The Interior - Страница 30

Again the women muttered among themselves. "I thought the salary was five hundred yuan a month," a voice called out.

Madame Leung's disapproving eyes scanned the room. "Who asks this question?" When no one answered, she said, "One day, after you complete your full training, you will be promoted. Until then all of you will be paid two hundred yuan a month." She surveyed the room, daring the women to complain. None did. "In a moment you will begin your education, but before you go I want to remind you that I am your government liaison. Please, if you have any problems, come to me. You will always find a receptive ear."

Twenty minutes later, Hulan found herself in yet another vast room, which had the capacity to seat a hundred or more at long tables. But since this was the middle of the week, the instructor explained, there would be only these few women for training. During the rest of the afternoon Hulan moved from one station to the next, getting timed on how quickly she could run fabric through a sewing machine, clip on button eyes, attach the extra gizmos to the cardboard packaging. She thought she was getting quite adept at installing the box that contained the software, until she saw that the others in her group were faster. She kept sneezing when filling the body with its polyester-fiber stuffing and saw the supervisor put a red mark next to her name for that activity. Her next chore was to punch hair into the heads of the dolls. This involved using a tool to run clumps of plastic hair through tiny pre-made holes, then tying off the strands along the interior of the skulls. At each stop the supervisor made a note of Hulan's progress on her clipboard.

Hulan then moved on to a stamping machine. Unused to working with her hands, she was slow at this job, which required quickly moving the doll's plastic face into position so that special attaching holes could be punched through. Within a minute the cutters came down and slashed through the flesh between Hulan's thumb and forefinger on her left hand. Madame Leung shut down the machine and hustled Hulan to the clinic. The nurse pulled out a needle and thread, then, without the aid of either anesthetic or disinfectant, stitched the wound closed. The nurse wrapped gauze around Hulan's hand, tied two torn strips together, told her that the injury was neither significant nor permanent, then said, "You may go back to work." Madame Leung nodded and escorted Hulan back to the training room. The bandage and the pain exacerbated Hulan's clumsiness, but she found that although she was still not as swift as the others, she could still do the work. More red marks, however, were made next to her name.

At 6:30 they were shown into the deserted cafeteria and given bowls of rice with stir-fried vegetables on top. At seven they heard a siren. Madame Leung reappeared, ushered them into an adjoining room, and told them they could rest for fifteen minutes. Just as Hulan heard the cafeteria filling with the regular workers, Madame Leung returned, opened a door to the outside, and led them through the late afternoon sunshine to the Assembly Building. Jimmy, the Australian, was not at his post in the lobby, so Madame Leung reached under the desk and pressed the button to release the lock on the door.

On the other side was the small foyer that Hulan had passed through on her tour. Madame Leung opened one of the doors that led from it, and the women followed her down a hallway, turned right, left, right again, then two lefts. In each corridor they passed more closed doors. Hulan had no idea where she was in relation to the final assembly room she'd been in before, let alone the main courtyard from which she'd come. At last they stepped into a huge room that logic said must be on the other side of the wall from the final assembly area.

The room was divided into two open areas. The first and largest held the cutting tables and sewing machines. The second area was dominated by gigantic machines, some of which measured eight feet high and twenty feet long. Madame Leung explained their various purposes: "molders" for making the plastic body parts, "flockers" to create the hair, and another machine with knife-like claws that grabbed compacted bricks of polyester fiber, drew it along a conveyor belt and shredded it into fluffy stuffing, which emerged out the other end of the machine to be packed loosely into burlap sacks. As she followed behind Madame Leung, Hulan could still feel waves of heat coming off the machines. The temperature, even this late in the day, was as hot as anything Hulan had ever felt. Fine beads of sweat broke out on Mayli's forehead, and Siang whispered, "We are standing in an oven. In an hour we will be as cooked as a piece of pottery."

