I run from the restaurant into the poorly lit street. I’m out of breath by the time I burst onto Xifu Road. I stop and lean against a bicycle rack, lightheaded. Silver specks float in my vision. Everything is spinning. People and cars crossing every direction. Bright store signs and traffic lights flashing. Honking from the four lanes hammering my ears. I close my eyes and take a few gulps of the biting air before my head is straight enough for me to get moving again.
The temperature is dropping, and the cold stings my cheeks. I don’t know where I’m going. I just start walking, dodging people chaining up their bicycles, people rushing by or waiting for the buses—probably going home to their families. The lights from the dingy small shops spill out onto the sidewalks. Through their glass doors, I can see the owners standing and eating their dinners, watching the street.
I walk several blocks before I get the idea to go to Yong’s place. I realize I’m headed that direction anyway. I don’t know if he’ll be home. The last time I saw him was when we went to the night market two nights ago. He didn’t say when he was coming home.
Bride trafficker.
I shake my head, my anger rising again. Luli doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Yong is a driver. He works for a marriage broker.
We actually ran into his boss at the night market the other evening when we went to get some snacks. It wasn’t as cold then, and the market was crowded. We ate skewered meat and fried bread while we wandered among the tented stalls, under the stringed lights and flagged banners that crisscrossed over the lane. My eyes ran over the tables and racks loaded with belts, watches, electronics, plastic toys. I pointed at things I wanted to buy with my next pay, but each time I had to nudge Yong because his face was always bored-looking or pointed the other way, scanning the faces in the crowd. He hadn’t wanted to go out, but I had whined until he agreed. When I saw the stall with athletic shoes I thought he would like, I tugged on his hand and pulled him toward them.
“Wait a minute.” Yong craned his head around the crowd as if he’d spotted someone he knew. He dropped my hand. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.” Skirting the crowd, he walked over to a man at least ten years older than him. They talked several minutes before Yong came back to me.
“Who was that?” I asked.
“My boss.” Yong moved us back toward the shoes.
I glanced back for another look, but he had disappeared in the crowd.
“What did he want?”
“He just needs me to drive somewhere tomorrow.”
“Where?”
“Don’t ask so many questions.”
I don’t know why, but that grated on me. “You’re taking somebody to her new husband? Where are you picking her up?”
He shrugged and began to pick up shoes, studying each pair. He never talked about his work. He just went away, usually unexpectedly, and stayed for however long and came back when he came back. I wouldn’t hear from him for days at a time. “I don’t know,” he finally said.
“Your boss didn’t even tell you where you’re supposed to go?”
Yong sighed impatiently and gave me an awful look.
I hated that cold feeling he gave me, like I was some stranger. The rush of early times when we first met, when he had looked at me with smiles and adoring eyes, felt so far away. Lately when I saw him, he was often distant and didn’t even hold my hand. When we went back to his room, we would have sex, and then he would smoke, watch TV, roll off to sleep. At first I didn’t mind too much, but I had begun to feel bored myself. Still, I didn’t like to see him cross with me, so I plucked up a pair of sneakers and danced them on top of the other shoes, singing, “But you make so much nice money.”
He smirked then, and the night had gone on like always.
But now . . . I stop on the sidewalk, press my clenched hands against my stomach. I should have gone ahead and scheduled the termination, but I just had to get out of that place.
I’m in Yong’s neighborhood now. The two-lane streets are quieter here, with fewer streetlights. I turn into Yong’s lane. It’s dark, with only faint light from a few of the neighbors’ curtained windows. No stars are visible overheard, though the nighttime smog glows an unnatural yellow-gray from the illumination of the city.
At Yong’s flat, the windows are dark. I knock on the door just in case he’s asleep. No answer. I bang harder, even though I know that he isn’t there. I don’t know if he’s still away on the job, or if he’s back in town and just out for the night.
I sink down onto the narrow doorsill and huddle up against it while I think about what to do next. If Yong doesn’t come home tonight, I don’t know where I’ll stay. Gatekeeper Wu at the factory let me stash my things under the desk in the gatehouse, but I’ll have to pick them up soon.
I pull my wallet out of my bag and try to count my money, holding the bills toward the neighbor’s window to make them out. After the cost of the sonogram, I only have 532 yuan. And I’ll need that just to get by until I find another position.
