by Zoë S. Roy
“I’ll be back soon.” The warden went out.
When she returned, she led them to a one-storey building next to the office, and stood by the open door, waving them inside. “This is where you will sleep. It’s near the staff latrine at the end of this hallway. Someone will bring you food and water here. You’d better not go anywhere except to the office and latrine. It’s for your own safety.” Her gaze shifted back and forth between the two girls. “I’m trusting you and letting you stay in the staff dorm room. If you have any problem, you can talk to any guard in the office.” She pointed at the watch on her wrist. “But bedtime is nine o’clock. No lights are allowed after that.”
Nina surveyed the room. Two beds, each made of a wooden board over two benches, were pushed against the back wall. A small folding table flanked by two folding chairs stood in the middle of the room. A double-tier stand held two enamel basins. The upper one was for the face, and the lower one, for the feet. Several worn-out towels hung on the top rack of the stand. Nina thought the room was much better than her dorm in the military farm, but she was undeniably dismayed by the loss of their freedom.
“It’s up to you to stay here or go back in the office. I have some other errands to run. But you can start to work with me at four o’clock,” the warden said to Liya and left. Looking at each other, Nina and Liya noticed the other’s facial expressions. They were both exhausted, and worried. They did not know when they might be freed, but they were hopeful for a positive outcome.
Ahua was terrified when she got Nina’s long-distance call. She wondered how Nina had wound up being held in that camp, but she could not ask any more questions because there were co-workers around her during her phone conversation. She understood she needed a letter with a stamp of her factory to help Nina out of there. Can I get one through a normal channel? No. Can I get one for myself? Maybe, but for what reason? Many ideas preoccupied her, and she could not focus on her simple job: to inspect the packages of plastic basins. Suddenly, she had an idea and she marched into the director’s office. The door was open, and on the wall across from the door was a large portrait of Chairman Mao. Beneath the image of Mao, sat the director, a cigarette in one hand and a newspaper in the other.
“Director Hong, I need your help,” she said.
Hong lifted his head. “Come in, Ahua. Is there a problem in your workshop?”
“No, everything is fine. But I need a requisition to see a specialist in the hospital.”
“What’s the matter?” he asked. Cigarette smoke came out of his nose; his face was blurred amidst the smoke. He looked at Ahua, the forewoman of quality control, with concern in his eyes.
“I have a backache. A friend recommended me to a specialist, but the doctor only sees patients who have referral forms stamped from their work unit.”
“When are you going?”
“I’ll go as soon as I get referred by you. I have trouble bending now.” When she lied, she felt her face flush. It was a good thing that the director had started writing on a sheet. When Ahua saw the official red stamp on the lower part of the written letter, she felt like a drowning person who had been tossed a branch. Now she was clutching it with all her might.
Ahua went straight home to speak to Rei. Knowing that Nina wasn’t alone, that she was with Liya, made him feel a little bit better. He looked at the letter and wondered if he could find a way to erase the writing and then be able to craft the kind of letter Nina needed. At the same time, he had trouble shaking off the knowledge that it was illegal to fake a government document. But another voice sounded in his heart: It’s not right to retain a person who just wanted to visit a labour camp. Things are terribly wrong with the present legal system. He had to do something to help Nina out even if it was illegal.
“Maybe we can use vinegar to erase the ink.” He grabbed a test piece of paper and scribbled a few words with a pen. Then in the kitchen, he took a bottle of white vinegar from a cupboard and tried erasing the ink on the page. Ahua remembered she had once used cooked rice to discolour an ink stain on her white blouse. She tried that as well. They both worked on test paper for an hour, but they were unsuccessful. The best that Rei had been able to do was remove the ink by scratching it off with a razor blade, but the spot on the paper where they had scratched was visibly thinner and in places slight torn. He decided to go to visit a former co-worker for some help.
