Threads

by Ami Polonsky

  I duck into a crevice to change into my dry T-shirt—the white one from the factory. Then I pause. It will be easier for Mr. Zhang to spot me and recognize me in this. I’m being careless. My mind is murky from a poor night’s sleep. I pull the damp red shirt over the white one and instinctively wipe the dirt off my pants.

  I look left, then right, but it’s difficult to see through my tears. I cannot escape the chug, chug, chugging of my heart—the sound of fear, of sewing machines, of trains racing away from me. Where are Kai and Li? Where is Jing?

  Where is Bolin?

  A repetitive scraping sound echoes softly near the Wall. I take a breath and walk quickly to the steps we took down from the Wall yesterday. Leaning against the Wall a few meters from the steps is the old man, his gray dog at his side. He’s sharpening a knife on a stone in his hand, drawing the edge of the blade rhythmically across the rock over and over. As I watch him, my foggy brain clears. I hope the others are somewhere safe.

  “You are all alone, I see,” the man calls to me, his voice slicing through the mist. He grins at the rock and his knife as he speaks. The dog barks and wags its tail at its master. I don’t say anything, but Wai Gong’s voice weaves its way into my mind. Weigh your options, Yuming. I start to back away from him, making my way to the steps in a wide arc. The old man doesn’t look at me. “Your friends—where are they?” My stomach clenches, and I wonder if he knows the answer. Measure the risk.

  I don’t respond.

  Up above, on the Great Wall, I hear men’s voices talking and laughing too loudly, but here, down on the moist ground, it’s only this man, his dog, and me. I inch closer to the steps.

  “Where are you off to?” the man asks, feeling the edge of his knife with his thumb.

  I hold my chin up, as I learned from Kai. “I need to find my friends,” I say boldly, still slowly moving toward the steps while keeping my eyes on the man. I’ll have to pass in front of him to reach them. The dog trots over to me and sniffs my ankles. I want to run, but I don’t.

  “How do you know you’ll find them on the Wall?” the man asks, putting down the rock but not the knife and finally looking up at me. I stop, careful not to look away from his dead eyes, his gray hair, and broken, yellow teeth.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, trying to appear calm.

  “Perhaps they’re already on their way out.”

  “Out?”

  “Only one night. I told you yesterday.”

  “Yes, but…” I falter. The grass appears to be moving all of a sudden, like it’s the swirling river where Wai Gong taught me to fish the day after Bolin left home.

  “Unless…” the man says, pushing himself off the Wall, “unless you want to stay on your own.” He takes a step toward me. “The runt and his brother, I won’t have. But I never said anything about you. And the other girl.”

  My eyes flit from the man’s dangerous smile to his knife and back again. For a second—just one quick second—my feet won’t move, but then they obey my urge and run. I race toward the stairs, the gray dog following me, barking. I could easily outrun the old man if he tried to chase me, and he knows that; he must know that. The dog is another matter.

  I leap up the stone steps, two at a time, and dart left on the Wall. The sun is trying to break through the haze, and thin groups of tourists are already beginning to make their way along the great, snaking structure. I dodge them as I run, not looking back. Behind me, I can hear the gray dog’s bark fading.

  When I feel I’m a safe distance from the man, I slow to a quick walk. With each step, I search the crowd frantically—for Mr. Zhang’s face, for Kai and Li, for Bolin, out of instinct. But mostly, I search for Jing. If Kai and Li have left, that’s okay, I tell myself, though I’m not sure I believe it. But Jing—the thought of Jing being gone forces me into a trot again.

  Sharp pains shoot up my shins from all of my running since our escape yesterday, but I don’t slow down. I’ll continue toward the main entrance, I think. I have to come across Jing. They wouldn’t have left me. I push past a large crowd of Korean tourists and glance at every single face before me. Jing could not have left me the way that Bolin did.

  Could he have been angry with me?

  During harvest season, Bolin and I would ask to accompany Wai Gong to town to deliver the rice crop to the waiting trucks. Yuming can come, Wai Gong had said the last time we were all together. She has kept up beautifully with her studies. But what about you, Bolin? What about your schoolwork? Bolin had hung his head, and my heart had flooded with pity.