"This is where you will begin work tomorrow," Madame Leung said. "You will be assigned a station and a guide. She will teach you how to work your machine. Once you have mastered the work in this room, you will be promoted to other jobs. Some of you might even make it into what the foreigners call the heart. This is a place with air conditioning. This is a special American invention that makes the air feel as cool as ice even in the hottest month. Many of you have come here with big dreams. I am here to tell you that they can come true. I can promise you this, because once I too was like you. I came from a village far away. I started in this room. I earned only two hundred yuan, but I kept working because I had my dreams."

Madame Leung paused, looked around at the newcomers, and smiled. Everyone in the room could see that the party secretary's dreams had come true by her nice suit, her nice haircut, and her nice figure that was neither too thin nor too fat. "In a moment you will go to your dormitory. If you think you will be unhappy here, this is the time to say so. You have all signed a three-year contract. Tonight-and only tonight- we are willing to let you walk away from your obligation. Tomorrow you will be fully committed, and there will be no crying, no changing your mind, no saying this isn't the way to your dreams."

For the second time that day Madame Leung inspected the group, looking for any signs of weakness. Again there were none.

"Our countrymen know hard work," Madame Leung said. "We are proud of what we can do. Through our American friends we can reap the rewards." She straightened her shoulders, then said, "Good night. Sleep well, for tomorrow you start your new life."

The dormitory rooms were hot, stuffy, and humid. Three smells hung in the air-women, overflowing (or unflushed) toilets, and scented toiletries. The women who'd accompanied Hulan thus far now separated and went looking for beds. Each room had four bunks, each with three beds apiece. Underneath the bottom beds were stashed the belongings of all the women in the room. A single bare lightbulb hung from the center of the ceiling. Most of the rooms were fully occupied, and since the other women had set out before Hulan, the few bunks that were available were quickly taken. Hulan was about to enter one room when she saw Jingren coming out.

"You don't want to go in there," Jingren said. "The only free bed belonged to a dead girl."

If the dead girl was who Hulan thought it was, then this was exactly where she wanted to be. She entered the room and asked which bed was open. One of the women pointed at a middle bunk. "But if you sleep there, a ghost spirit will visit you."

"I don't believe in ghosts," Hulan said.

A couple of the women laughed. "You say that now," a girl of about fourteen said. "Tomorrow morning you will move out like the other women who have tried to sleep here." She feigned a frightened voice and twisted her face into a humorous crinkled mask. "She was sitting on my chest all night! She was howling! She was nibbling at my ears!" Her voice shifted again. "Sleep here if you want, but tomorrow you will be gone."

Hulan threw her satchel on the bed and slid into the space. She couldn't fully extend her arm when lying down, and there certainly wasn't room to sit up. Poorly written Chinese characters had been scribbled on the wall with pen and pencil: "Protect me," "Home," "Work is reward." Had Miaoshan written these words and phrases, or were they the work of the women who had come before and after her death?

Hulan stretched out. The sheets were unwashed and they smelled.

"Excuse me," she said. "Where do I get fresh linens?"

The other women looked at her as if she were crazy.

The girl who'd spoken before said, "Same bed. Same sheets. Don't worry about it. You'll get used to it, if you can last the night." Her forehead wrinkled again and she giggled.

"I am Hulan."

"People call me Peanut," the girl said. "They call me that because I am small like a peanut." She was small, but Hulan thought it was the girl's peanut shape combined with her goofy facial expression that had earned her the nickname. "You'd better hurry. Lights go off in twenty minutes. If you want to use the bathroom, you should go now. It's down the hall on the left. You won't miss it."

Hulan followed the directions, passing room upon room of women and girls-some barely teenagers. By and large there was little conversation. Chinese people had always lived in crowded conditions. With so many generations living in a few rooms, Hulan's compatriots had learned how to be alone in a crowded space. Most of the women were already in their beds, their backs turned to the doors, trying to sleep or already asleep. Others lay on their backs, staring at the ceiling or the bunk above them. A few sat on the concrete floor talking, while others changed from their pink uniforms into extra-large T-shirts for sleeping. She passed one room where a girl no more than twelve sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor crying. She was obviously too young to be away from home, and yet Hulan had also been on her own in this very county at that age.