I watch him shift from one foot to the other as Ushi quizzes him. “It’s a poor neighborhood,” he says. “Lots of places to hide. I can keep looking if you want me to, but the police will do a better job. They can go into houses and search.”
Ushi goes to the desk. Sits. Cradles her head. Rubs her forehead. Her eyes are slits of hatred when she looks up. “The authorities gave us the job of keeping track of her. You’re both paid good money to do just that. Maybe it’s time to find someone else. Get out of my sight,” she says, flipping her hand at them. “You’re useless.”
I step beside Gulnar. We back toward the door.
“Oh no. Not you two. I’m not done with you yet.” Ushi sits back in her chair. She doesn’t say anything, just sits there.
I put on a neutral expression and examine the room. It’s a barren place. A couple of file cabinets, a wastebasket. The window is open, letting in fresh air that’s far superior to what we breathe on the factory floor. Ushi still stares. I’m not certain what she’s waiting for us to do.
I look around again. Concrete walls, concrete floors, three doors—one leading to the stairway and the factory, one that Ushi’s spies just used, and another that must lead to Big Boss’s office. I wonder where Hawa is. Where she is working.
“Are you ready to tell me where your friend went?” Ushi is alert again, sitting straight up in her chair, her words snappish, hard.
I shrug. “She didn’t return. We didn’t dare to go looking for her. I think she might have lost her way.” I stop talking. There’s another long silence.
“Tell me about your friend Mikray. Why did she come here?”
“As I remember from when we first came, she said she was on the local cadre’s list and had no choice. It was the same with me,” I say. “The cadre told my father I was selected and that I had to come.”
“Did she have friends around here?”
“This is the second time we’ve been away from the factory since we’ve been here. We’re not allowed to have phones. How could any of us make friends?” My voice rises as the words tumble out. I’m tired and hungry.
“You’re angry, I see,” Ushi says. She puts her elbows on the table. Leans toward me. “Now maybe we’re getting somewhere. So, what did you do after your friend left? I hear you didn’t stay in the park.”
My mind freezes. I’m too tired to be clever and I don’t know how Mikray’s note got to me, only that it was her handwriting and only she could know about the swallowing. I don’t know if the motorcycle boy is a spy or if he really is Mikray’s friend. And I don’t know if Gulnar and I were followed by someone who told Ushi exactly what we did all day—that we went to an illegal café. Does she know all this, and is she trying to trick us into some confession?
We are more innocent than she can imagine.
“There is no shade in the park,” I find myself saying. “We waited there for a long time, then sought refuge in a nearby alley, sitting under a canopy of drying laundry. I fell asleep.”
“It was a quiet place, children playing in the street.” Gulnar takes over my narrative. “Roshen slept, I played and sang with children. It reminds me of home. A good way to spend a day off. People were kind. They bring water. It was refuge all day.” She stops. Wipes pretend sweat from her brow, or maybe it’s real. It’s probably hard for her to speak flawed Mandarin.
“Please, may we go to room. We’re hungry. We don’t want to miss supper. We need good night’s sleep to be ready for work tomorrow.” Gulnar’s voice is soft, soothing. It should charm the meanest old ox. But not Ushi.
“Good try,” Ushi says. “However, I’m hungry too.” She looks at her watch. “Just get the hell out of here. I’ve got bigger worries than you right now.”
Our arms go around each other as we slowly turn and exit, using all the restraint we can find not to flee up the stairs.
There is no line outside the kitchen when we get to our floor.
“Grab a bowl,” I say to Gulnar. Hunger has quickly overridden my fear.
Cook is still standing behind her pot. “Not many are eating tonight,” she says, dipping a ladle into whatever concoction of cheap food she’s prepared. “I’ll give you extra.” And she does. My bowl overflows with potatoes, onions. . . . The smell of pork hits my nostrils.
“No,” I cry. “No. Not tonight.” Tears blind my eyes as I drag my body down the hallway, Gulnar at my side. We push through the toilet-room door and dump the food down the hole in the nearest stall.
