Girls on the Line

by Jennie Liu

  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?

  Chapter 5

  Yun

  The TV blares overhead with a costume drama. The other four women in the waiting room of the Modern Women’s Health Clinic sit with their arms crossed over their bags or coats, some leaning against their boyfriends or husbands, all gazing up at the screen. I slump in my chair, plucking hairs from the nape of my neck while I wait for the clerk to call me back in again. We waited for almost two hours before I first got called back for a short talk with a doctor, and now almost another hour has passed while I wait for my test. In that time, I’ve picked out nearly a bird’s nest of hair even though I’ve been trying not to.

  It helps that Luli is here beside me, sitting on the edge of her hard seat. Her face is shadowed by the floor lamp beside her chair. Her worried eyes keep shifting to me. I know she has questions, but I can’t talk now, so I stare out the streaked window with only the furtive little pinches at my neck to calm me.

  The sky is purply-dark outside. Across the street, the streetlight with the tilting pole shines down on the pool tables where I first met Yong. There are only a few guys shooting—laborers, judging by the look of their military surplus coats marked with the white dust of construction sites. I can see that the wind has picked up from the way they pull the coats around them as they wait for their shot, how they hunch nearly doubled over to light their cigarettes.

  The clinic door opens, and a middle-aged woman comes through, bringing in a draft of cold air and the smell of frying meat from the restaurant next door. I feel my stomach rumble. I haven’t had anything to eat all day except a few bites of rice, which Luli smuggled out of the dining hall for me at lunchtime. I said I was too sick to eat it and would just throw it up, but she wouldn’t go back to work until she saw me eat something. I didn’t throw it up, but now I’m really hungry. The custodian from the bathroom this morning was right when she said my appetite would come by evening.

  I felt so sick when I woke up today that I just wanted to stay curled up in my bunk. But when my stomach started talking to me, I dragged myself out of bed and ran to the bathroom. It was empty by then because everyone had already gone to work. I flung myself into a stall. The smell coming from the squat toilet was all it took to bring up everything I had eaten yesterday. I stooped over, retching and retching until I felt like my insides had come out. When I straightened up, I was dizzy and had to lean against the partition before I could make my way out of the stall.

  The custodian stood just inside the bathroom door. Her gray-streaked hair was pulled back in a loose bun, and her hand was planted on her hip. The other hand held a mop in a rolling bucket. She glared at me suspiciously. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing. I was sick.”

  She squinted at my middle. “Are you pregnant?”

  “No!” I stepped to the sink and started washing out my mouth and splashing my face.

  She pushed her bucket to the far end of the bathroom and began swabbing the mop against the floor. “Maybe you are, and you just don’t know it. You have a boyfriend?”

  I ignored her. I didn’t have my towel, so I tried to pat my face dry as best as I could with my hands. In the mirror, my face was white, almost greenish under the fluorescent light and opaque glass window. I looked like a ghost.

  “I know how it is with you young girls. You don’t know anything. I’ve been working here seven years now. I’ve seen this happen lots of times.”

  She lifted the mop and dashed it in the bucket water several times. “And I’ve been pregnant myself,” she declared proudly before she bent over to twist out the mop with her raw, red hands. “Oh, I was so sick. Not just in the morning, but sick all day. For months. Didn’t know what was wrong with me. Seemed like I was wasting away. The only time I could eat anything was at night when I started to feel better. I would get so hungry, but I hated to eat too much because the next morning I would be throwing it all up.”

  She smiled to herself, like all that was a happy memory, all the time sloshing her mop back and forth, while I felt my stomach tightening with panic.

  “I was married though.” Her eyebrows arched a warning. “You better get a test. Don’t wait too long. The abortion’s easier if you do it early.”

  Now, at the clinic, that same panic comes back to me. The office worker behind the glass window shouts out my name. Luli and I rise and go back again, but instead of pointing to the office where I told the doctor my symptoms earlier, the clerk gestures to another room along the hall. We head that way.

