The Emperor of Shoes

by Spencer Wise

  “Fuck,” I said.

  “Don’t be a wet blanket, dollface,” Die Jo said, blowing menthol in my face.

  The crowd roared. I snapped my head to the sound.

  Zhang sailed out on the bow pulpit of one of our rolling ladders, wearing a green cape coat and a cloth cap, gripping the handrails, like some shit you’d see in the National Museum, Mao crossing the Yellow River, and my legs wobbled. I had to reach him fast.

  I dipped my shoulder and wedged my way through the crowd, prying open seams with my hands, squeezing through, zigzagging, and up near the front I saw the four boys pushing the rolling ladder like it was a royal palanquin carrying Emperor Zhang. Trailing them were another few boys pushing two wheelbarrows full of shoe lasts and cement glue cans. Suddenly I heard the feedback squeal of a PA system and Zhang’s deep voice saying Ni hao into the microphone.

  All the hairs on my arm stood up. The crowd constricted around me.

  I was too late.

  “Comrades,” he said, “we are not shit youth. We are true Chinese.”

  He spoke first in Chinese and then translated himself into English for the YouTube audience.

  Everyone cheered and stamped their feet.

  “Democracy lives in our hearts,” he said. “Remember the poet’s word, comrades, ‘I am no hero. In an age without heroes, I want to be a man.’ Bei Dao wrote this on the fateful date we don’t have the freedom to say out loud or type into a computer. Forced to say May 35. But it was June 4. Just because our voice is small, how can we not speak it? I was there as a boy. Twenty-five years later what changed? Some very few people are very rich. Not migrant workers. Not you. You built the path—where is your reward?”

  The crowd cheered.

  Ivy made her way to the platform, wearing a red armband, and she took the microphone. She said, first in Chinese, then translating herself into English, “Workers of Tiger Step, today we write a new chapter of China history. We are starving of basic human rights, social insurance, citizenship, and we demand change. We deserve equal treatment to workers in America or Japan. We ask workers all over world to support us and join us.”

  There was a low rumble and everyone turned to the side alley. Out came this faux marble pillar, fifteen feet tall, like those columns around the Forbidden City with some kind of griffin on top except as it drew closer, this one had a toad’s body and a human face. Chinese face. Gang’s face it looked like to me. My stomach dropped. When it drew closer, I saw that it was shaped like a boot, slogans written down the shaft.

  Ivy waited for the cheering to settle and said, “In the old days we used these huábiaˇo to criticize government. Ordinary people like us. Writing on the statue to speak against injustice. Few years ago, in speech on national development, President Xi Jinping says, ‘Only the wearer knows if the shoe fits.’ Every Chinese remembers this. This is the meaning of the Fitting Shoe Movement. We say to our government and our factory bosses and the world—bad fit. The future only we can choose. We must have say in the fit of our country. In our path. What is our historical fate? This is what we must decide for ourselves today and tomorrow. We are here with peaceful hearts. We are in love with the future of China. This is why we are here.”

  She quieted the crowd with her arms.

  “Today is special unique because we have the support of our factory.”

  I felt my throat clench.

  “Let us hear from Mr. Younger Cohen,” Ivy said.

  The crowd murmured as I pushed my way to the front, past the boot huábiaˇo. I staked my foot on the first step of the ladder and the railing wobbled. Zhang and Ivy were on the platform above.

  I took another step up. And there was Zhang beside her, gold buttons down his cape, a red star on his cap. Ivy reached out the microphone to me, smiling. In her red armband and my ridiculous JCC shirt. Why would she wear that today? For me. The same way I was here for her. What we talked about the other night after sex. What we understood about each other. My factory, her vision. Equals.

  The ladder swayed.

  I felt this invisible thread from the fourth floor window tugging on my chin. Couldn’t bring myself to look. My resolve could slip. No, I was doing what was right. Supporting the workers. The shoe didn’t fit. So you had to speak. Couldn’t be afraid of fathers four stories tall.

