Threads

by Ami Polonsky

  “Yeah, me, too,” I say.

  There is fumbling at the doorway behind us. “Kai?” I ask quickly, spinning around.

  “It’s just me.” He sighs. “All right, Li, where’s that piece of metal I told you to put in your pocket?”

  “Metal?” Jing asks.

  “Here,” Li says, handing it to him.

  “How is a piece of metal going to—” I start to ask. The answer is the creak of a door. “Did you just open that lock?”

  “I did.” I can hear the smile in Kai’s voice and, before I know it, a dim light from a single lamp pours out of the store, illuminating the silver raindrops in its path. “I know, I know,” Kai says as Li, Jing, and I step, dripping, through the doorway and into the small grocery. “Too risky to have the light on. I agree, so let’s do this quickly.”

  I look around at the shelves. They are packed with everything one could possibly want or need: T-shirts, paper, pens and pencils, bandages for blistered feet, Coca-Cola, cookies, Guo Dan Pi. I gawk—especially at the food.

  Li is already walking down the aisle, removing a variety of items and rearranging the goods around them so as not to leave holes. Jing has found a pile of rags, and she’s wiping the floor behind him.

  “Here,” she interrupts. “Give me your shoes, Li.”

  He kicks them off, and she places them on top of the rag to dry. Then she takes her own shoes off. Kai does the same before standing in the middle of the small store, barefoot, surveying the walls as if taking inventory.

  “Kai,” I say uncomfortably, “you look as if you’re plotting a murder.” I wrap my arms around my soaked body, thinking both of how hungry I am and how wrong it is to steal from the store owner.

  Kai studies me in the dim light as the rain pounds on the tin roof overhead. Self-conscious, I hug myself tighter.

  “Where do you come from, anyway?” he asks. He seems angry, as though he doesn’t want the hassle of having to explain himself to me.

  “Where do you come from?” I respond, suddenly defensive.

  He smiles at me a little, correcting himself. “I asked you first.”

  I nod. “About three hours west of Shanghai.”

  He lets out a whistle. “Mr. Zhang got you from Shanghai? I could tell you were southern, but I didn’t think he’d have gotten you from that far. Me and Li, we come from all over.” He swoops his dripping arm before me, grinning proudly, as if indicating all of Hebei Province.

  “Mama’s in Zhao Village,” Li calls over to us, “right near Beij—”

  “We’ll need these, I’m sure,” Kai announces louder than necessary as he takes down a handful of matchbooks. I feel sorry for him. I imagine their mama—a woman walking alone, away from them, down a small country road. I swallow hard. The back of the woman looks just the way I’ve always imagined my mama.

  “What will we use those for?” I ask, trying to change the subject. I feel so strange—starving, exhausted, and wide-awake, all at the same time.

  He looks back at me. “I don’t know yet, good girl from west of Shanghai.” There is anger in his voice again, but I know it is misdirected. He’s angry about his mama. He is angry that he isn’t the only one in charge. I open and close my mouth. At least I had Wai Po and Wai Gong, I think. If it weren’t for them, Bolin and I might have turned out just like Kai—bitter. I feel proud, but then heaviness settles in my empty, grumbling belly. Wai Po and Wai Gong are gone. Now, I am like Kai—maybe not bitter, but on my own.

  Li comes to Kai’s side and tugs on his big brother’s dripping shirt. He holds a box of crackers up to him. “Your favorites, Kai-Kai.”

  Actually, Kai has more than I do: He has his brother. I squeeze my eyes shut, and when I open them, Kai is studying me. “You weren’t there long, were you?”

  “Where?” I ask, attempting to read his never-still mind.

  “The factory.”

  “Almost three months,” I say. “Not long, but long enough.”

  “Yeah, I could tell,” Kai answers offhandedly.

  “How?” My toes tingle with cold in my saturated shoes.

  “Your sewing,” he goes on. “It wasn’t so good.” He rips open the box of crackers. “So, are you hungry or not?”

  I nod, looking around the dark grocery.

  “Come help me, then,” he says. “But first, take your shoes off, like the rest of us. For Jing, I sense there is hope, but you—you’ll need to be taught a thing or two, or you’ll never survive on the streets.”