He came home at midnight. In their bedroom, out of a manila envelope he had brought back with him, he pulled out a round bar of soap with some carved words on it, and a square metal box that had a red ink pad inside of it. He opened the box and pressed the bar of soap onto the ink pad. Carefully, he stamped the bar of soap, now covered in red ink, onto a sheet of paper. “Oh my,” Ahua lowered her thrilled voice. “It looks like a real stamp!”
The following day, Rei mailed out a letter with a fake stamp to the Peach Blossom Camp whose address his wife had received from Nina’s phone call. Two days elapsed, and they had heard no further news. Nina and Liya had been detained in the gulag for three days now. Rei started acting on his plan. He needed to see his aunt, Nina’s mother, on her lunch break in the hospital. Nina’s flight home needed to be cancelled.
Rei found her in the staff lounge. “Aunt, can I speak to you in private?”
“Why are you here?” Nina’s mother stood up from an armchair and walked over to Rei. “Follow me,” she said and quickly led the way to a window at the end of the hallway. “Is something wrong?” she asked, her voice filled with anxiety.
“Not really,” Reid said, taking a breath. “Nina has changed her plans. She wants to stay in Beijing a little longer. She won’t be coming home, and she has asked me to bring her ticket and suitcase to Beijing.”
“But she’s supposed to take the plane here in Guangzhou. What’s really happened, Rei?” Nina’s mother looked into Rei’s eyes.
“Her schedule changed so she arranged to fly from Beijing instead,” Rei said carefully, as he did not want to distress his aunt.
“As long as she’s okay,” Nina’s mother sighed with relief. “I’ll see her another time. Do you need her stuff right away? Should we go back to the house now?”
“No. I’ll meet you at your house after you finish work. That will be fine,” Rei said. They chatted a bit more and then he left.
In the late afternoon, he went to the post office and made a long-distance call to the office of Air Canada in Hong Kong to cancel Nina’s flight due to a personal emergency. Then he placed a call to the Inner Mongolia Daily, and asked for Editor Li. The operator said there was no phone in his office, but she could pass a message to him. Hesitating for a second, he decided not to leave any message. Even if Jing got his message, she would not be able to reach him.
The final step for him was to get on a train to Beijing and then transfer to another train to Hohhot.
The Tuesday evening that Nina and Liya were detained, Jing had prepared a dinner of cornmeal porridge, pancakes, and buns stuffed with lamb. She waited till about eight p.m., but Nina and Liya did not show up. The long-distance bus should have arrived at seven-twenty. She was about to leave for the hospital when one of her father’s colleagues passed along a message from the switchboard. It was then that she realized that her friends could not return. Jing wondered where they were and what had happened. It worried her that they had not been able to provide any details with the message they sent. There was nothing she could do and she needed to get to the hospital to replace her father who was taking care her mother and then would go home.
When Jing entered the room, her mother immediately noticed the worry on her face. “Is everything all right?”
Jing told her about the phone message from Nina and Liya. Her mother smiled encouragingly. “Don’t worry too much. Your friends probably called from some town’s post office. It means they are somewhere safe. Don’t you think so?”
Jing nodded, feeling somewha
t better. “I’m going to get you some warm water.” She took a basin with her to the water boiler and returned with it filled. Her mother had casts on both of her legs, so Jing helped her to sit up in bed and then she gave her a sponge bath.
“Soon, I’ll get rid of my cast and be able to do things myself,” her mother said as Jing washed her back. “These days, you’ve wasted a lot of time because of my accident.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve had the chance to read a lot of books in here,” Jing said to allay her mother’s concern. “And, besides, I’m very glad I’m able to take care of you.”
At night, most of the patients fell asleep; some patients’ family members also dozed off. Jing sank into a chair by her mother’s bed. Her eyes were closed, but her mind was wide awake. Where are they? If they don’t return tomorrow, I’ll talk to Weimin and see what can be done.
25.
TEMUR’S STALLION
ON THE WEDNESDAY evening, when Nina and Liya had still not returned, Jing was extremely worried. She rode her bicycle to the hospital and as soon as she had helped wash her mother, she hurried over to Weimin’s home.
