by Sarah Fine
My terror—for him . . . of him—renders me mute.
“Stop. All of you.”
My father is standing in the doorway to the factory, and his posture is stiff with fury. It shakes his voice as he says, “Melik, step back.”
Melik freezes, the knife still in his hand. He raises his head and his eyes find mine. The fire has faded, banked by uncertainty.
My father marches down the path. He is wearing his dressing gown. He must have woken up and saw that I was gone. “Are you hurt?” he asks, eyeing Melik’s chest.
Melik blinks and looks down at himself. He is breathing hard, but apart from his hands, which are smeared with Lati’s blood, he appears whole and strong. He touches his shoulder. “Not really, but I—”
“Go back to your dorm,” my father snaps. “I will come check your wound within the hour.”
Melik nods. His gaze shifts to me again, but my father steps between us. “Go now,” he says in a voice that tells me he’s trying not to yell but wants to in the worst way.
Melik spares Iyzu and Lati one last, cold glance, and then he heads back to his dorm, his shoulders straight and his head high, the bone-handled knife clutched in his fist.
Iyzu pushes himself to his feet. “The Noor assaulted us,” he says in a wheezy voice. “We will be filing charges in the morning.”
A rustling laugh comes from Father. “I witnessed the entire incident, including your attempt to attack an unarmed man with a knife. I may not have authority around here, but people know me to be an honest man.”
“Look what he did to Lati!” Iyzu rasps, jabbing his finger at the round-shouldered boy who is sobbing wetly and has his hands cupped around his nose.
“I see that,” my father says coldly. “I would hate for word to spread that the two of you cannot handle a single, injured Noor.”
Iyzu’s mouth snaps shut.
“Help Lati back to your dorm,” Father instructs. “I will be there shortly to tend to his nose. Come, Wen.” He puts his hand on my shoulder and guides me to the entrance of the factory.
“How could you?” he asks as soon as we reach the administrative hallway. “Do you have any idea what they will say about you?” His voice trembles with anger and shame.
“I didn’t go out to meet Melik. I swear.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he barks. “Almost nothing you do matters now. You kissed a man in public, for all to see. A Noor, no less. And now you have been out at night with him, unchaperoned.”
The disgust in his voice strikes a match of defiance within me. “We did nothing improper!” I shriek. “I care about him, Father! And he cares about me!”
“He obviously doesn’t care very much for your reputation!” he roars, shoving me through the doorway of the clinic.
“And you do?” The fire of disobedience is not hot, as it turns out. It is as cold as the wind from the north. I imagine each of my words is a shard of ice, shooting from my mouth to stab at his skin, at his heart. “Or are you only saving me for Underboss Mugo?”
My father steps back like he’s felt the sting of every frigid splinter. He covers his mouth and bows his head. Without looking at me again, he walks up the stairs.
I spend an hour sweeping the clinic floor and scrubbing the exam table, unwilling to look at him again tonight. When I finally go upstairs, my father is snoring softly in his alcove.
I take my time in the washroom. I stare at my face in the dented, chipped mirror, wondering if I will look different when Mugo is done with me. Will my eyes be shadowed with dark circles? Will my cheeks be sunken like Jima’s? When I am used up, will decent men pool their money to keep me off the streets, or will they turn their backs on me?
I clench my teeth to hold the sobs inside. My hands become fists. I—
“Some of the workers are planning to strike.”
I gasp at the tinny sound of Bo’s voice and step into the parlor. “How do you know that?” I whisper.
“Wen, you should learn not to underestimate me,” Bo says. The words are spoken gently enough, but I feel the warning in them.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I want you to be safe.”
“Is a strike dangerous?”
His laugh echoes through the pipes. “This one will be.”
I sink to my pallet and pull my blanket tight around me. “Remember your promise,” I say.
“Remember yours,” he replies.
The killing floor is closed for three full days for repairs. The factory is quiet, but it is not peaceful. It is thick with tension and unhappiness. I keep to the clinic, mostly, cleaning already-clean things, keeping my eye out for metal shavings to tell me if Bo is checking up on me. He talks to me through the vent at night, whispering that something is coming . . . something is coming . . . that I should be careful . . . and that I should keep my promise to come see him. Sometimes I cover my head with my pillow so I can’t hear him.
I see Melik only in the cafeteria. He does not try to approach me or speak to me. And he is never alone. The Noor surround him like a personal guard. Iyzu and Lati watch them with absolute loathing. Their faces are bruised, and their cheeks darken with rage whenever Melik comes near. Many of the other Itanyai watch him with suspicion too, like he might attack with the slightest provocation. I can only imagine the lies Iyzu and Lati have woven to protect their own reputations.
The entire compound feels like a tinderbox, stuffed tight and ready to burn.
The day before the floor is set to open again, I return to work to help Mugo set the office suite straight. The underboss is in a terrible mood, and he takes it out on me.
“Haven’t you found those balance sheets and contracts yet, stupid girl?”
I peek over the pile of rubble in which I’ve been digging. My brown work dress is already tan with ash. “No, sir, I’m still trying to find them.”