  Don’t look, I told myself, but my eyes skipped to the window. He was there. I turned away immediately. Kept climbing.

  On top of the platform I took the microphone from Ivy, covered it with my palm and leaned in toward Zhang.

  “Fedor called the police,” I said.

  Ivy took a sharp breath but there was a half grin on Zhang’s face, like an ax stuck in a trunk.

  “No problem,” Zhang said. “Peaceful hearts.” He nodded his head. “Is true,” he said. “This is normal. Police come.”

  I looked at Ivy.

  She nodded. “We go on.”

  A few moments passed between the three of us and then I felt the weight of the workers’ eyes on my back.

  “Go ahead,” said Ivy, nodding to the crowd. “I translate.”

  I took a deep breath and turned into a rustle of warm air. All that wide air between me and the demonstrators and the iPhones filming. My ankles turned out. Shins sweating. The workers pushed forward to listen, their faces upturned, banners bobbing on stakes. The microphone heavy in my hand.

  “These two people,” I shouted, and hearing myself through the PA speakers, how strange and loud I sounded, I dropped the line. The echo still clanging in my chest. I stood there, feet wide apart and the only words in my brain were these two people like they were the only words one can say and they’d rush up and roll back into my lungs forever. Ivy and Zhang. What the fuck did it even mean? Where was I going with it?

  But then Ivy took the microphone out of my hand and translated it into Chinese, which was worse.

  Dead silence. My throat went dry. Their faces gaping at me. The crowd. My father. Out of my periphery. His lips moving. I could imagine him saying: Son of some other man. The factory put you through college and this is how you repay me?

  Forget him. Be honest.

  I felt the microphone in my hand again.

  “We need to do better,” I said. I leaned forward against the guardrail. “The management. The government. Me.”

  Ivy repeated what I said in Chinese.

  Dad was banging on the glass. I wasn’t imagining it.

  “We need to see you as full citizens of Foshan,” I continued. “Not just migrant workers, but a big part of what makes this city run and grow. That starts with us returning all your IDs and paying back your social insurance.” Then I paused because I hadn’t expected to say anything like that and in my head I wasn’t even sure if it was possible, but I wanted it to be. This would be my last act before I left. I had to leave. I’d give the workers their IDs back, and then they could leave too. If that ruined the business for Dad, too bad. He should’ve listened to me.

  “If we don’t do better, you’ll leave. Find other work.” I was almost planting the idea in their heads. Walk out. “But then all these jobs will move to India or Vietnam and that’s bad for the future of China.”

  As Ivy was translating, I felt my throat tighten. I thought, No, wait. Wait a minute. This isn’t right. I have a chance here. A real chance to do the thing Dad never could. Walking out doesn’t solve anything. It’s the same shit down the street, same at every factory. You made the choice to be here. No one forced you. You signed the papers. How long are you going to fight with him like a little kid?

  The brand was the solution. It’s what would please the workers, please the Chinese government, please the bottom line.

  I was doing this for all of us, wasn’t I? No, I wasn’t doing it. We were.

  My factory, her vision. I was up here to show them we could work together. The idea that an American bu
sinessman could do right wasn’t just quixotic. We could move forward together. That’s why I was up here. To make things right. Or if not right, better.

  Ivy handed the microphone back to me.

  I said, “You’re the ones sticking your necks out. This is a huge chance you’re taking by being here. Standing here. It’s incredibly brave. You’re putting your lives on the line. Your livelihoods too. But I can do things at this plant that can help us.”

  On reflex, my eyes ticked up to the fourth floor. “What goes out the door doesn’t have to be shit,” I said, and I realized I was talking to him too. “There’s no reason for it. Everyone knows, you give Chinese engineers a product to copy and no problem—it’s perfect. But that’s the problem. We’re letting knockoffs hold us back.”

  There were a few heads nodding in the crowd. Mostly tight, worried faces.

  I took a deep breath.

  “We need our own ideas. We need our own brand. We need to want to think for ourselves.”

