Threads

by Ami Polonsky

  I pull the trundle out from under Lola’s bed. I used to sleep on it when we had slumber parties in her room on the weekends. There are no sheets on it anymore, so I lie down on the bare mattress and count while I’m breathing, the way Mom taught me to do: in—one, two, three—and out—one, two, three. In and out.

  Pots and pans clang in the kitchen. I close my eyes. I breathe and count and try to pretend it’s before. Before I knew there’s a girl in trouble somewhere in China. Before I found a photograph and a letter that feel like secret messages just for me. I try to pretend that when I look up at Lola’s bed, she’ll be there. It’s a Sunday morning, and Mom will come to the door and tell us she’s made waffles for breakfast. Lola and I will stumble sleepily down the stairs and eat in our pajamas.

  But when I open my eyes, Lola’s bed is empty. I try again to picture her on it, but I can’t. I pull her little pink crocheted blanket off the foot of her bed and cover myself with it even though it’s hot and stuffy in her room.

  I study the shadowy ceiling, still breathing in and out carefully—still trying to keep the black hole away. I think about Yuming’s park—Lola’s park—and the day we visited it two summers ago. Lola and I ate dumplings from a stand, and Mom and Dad held hands as we wandered around. Our family was perfect.

  I’m counting and trying to relax all of my muscles, but it’s not helping. Sometimes nothing helps, and I just have to let the black hole wash over me. I want to go get Mom and Dad, but I also don’t want to, because I want them to think I’m fine. I listen to snippets of their conversation. “She wants to hand deliver it to the consulate….I just can’t believe it….Tell Clara we’ll have an early dinner….Will you call the insurance company tomorrow? The hospital keeps sending us the same bill….”

  The black hole is lapping at my feet, and there’s no point trying to kick it away anymore, so I close my eyes, clench my fists, and let it come for me….

  But I’m wrinkling Yuming’s note and picture, so I loosen my grip. My hands are shaking. I look at the picture of her family one more time. Yuming kind of reminds me of Lola, the way she’s standing with her feet a little apart, like she’s ready to fight if she has to. She’s smiling sort of how Lola smiled, too, with her mouth closed, like she just heard something funny and is trying not to laugh.

  Suddenly, I can breathe again. I sit up. The black hole is gone, like a wave that got sucked back into the ocean.

  Looking at Yuming in this photograph makes me feel so calm—calmer than I’ve felt in six weeks. She probably wants it back, especially if she’s an orphan now. Maybe I could somehow get it to her….

  An idea comes to me. What if I could find her? Susan Zhau obviously isn’t going to do anything. Maybe I could somehow get Yuming out of that factory. It sounds crazy, but it might not be that crazy—I mean, we’re from opposite sides of the world, but we’ve both been to the same park in Shanghai….Maybe that’s a sign that I’m supposed to help her.

  I stare at up Lola’s bed. Suddenly, I can see my sister there, crystal clear. She’s looking down at me, a closed-mouth smile spreading on her healthy face. Yes! I imagine her shout, and I want to cry because she seems so real.

  Obviously, Mom and Dad would think it was dangerous and ridiculous and stupid to try to save Yuming, and maybe it is, but I wouldn’t need to tell them my real plan. It sounds impossible, but maybe it’s not that impossible.

  I can picture Lola nodding at me encouragingly. Maybe I could do it….Maybe I could come up with a way to get us back to China this summer.

  Yuming

  THE POUNDING OF the sewing machines matches the pounding in my head. It must be time to eat by now. I tug at the violet thread dangling from the purse I’m working on and glance around for the seam ripper. I’m the only one who constantly needs to use the stupid tool. Next to me, Jing snips a thread carefully with scissors before passing the seam ripper my way. She glances up to the guard and then turns to grin at me, as though she’s teasing me for my inability to sew. I almost want to laugh.

  The door to our room creaks open. My heart flutters, and I look back down at my sewing. I know very well that by now someone in America could have found my note, and I curse myself yet again for signing my name and including the photograph. I wasn’t thinking; those risks were unnecessary. Whoever finds the note could easily notify Mr. Zhang or the police.