  In the tiny, windowless room, I see an examination table and a large piece of equipment on wheels with corded instruments hooked on the side and a computer screen on top. A woman wearing a pink smock waves us in. “Who’s getting the sonogram?”

  I step forward, and she gestures for me to lie down.

  “Pull up your shirt and push down your pants a little.” She squirts a blue gel on
an instrument attached to the computer by a cord and puts it against my stomach. I’m startled by the coldness of the gel, but she quickly starts rubbing it around, pushing and prodding. Her eyes are glued to the screen, which I can’t see from where I lie. Luli stands near the closed door, looking scared, her eyes flicking between my belly and the screen. She’s watching the screen when her mouth falls open.

  “What is it?” I raise up on my elbow.

  Before Luli has a chance to answer, the technician taps a few keys on the computer and hands me some paper towels. “You’re done. Take this back to the office. They’ll give you the results.” She hands me a printout, two mostly black images I hardly have a chance to glimpse as I wipe my stomach and climb off the table.

  In the hallway, Luli huddles next to me and we examine the blurry picture. The misshapen bean-like image is unmistakable. It is definitely a baby.

  Luli covers her mouth with her hand and grips my arm. Her eyes shine excitedly.

  I can’t believe that there’s something growing inside me. I can’t feel more empty. A hungry stomach, the weeks of queasiness, being humiliated and losing my job, and now this. A baby. What will Yong say about it?

  “What are we going to do?” Luli asks.

  She said we, but I have no idea.

  Luli tugs on my jacket. “Well, let’s go talk to the doctor.”

  We go to the office where two doctors sit at desks with their computers. We wait our turn for the one we saw earlier, who gave me the slip to pay for the sonogram. She waves us over. I sit in the metal chair beside her desk and hand her the images.

  She glances at them. “You’re pregnant. Married?”

  I shake my head.

  “It’s a termination then?” It’s less a question than a statement, and she starts to jot on a form.

  I look at Luli. Her stupefied expression is no help to me. I shrug.

  The doctor catches the look and stops writing. “Unless you can pay the social compensation fee for having an unauthorized pregnancy, you won’t be able to get a birth permit.” I’m still staring at her blankly, so she goes on: “Without a permit you can’t give birth at a hospital. If you give birth at home, you’ll still be fined. And you’ll have to pay off those fines in order to get the child’s hukou.” The hukou is the government registration that makes you an official person. I needed mine to get hired at the factory.

  The doctor studies me for a moment, not smiling, not exactly frowning. “So I assume you’ll want to terminate?”

  When I don’t say anything, she begins pecking at her computer. “Next, you have to have a few more tests. Go back to the clerk and pay for the ECG to check your heart. Hand over this slip when they call you for it. After that you’ll have to come back in here with the results. Then I’ll give you the payslip for a blood test. And there will also be an internal exam. If everything is good, you’ll choose whether you want the medical abortion or the surgical procedure. The medical procedure costs 450 yuan. You’ll take two pills to terminate and expel the fetus under medical supervision. There will be cramping and bleeding, and you may continue to have some spotting for a few weeks afterward, but you can return to work in just a few days. The alternative is vacuum suction under anesthesia and—”

  “Wait!” Luli blurts out. “Is the baby a boy or a girl?”

  The doctor makes an irritated noise. “It’s illegal for us to reveal the sex.” The contempt in the doctor’s expression is impossible to miss. “You think it will make a difference to your boyfriend? He’s not even here with you.”

  “He’s on a work trip!” I glare back at her. “I started wondering this morning and didn’t even wait for him to get home before I decided to come down here!” I don’t know why I feel the need to explain. I don’t like the way she speaks, I don’t like the chain of tests, I don’t want to be here.

  I stand up, just wanting to get out. “I should talk to him before I decide anything.” I turn to Luli. “Let’s get out of here!”