There’s barely a glance in our direction as we go into our room. It’s quiet except for Zuwida’s cough, which has come back. She’s getting thinner, and I’m sure she went without supper. How I wish I had sweet dates and nuts in my pocket to give her.
I climb to my top bunk. When I look out, I see a room full of eyes staring at me—at me, at the lower bunk, and then back at me.
I bow my head. Shake it.
Twenty-Six
I INCH OVER to the edge of my bunk and stare at empty space. Three weeks have passed since Mikray vanished into a warren of streets. Her sheet, notebook, pencil—all her belongings—are gone. But no one can erase Mikray. She’s in my heart, my mind, my being, and always will be.
Would she and I have been friends if we had met in Hotan—Mikray a woman working in a man’s world, me a teacher? The answer is probably not, even if our paths had crossed in some inexplicable way. I’d be busy trying to preserve our literary heritage; she’d be busy helping run the family trade, assuming her father had not “disappeared.”
Does Chen know what happened to Mikray? If he does, he’s not telling. He turns away when I look at him, maybe afraid of getting caught by Ushi in his own double role. I try not to think the worst. I pray she has escaped across the border or is at least hiding until she can.
I stare at her empty bed. Curious that no one has claimed it. Was the life force of Mikray so strong that a secret keep off signal radiates from the plywood? Or—I pause a moment, let my mind wrap around my next thought—am I that powerful? Is there something about me that keeps them from taking it? Maybe I am, because no one else will sleep in Mikray’s bed while I’m here. I wouldn’t let them. Its emptiness is my “wake up” call.
Our lunch break is over and everyone heads for the stairs. We’re fewer than before. It wasn’t only Mikray who didn’t return. Twelve Chinese girls fled, hoping to find a job at an industrial park in some city where there’s a chance for decent wages and hours—or to return to their homes. That leaves forty-six of us to do the work of sixty. New girls begin to trickle in, mostly from the nearby countryside, where they are used to hard work on a family rice paddy or peanut farm. Which is good, because we’re working sixteen, sometimes eighteen hours a day making cheap uniforms for nurses—short sleeves, three pockets, eight buttonholes. Lightweight polyester and cotton material. We no longer have to work in shifts. We’re back to our old schedule.
I’m tired of the color peach. There aren’t many bolts of that left stacked against the wall. Only piles of blue and green. I wonder which nurse is better, a peach one or a blue one. I have yet to decide when a subliminal buzz goes around the cutting tables telling me it’s energy-tea time. The Chinese girls think the boy who wheels the cart is cute. When Little Boss isn’t looking, he stops and flirts with them, fondles their hands when he gives them their little paper cups of tea. He’s learned not to touch Jemile, but I think he wants to. I’ve watched him studying her face, liking what he sees. Does he sense the pure innocence of her being? Or does he just like her looks, different from what he’s used to? He pays no attention to me. I long ago sent out a do not touch signal, and it seems to have worked.
The buzz stops. I look up and know why. The cart is not wheeled by the boy this afternoon. Chen is pushing it, and he’s not stroking the Chinese girls’ hands. He barely gives them time to take the cup, drink, and return it.
He stops in front of me. When I reach for the cup, I look right at him. Try to make him loo
k at me. I want to scream, Give me some sign! Did Mikray escape? Is she in prison? What happened? He tries too hard not to look at me. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.
I see his body tense when I pour the tea down the table leg and make a tiny puddle on the floor. He missed the part where I pretend-drank with my other hand. He’s already pushing the cart away when I reach out to return the cup. He grabs it. Keeps moving.
For a moment my hand is too shaky to hold the scissors. Is it better that I still don’t know anything? Was he really Mikray’s friend? Will he help me if I need him?
Why is he still here?
Slowly I let the crunch of scissors, the loud drone of the sewing machines pervade my mind.
Place the pattern. Crrrunch, release, crrrunch, release, crrrunch, release. Turn scissors. Crrrunch, release, crrrunch, release, crrrunch, release. Soon I’m beating the rhythm with my toes to remind them they’re part of my body. The part that went numb a few hours ago.