  It was true for our business, I thought, waiting for a smattering of claps to die down. True for China. And me. Certainly me. I glanced up to the window. Dad shaking his arms over his head, dragging his finger across his throat.

  And suddenly I recognized what was going on. My throat went dry.

  I turned back to the crowd.

  “No, I’m sorry, I said that wrong. Let me rephrase it. When I said we I meant me and that guy in that window up there. I don’t mean that now. I don’t mean that anymore. I mean we. You and I. We need a brand. We need to make this together but it’s going to be a recognizable Chinese brand. So I designed a new style. But it’s just as much yours. And the next shoe, I want you to be part of the design process. We can do this with the right training. Elevate everyone.”

  Then I stopped abruptly because I knew the next words out of my mouth were going to be about shoes and developing our own commodities—but that’s not what they needed. They needed Ivy.

  I turned to her.

  “I’ve said enough. I’m here with you as a partner.”

  She looked me in the eyes as I passed her the microphone. She nodded. Her eyes firm and clear. “Thank you,” she said under her breath. “You understand.”

  She turned to face the crowd and I stepped back, off to her side, as she began translating what I’d said into Chinese. The crowd cheered and clapped.

  I stopped looking over at Dad altogether. Fedor. He treated the world like his own piñata: club at it blindfolded, and when the candy falls, grab what you can. Because we were Cohains. Because divine election was always there like a thick pane of glass to hide behind. So swing away, boychick. But it wasn’t about that. It wasn’t about becoming Ralph fucking Lauren. I was wrong about that. Because what did we, me, my ancestors—what did we make all these fucking shoes for? To lift the boot off our own neck only to slam it down on someone else’s? No. I couldn’t believe that. I refused.

  Then I heard Ivy speaking in English for the videos: “If we make it work here, other factories in China will follow our example however they can. But we don’t want trouble. We don’t want to clash with the government. This is why we must work together. Shared prosperity. We can move forward in harmony. Not bullshit harmony but something closer to what you deserve.”

  I took it all in as she translated herself into Chinese: the clapping and stomping, the workers sawing their banners up and down, the bedsheets rippling, trembling like they were going to leap out of the workers’ hands.

  “The way we think about ourselves,” Ivy continued. “This must change. It is not up to the foreigners or the government. This must come from us. We spent centuries in a class of people on the margins of society, of wealth. Outsiders. Ghosts. We have to change how we see ourselves. This plant can be an example to China of how democracy can look. The Fitting Shoe Movement is not only about extra yuan or health care or benefits. It is who we are. Our strength. Chairman Mao dreamed of the endless creative power of the masses, but we have never lived up to those high ideals. Equal opportunity. China as one people. As harmony—”

  Ivy stopped suddenly. She was right of course, about everything, but something had tripped her up. Her face tensed as if she hadn’t said quite the right thing. She looked down for a moment. Her thoughts seemed to shift. Pondering. Then she glanced over at me and I felt something unfolding in her and between us, some deep unspoken thing, and then she turned back to the crowd.

  “Wait,” she said, “I say these things and they are true. But this is how politicians talk. Same in Beijing or Washington, DC, or Moscow. These are not my words and they are not yours. Here is what you and I understand—tonight, very tired, each of us goes back to the same dormitories. We hear each other sleeping and dreaming. We live together. Then in the morning we all put our feet on the floor and into our shoes and at that moment they are our shoes. Not only theirs. And we are this plant. What we put into the world from this plant carries part of us. This is the Fitting Shoe Movement. When I was a little girl, Grandfather first told me the story of the Peach Blossom Spring. Everyone know this myth. A land beyond this world. Food and water for everyone and peace. Where ghosts and the living are equal. People say it is a dream. It sound insane, people say. But, workers, listen to me, is it insane to hold an acorn in your hand and say, ‘This is the beginning of a great peach tree.’ Is that insane? No great tree ever shoots to life full grown. This is our plant. All we have control of. This is what utopia looks like for us. Where we have enough to live. Enough to go home and see family. The work we do here is who we are and we can be proud. We can create. Let us be here in a way that carries in it the roots of this great thing that could be. That is not crazy. Is it? This is the way it happens. Why we video record it. To give other plants and managers and investors and workers in China our vision. Every tree must know what it is.”