  I understand why Bolin might have resented Wai Gong sometimes. And perhaps even me….

  If only Bolin knew that after he left home, I became distracted from my studies. I’d race through my schoolwork whenever Wai Po or Wai Gong needed to make a trip into town. I’d squint into passing cars as we rumbled along in Wai Gong’s tractor. I’d peer into restaurants and bars, shops and hotels once we’d arrived in town. I’d look around frantically, just as I’m doing now.

  I run faster. I need to find Jing.

  Ahead of me, a guard traverses the Wall, and I look away when his eyes meet mine. Could he be under the Zhangs’ control, too? It seems unlikely, but I don’t want to risk it. A hot breeze lifts my sweaty hair off the back of my neck and I stop running for a moment to catch my breath. I squeeze my eyes shut at the thought of what Mr. Zhang would do if he caught us. But then I open them again, not wanting to miss anything. I lean, panting, against the Wall.

  A kind-looking young couple smiles at me before the man and woman glance at each other, and suddenly I realize how I must appear to them—with my short, filthy hair; my damp, dirty clothing; the sweat running off my face. The woman opens her purse. Ask them for help! a voice within me screams. They look kind! Tell them your story! Explain everything!

  I open my mouth to speak, but then I remember Mr. Zhang’s pale arm shoving me onto the bus. Punching me when I lunged for the open window. Twisting my arm behind me as he said, You are mine. You are mine, now.

  I can’t trust complete strangers.

  The woman holds some bills in front of me and I swallow hard. “Take this,” she says, coming closer. I look down at a weed peeking up between the stones of the Wall. “Come on, now.”

  I step forward, feeling like the old man’s gray dog. “Thank you,” I whisper, staring at the bills in her hand. It is a huge amount—two hundred yuan—and I try not to let my mixed emotions show. It could be half of what I need for a ticket to Shanghai! Still, my hand won’t move. I can’t make myself reach for it.

  “Spend it on food,” she continues. “You look hungry. Or on a place to sleep. Don’t spend it on…liquor or anything.”

  I’m not a beggar! I want to say. Instead I just nod and mumble “Thank you” again as she pushes the bills into my still-paralyzed hand.

  I stand there, sweating, as the couple walks away into the thickening crowd.

  I am a stone in a river of people; they part around me, the rock of a girl.

  Clara

  “THERE’S THE GREAT Wall again,” Dad announces from the front seat of the cab as we merge onto a busy, slow-moving highway. Through the window, I can see it winding across green hills in the distance. My eyes feel heavy and I want to close them, but I can’t miss anything—this could be my chance to spot the factory.

  “So, it’s, like, two hours to the temple?” I ask.

  “Seems like it,” Mom says.

  “And we’re taking this highway all the way there?” I ask. Mom smiles at me. “What?” I ask her.

  “You’re just growing up, is all,” she says, rubbing my knee.

  “Yeah.” I look away, thinking of Lola and how she won’t be able to. I open my backpack and the inner compartment, where I stashed my city maps. I pull out the one of city streets and stare at it, but I can’t make sense of anything. “Does anyone know where we are?” I ask, holding the map out to Mom. Dad glances back at us as Mom takes it and turns it around a few times. In the rearvi
ew mirror, the cabdriver looks back at me and says something in Chinese.

  I shrug. He reaches down as he drives and hands a big, folded map back to me. “Thank you,” I say.

  He says something else, but I have no idea what, so I just smile at him again before unfolding the giant map of Beijing.

  “English,” he says. “Yes?”

  I look down at the map. “Oh, it’s in English,” I say. “Thank you!”

  “That’s great,” Mom says, inching closer to me. She points to a green area at the bottom labeled CUIJIAN PARK. “That’s the park around the corner from our hotel,” she says. “I think we must be on Highway 612.” With her finger she traces the thick, gray road that runs the length of the map.

  “Yeah,” Dad adds from the front seat. “We are. That’s what the hostess at the restaurant told me.”

  I draw my finger up from the bottom of Beijing to the top.

  “Can I see for a sec?” Mom asks, and I hand her the map. “Yeah, up here is the Dan Temple,” she says, pointing. “That’s Sunma.”

