Calls Across the Pacific

by Zoë S. Roy

  The stallion pranced on the grass, lifting its hooves in time with Temur’s melody as though it understood its master’s song.” When the horse got close to the wall, Temur dismounted, then with the bridle in his hand, he guided his horse over to the gate. It was closed, but there was a small rectangular opening in the door. When he knocked on the door he could see someone through the opening. “Hello, Comrade. I’m Temur from Wulanbatu, the village where you get your food supplies from.”

  “What do you want?” asked the guard.

  “Two women came here the day before yesterday, didn’t they?” asked Temur.

  The guard hesitated, then said. “Why did you say that?”

  “They were supposed to visit me that day but they never showed up,” answered Temur. Feeling surer of what had happened, he asked, “Can I speak to the warden?”

  The guard did not say anything but opened the door. “Leave your horse outside, please.”

  “Thanks a lot.” Temur tethered his stallion to a jubilee tree and waited off to one side until the guard pushed open the door and escorted him inside. A moment later, the warden appeared. The guard introduced her. “This is Warden Luo.”

  Nodding at Temur, Luo asked, “Hello. How can I help you?”

  “Dear Warden Luo, I hope you’re satisfied with the food supplies from our village. I’m one of those suppliers. You’re welcome to visit me if you have any time to come to my village.” Temur shook hands with the warden and then asked about the two women. He said they had planned to visit him and had a package of plasters for his rheumatism.

  Warden Luo found it hard to deny the fact. She gestured at the door she had just walked out of. “They’re here. Please come in.”

  Stepping into the room, Temur saw two Han women in their twenties, one sitting at the table, and the other on the bench. “Nina and Liya,” Temur said, sure it was them. “You’re supposed to be at my home. Why are you staying here?”

  Nina raised her head from the table. “Papa Temur?” She was amazed.

  To Temur, Luo said, “Nina must stay until a referral letter from her workplace reaches us. Her friend Liya is here to keep her company.”

  “Is that right?” Temur felt relieved, finding conditions better than he had expected. “Can they leave now and come to visit my family as they had planned to?” asked Temur, smiling genially at Luo.

  “No,” Luo answered.

  Nina replied, “I’d love to, but we can’t come right now. But I do have a packet for you.” She turned to Luo and asked, “May I get it?”

  “Sure. Suit yourself,” said Luo.

  Liya looked up at Temur and asked, “Papa Temur, how did you know we were here?”

  “My horse can smell guests. He brought me here,” said Temur with a chuckle, and his hand stroked his grey beard.

  “Thanks for coming to see us. We’re fine. We’re helping Warden Luo with a few things.” Liya guessed Temur must have heard from Weimin about their disappearance. “Please tell Weimin not to worry about us,” she added. “We’ll leave here as soon as the letter from Nina’s factory in Guangzhou arrives.”

  “Weimin is with me. I’ll let him know.”

  Nina returned and handed the packet of plasters to Temur. “This is what Weimin had asked us to bring to you.”

  Temur smiled. “Thank you. Remember, that the grass in every meadow is different, but a friend never changes.” He turned to Luo who was sitting at the desk. “When do you think they can come to visit me?”

  “When I receive the letter,” Luo tried to stifle her impatience. “We still have a lot of work to do.”

  “Warden Luo, do you have any message to pass along to my food co-op? I can bring it to them.” Temur thought he could ask friends in the co-op to help if the two women did not get out of there soon.

  “Just tell them we need more butter next time,” answered Luo, who stood to see Temur to the door.

  Outside the gate, Temur mounted his stallion and rode quickly through the grassland. When he reached its edge, the horse neighed to the piebald pony. Temur told Weimin what he had seen and the conversation that he had had with Nina and Liya. “Don’t worry. I’ll ask my friends in the co-op to help if need be. Now, hop on your horse. We’re going to drink kumis.”

