I’m surprised at how quickly I fall into the routine of my new life. At first the days are endless. My fingertips are raw from twisting the plastic-coated wires around the USB cords, then slipping them into tiny plastic bags. As I work down my supply boxes and watch my “finished” bin fill up with neat rows of the wound cords, a bubble of satisfaction grows in my chest. But before I come to the last layer, the rolling cart arrives at my work-station and more supplies are plopped in front of me. When I look over at Yun, I wonder how she has endured working here for more than a year. Her face is vacant, eyes dull, the same as when she was feeding the babies or mopping floors at the Institute.
I soon learn to stop monitoring how close I am to emptying or filling a bin. Eventually the sting leaves my fingertips, and the skin there becomes tough and callused. I learn to wash my mind of thoughts as if I’m nothing more than a pair of hands. My neck and back are harder to ignore. They ache from hunching over the worktable, and no matter how many times I straighten up or stretch, the stiffness and knots are always there.
Though only three months have passed, I feel like I’ve been working forever. Each night, all I want to do is to fall into bed as soon as I can. My roommates, at least the younger ones, often go out to shop, to eat, even to dance at clubs. I’ve gone with them or with Yun a couple of times, but I’ve always felt out of place and hesitant to spend my pay. Yun once asked me what I was saving for. I couldn’t think of an answer, except to say that I had never had any money. But later, I thought of how Granddad sold the goats one by one and still ran out of money for medicine.
I don’t see Yun much. I’ve been assigned to a different dormitory building, and at work we’re not allowed to talk. After work, she usually flies out of the factory and rushes off to see Yong, so I see her only during the busy lunch period as we’re corralled through the canteen line, shouting over the racket of a thousand conversations and the banging of trays.
The canteen is less chaotic in the mornings. The rows of white tables and blue plastic chairs are only half filled with tired workers. Lots of the younger ones have been out late into the night and choose to sleep in rather than dragging themselves to breakfast. This morning I stand in the food-serving line with Ming. He picks up a tray from a pile as high as my shoulder and clatters it onto the metal counter. I ran into him at breakfast the first day I started work, and we’ve fallen into the habit of eating together. He’s nice to me, and of course I’m grateful that he helped me get this job.
Some of the girls have seen us and teased me about being his girlfriend. My face always gets hot whenever they bring it up, and I always tell them we aren’t together. Though part of me does wonder what that would be like.
Now, Ming tosses his head so his long bangs fling back. He points at a steaming pan of rice porridge, and the server scoops some into a bowl and hands it to him. As we step forward in the line, he says, “Yun’s boyfriend is a kidnapper.”
I’m not sure I heard right over the shouts of the cooks and servers. “Kidnapper?”
“Yes. You should tell her to stay away from him.” I can’t see his expression. His back is to me as he pushes his tray forward, pointing at the pans. The kitchen workers lump food onto each segment of his divided plastic tray.
“Why are you kidding like that?” I ask, feeling a prick of jealousy that he’s thinking about Yun.
“Not kidding.” He glances back at me, shakes his head. “He is a kidnapper. Or he helps one. They kidnap girls and women and sell them to men out in the countryside.” He could be telling me that Yun is going to work overtime for all the casualness in his voice. Or pretend casualness.
I frown, not believing him. “Yun said he was a bride collector.”
Ming makes a face. “All the women have left the countryside to work in the cities and big towns. The men pay for the girls, then marry them.”
“But Yong doesn’t kidnap them! Yun says he just picks up the brides. Drives them to their new home, like a car service.” There’s a tightening in my chest, a feeling of disquiet. I’m not sure if it’s for Yun or for myself. I try to get a look at Ming’s face to see if he really thinks this is true.
“I guess I thought that too when I first met him. But now I know. Some of the guys we both know explained it to me. Yong just uses that as his cover, because who can say, ‘Hello there, I kidnap people and sell them’?’”
I try to make sense of what Ming is telling me as we reach the end of the line and pay for our food. I shake my head. “Can’t be. They’ve been spending all their time together for months now. If he was going to kidnap Yun, he would have done it already.”
“Maybe he’s not planning to kidnap her. Maybe he really likes her. Doesn’t mean he hasn’t trafficked other girls.” He shrugs and heads to an empty table near the window.
I follow him and plunk down my tray with a touch of annoyance. I think of that day I saw Ming kissing Yun in the alley, rubbing his hands all over her. He was with Yun for a long time, the girls have told me. Right up until she met Yong. I wonder if he still wants her.
“Even if he’s not going to sell her,” Ming says, steadily scooping food into his mouth, “a guy like that is bad.”