  His words startle me. Survive on the streets? No. I’m going to find Bolin. I have to find him. He and I will live at home, together, in Yemo Village. We’ll return to our rice fields, to school, to…But words march into my mind like soldiers: One and a half billion people in all of China. One and a half billion people. One and a half billion. It will be impossible to find one person among so many.

  Kai is waiting to give me my first lesson on how to steal—on how to survive. I swallow back my tears and clear my throat. I weigh my options. You need to eat, Wai Gong would say, nodding slightly. I measure the risks. When I get home, I could pay the store owner back, somehow….And once we are fed and able to get far enough away, perhaps we can go to the police….

  “All right,” I say. “Teach me.”

  I hold a lit match in front of me and look around our cramped nest. We’re sitting behind the sales counter in the dark, all wearing oversize, brightly colored T-shirts. Our wet clothes are spread out to dry. There is a heap of food in front of us. The flame bites at my fingers and I quickly blow it out.

  I hear the rustle of packages being opened. Otherwise we eat in silence, shoving handfuls of cookies and crackers into our mouths and drinking from shared cans of Coca-Cola and bottled water. The sugary syrup from the Coca-Cola coats my teeth. I’m full, but Kai, Li and Jing are still eating, so I take another handful of crackers, not knowing when I’ll have food again.

  “I’m freezing,” Li announces when we’ve finished.

  “Come,” Jing says to him, sounding again like Wai Po used to. “Sit with me.” I lie on my back and listen to her talk. “I’ll write you a message on your back,” she says. I roll on my side and pull my knees up into the T-shirt, trying to get warm.

  “You can write?” he asks softly.

  “A few things,” she says. “There was a lady at the factory a long time ago who taught me when I’d stay in the barracks at night. Her name was Ling.”

  I picture Jing as a little girl, entering Mr. Zhang’s factory and being shoved onto a bench in front of a sewing machine. I wonder what Mr. Zhang is doing right now and picture him storming through the front door of this store. Wai Gong once told me that every hiding place should have two exits.

  “I can’t write a thing,” Li announces proudly. “Draw me a picture instead.”

  “All right, then.” I listen as Jing traces a design on Li’s back with her finger and he tries to guess what it is. I can make out only the outline of her face and the whites of her eyes in the darkness, but I sense that she’s calm, content. I suppose if I had been in that factory for five years, maybe I’d feel calm now as well.

  What is next for us? Surely it would be too risky to seek help from a police officer this close to the factory. We need to leave here well before dawn and get as far away from Mr. Zhang as possible.

  “Our plan,” Kai announces expertly, as if reading my mind, “is to make money at tourist sites.”

  “Tourist sites?” Jing asks quietly.

  “A wonderful place to find everything you need,” Kai goes on, and Li stifles a laugh.

  “Remember last time? The old man chased us after I stole his change?” he whispers. “Remember when the guard—”

  “Shh, Li,” Kai warns.

  “There are many ways to make money at tourist sites,” Kai continues, sounding like a teacher.

  “All right, then,” Jing replies quickly. “Where do you suggest?” She seems unfazed by Li’s laughter and mysterious story about stealing change f
rom somebody.

  “Where else,” Kai replies quickly, “but the most popular tourist destination in all of China? Badaling—the Great Wall.”

  Clara

  THE GREAT WALL of China looms in front of us, and I peer at it through the dirty window of the cab. It’s a snake! It’s a massive snake made of stones! Lola had yelled the last time we were here.

  Yesterday, after Mom and Dad handed me the ashes, Lola’s ghost disappeared. I’d tried to picture her—in the restaurant, in the elevator, and back in the hotel room—but she was gone, and I’d stumbled around, getting ready for bed in a daze. I felt like the black hole might come for me, so I tucked Yuming’s picture and note into the little pocket in my pajama pants to keep it away.

  But when I woke up this morning, I could see Lola again, sitting on the foot of my bed, grinning at me, and I’d laid back and looked up at the ceiling in relief. Her image followed us around—to the hotel’s breakfast buffet, which she used to love; through the narrow, winding streets of the neighborhood; to Dad’s favorite dumpling restaurant for lunch.