  Outside the clinic, the blast of cold wind driving sand and bits of construction debris against my cheeks feels good. I didn’t realize how stifling it was in there.

  Luli holds her arm over her face, cowering against the wind. I lead her to the restaurant next door and find seats for us in the corner, away from the other people eating, chatting, laughing with no worries. We order, and then Luli can’t stay quiet anymore.

  “Yun.” Her eyes are wide. “What do you think Yong will want to do?”

  I pluck a chopstick out of its holding glass and tap it nervously against the table. I really don’t know what he’ll say.

  I try to play out the scene in my mind. Will I tell him right away? Or will I wait to whisper it in his ear while we’re in bed?

  Luli doesn’t wait for me to answer before she’s leaning in with her anxious expression. “You’ll get married, right? You’ve been together all this time. If you get married, you won’t have to worry about getting another position.”

  I stare at her. Marriage? I’m not even legal age yet.

  “You can stay home and take care of the baby.”

  I see myself in Yong’s room with a squalling infant. Feeding, washing, the smell of dirty diapers. The Institute rushes at me. In my mind I see the rows of crying infants in their cribs at the orphanage. Sometimes when the crying escalated, I just wanted to knock my head against the wall or pull my hair out or run out of the building.

  Luli persists. “You already know what to do. You know all about how to take care of babies.”

  I wince and pull a face. I may know how to take care of babies, but I didn’t like it much. I certainly don’t know how to be a mother. “Yong goes away to work, and I’d be by myself for days at a time. Taking care of a baby alone! That was so stupid of me to run out of the clinic. I’ll have to go back.”

  Luli’s eyes widen with horror. I don’t know why she thinks this is such a big deal.

  “I’ll need to borrow the money from Yong,” I press on. “But I’m sure that won’t be a problem.”

  The woman brings the food. I devour it like a starved rat. Several minutes pass before I notice that Luli isn’t eating. She’s inspecting her hands when she’s not throwing me anxious glances. “Aren’t you hungry?” I ask.

  She doesn’t answer for a while longer. Finally, she asks quietly, “Do you . . . trust Yong?”

  I wrinkle my forehead in confusion. “Trust him? You just asked me if I was going to marry him.”

  “Yes, well, I thought . . .” She shrugs, embarrassed. “I guess I thought if you got married, that would be one thing. He’d have to support you then. He wouldn’t be able to . . .”

  “To what?”

  Luli leans forward and says in a low voice, “Yun, Ming says Yong is a bride trafficker.”

  This again. I frown. “What are you talking about? I told you he drives women to their new husbands. Escorts them, he says.”

  “Are you sure?” She pulls back her lip in that timid way. “Ming says that men in the countryside pay Yong’s boss to locate girls for them. They trick or kidnap them and then sell them.”

  “Not true!” I can’t believe Luli is saying this. Or that Ming would feed her such a story. “A horrible lie. Ming! You know he’s just mad at Yong and me. Jealous that we started up!”

  “Shhh.” Luli glances around. People are staring at us. “I don’t think he’s jealous.” She blinks a few times. “Not anymore, anyway. He knows we’re friends, and he . . . he just thought I should tell you.”

  Thoughts crash around in my brain. I know it isn’t true. Luli is stupid to believe this story. She can’t see what Ming is doing. Yong . . . he wouldn’t. I shake my head at Luli. “Well, if he’s a bride trafficker, why hasn’t he sold me? All these months, he could’ve kidnapped me anytime he felt like it, if that was what he wanted.”

  “I’m sure he really likes you,” Luli says hastily. “But—what if he gets angry when he finds out about the baby? What if he decides he wants to be done with you? I
f he has a choice between giving you money for the termination and making money by selling you—”

  I don’t have to listen to this poison. “Not true. Not true!” I throw down my chopsticks, grab my coat, and run out of there without even finishing my food.

  Chapter 6

  Yun

  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.