  I listen to Mr. Zhang talk to the guard—harsh, hushed words, like always. A boy’s voice loudly joins their conversation, his words sharp and quick, like tiny punches. “No,” he says. “No way. Li, let’s go.”

  I look up to see Mr. Zhang holding a new boy tightly by the arm. The boy appears to be about my age, and next to him is another boy—a clone, only smaller. They are the first new children since my arrival and I bristle, watching them. The little one stands close to his brother, who has a protective hand on his shoulder. “No way,” the older one says again, looking the sewing machines over—looking us over. “Let’s go, Li.”

  I stop sewing to watch. On one side of me, Jing’s machine chugs away, a tense heartbeat among twenty others. As Mr. Zhang drags the boys to the two unused sewing machines beside mine, my own arm prickles. Mr. Zhang shoves both of them onto the empty bench to my left. “Street urchins,” Mr. Zhang spits at them. “I see nobody has taught you to respect your elders. I will teach you.”

  I study their faces. “Get to work,” Mr. Zhang continues. The younger one looks puzzled. His face is lined with rivers of clean skin where his tears have washed away the grime. The older one’s chin juts out in defiance as he glances quickly around the sewing room, as though he’s searching for something. His eyes are deep black and intense. They don’t focus on any one thing for long.

  “I said, get to work,” Mr. Zhang repeats harshly. The boys sit there. I look up at Mr. Zhang’s face. He’s staring at me.

  I quickly turn back to my sewing machine, pick up the violet purse with its partially attached handle, and slide it under the needle, which I lower into place. Beside me, Mr. Zhang gives the new boys instructions on what to sew, how to sew, when to talk or get up (never), and when to follow his orders (always). I hear him rustling through fabric scraps to find pieces for them to practice on. “In no time, you’ll be experts,” he says dryly. I remember him saying the same words to me when I arrived. “My wife, Mrs. Zhang, will soon be in to teach you more. For now, you’ll practice on your own.” He pauses before adding, “And you’ll remember. You’ll remember what I told you—about the police.”

  I finish my handle and move on to the next purse. Beside me, the sewing machines gasp, on and off, as the boys struggle to figure out their new lives.

  Mr. Zhang leaves, and I look over to see the older boy attempting to guide the fabric scrap under the needle. Even as he shoves it into the machine, his eyes wander the room. I want to get up and teach him what I’ve learned—how to clear the jumble of threads from the path of the needle, how to thread the needle quickly and efficiently—but the guard is eyeing me, his evil brow crinkled, so I stay put.

  Before I resume my sewing, I finger my empty pocket and wish, yet again, for my photograph, the only one of my family that exists in this world. It was my last link to my old life—at least, the last link I could actually hold in my hands. I wonder if the purse traveled to America on a boat or an airplane. Either way, it must have arrived in the United States by now. Maybe a powerful person there has found my cry for help and is coming for me….I pray again that if someone has read the note, they won’t go to the local police or notify Mr. Zhang.

  Jing pokes my thigh under the table and glances quickly to the guard through her long bangs, then back at her sewing. He’s watching me with narrowed eyes, and I realize I’ve been idle too long. Quickly, I press my foot to the pedal and finish attaching the purse handle.

  The guard stands, stretches, and yawns. I scowl at him when he looks away. I’m sure he slept in a bed last night, not on a cold cement floor like us—and he’s the tired one?

 
“Lunch,” he says.

  The chug, chug, chugging stops immediately, like when Bolin and I were younger and I’d pull the plug of his radio out of the outlet, just to annoy him. All twenty-four of us stand, including the two new boys. Starting with the front row, we file out the door that the guard holds open for us. “Little ones, you enjoyed your studies this morning, no?” he asks—a masked threat.

  “Yes, sir,” the youngest children say in unison as we walk up the long, narrow, musty staircase to the main floor of the factory.

  It’s stuffy upstairs, but cooler than in our prison. A few dirty windows let in a foggy light from outside. Women walk about, ignoring us as they push carts of plastic bins filled with purses and clothing. I wonder what lies Mr. Zhang has told them about our presence. What has he bribed or threatened them with to keep them quiet? Whatever it is, it has worked; I’ve heard whispered rumors that a few of the older children in the basement room have been here for nearly ten years.