  On the way back home, Temur sang the folk song, “Sweet Kumis is like Honey.” His steed pranced, its head high, and its red mane glowing like a flame under the sunset. He’s always cheerful. Nothing defeats him, Weimin thought. His pony was trotting after Temur’s stallion; the horses were eager to get home. Weimin held the rope tight and leaned on the horse’s neck to avoid falling off.

  Unable to decline Temur’s invitation, Weimin had dinner with three generations of the family. Kumis filled their mugs and served along with lamb chops and cheese pancakes. Knowing people from the city enjoyed fresh vegetables, Mama Naran had also prepared a pot of sliced summer squash. At the end of the meal, Papa Temur took Weimin on horseback to the bus stop.

  As soon as Weimin arrived in Hohhot, he went straight to the hospital and found Jing in her mother’s ward. She followed him into the hallway, and he recounted the story of how he and Temur had located Nina and Liya in Peach Blossom Camp. Weimin also told her about Temur’s rescue option that would involved his co-op friends if Nina and Liya were not released in a timely manner.

  “Don’t worry too much,” Weimin said. “The sky won’t fall.” At that moment, a Mongolian proverb crossed his mind. “A travelling fool is better than a sitting wise person.” He smirked. “I’m like a travelling fool.”

  Jing patted his arm. “Action is quicker than discussion. The sitting wise girl is appreciative to the travelling fool.” They both laughed out loud.

  After Weimin left, Jing went back into her mother’s room and sat down in the chair next to her bed. She felt as if a stone had fallen from her heart, and she could once again breathe properly. She picked up her book to read, but a question haunted her: When will we be freed from the gulag?

  26.

  THE WIND-BLOWN GRASS

  AFTER PAPA TEMUR LEFT, Nina and Liya, locking eyes, knew that Jing and Weimin now knew where they were and would do what they could to help. Liya continued helping Luo with her grammar studies. She told Liya that studying Chinese grammar was much harder than reading any of the documents that were sent to her, but she had to pass two examinations on Chinese language and the history of the Chinese Communist Party. Successful exams were her ticket to becoming the executive warden.

  Nina had filled several sheets with the names of the gulag workers and their basic information. She checked all of the individual backgrounds carefully, word by word, since she did not want to miss anyone who had come to the gulag between 1957 and 1960. The Anti-Rightist Campaign took place from 1957 to 1959, but many people who were branded as “rightists” were still being sent down to gulags in remote areas even during 1960, like Gao’s father. Before she turned to the next page, she scanned the column and one entry caught her eye. The man’s date of birth was 1935. He had university education and had been transferred to this gulag in the year … but the year was undecipherable. It was possible this person was one of those who were labelled “rightists,” so she asked Luo, “Should I copy this name into the sheet? The date of entry to the camp is blurry. I can’t tell which year he came here. It could be1960 or 1968?”

  “Let me check other documents.” Luo went to a cabinet and pulled a drawer out. After rummaging through a pile of papers, she told Nina, “Yes, copy his name onto the sheet.”

  From Luo’s answer, Nina knew she had guessed correctly. As she added that name to the sheet, she thought about not missing any of those branded as “rightists.” Her estimation told her that one-third of the one thousand ex-prisoners in this labour camp had been sent here between 1957 and 1960. It meant that all of them could have been labelled “rightists” and might thus be released relatively soon.
She would carefully examine the date of birth and education columns of anyone whose entry year was during this period in particular. If the person’s birth year was before 1937, and if she or he had a college background, she would add the name to the list. She had heard that so many college students were pushed down during the Anti-Rightist Campaign though she was not aware that twenty thousand of those three million “rightists” were students. Even high-school students did not escape the persecution.

  Page after page, Nina leafed through the heavy binder. Another name caught her attention: Gao Haowen, born in Gansu Province in 1921, a university graduate, transferred to the gulag in 1965. The family name and province reminded Nina of Gao, Yueming’s English teacher. Gao’s father had been sent to a gulag in Gansu, but Nina did not know whether he was born there. It was possible that Gao’s father was transferred from Jiabiangou Valley to this camp. She regretted not having asked Gao for more information about her father.