A guy like that is bad, but I don’t say anything. Jealousy is keeping me quiet.
“I thought you didn’t care about her anymore,” I say.
“I don’t.” He glances up, indignation in his voice. “Not like that.” He shrugs again and sweeps his bangs aside. “But she’s your friend. You should worry about her, shouldn’t you?”
I swirl the thick rice porridge on my tray. Cold now. I’m not sure I believe what he says. And I don’t think Yun would listen to me anyway, because she’s crazy about Yong. But it’s true that she’s my friend.
***
At work, I glance toward the door, across the rows and rows of long tables with heads bowed over them. Rows of fluorescent lamps hang overhead, directly above the tables. One has a bad bulb, and every now and again, it flashes and disturbs the even white light of the room. The other workers don’t seem to notice. They’re all doing their tasks, already settled in their own thoughts.
I worry about Yun. She’s late. Already so late that I wonder if she’s going to make it or lose another day. In the few months I’ve worked here, she’s been late several times, sometimes just a few minutes, sometimes more. She’s suffered docks to her pay and awful lectures from Foreman Chen. I don’t know how many more times she can get away with it.
Suddenly she’s at the door, pulling on her work jacket. I steal a look at Foreman Chen, who is stalking the aisles with his arms crossed. He lowers his heavy black glasses to peer at someone’s work in the row in front of mine. Yun starts to clock in, but he spots her before she can swipe her badge.
“Stop right there!” Foreman Chen shouts across the work floor. His voice booms over the whir of the air-handling system. Workers’ heads startle up and their hands freeze for just a second before they go back to work, while their eyes flick between their cords and Foreman Chen and Yun.
“Don’t do it!” Foreman Chen raises an angry finger at her and storms over toward the time clock. His thick middle strains against the tuck of his shirt in his waistband as he moves. “Don’t swipe!”
Yun drops the badge, letting it dangle from the lanyard around her neck, and turns to face Foreman Chen. Her face is pale and sulky. I will her to look a little more sorry.
“You’re late again!” Foreman Chen stands before her with his hands on his hips, not bothering to lower his voice. “How many times does that make this quarter? This is not how a responsible worker behaves.”
The overhead light shines on his bare scalp where the long thin hair he has combed over has slipped away. He doesn’t seem to notice the strands brushing against his cheek. “And how much sick time have you taken in the last quarter? Once you took a full day. Another day you couldn’t stay for the overtime!”
Yun’s gaze has gone to the floor. I can’t tell if she’s ashamed or if she doesn’t care. Again, I will her to apologize, plead, cry. Anything to keep her job. But she only stands with her head bent. She mumbles something I can’t hear.
“Sick? Sick again?” Foreman Chen draws back his neck, then flings his hands out. “But you’re here. If you’re well enough now, why couldn’t you be here forty minutes ago?”
She looks up at him now. The unblemished side of her face is turned to the workroom, and I notice how thin she has become. She seems tired, but from this side, with her shagged hair behind her ear, anyone would think she’s a perfect beauty. All at once her expression changes, and I know she’s decided to try. I still can’t hear what she’s saying, but I can see that a rush of words spills from her mouth. She makes her eyes sad, and when she isn’t turning them toward Foreman Chen, she dips her head down like a beaten dog.
Yun is using her acting skills. I remember when she started practicing, a few years after I came to the orphanage. We were shuttling the two- and three-year-olds to the toilet chairs and their baths. The TV was on, playing a soap opera the caretakers liked to watch. The kids were propped in the wooden seats that kept them from crawling or walking around. They chewed on their fingers and stared at the television. I untied the bindings of one little girl who couldn’t sit up on her own and carried her to the bathroom at the back of the dayroom.
One of the caretakers scrubbed a little girl at the big sink, while Yun squatted to undress a boy who had a paralyzed arm. She twisted around awkwardly so she could watch the television through the doorway.
“Help me,” I said to Yun, holding up my girl. Yun shifted so her eyes could stay glued to the television, then yanked down the girl’s pants. I plopped her onto one of the potties and held her up while Yun tied her to the seat. She finished undressing her boy, passed him to the caretaker, and started drying off the girl who had just been bathed. I started wiping another girl sitting on a third pot when I noticed Yun, still staring at the television, making faces. She tilted her head and fluttered her eyelids, a fake smile on her face. Then she bobbled her head like she was laughing and opened her mouth, though no noise came out.
I had my girl undressed, switched her out with the boy who had just been washed, and crouched next to Yun to dry him. “What are you doing?”