  We tramp past rows and rows of sewing machines before we come to a stop as Xiu Lan, first in line as usual, reaches the door to the courtyard. “I’m starving,” Jing whispers to me over her shoulder, and I nod.

  “There better be more food today,” I say quietly as we inch forward. My eyes are fixed on the women at their sewing machines, and I don’t notice that the others in front of me have stopped until I crash into Jing’s bony back. A woman pushing a cart of empty bins appears to be watching, but it’s like she doesn’t even see us. Instead, she seems to be looking inward—maybe to her village somewhere? To her family, far away? Her eyes look empty and, instinctively, I reach up and rub my own. I think of all the days I’ve spent at my sewing machine, seeing fabric and thread and, beyond them, in wavy shadows of memory and longing, my home. Wai Po and Wai Gong. Bolin. I wonder how dead my eyes look. I know of no mirrors in this factory.

  The line moves forward again, and soon we are in the courtyard. The air outside is cool today—almost cold—and goose bumps pop out on my body. I raise my arms to feel what little wind is able to roll over the tall, pale-pink walls, and I lean my head back to look up at the hazy white sky. Clotheslines, crowded with stiff, drab garments, stretch overhead. Beyond the back wall, what I believe to be Cangyan Mountain is visible, and I stare at it while the orderly line of children becomes a jumbled clump, just like my stitching on the day I wrote the note, six weeks ago.

  Our schoolteacher, Mr. Chen, was from Beijing. He told us about the mountains, jagged and harsh, and showed us photographs of the Great Wall of China. The Wall must be somewhere nearby. If only I could get to the other side of these factory walls. But they’re like my own Great Wall—impossible to cross.

  I follow the others across the courtyard and into the cafeteria. Behind me are the two new boys, hanging back. This time, Jing and I are not the last ones to make it through the dusty, barren courtyard and into the metal-framed doorway.

  The cafeteria is empty, as always, except for the guard, the cook, and us. We eat after the workers from the front of the factory. It’s obvious that we eat last, because there’s hardly ever any food left.

  I slide onto the bench of the table near the end, next to Jing and across from two small boys. One of them was on the bus from Shanghai with me. Neither ever says a word. They both stare down at their plates of pasty-white steamed buns and the scrapings of egg—clearly from the bottom of the pot—before they begin shoveling the food quickly into their mouths.

  “No speaking!” the guard reminds us harshly from across the room as the new boys sit at the end of the table, the smaller one next to me. They make me think of Hai and Han back home—identical twins. I smile to myself, remembering how they’d try to trick Mr. Chen by switching seats in school. I imagine them doing the same thing now, but then realize that it’s summer holiday. I haven’t seen them since April. I swallow hard, thinking of our rice field and wondering if any of the neighbors is harvesting it for me. Life back home is racing forward without me—like the bus that I took to Shanghai in search of information about Bolin. I’ve been left behind in a roar, in a billowing cloud of dust.

  Mrs. Chan plops two plates of food and two pairs of chopsticks on the table in front of the new boys. The smaller boy’s plate is missing a bun. “Nobody told me we needed two more meals today. We’ve run out,” she says stiffly before walking away. I look back at the new boys, wondering if they’re thinking the same thing as me—that Mrs. Chan must know that Mr. Zhang has us all working in the basement, and that he must be bribing her or threatening her with something.

  The older boy searches the cafeteria with his darting eyes before swallowing his crusty egg in one gulp. I glance over at the guard, who is standing near the doorway to the kitchen, hands clasped behind his back, talking to Mrs. Chan. Then I turn back to my food.

  “How will we get out?” I hear the younger boy whisper to his brother.

  All at once, my heart is flooding; a memory of Wai Gong’s tan, wrinkled face blooms before me. He nods at me encouragingly across a xiangqi board in the park, willow branches dangling against the white sky behind him. My heartbeat quickens, but I don’t look up.

  “Shh,” the older brother demands.

  Wai Gong would playfully shush his friends at the xiangqi table and smile at me when it was my turn, as though he trusted that I was about to make a clever move—even before I knew what I was going to do.