The explosion wreaked havoc with his organizational system. The enormous file cabinets were blown over by the blast, and they spilled their guts all over the floor. I’ve been rummaging through ceiling tiles and plaster to get to them, and I swear I’ve inhaled a bucketful of dust since breakfast.
He paces next to the rubble pile, occasionally tossing a chunk of ceiling tile my way just to be spiteful. I barely care. It’s better than him putting his mushroomy fingers on me. “Well, tell me as soon as you do.”
He walks back to his office, mumbling about quotas and ridiculous worker demands. Between the holiday, the flu, and this latest accident, it’s not a good feasting season at Gochan One, and it’s going to fall squarely on his shoulders. Worse than any of that, this morning a group of workers, including the Noor, delivered a list of demands—and it came with the threat of a strike. The deadline has been set—tonight at midnight, when the factory is scheduled to reopen. Mugo is seething. He has been on the phone all morning, talking to bosses from other factories and to the local police. He caught me listening earlier and slammed the door.
At lunch I eat in silence with Onya and Vie, but only because there is nowhere else to sit. They tolerate me, but neither of them is sympathetic. In fact, I think they believe I am partially to blame for what’s happened. The men have segregated themselves into camps—on one side sit Ebian, Lati, Iyzu, and those I assume are allied with Mugo. They are mostly the career workers, the ones from the more privileged families who are hoping to be foremen and underbosses someday, as well as the ones who hope to seek favor from them. On the other side sit the Noor, along with many of the older Itanyai workers like Hazzi, the ones most likely to be transferred, the ones most likely to be crushed by this factory. They are a skinny, gnarled, slumped bunch, apart from the Noor, who are younger and sit straight, staring across the cafeteria at their adversaries. It is understood that they are truly enemies now, even though no one has said anything out loud. But it has gotten worse, and now I know that
something is going to happen tonight when the strike deadline comes. It scares me to death.
My eyes keep flicking toward Melik, even though I keep my head down. Finally Vie slaps my hand. “I have no idea why you’re trying to be shy about it. Half the compound saw you with him the day of the explosion. Lati said it was disgusting.”
“Lati is disgusting, so I hardly think he has the right to judge,” I snap. And then, because the silent strain of the last few days has simply been too much, I stand up and brush my hand over my shoulder at her. Vie’s mouth drops wide open at the insult, and she doesn’t recover before I walk away. Melik and I lock eyes as I stride from the cafeteria, and I relive the seconds I’ve spent in his arms. It’s enough to carry me straight to Bo’s altar. Because of what’s at stake. Because everything is at stake. I kneel in front of it.
“I’m ready to keep my promise,” I say. “But I can’t come to you.” I’m quite sure I wouldn’t make it without being gutted by the spiders.
“Meet me, then,” he whispers through the grate, and it sounds like he’s right there, close enough to breathe in my ear. He gives me my instructions, and we make our plans.
I feel grimly powerful as I continue to dig through the rubble in Mugo’s office this afternoon, because I am protecting what is mine. Bo has promised not to harm the people I care about as long as I visit him, and it is the one thing I can offer the Noor, this protection. It might be nothing, and it might be everything. It really depends on Bo.
I am in the depths of these thoughts when there is a knock at the entrance of Mugo’s office suite. I look up to see Melik walk in, his jaw set. Mugo emerges from his office to see who’s arrived. “What do you want?” he snaps. “I’ve already received your stupid demands.”
Melik’s brow furrows. “You sent for me.” He holds up a note, and it looks exactly like the ones I deliver all the time to various unlucky workers. But I didn’t deliver anything to anyone this afternoon.
Mugo puts his hands on his skinny hips. “I didn’t send for you, idiot, so get back to your dorm.”
Melik frowns. “But it says—”
Mugo snatches the note from his hand. “I don’t care what it says!” he shouts. “Do I look like I have time to help you figure out where you should be?”
Melik looks down at me, his eyes full of questions, but I can’t answer any of them. I shrug helplessly.
“Quit looking at Wen like she knows more than I do!” Mugo rushes over to me and pulls me up hard by the arm. It hurts too much for me to keep silent and still, and I try to wrench myself away, but that only seems to anger him more. He slaps my hip.
Melik steps forward so quickly that Mugo flinches. “Let her go, now. You have no right to hit her.”
“Get out!” Mugo shrieks, and his fear is apparent to all of us, which completely enrages him. Droplets of spittle fly from his gaping mouth. Veins stick out on his forehead. “You’ll be lucky if I don’t transfer you by morning! Get! Out!” he roars.
But he’s let go of me, and I scoot out of his reach. Melik looks at me like he’s afraid to leave, but I nod him away because Mugo might transfer Melik right now if he doesn’t obey. These demands . . . the workers are simply trying to get what’s fair, but as soon as Mugo finds his balance sheets and their signed contracts, he’ll have proof of their debt. A strike may only make it easier for him to sell them to the camps.
Melik reluctantly backs himself out the door. The underboss’s fit has drawn the attention of the workers cleaning up the last of the boiler explosion debris. They stare at Melik as he pivots on his heel and walks away, and then they all turn their heads to me and Mugo.
“Get back to work!” Mugo shouts. His face is as red as a beet. “Get back to work or you’ll be fined for inefficiency!”