“Practicing my emotions.” She didn’t take her eyes off the screen as she dressed the child.
“What do you mean?”
“When that group toured the other day, I heard one of the interpreters tell the director that the foreigner was disturbed that the children seemed sad and unemotional.”
I glanced toward the children stuck in their seats. Most of them were just sitting, staring at nothing. Almost all of them had mental or physical problems. They hardly ever laughed or cried.
“The lively ones always get the most attention. They don’t stay here long. I’m practicing so I’ll get picked when I’m shown.”
That alarmed me. Yun was my only friend here. There were others, like Guo, but they didn’t talk much. “Have they put through your documentation?”
“No.” She hung her head and made a long face. She tried to act sad, but her eyes moved back and forth, not sad at all. I suppressed the urge to laugh.
Yun never did get shown. But whenever the television was on, she studied the faces of the actors and copied their movements.
Now, Foreman Chen crosses his arms, squinting at Yun as she talks. I can tell he’s pleased that she is making an appropriate plea in front of the other workers. He lets her talk until she wipes the corner of her eye with a knuckle.
“This is not acceptable.” Foreman Chen shakes his head slowly. He finally notices his out-of-place strands of hair and rakes them back. “We must have workers who are reliable. Even though you were an orphan, I gave you a chance. In fact, you might say I’ve given you many chances, all the times I overlooked your lateness. Most places wouldn’t take a risk on someone like you. Besides those who are superstitious about orphans, the more practical ones think if you don’t have a family, you don’t know how to take responsibility for others. Won’t be dependable.”
Yun drops her hand from the tears I can’t quite see. Her mouth turns small. The muscles of her jaw tighten.
“When I hired you, you promised me that you would work extra hard to make up for being an orphan. Plenty of people would like a place here. So many girls are willing to work hard, work when they’re sick, eager for the overtime so they can make extra money for their families. I hope you’ll think about that in your next position. You’ve run out of chances here. You’re fired.” He holds his hand out for her badge.
Yun’s mouth drops open in shock. She stands there for what seems like a long time. I’ve stopped working to watch, holding my breath. I really don’t know what she’s going to do.
She whips her badge over her head and throws it at Foreman Chen. It hits him in the chest, and he grapples to catch it, but it falls to the floor. Yun spins around and runs out the door as Foreman Chen bends to pick up the badge. When he straightens up, he pats back his hair and scans the room. We all go back to work, pretending we haven’t been watching.
Ming is standing at the end of my row with his pushcart. He throws me a glance before Foreman Chen, his father, ticks his head for him to get back to work.
Yun’s been fired. Where will she go? What will happen now? I know everyone says it’s easy to get jobs. I’ve seen several girls go to new positions. Hong moved to another factory a few weeks ago. But is it as easy if you’ve been fired from your last position? And where will Yun live while she looks for something else?
All morning I watch the clock ticking toward the lunch hour. When the bell finally rings, I throw on my cheap polyester coat while I push with the others out of the building. I’ll go to Yun’s room. Maybe I can catch her while she’s still packing up.
But as soon as I’m out the main door, I hear someone shouting my name. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the smog-white sky. But at last I spot Yun pushing toward me against the people flooding out the door. She grabs my arm, and we find a concrete bench in the factory plaza. I can feel the coldness of it through my pants and cheap new coat.
“Yun, what are you going to do now? Do you think you can find another position?” I’m thinking of Foreman Chen’s words. And of what the caretakers always said: No one wants to hire orphans.
“I don’t know! I can’t think about that right now.” She tosses her head irritably. “I need you to come with me.”
“What do you mean? Where?”
She huffs out a breath and slumps, then puts her hands up to her face, patting at her own cheeks. “Will you go with me to the health clinic?”
“Why? What’s the matter?”
She doesn’t answer at first, just drops her hands and stares out. People are standing and moving in all directions on the plaza, but she isn’t looking at anything in particular. “I have to get a pregnancy test.”
My hand flies to my mouth. I’m too shocked to say anything. My mind jams, trying to grasp what this means. All those sly comments that the other girls make. I suddenly feel so dumb for not realizing it. Yun has been having sex with Yong. That first night I slept in her bunk, she didn’t come home. I got my own room assignment that next day, so I’ve had no idea of her comings and goings.
Yun starts crying. She isn’t acting now. The best I can do is pat her arm.
“You’ll come with me? After your shift. They’re open late. I don’t want to go by myself.”
“What about Yong?”
She swipes at the tears streaming down her face. “I don’t want to tell him until I know for sure. Anyway, he’s out of town. Working on a job.”
On a job. Bride collecting?