  Based on what the hostess said, there’s a decent chance that the factory is somewhere near where we’re headed. While Mom and Dad nap, I check the map for factories, but there aren’t any indicated. I trace the highway on the map with my finger, looking up every minute or so to be sure I don’t miss anything. The cabdriver looks up at me in his rearview mirror from time to time.

  In the distance, I can see smokestacks, but I can’t make out much about the buildings they’re attached to. They’re far away, but none appear to be pink. The haze thins out as we bounce along and by the time we get off the highway, the air is clear. We drive through a tiny, run-down village that I can’t remember from last time, and then wind along a narrow road that runs through the hills until Sunma appears, like magic, in front of us. Dan Temple stands on a hill in the center of the city.

  “We’re here,” I whisper. Mom smiles at me.

  The cabdriver pulls up next to the temple, across from a giant park. I unpeel my thighs from the vinyl seats. Mom has already folded the cabdriver’s map neatly, and she hands it to me to return to him. Dad pays, and he and Mom get out on the passenger side as I pass the map through the cabdriver’s window. He opens it back up, turns it around a few times like’s looking for something, and then refolds it. He pushes it back toward me, smiling.

  “You,” he says, nodding. He points to an area it’s now folded open to. “Here.” His eyes are twinkly, and he seems like a grandpa, someone who lives with his kids and grandkids and tells everyone stories about what life was like when he was a boy.

  I don’t know what to say, so I just point to myself. “For me?”

  He nods again. “You.”

  “Thank you,” I say, unzipping my backpack and putting it inside the big pocket. “Thanks a lot.”

  “Yes.” He starts to roll up the window but then stops. “Good luck on your journey.” He closes the window all the way. I step back and he pulls away. I watch him go before I swing my backpack over my shoulders and walk over to Mom and Dad.

  “What did he say to you?” Dad asks.

  I smile to myself. “Just to have a good trip.” He puts his arm around me, and we walk toward the entrance to the temple.

  “God, I remember these,” Mom says, massaging her thighs as we climb the steep stone steps. “This staircase is a doozy.”

  Lola would have rolled her eyes at me and mouthed, Doozy? Then she would have hugged Mom and raced me to the red, layered temple at the top. We would have waited there, panting, until Mom and Dad made it up.

  But now, I trudge along next to Mom and Dad. I think about the cabdriver and how he wished me luck on my journey, as if he knew I was doing something important. I touch Yuming’s photo in my pocket. We could be so close to her….

  So let’s get on it! Lola would say if she were here. You have to ask around again!

  The layers of curved red roof reflect the sky and make the area near the entrance to the temple glow in a weird pinkish light. A bunch of people are gathered around a tin trough, watching sticks of incense burn. I hate the smell of it. Inside the temple, it’s cool and musty smelling.

  Up ahead, in the courtyard, is the giant Buddha that Lola and I had giggled at two years ago. I remember, again, skipping around with her. Only step on the stones, Clara, she had warned. The cracks mean certain death!

  I wander over to the statue, Mom and Dad following. Three beggars are sitting near the Buddha, who doesn’t look funny to me anymore, only happy and kind.

  “Lola really liked this place,” Dad says, and I turn to him. He’s gazing up at the arched roof, around at the stone columns, and into open doorways to gardens and hills. A few tour groups file into the temple behind us, and gradually people fan out around us. Soon the courtyard is filled with the sounds of footsteps and whispers.

  Mom looks at me. “She loved the little ponds out back with the koi fish, and also the rock garden,” she reminds me. But she doesn’t need to. I get what she’s hinting at, and I touch the round box of ashes in my pocket for a second.

  “I know,” I say, looking away. The idea of throwing Lola’s ashes into a pond of fish is the most insane thing I’ve ever heard. Why would I ever do that if what I want is to have Lola right here with me, where she belongs? Anyway, those goldfish aren’t the reason Lola loved the pond.

  We walk around slowly. While Mom and Dad study the building, I look at the smaller Buddha statues lining the walls. Dad is much quieter than he was last time we were here, and his shoulders are stooped; it’s like the black hole is just a step behind him.