It’s eight o’clock. Time for our newly initiated supper break. They finally noticed that dinner is of little interest to us at ten or midnight when we can’t stay awake. Cutters go first, maybe because we’re nearest the door. We get fifteen minutes to eat, then back to work, and sewers go up for their fifteen minutes; then finishers get their turn.
I pee, get my bowl, and stand in line. We haven’t been served pork again since returning from our day off. Maybe Ushi told Cook not to, that she needs the Uyghur girls to eat and keep healthy until they hire more workers. If it is a kind gesture from Ushi—to keep her indentured Uyghur girls from starving to death, now she needs us so badly—it’s welcomed. It finally makes sense to me why Big Boss and Ushi went to the trouble of getting us here. Not so much fulfilling a duty to the government as assuring themselves a steady work force. We’re the only ones who don’t have the privilege of leaving when they unlock the doors. No, that isn’t entirely true. We can escape and hide somewhere for the rest of our lives if we choose to.
The least they can do is give us food we can eat. I remind myself that we pay for it. That these pitiful meals are being deducted from the salaries we have yet to receive.
I scoop food into my mouth as I go down the hallway. Manners, politeness seem unimportant when you’re hungry. The chicken is half chewed when I go through the door to our room and see Zuwida on her bunk. She shouldn’t be here. Finishing girls are the last to eat—and she’s alone. If she’d stayed here after lunch, they would have come and dragged her back to work. Being sick and weak is not an excuse for not working.
I put my bowl on Mikray’s bunk and go to her as quietly as I can. If she’s sleeping and somehow got away with it, I don’t want to disturb her. She’s curled up, facing the wall. I touch her arm and know right away that she has a fever.
“Zuwida,” I call to her as softly as I can. “Please talk to me. Tell me what’s happening.” I’m leaning over her now. Her eyes flutter.
Then I see it. Blood has drained from her mouth onto her bed.
Jemile is beside me now. “Get a cold cloth for her head. Quick. She’s burning up.”
Zuwida tries to raise her head. “I . . . I need . . .” Her words turn into a fit of coughing. She sinks to the bed again, her body twisted in pain.
“Hold the cloth to her head. Try to calm her. I’m going to get Ushi. Someone who can help. She should be in the hospital.”
I run to the forbidden zone, to Ushi’s office, and I pound on the door. Pound and pound. There’s no answer. I pound on Big Boss’s door. Still no answer. I don’t know where else to look. I run into the factory, past cutting and the sewing machines. Zuwida’s little boss is sitting at her desk. “You have to do something,” I say. “Zuwida is very ill with fever and cough. She should be in a hospital.”
I’m met with annoyance. Little Boss’s hands wave in the air as she tries to calm me. “I know. I know,” she says. “She fainted. I had her taken to her bed.”
“She needs a doctor!” I’m shouting at her.
She looks at me and smiles. “I’ll take care of it,” she says in a mocking voice.
“Please. Oh please do,” I say in my sweetest, nicest voice, reminding myself that more is accomplished that way.
I rush back upstairs. Jemile and I stay with Zuwida, taking turns bringing more cold cloths to lay on her body. Our fifteen minutes are up, but we do not leave until Adile is there to stay with Zuwida. “I have asked her little boss to call a doctor,” I say. “She must have help. I’ve left the broth from my supper. Please give it to her.”
Adile closes her eyes for a moment as she brushes her fingers through Zuwida’s hair. “We must pray for her,” she says, bowing her head.
Jemile and I return to the factory. When the sewing girls appear, Adile is not with them. I don’t know what that means. Fifteen minutes after that the finishing girls return. This time Adile is with them, walking beside her little boss, her jaw clenched so tight I think she might break her teeth.
It is Gulnar who makes eye contact. No doctor. Not yet, she mouths in Uyghur. Then she folds her hands, lays them on her cheek, and tilts her head. Zuwida is sleeping. I try to think this is a good sign.
It is midnight before the machines are shut down. I pry my hand open enough to drop the scissors and dash for the stairs, along with nine other Uyghur girls.
Zuwida is not there. Her bunk is empty. All that is left is the bloodstain.