I know I should have saved more. Some girls, like Luli and Dali, my roommate, never spend any money. Always eating at the canteen, never buying new clothes or going to the dance clubs. Dali sends most of her pay home to her family.
My only hope is that Yong will give me the money for the termination.
I stuff the money back into my wallet, push it deep inside my bag, plunk my head back against the door, and begin pulling out strands of hair. I wonder about the woman who left me on the side of the road. I can’t call her my mother. So many times over the years I’ve wondered about her, but I never get far in my imagining. She didn’t leave a sad, pleading note tucked inside my blankets like some of the mothers who abandoned their babies did. The caretakers supposed she left me near the entrance to the supermarket because of my pocks and my bad heart, because she couldn’t afford to have it fixed, or because she wasn’t married, or because she was married and they wanted to have a boy. It could have been any reason.
Someone turns into the alley, a dark silhouette against the light of the nearby street. I stand and step up onto the low doorsill, pull my coat tightly around myself, and squint, trying to make out if it’s Yong.
After a moment, I can see that it isn’t him. This person is thick around the middle and wears a long coat that flaps around his legs. I slump back against the door, disappointed. It’s really getting cold. I ran from Luli before I finished eating, and now I still feel hungry. If I go to get something to eat, I can also sit inside a warm restaurant. I just don’t want to miss Yong.
The man stops in front of me. “Is this Number 8, Wuyi Lane?” he asks. He wears a flat wool cap that shadows his broad face from the light of the neighbor’s window, but I can see frameless rectangular glasses perching on his wide nose.
“Yes.”
“I’m looking for Liang Yong.”
“He’s not here.”
“But this is his residence?”
I nod.
“Who are you?”
“I’m . . . a friend. I’m waiting for him too.”
“Is he coming home soon?”
I shrug. “Don’t know. He may be working.”
He studies me. I wonder who he is. He’s too old to be one of Yong’s friends—even older than Yong’s boss. With his cap and long coat, he looks like one of the officials who occasionally inspected the orphanage. I start to feel nervous, as if I’m about to be scolded by Foreman Chen at the factory.
“You’re a friend? Would you say, girlfriend?”
I shrug again. It’s none of his business.
“I’m a detective. Hired by a family to find their daughter.” He hands me a business card, which I can’t read because of the darkness. “Did you know that Liang Yong is a bride trafficker?”
My breath catches in my chest. I’m frozen in place, yet my head suddenly becomes very hot. The light from the neighbors’ windows refracts in the detective’s glasses as he takes a step forward.
“Where has he gone?”
I can’t say anything. I only shake my head slightly.
“I’ve given you a shock.” His voice softens. “You’d better get away from him. You’re in real danger. These bride traffickers sometimes get girls by wooing them. They find girls on dating websites, on chat rooms. The man will act like a boyfriend. He’ll tell a girl they’re going to go on a weekend trip together, take the girl far away from home, then sell her to a man in the countryside.”
I pinch my lips together, trembling. Maybe Ming put him up to this.
“How long have you been going around with Liang Yong?”
I don’t want to answer him, but his eyes stay fixed on me until I drop my hand and mumble, “Three months.”
His face twitches. I have the feeling he’s surprised.
“Yes!” I snap. “Really, more than three months! See, you’re wrong about Yong! It’s not him!” I’m about to tell him that it’s Yong’s boss he must be looking for, but I realize that I should keep my mouth shut.
The detective shakes his head. “I don’t know why he’s kept you for so long,” he murmurs. “Using you for himself? Maybe his customers aren’t so choosy about that. But I’m telling you, this man is a dangerous person. He kidnaps people! Young women like you. Can you imagine being taken away from your family and forced to submit to a strange man? You’d have to clean his house, cook his food, have his baby. For the rest of your life, you’d be trapped. This is going to happen to you if you let yourself be tricked.”
My face burns. Why do older people feel like they can say anything and tell you what to do? Even the girls from the factory with their prodding questions don’t talk to me like this. This man is even worse than the doctor at the clinic. I don’t have to believe him.
He speaks gently again. “Get away from him before it’s too late. Go home.”
Go home. If he only knew Yong’s home is the only one I have.
Still, I step off the doorsill and duck past him and head toward the street. I just want to get away.
“If you see him, don’t tell him that I’m looking for him,” he calls out to me.
I don’t turn around. I stuff his card deep into my pocket.