  Two years ago, he was completely obsessed with the architecture. He kept pointing out the use of color and the perspective and the different historical influences. Lola and I got sick of hearing about it all. Dad took loads of pictures for his social studies classes while we moaned. I was starving and my feet were killing me. I remember it so clearly….

  I’m dying! Lola said, stumbling into me and practically pushing me into a passing tourist. We started laughing.

  We apologize! Mom called to the person before turning to us. Girls!

  We’re dying of boredom, I told her.

  Dying, Lola emphasized.

  Okay, Mom said. We’ll meet you in front of the giant Buddha in thirty minutes. Not one minute later, okay?

  Lola I looked at each other. For real? Lola asked.

  I think we can trust you, Mom said. You have to stay inside the temple. No going out to the gardens. And, obviously, stay together. I looked at my watch, and we skipped off.

  We jumped from stone to stone. We walked from one corner of the temple to the other, never touching a crack in the floor. We made fun of Mom and Dad and their obsession with the architecture. Lola tugged me over to a wall where there was a C-shaped crack in the stone. Come here, now, Claire-Bear, she said, imitating Dad and pretending to snap a photo. Look at the perspective the artist used to craft the intricate design. Do you see the C-shape of this piece of work? What do you think that might be a symbol of? We laughed and laughed.

  How much time do we have? Lola finally asked me.

  Like, twenty minutes.

  Hide-and-seek? she asked sneakily.

  Mom and Dad will kill us, I said. We’re supposed to stay together.

  She grinned at me, looked around, and shrugged. I’ll hide first, she announced, and before I could say anything, she was gone.

  I turned in a circle, searching the crowd for Lola’s face. No one paid me any attention. They just walked around me as if I were a rock.

  I pushed through the tourists and the Chinese worshippers and made my way over to a wall where there were fewer people, so I could at least walk faster. I looked at my watch. I had fifteen minutes to find Lola.

  I ran from one end of the temple to the other. A guard in a red shirt tapped me on the shoulder and sternly shook his finger at me. No to run, he said. I ignored him, even though what he’d said would normally make me smile. I went over to where Mom a
nd Dad had been looking at a small statue, but they weren’t there anymore. I sprinted to the giant Buddha—maybe Lola was hiding somewhere around it. But I only saw a group of tourists taking pictures as a different guard held up a sign warning them not to use a flash.

  I made my way toward the front doors, but Lola was nowhere to be found. My heart was racing and I was trying not to cry. I knew she was just playing, but I was so mad I hated her in that moment. What a stupid idea. She never even asked me if I wanted to play, and I didn’t, and she was gone.

  I ran to the back of the temple, hoping I’d see Mom and Dad, but also hoping I wouldn’t, so I could at least find Lola first. I checked my watch. Less than ten minutes left. Through the open doorways, people wandered around a balcony overlooking the hills. I was scared to step out of the temple—Mom had said to stay inside—but I had to see if Lola was hiding on the balcony. Over by the edge there was a beggar sitting on a mat, selling sticks of incense. A family of tourists was getting their picture taken with the mountains in the background. The beggar was asking them for money and they were ignoring him. I leaned over the railing and looked down at the garden below.

  And that’s when I saw Lola.

  She was sitting on a stone bench next to one of the ponds, completely out in the open. I felt like punching her for running away from me. Or shoving her right into the pond. What kind of hiding place was that, anyway? If Lola was going to make me run all over the stupid temple frantically searching for her, trying not to cry, she could have at least found someplace awesome to hide.

  Then I realized she wasn’t hiding—she was watching. There was a Chinese family across the pond from her: a mom and a dad and a baby girl. The little girl had a ponytail on the top of her head—a sprout of hair sticking straight up. It reminded me of Lola’s hair in our first picture of her. The baby was squatting by the pond, reaching for fish in the water, as her mom held the back of her jacket so she wouldn’t fall in. The father was taking pictures of them. Then the dad handed his camera to another tourist so he could join his wife and baby in a photo. The baby reached out for her father, and he took her in his arms and kissed her on the cheek. He and his wife stood side by side, each smiling down at their daughter as the tourist snapped their picture.