Twenty-Seven
THERE IS SOME kind of package on my bunk when I crawl into bed. The light in the room is off, but enough light filters in from the hallway for me to see an envelope on top of the package. I don’t like it. Someone could be tricking me—leaving something that’s been stolen on my bed. The dyed-haired spy. I made her look stupid.
There is no way I can sleep without opening the mysterious package and reading the note. If my eyes were half-closed for the last few hours of work, they’re wide-open now.
When it is completely quiet in the hallway, I hide the letter under my nightclothes and sneak to the stairway that leads to the factory floor, where there is no monitor to watch me open the unsealed envelope. The message inside is written in perfect Mandarin.
Zuwida died. Her body is being prepared for burial tomorrow. You are her family. No one else can be there with her. Bus fare is enclosed for all nine of you. Directions are attached. Put on your work smocks, eat breakfast, go to the factory floor just before seven. Go down the stairs to the first floor, to the sign-out desk. No one will be there. The door to the outside will be unlocked. A person will be waiting for you at the last bus stop.
The factory cannot make its delivery date without your help. You will be let back in.
May Allah be with you and our beautiful sister.
I lean hard against the wall. It holds me up but does not share its strength with me. It has to be Hawa who sent the note, but why to me and not to her devoted sycophants? And why in Mandarin? “Please, Allah,” I whisper, “bring to my being the courage I need to do this, for I do not recognize the strength others see in me.”
I must wake everyone and tell them. I go to Adile first. Shake her shoulders until she finally rouses. “What?” she cries out. I clasp my hand over her mouth and wait for silence to settle again. “It’s Zuwida,” I whisper. “She died, Adile.” I grasp her hands. Hold them tightly in mine. “Hawa sent word and money so we can all go to prepare her for burial. Only,” I add, “I’m not certain it was Hawa—the note is not signed. It’s best we don’t mention her name.” I tell Adile the details. “Please help me let everyone know. It must be secret among us, and we all must go.”
“Tomorrow morning we’ll tell them, Roshen. They’re too deep in sleep now.”
We sit side by side for a while before I climb back to my bunk.
I open the package and find nine white scarves and a white shrouding cloth. The package is much too big to sneak out. Each of us must hide a scarf. The only way I can think of to carry the shrouding cloth is to wrap it around my b
ody and put my work smock over it. Can I do that? Will the sacredness of the kafan be lost if it touches my body?
My mother could answer my questions. She leaves us from time to time to go to the home of a relative who has died. It is women who wash and shroud the bodies of other women in preparation for burial. Mother knows the ritual. She knows prayers. I’ve caught her praying, her lips moving, no sound coming out, standing barefoot or kneeling on a cloth, facing Mecca. She is afraid my sister or I might display some knowledge of religion and attract the unwanted attention of the authorities if we see her, so she worships secretly. No religion is to be taught in the home, only in mosques, where women aren’t allowed to go.
Oh, Mother, why didn’t you trust me with our prayers? I need prayers now to comfort me. To send Zuwida on to the life of happiness she deserves. Aren’t our prayers a part of who I am, of who you want me to be? My question hangs silently and angrily in the air. Anger at myself, at Mother, for letting such awful people rule our lives.
Father trusted me with the words of our poets. Why didn’t Mother trust me with our prayers?
I find no comfort in sleep because no sleep comes for a long time. Exhaustion must have overtaken me, and I wake only when Adile touches my arm. The sun has risen, and I see she has already told many of the girls. They watch as I blink my eyes open to the reality of the day.
The overwhelming thought that it’s a trick, that some traitor wishes us all to disappear, floods my mind, but that’s not useful thinking. I nod reassuringly. Climb down from my bunk. Check to see that the hallway outside our door is clear and reach for the white scarves that have been left for us. There is one for each of us, I mouth in Uyghur. Hide it until we are with Zuwida.
I let Adile wake the rest of the girls while I put on my smock and go to the toilet. I splash water on my face and don’t mind that it trickles down my arms, my body. It will dry while I stand in line for breakfast.
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