  Soon, it was Saturday afternoon. Sunday was the workers’ only free day of the week. All the camp workers would be off work. Before Luo left for home for the weekend, she told Nina and Liya that on Sunday they could visit a local farmers’ market, popular not only with the local villagers but also with the gulag workers.

  Rei arrived at the Hohhot train station on Sunday morning. A bus brought him to the Inner Mongolia Daily at about eleven a.m. After finding No. 3 dormitory building, he knocked on the door of apartment 209 and heard Jing’s sluggish voice rise from the inside, “Who is it?”

  “It’s me, Rei,” he answered, wondering why she was still sleeping at this hour.

  Several minutes later, Jing opened the door.

  “Are you ill?” he asked when he walked in, dropping his carry-on bag on the floor.

  “No,” Jing’s gaze fell on his face. “I sleep in the daytime, because I take care of my mother during the night,” she explained and then motioned for him to sit on a stool at a table in the living room. “Need some food? I can throw together a simple meal.”

  “Yes, please,” answered Rei, looking at Jing. “You aren’t even surprised to see me.”

  “I knew you were coming because I called your wife,” she said, placing a cup of tea on the table. “Help yourself. Give me a couple of minutes.”

  In a short while, she returned with two bowls of rice fried with scrambled eggs and green onions. After she placed one in front of Rei, she sat on a stool. “My father’s in the hospital right now, so there are only two of us here for lunch.” She told Rei the little she knew about Nina and Liya’s situation, which was not much different from what Rei knew. He told her about the letter. “You didn’t have to travel this far,” said Jing. “I think they’ll let Nina and Liya go as soon as they get the letter.”

  “I’m afraid Nina might be put behind bars. I just want to make sure she gets out of there and leaves the country without any problem.” Hesitating for a moment, Rei then told Jing of his own arrest after his attempt to cross the border into Hong Kong.

  His story surprised Jing. She smiled at him. “At least the arrest didn’t affect your application for the university.”

  “There’re two reasons for that,” said Rei. “I had very high scores. Second, my parents died for the communist revolution. Their old friends in the provincial government helped me. Otherwise, I would’ve definitely been rejected because of the record of my so-called political crime.”

  Jing nodded. “It’s said there’s no such political crime in Western countries. I hope we can learn more about the different criminal justice systems of these countries and maybe adopt some similar laws.”

  “The library doesn’t contain such books in Chinese. Unless we can find the originals and can read them in English, this information will not be available to us,” Rei said with a sigh.

  After lunch, Jing took Rei to Weimin’s place where Weimin would add a folding bed for Rei to sleep on. The two strangers became friends and discussed a rescue plan for Nina and Liya. In their estimation, based on the number of days a piece of registered mail from Guangzhou would reach the camp, they figured they should wait till the following evening. By that time, if Nina and Liya did not show up, they would carry out their two-step plan. On Tuesday, Rei would go to the gulag with another stamped letter saying he was from the Red Star Factory on a business trip. He could prove Nina was from the same factory. If that did not work, Weimin would revisit Papa Temur and ask him to carry out his Plan B.

  Relieved, Rei lay down on the temporary cot. Fatigue from the two-day train trip without sleep overwhelmed him, and soon he fell into a deep sleep.

  On Sunday morning, Nina and Liya went with the guard named Yuan who had volunteered to take them to the market. They set out along a small path through the grassland and then into the field. Some gulag workers were ahead of them.

  That day Nina should have been on her way to Hong Kong; however, she was hiking through the wilderness of Inner Mongolia instead. She had missed her flight, but she had discovered, accidentally, firsthand information about a forced-labour camp. As she marvelled over this thought, she also worried about Roger not finding her at the airport. He would be expecting her this evening. She had no way of calling him and she regretted not having given his phone number to Rei and to her mother. She envisioned Roger’s face and his concerned eyes. When will that letter get here? she wondered, kicking a small rock on the path, dirt swirling around her feet.

  About an hour later, they reached an open area where several yurts were scattered about in a large meadow. Clusters of bushes and trees sprouted at the edge of a large and shimmering lake.