  Now I think for a second of the silver tin that I left in the bedside table in our hotel room, and I touch the edge of Yuming’s photograph in my pocket. This driver speaks a little English, and I’m hoping that if I take my time getting out of the cab at the Great Wall, I’ll have a chance to ask him if he’s ever seen a pink factory somewhere outside of Beijing.

  The cab slows as it passes under a blue-and-green archway and pulls into the giant parking lot that is crowded with rows of tour buses, city buses, cabs, and cars. The smell of exhaust drifts through the cracked windows. Off to our right are the ticket office and the street that’s lined with millions of stands and shops selling all kinds of souvenirs. The smoggy, white sky feels too low to the ground.

  Down the road I see the Starbucks that we decided last time has the best bathroom in China, and the stone archway that leads to the entrance to the Great Wall. Up in the hills, the massive stone snake is packed with people. It winds up and down the green slopes. The rain stopped overnight, and the exhaust from the cabs and buses mixes with the smell of wet dirt. Everything seems greener than I remember it.

  When our cab finally pulls over to the side of the parking lot, Mom hands the driver some money.

  “Thank you,” he says.

  I picture Yuming in her factory, take a breath, and drop my elastic bracelet onto the floor of the cab.

  “Okay, everybody out,” Mom announces, shoving her wallet into her fanny pack and opening the door.

  I let her and Dad slide out before calling to them. “Wait a sec. My bracelet fell off. It’s somewhere on the floor.”

  The cabdriver turns around and smiles at me with a mouth full of broken teeth.

  “What’s that, honey?” Mom asks, turning back to the cab.

  “Oh, um, my bracelet. I dropped it. I’ll be right there.”

  “Sorry,” Mom says to the cabdriver, who is still watching me. “She’ll just be a minute.” She holds up one finger, like she’s making sure he understands.

  “A minute, yes,” he says, nodding.

  I crouch on the floor as Mom says something to Dad and whisper to the cabdriver. “Do you know of any factories in Beijing?”

  He twists around even farther, so he’s almost facing the backseat now. “Factory?”

  “Yeah, you know, where people make things.”

  “Factory, yes, many in Beijing.”

  “Have you seen a pink one?”

  “Pink?”

  “Yeah,” I say, picking up my bracelet. I point to the pink rubber bands on it, still watching Mom out of the corner of my eye. “This color. Pink.”

  “Very nice,” he says, smiling wider. “Very pretty jewelry.”

  “Everything okay?” Mom asks, poking her head back into the open cab door. I sigh.

  “Yup, found it.” I inch out of the backseat as the cabdriver waves to me. I force myself to smile, close the car door, and walk over to Mom and Dad. They have stepped away from the crowd to look through the brochure that the concierge at the hotel gave them.

  I’d showered quickly this morning and told Mom and Dad that I’d meet them in the lobby. When I was alone, I’d asked the man at the front desk if he had a list of all the factories in the area. Maybe I could figure out a way to call them. I could ask for someone who speaks English. I could tell them I was an American student doing a project on buildings in China. I could ask them…I could ask them if their factory was pink.

  But when I told the concierge that I needed a phone book, he looked confused. “I’m sorry, but we do not have this kind of book,” he told me.

  I nodded, backing away, and sat in the puffy red chair to wait for Mom and Dad. My mind raced. Just keep asking around! I heard Lola saying. You still have three days!

  Now, in the parking lot, a family of Americans pushes past me on their way to the Great Wall. A little girl who looks about five is crying and whining that her feet hurt. I smile at her, but she keeps crying.

  Dad is pointing to something in the brochure, and Mom is digging through her fanny pack for the tickets that Alma ordered for us ahead of time. Lola would have rolled her eyes at their fanny packs, and we all would have laughed. I sigh and watch a city bus pull in next to a double-decker tour bus. The city bus honks, and I notice some sort of commotion aboard. Mom and Dad are still trying to figure something out. The bus driver opens the doors and stands up. I see him yelling and gesturing toward the back of the bus. Suddenly, four of the windows open and, at the exact same moment, four kids jump out—one from each window. They have identical haircuts and are wearing brightly colored T-shirts that are way too big on them. I wonder if they’re siblings. One of them has a tan sack with him. He lands funny when he drops from the window and yelps as he twists his ankle. Another helps him up. The smallest one laughs as all four of them disappear into the crowds.