Weimin let Jing in and gestured for her to take a seat. As he listened, he lit a cigarette, took a long drag, and then pressed it into the ashtray. “Don’t worry. We’ll find them,” he said, looking at Jing’s concerned face. After talking over various scenarios that might explain Nina’s and Liya’s disappearance, they came to the conclusion that the only thing they could do was to visit Temur and ask him for help.
“I can go with you….” Jing said anxiously.
“No. You need to look after your mother. Besides, it’s easier for me to go alone. I’ll leave tomorrow morning and be back in the evening,” answered Weimin. Only one long-distance bus from Hohhot passed by the village of Wulanbatu, and it returned daily.
“Are you sure you can get tomorrow off?” asked Jing.
Weimin was certain his old friend would look the other way.
On Thursday morning, Weimin took the bus to Wulanbatu. After walking for about an hour, he reached a yurt that Mongolians call a “ger,” which was set near a grove of pine trees. On the farthest grassland, several more yurts and trees came into view. The door to this ger was open, but nobody seemed to be inside or nearby. He quickened his steps and called out, “Papa Temur!” He followed the Mongolian tradition, in which people call a man of the older generation, “Papa,” and a woman, “Mama.”
There was no answer.
He heard a woman humming from the back of the yurt, where there was a sheep pen. He walked over to it, and in a far corner of the pen, a small woman sat on a low stool, taking turns petting a ewe and her newborn baby. It was Mama Naran, the wife of Temur. After years of living with herdsmen, Weimin had learned a lot about tending animals. He knew Naran was trying to get the ewe to nurse its baby. Sometimes, a mother sheep rejected its child if it had any scent of a human on its skin. Herdsmen believed that caressing the ewe and its baby as well as humming helped the adult sheep relax. The ewe would feel soothed after listening to the gentle melody and from being petted. In particular, she would get used to the odour of a human on the newborn lamb. Then it could take care of its own baby.
Weimin called out to Mama Naran. Turning her head, the woman saw him and gave him a wide smile. “Hello! Is this Weimin?”
“Yes. Where is Papa Temur?”
“He’s outside riding his favourite horse. He’ll be back soon. Follow me inside.” Mama Naran stopped petting the lamb that lay by its mother. She stood up. A worn silk sash, cinched around the waist of her grey knee-length deel, a short caftan, shone orange in the sun. Now in her early fifties, Naran had been a gleeful grandmother for ten years.
Naran led Weimin into the ger and gestured for him to make himself comfortable on the carpet near a small table in the centre. Then, she walked to a cupboard to get a mug and metal pitcher. Filling the mug with homemade yogurt from the pitcher, she handed it to her visitor.
“Thank you,” said Weimin. As he drank the yogurt, the cool liquid soothed his hot and dry throat. “Have two women come to visit you in the last two days?”
“No,” Naran replied, looking at Weimin with curiosity. A smile arose on her face and smoothed away the wrinkles. “Have you found a wife then?” Weimin shook his head. “Oh, you’ll find one, soon,” Naran nattered. “And, when you do, bring her to see us.”
Weimin glanced around the ger and noted three beds set along a wall of animal felt; a large rectangular table separated the beds into two sections. Near the door, a metal stove stood, upon which a kettle sat with steam shooting out of its spout. The aroma of freshly brewed tea soon filled the roomy yurt. Proud of his home, Papa Temur was fond of a particular saying: “Once you close the door to your ger, you’re the king in your own domain.”
Naran lifted the kettle and poured the aromatic tea into a mug and then handed it to Weimin. “I have one more granddaughter now. She’s in bed sleeping. Her folks take her brother with them when they are out tending to their flock of sheep.”
Listening to Naran, Weimin remembered the gifts he had brought with him. He opened his pack and pulled out a few packages. “I have some biscuits and tea bricks for you. This packet of candy is for your grandson. I remember he enjoyed hard milky candy.”