  “But, Kai, where will we go?” the younger one goes on in a whisper.

  I glance up to see the older brother bring his finger to his lips. For a moment, he looks past his younger brother to me. His eyes are sharp and dancing.

  As I pick up my pasty bun and break it in half, the image of Wai Gong’s wrinkled face winks at me. I slide the bigger piece into the smaller boy’s hands just as his brother answers him in a whisper that is nearly inaudible.

  “Anywhere.”

  Clara

  WHEN I COME down to the kitchen the next morning, Mom is standing at the desk in her sweatpants, holding Yuming’s note in her hand. “Hey, Mom,” I say, and she jumps a little.

  “You startled me,” she says before kissing the top of my head. “I could barely sleep last night. I couldn’t stop thinking about how unbelievable it is that you found this.” She picks up the original photograph from the counter and tucks it and the note into her purse. “I mean, that poor child—children. Twenty-two of them!”

  “I know,” I say, remembering how calm I had felt when the idea to go back to China came to me. I search my brain for some way to convince her and Dad that we should go, but I have no clue how I’m going to do it.

  “Anyway,” Mom continues, “I think we should leave right away if you still want to hand deliver these to the consulate. Remember how long the lines can be?” She pulls my flip-flops out from under the kitchen table, and I slide them on.

  We all had to go to the consulate to get visas before our trip to China two years ago. Lola had rolled her eyes and sprawled across the black plastic seats in the waiting area as Mom and Dad stood in line across the room. I’m so bored! Lola had moaned as I swung my legs in the seat next to her and wrapped her long hair around my fingers.

  A strict man had walked over to us, frowning. You may not conduct yourself in such this manner here, he scolded Lola in poor English. I was mortified, but Lola just sat up and apologized before grinning at me slyly; she never got embarrassed about that kind of thing.

  “Clara?” Mom asks now.

  “Yeah, okay, I’m coming,” I pat my shorts pocket, where I’m carrying the copies of Yuming’s note and photograph. Just having them makes me feel better, and I picture my sister walking into the kitchen in her navy sweatpants and Minnie Mouse T-shirt, her long black hair pulled into a low ponytail. Don’t get too relaxed, she would say to me. What’s your plan? How are you going to convince them to go back to China, Claire-Bear?

  Mom holds the door open for me and I follow her out to the driveway, glancing over my shoulder at the spot where I imagined my sister was sta
nding.

  Lola was always better than me at coming up with creative ideas. If she were in my shoes, she would probably already have five different strategies for how to persuade Mom and Dad.

  I get in the car with Mom and picture Lola leaning forward from the backseat. What are you waiting for? she’d be saying. Feel her out!

  I clear my throat. “So, finding that note and the picture—it made me think of China. I hadn’t really thought much about our trip there until yesterday.”

  “Yeah,” Mom says, glancing over at me. “Me, too. I can’t believe that was two years ago this summer.”

  I shift in my seat so I can reach my hand into my pocket and touch Yuming’s note and picture.

  “You looking for something?” Mom asks.

  “Oh, yeah,” I say quickly. “Just seeing if I brought my phone.”

  I picture Lola grinning at me from the backseat, shaking her head. I’m such a terrible liar.

  We drive for a while in silence as I try to brainstorm, but all I can come up with are the reasons why she and Dad will definitely say we can’t go: it’s too soon after Lola’s death; we just got back to work; it’s too expensive….I lean back and close my eyes.

  Great work, I imagine Lola saying sarcastically, slumping in her seat.

  When we went to China two years ago, Mom and Dad had spent the entire year beforehand saving money and planning the trip. Lola and I had counted down the days for months and months. The truth is, I don’t even know if they could afford a trip to China right now. And, even if they could, I don’t think it’s possible to get a flight to China so quickly.

  You could research the flights yourself, dummy, I imagine Lola saying to me. I open my eyes as Mom merges onto the highway and smile to myself.

  The consulate is crowded, just like last time. Mom and I stand in line for a number and then sit down on the hard black plastic seats to wait. The electronic sign on the wall reads 57, and we’re number 70.