That clears everyone out pretty quickly. And fortunately for me, Mugo seems too upset to deal with me and disappears into his office, slamming the door again. I finish my shift and tiptoe out, grateful to have escaped with only a bruised arm and hip.
I wipe myself down with a wet cloth, trying to rid myself of the plaster dust and ash. I change into my deep purple wool dress with grape leaves curling along the sleeves and neckline. This is one of my last untouched dresses, and maybe I shouldn’t even be wearing it, seeing as I might need to sell it to Khan sometime soon, but I don’t want to go to Bo looking like a servant girl. I want him to see me well, because I think that is what is best for him—and everyone else in the factory.
My father is in his clinic when I descend the stairs. “Going out?”
“For a walk,” I say, surprised at his attention. He and I have barely spoken to each other since that night in the square.
He doesn’t look up from his medical text. “How was work?”
His play at fatherly concern sends a hard jolt of anger through me, and I finally say the words that have been eating at my heart. “It was a transfer, wasn’t it? Mugo threatened to transfer you to a labor camp if you didn’t allow me to work for him.”
That brings my father’s head up. His mouth opens and closes a few times. “How did you know about the transfers?”
“Melik told me.” My fists are clenched. I would never want my father to be sent to a labor camp—but knowing he was willing to sell my virginity and maybe my future to avoid that fate hurts.
“Wen, I . . .” He closes his eyes and rubs his hand over his face.
It’s enough. As good as a confession. Unable to spend another minute with him, I storm out of the room.
I WRENCH THE STAIRWELL door open, and instead of going down, I climb. Bo reassured me that there are no traps on the upper floors, so I move quickly. He told me to meet him for the dinner hour, and it’s just started. I open the door to the fourth floor and walk across a narrow room lined on both sides with huge pipes. I reach a door that takes me to another staircase, this one rickety and metal. The air is cool here, and I’m glad for my wool dress and overcoat.
The next door opens onto the roof. There is a railing along the edge. I tread gingerly and am careful not to look down. I love the smoky open air, which is fresher than the stale killing smells inside of the factory, but I do not want to see how far I could fall. As I approach the rear of the factory, where the smokestacks jut into the sky, the roof flattens out and opens up.
I can see all of the Ring from here, and it is beautiful in the smoggy sunset, just starting to glow in the evening dim. I understand why Bo likes being up here. I look around, expecting to see him.
He’s not here.
I turn in place and spot a table and chairs nestled at the base of a smokestack. I can tell they are Bo’s. The chairs are beautifully wrought, all metal, of course, but there are plump cushions on each of them, probably lifted from the textile factory. I sit down in one of them and look out on the Ring. The streetlamps and pink lights are flaring to life. Decorations from First Holiday hang from every post and pole, the red and green and yellow garlands, the papier-mâché dragon heads that ward off the evil spirits that come with the cold north wind.
I shiver and pull my overcoat tight around my body, wondering if Bo could have forgotten me. When I can’t sit still any longer, I get up and stroll to the edge of the roof, bidding my good-byes to the view so I can go back inside and take a hot bath, and prepare myself for whatever’s coming late tonight when the strike deadline arrives. If something happens, my father’s clinic will fill up quickly, and no matter how I feel about him, I will help him take care of the injured.
A door slams in the distance and hard-heeled footsteps clomp along the rooftop. Bo stops when he sees there’s no one at the table, but then he spots me and jogs over. His metal arm is encased in a shirtsleeve tonight. He’s wearing slacks and a dark button-up shirt, like he’s one of the bosses’ sons who live on the Hill. But when he turns his head, his black eye glows within his metal half-face.
“I’m so sorry,” he says,
slightly out of breath. “I was working on something new, and the time got away from me.”
“It’s all right,” I say. “I needed to get out of the clinic anyway.”
“Did Guiren have a particularly gory patient?” He draws a deep breath and clicks his metal fingers together. I shudder because it reminds me of the spiders, and the clicking stops.
“No, that kind of thing doesn’t bother me.”
Bo chuckles. “You are a very unusual girl. I was talking to Guiren the other day, and he’s got it in his head that you should go to medical school.”
I scoff, but really, the mention of medical school stings. “My father is a smart man, but not a very practical one.”
“He said you have the mind for it.”
“But not the money. Didn’t he tell you? Mugo owns him. He threatened to transfer my father to a labor camp.”
“You think Guiren sold you.” Bo’s black eye nearly blinds me with its light as he turns to me. “You’re wrong, Wen. Mugo didn’t threaten to send your father to the labor camps.” He nudges my chin up with his fingers. “He threatened to send you.”
I reach for the railing as my understanding of my father shifts on its axis. “Me?”
Bo nods, and the moonlight bounces off his metal face. “Guiren agonized over it. Mugo gave him a choice—you as his secretary or you shipped to a labor camp at sixteen.”
I am choking on my guilt. I can’t speak.
“He wanted to keep you with him. He decided this might be the lesser of two evils, though truly, I think he might regret it.”
“Why?” Because I am such a brat? Because I only think of myself, and not what this is like for my father? Who could blame him if he thinks that?