  The bus driver pushes through the mob that has gathered at the door to the bus. He spins in a circle, looking for the kids, but they’re gone. With so many people here, there’s no way he’ll find them, and I smile a little. Lola would have loved seeing that. She would have cheered the kids on. Go! Run faster! she would have screamed, until Mom and Dad told her to stop.

  “Okay, Clara, this way,” Dad says. I follow him and Mom down the main road leading to the Wall, past the beggars, the tour groups, and the Chinese women carrying colorful umbrellas to block the sun. I trail behind them, thinking about Lola.

  Last time, Mom and Dad had made us promise to hold hands with each other until we were back in the cab. Even Lola, who was always so brave, was freaked out by the crowds. It was true that I’d never seen so many people in one place in my entire life.

  Lola had a necklace made of rubber bands—just like the bracelet I’d dropped on purpose in the cab—and she’d taken it off her neck and looped it around my right wrist and her left one. This way, even if we’re not holding hands, we won’t get separated! she’d announced, proud of her idea. I still remember how it felt to be attached to her for hours.

  We pass the fancy Starbucks and the big rock with BADALING written on it in red Chinese characters, and we climb the steep steps to the Great Wall. Mom is walking ahead of Dad, who is walking ahead of me. Each step is so narrow that I can barely fit my whole foot on it.

  Last time, as Mom and Dad walked ahead of Lola and me, we swung our connected hands back and forth and looked for funny signs. Lola found one at the entrance that said NO LOUDING! We’d giggled as Mom snapped a photo of it. Along the Great Wall I found a sign that warned NO PERMITTING JUMPS! NO PERMITTING CLIMBING! NO PERMITTING BATHROOM! and we pointed to it, laughing, and called for Mom to take its picture, too. We stretched the rubber band necklace as far is it could go as we walked along. Lola tried to climb the side of the Wall with only one free hand until Mom and Dad made her stop. No permitting climbing, Dad had teased. There was a man with a puppy, begging for money, and the puppy had chewed on our fingers while we pet it. The
re was a family, also begging, playing weird-looking guitars. Lola wanted to give them all money, and Mom let us, until she ran out of coins. We had walked for what seemed like forever, Mom and Dad holding hands ahead of us, as the crowds gradually thinned out.

  Now, it’s pretty much the same, except that everything is different. I walk alone behind Mom and Dad. We pass people taking pictures, more beggars, and a little Chinese girl in a tutu. There’s a man dressed in rags with a dirty, gray dog, and I wonder if it’s the same dog that chewed on my fingers two years ago. I pretend Lola is with me so I don’t feel so alone.

  Last time, when we got this far, Lola and I were playing Rock, Paper, Scissors. I think of it for the first time in forever. Rock, Paper, Scissors, shoot! Lola and I would scream. The sun was getting low in the sooty sky over the hills, just like it is now. It was so weird because, as Lola and I were walking along, our wrists connected by her necklace, we tied seventeen times in a row. I still can’t believe it.

  We pass the four kids who escaped from the bus windows. They’re jogging down the path, and I hope the bus driver is long gone by now.

  I mean, how could two people tie in Rock, Paper, Scissors seventeen times in a row? It seems almost impossible. Rock, Paper, Scissors, shoot! Both rock. Rock, Paper, Scissors, shoot! Both scissors. Rock, Paper, Scissors, shoot! Both paper. Again and again and again—seventeen times—until Lola’s scissors cut my paper, and she won.

  Mom and Dad stop ahead of me and I watch them look over the side of the wall, toward the cloudy sunset where the sky is weird and hazy and pink. The smog is thickening, making the breeze feel heavy and dense.

  My heartbeat quickens as I realize that our first day is just about over. I force my thoughts away from Lola. I haven’t accomplished anything to get us closer to Yuming. In just two days, we’ll be leaving Beijing. I lean against the wall and reach my hand into my pocket. The edges of Yuming’s photograph are so worn by now that they’re soft—just like the original I gave to Susan Zhau. I only have two more full days to figure out how to get to Yuming—and if I don’t find her by then, I never will.