  The moment she finished translating this into Chinese the crowd roared so loud I could feel it rattling in the back of my neck.

  She turned to me and smiled.

  Then I watched as Ivy lifted her arm and made a fist. I faced the crowd. Their fists were high too, stained indigo, black, violet, green—dyes from the pigment spray-guns—and with their arms held high, Ivy started singing “Internationale,” the workers joining in, all their voices swelling up, rising as one, their eyes fixed on me to see what I’d do, so I raised my fist too and I opened my mouth and sang. Even though I didn’t know the words. Even though my voice is for shit. I sang it loud. What slipped into my head was the old synagogue where I used to fake-sing Hebrew songs all the time to make my dad and grandmother happy. Right now I strained my throat and mimicked the shape of Ivy’s mouth, humming the tune—same way I used to do it back in synagogue—convincingly, selling the damn thing to the point where I almost believed I was really singing “Internationale” in Chinese with the Democratic Revolutionary Party—but suddenly the chorus was sheared off by the hammering of engines behind me.

  I snapped my head around. Beyond the gate I saw them coming and all my certainty dissolved.

  Policemen in black helmets and gas masks, batons and clear shields, fifty men maybe, marching up the road leading to our gate, a hundred yards off. Splitting now into two platoons, off to either side of the scrub along the road, and a green Humvee driving up between them.

  My throat clutched and I reached for Ivy’s hand but only grazed air. She was scrambling down the ladder to join the demonstrators who were retreating into the yard in panic.

  Suddenly Zhang snatched the microphone out of my hand and shouted in both languages to keep filming. “Stay your ground!” he said. “Document greatness!”

  He was signaling up to the roofs and I followed his finger. Bodies, dark forms, moved along the tops of the roofs, crouching, smartphones poised to shoot video, another sliding on her knees to the edge of the roof to get into position. Climbing up onto the hoods of the company vans, leaning out of the factory wi
ndows with their smartphones. Every angle.

  The sound of the engine grew louder.

  “We need to close the gate,” I yelled to Zhang.

  He stared at me for a moment, his face jutting forward like he was peering into the darkness. Then he turned back to the crowd and shouted, “Look up! See the sky glow red. A good omen. Don’t be afraid. This is the Will of Heaven.”

  “Zhang,” I said, grabbing his shoulder. “You hear me? We got to keep them apart.”

  “My friend,” he said, taking my hand off him. “You knew the risk. They are coming into the factory.”

  He was standing straight and still, face blank, like there was nothing left to say and nothing to hide now anyway.

  I balled my fists on reflex—he wanted the police to come in. Of course he did. And he’d lied to me, but there was no time for it now. Nothing was holding the two sides back. I needed to close the gate.

  I ran down the rolling ladder, fast as I could without tumbling over, and sprinted the twenty yards past the wide-open slatted gate and threw my shoulder into the door of the security hut, but I stumbled backward. Locked. The button to close the gate was just inside. I shook the handle. Banged on it. But the door wouldn’t give.

  The gate was already open. No way to get to the controls.

  I could hear the engine snarling, the grind of the Humvee’s gears as it clawed closer, and I heard the steady scuff of those heavy Goodyear welt army boots. I turned around, my back flat against the door, right as the Humvee, flanked by police, came to a stop fifteen yards from the mouth of the gate across from the bloc of demonstrators. Maybe only thirty yards between the two groups now.

  The Humvee door opened, it was quiet now, no one so much as breathing, and it was Gang himself who stepped onto the running board so he stood higher than the truck roof. He was wearing a green military cap, cotton jacket with gold epaulets and a green tie.

  I crouched down, knees apart, flat on my heels, like that was going to do something, making myself small, but that was what I was thinking: get down, maybe he hadn’t seen me already. Just stay out of his sight.