or boss man,” Shui-lian whispered into Pan-pan’s ear.

Mr. Yao wore a pink shirt buttoned up to his chin, set off by a butterfly-shaped tie made from gold ribbon. Pan-pan could tell right away that the thick hair on his round head wasn’t his own. The wig had shifted to the left when he butted triumphantly into the crowd. As Mr. Yao and his assistant busied themselves shooing away the vendors, Pan-pan kept her eyes on his toupee. It reminded her of the metal lid her father had made for the water pot on the brick stove.

After a quick head count and roll call, Mr. Yao adjusted his frameless glasses, which kept sliding down his nose, and led the recruits away. By now the crowd had dispersed, but their jeers rose from both sides of the road as the young women passed. Someone mimicked rooster crows, followed by quacks of ducks as another voice called out, “Look! Such a flock of pretty ducklings. Look! An ugly rooster leading them.”

Shui-lian and Pan-pan trudged behind Mr. Yao, their eyes drawn to the ramshackle stores and food stalls, most of them set up under large tarpaulins, tied to the dust-coated trees and posts. Strings of cooked meat and chickens with their heads still on dangled upside down inside dimly lit food stands. Tables and benches were set out along the edge of the dirt road. Steam hung over large pots resting on coal stoves, filling the evening air with coal dust and savoury aromas and reminding the two girls how hungry they were. Nearby, men and women shouted in competition, selling cooked eggs, deep-fried bean curd, and roasted melon seeds.

“This must be the market Lao Zhou told us about,” Shui-lian whispered. The old recruiter had mentioned that the market had popped up right after the factory opened and had been expanding ever since. The farmers-turned-merchants called the workers their
yao-qian-shu—
money trees. The factory stood in the middle of farmland and the closest city, Bozhou, was thirty kilometres to the west. Since the factory workers had only one day off every two weeks, the locals grabbed every opportunity they could to make money from the “members of the salaried class.”