“You shouldn’t have wasted your money on us,” Naran said, clearly pleased. Wiping her hands with her apron, she reached out to receive the packages. “I don’t have fancy things to treat you with.”
“I like the everyday things you cook.” Weimin remembered years before, during many stormy nights, in this very yurt, he had eaten freshly cooked cheese pancakes and drunk hot milk tea with this family.
“Ha! Who likes Mama Naran’s cooking?” a loud voice called from just outside the door.
“It’s me, Papa Temur!” Excited, Weimin jumped up from his seated position on the carpet, strode over to Temur, and shook hands with him. “I’ve come to ask for your help.”
Temur’s strong body blocked half of the door. As soon as he moved aside, sunshine poured into the tent. “Take it easy, my boy,” Temur said, hanging his louz, a wide-brimmed hat, and his whip on a hook next to the doorway. “Tell me what I can do.”
“Two visitors from Guangzhou came down to this area the day before yesterday. The two women also planned to visit you, but they didn’t get here or return to Hohhot. I’m here to look for them.”
“Hmm,” Temur said, a surprised look on his face. “We haven’t had any abductions or crime in the area for years. Can you tell me more?” He sat on a stool and sipped from a mug of milk tea his wife passed to him. He listened carefully to Weimin’s story about Nina and Liya’s trip.
When Weimin had finished, Temur told his wife, who was sitting by the bed feeding her grandchild,, that he was going to go with Weimin and search for the two women.
Temur walked to the door, picked up his whip and inserted it into his forest-green sash. His hands flapped on his brown deel. With his straw louz on his head and gutal boots on his feet, he was, once again, a horseman.
“Can you still ride a horse?” Temur asked, eyeing Weimin up and down.
“I think so.” Weimin followed him out of the ger. A few horses were tethered to the pine trees next to the ger. Temur entered the stable and came out with a saddle that he threw over a piebald pony. “You ride this obedient one. I’ll take mine.”
A sorrel stallion with a reddish mane stretched its head and shook its ears when it saw his owner coming. When Temur mounted it, the horse whinnied as though expressing its pleasure at having a rider on its back. Weimin patted the piebald pony and hopped on it. By the time they were ready to leave, Naran rushed out of the yurt and passed each of them a sack filled with cheese pancakes and a water bag. The toddler standing by the door waved her hand. “Bye, Grandpa.”
Temur led the way to the post office in the village of Nantaishi. When they got the
re, Temur asked the staff if any visitors had come to use the phone the previous Tuesday. No one had seen the two women. From there, they went to the mayor’s office to ask the same question, and where they received the same answer. Another half hour ride northwest brought them to Maolintai. Again, they visited the town’s post office and then the mayor’s office, but they did not find any information about Nina and Liya.
After they reached Dalai, they decided to take a break and led the horses to the edge of the roadside. The horses nibbled the grass around a poplar tree, while Temur and Weimin sat in the tree’s dappled shade. Before they ate lunch, Temur held a strand of wooden beads in his hands and prayed. Their plan was to visit all the surrounding villages after lunch. Weimin hoped they would pick up some clues before they got to their final destination, Xingwangzhuang.
After lunch, they passed the Tomb of Zhaojun and reached the town of Xingwangzhuang, where they once again stopped in at the post office and at the mayor’s office, but they had yet to uncover any clues as to the women’s whereabouts.
That was the furthest place they had gone to. Even though it pained him to do so, Weimin had to consider the worst possible scenario. He turned to Temur and said, “Maybe they made their phone call from Peach Blossom Camp.
“That is a possibility,” said Temur. “That might be our last chance to find them.”
Crossing fields of corn and potatoes, they reached the grasslands that surrounded the gulag. Temur asked Weimin to get down from the horse and to wait for him in the field. Then he patted his horse’s head and resumed his ride to a mud-made wall in the distance. He hummed his favourite folk song, “My Lasso,” to calm himself down.