  Yuan had been silent all the way along, and the only words Nina had heard from him were “This way, please.” But now he seemed excited and raised his hand to shade his eyes against the sun and looked around with a great deal of interest.

  “What is this lake?” Nina asked, pointing to the water’s shore.

  Yuan talked to himself, “More people are here today.” Then he turned to Nina, “Pardon me?”

  “The name of the lake?”

  “Don’t know the real name. We call it Bottomless Lake. Every other Sunday is a double market day. Besides the local people coming to sell and buy food and other trifles, ranchers and herdsmen also gather here to trade their animals.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Liya said in excitement. “I see sheep standing around the shore. It looks like the scene described in a classical poem from the Southern and Northern Dynasties.”

  The guard looked at Liya with curiosity. “What’s the poem?”

  “‘The lofty sky looks deep blue/ The wilderness is without boundaries/ The wind blows grass down/ Cattle and sheep crouch around.’ Have you heard these lines? It was written by an anonymous poet,” Liya explained.

  “I’ve heard my eldest sister recite this poem,” said the guard, grinning like a child. “But I’ve never thought about this place in that way. Now the scene in the poem is before me!”

  They walked over to the crowds along the lakeshore. Nina noticed that many gulag workers were among the shoppers. Mongolian and Han ranchers were trading lambs and sheep, cows and horses, camels and donkeys. Women and children were selling ears of corn, fried millet, potatoes, and vegetables. The aroma of Mongolian lamb teppanyaki wafted through the air; food venders had set up tables by their stoves. Their customers sat around makeshift tables and enjoyed, along with milk tea or yogurt, the freshly cooked food: lamb soup with cornmeal buns, noodles fried with shreds of lamb, or oat buns stuffed with minced lamb.

  Nina saw two men who looked to be about fifty years old enjoying lamb noodles at one of the tables. They wore clean, patched clothes. Their faces were sunburned red, their foreheads full of wrinkles. One of them wore glasses with the temples tied by threads to the frames. They look like they’re from the camp. Is one of them Gao? Do they know Gao? Maybe I can speak to them, but I must avoid arousing any suspicion from the gu
ard.

  Nina called out to Liya, “Do you want some soup?” and walked over to the workers.

  Before Liya could respond, Yuan said, “Why don’t you try Mongolian lamb teppanyaki? It’s a famous local dish.” He pointed at another table. “There’re more seats over there.”

  Nina looked at Yuan and understood they were not really free and that the guard did not want them to be in contact with other gulag workers, so she pulled Liya’s hand. “Okay, let’s try the lamb teppanyaki.”

  They followed the guard to another table and each of them accepted a plate of charcoal-barbecued lamb chops. More gulag workers joined them. One of them smiled at Nina and Liya. “Are you new here?’

  “They’re temporary visitors,” the guard answered for them, then added abruptly, “It’s none of your business.”

  Everybody fell silent, and only the vender’s singsong voice could be heard: “Piping hot, crispy teppanyaki! Sweet and delicious kumis!”

  Later, Nina saw a couple of middle-aged women bend their heads in front of a stand. They were touching strands of brown yarn hanging on a rope. Nina walked over to them and asked, “What’s this yarn made of?”

  The woman vendor said, “Hand-spun camel wool. It’s soft and warm in winter. One skein for seventy-five fen.”

  A woman shopper bought five skeins of yarn. She told her younger companion, “These skeins are about a kilogram. I can knit a sweater with them.”

  “I’ll learn from you,” said the younger woman, who held a yarn ball. “Do you know if this is enough for a pair of socks?”

  Nina sensed that Yuan was watching her, so she stopped herself from addressing any of the women who appeared to be gulag workers. .

  On the way back to the camp, Yuan said, “The warden asked me to take care of you. I must make sure nothing happens.”

  Liya smirked. “Don’t treat us like prisoners.”

  “If you were prisoners, you wouldn’t have been allowed out beyond the gate without cuffs,” said Yuan. Then he became silent again.