Threads

by Ami Polonsky

  Lola was watching it all, and I didn’t feel mad at her anymore. Someone came up right behind me and I turned around to find Dad. He and Mom must have seen me standing there, peering down at Lola. The Chinese family put their baby into a stroller and left before Mom, Dad, and I joined Lola in the garden. When we sat down on the bench with her, she remained as still as a stone. Mom and Dad never asked us why we weren’t together, and they never yelled at us for not meeting them at the Buddha statue inside. We just sat there together, not saying anything, watching the sun get lower and lower in the hazy sky over the hills.

  Yuming

  I’M STILL CLUTCHING the bills from the kind couple, and it dawns on me that it doesn’t seem wise to be standing here on this crowded wall, holding so much money in my hand. Once I find the others—and I will find them—will Kai insist that we share it? Surely I can’t just hide it from him. Where would I be without him? Inside the factory—that’s where.

  I crouch at the side of the Wall, take off my damp right shoe, and tuck the money inside. Then I watch the backs of the kind couple as they disappear into the crowd.

  I think, once again, of Mama’s back as she walked away. Why didn’t I run after her? Or did I conjure that memory?

  And Bolin—why didn’t I search for him before Wai Gong and Wai Po died?

  I start to jog again. I search each face that I pass. I have let too many people leave me. I won’t let it happen again.

  I approach the stone archway near the ticket stand where visitors enter and exit the Wall, and pass the giant rock with BADALING painted on it in red. The road beyond the ticket stand has become crowded with tourists. Most are walking toward me, past the small souvenir stands, the restaurants, and an American coffee shop.

  Yesterday, as the bus pulled into the parking lot, Kai told us that the coffee shop was known among the beggars as the best place for handouts, so I glance around one more time, and jog over to its glass doorway. Maybe that’s where he, Li, and Jing went. I need to find Jing. I need to tell her that I do not want her to leave me.

  Inside, it is crowded and unfamiliar. The scent of brewing coffee is overwhelming. Wai Gong used to scoff at Chinese coffee drinkers. Coffee? he would exclaim in disbelief. What happened to tea? My eyes focus on a glass case filled with unusual-looking pastries and sandwiches. I am reminded of my biology teacher saying, In the wild, the drive for food is more powerful than anything else. I feel as if I am in the wild now.

  I tear my eyes from the food, though, and spin around. Tables are filled with tourists drinking from steaming white paper cups. Their breakfast leftovers clutter the tables, torturing my empty stomach. Painted on the back wall is a green-and-brown map of the world, and I think of Bolin’s map—so vast, and never offering any hint to his whereabouts. I search the faces all around me, looking for Jing, Kai, and Li, and, even though I know it is senseless, for Bolin.

  A new tour group enters, and I gasp. My legs freeze. Among the crowd, his yellow Windbreaker casting a hideous, sickly glow onto his face, is Mr. Zhang.

  Energy bolts through me. I back up, dipping behind the customers who surround me, until I am near the hallway leading to the bathrooms. I don’t remove my eyes from his face even for a second—not even to blink. His eyes are hard. They’re filled with fury, but his body is relaxed, as if he’s trying to fit in as just another Chinese tourist getting coffee before visiting the Great Wall. He checks the long line at his left. His gaze is thorough and searching—just like mine. It is the look of someone who will not fail, who will find what he is looking for, who will find us.

  His eyes are those of an animal—a predator. I, too, am an animal as I watch him. But I will not be his prey. I anticipate the way his gaze will shift and, when his eyes begin to wander away from the line of customers, I duck into the empty corridor. I feel nauseous as I walk quickly—with silent steps—toward the bathroom. I open the wooden door marked WOMEN and pull it closed it behind me.

  The room swims before me. It is the most beautiful restroom I have ever seen.

  Porcelain sinks hang from the wall, which is covered in shining, tiny, multicolored tiles. Each toilet is tucked into its own clean stall. The tiled floor underfoot gleams. On the back wall, small windows near the ceiling open to what I assume is an alleyway behind the coffee shop. My eyes rest on them.

  I stand in the corner, my heart pounding, next to the door and near a silver paper-towel dispenser. A mother and her two daughters are washing their hands, talking in a language I don’t know. Two of the four stalls are occupied, and I contemplate hiding inside one of the others, perched atop the fancy Western toilet so my feet aren’t visible. Would Mr. Zhang have the audacity to walk into the women’s bathroom? In my mind I can see his smooth face, his oily hair, his bone-white hands and dirty fingernails. Again, I remember the feel of his fist slamming into my head….

  The sisters and their mother take paper towels, wipe their hands, and reach for the door handle. I back into one of the stalls.

  “Pardon me,” I hear, as the bathroom door swings shut. I’m sure the voice is Mr. Zhang’s, but I rush out of the stall and press my ear against the door, just to make sure. The chug, chug, chugging of my pulse threatens to choke me. “I’m looking for two young girls—my nieces. Long hair, white shirts, blue pants.”

  The mother of the two girls responds in her own language.

  “Two girls!” Zhang says again, louder this time, as if that will help them comprehend his Chinese. I imagine his eyes narrowing to slits. I can see him holding up two fingers.

  The mother responds quickly and harshly in words I do not know.

  “You are worthless!” I hear Zhang yell, and I imagine they’re walking away from him quickly. Perhaps they can sense that he is a predator.

  I wonder how long he will stand there by the closed bathroom door, an animal sniffing out its prey.

  A stall opens, and a Chinese lady emerges to wash her hands. Mr. Zhang will ask her about us next. I walk briskly back to the stall, where I’ll have to continue hiding. I keep my eyes on the bathroom doorway in the mirror. As I am about to duck back into the stall, another one opens. Jing walks out.

  My heart leaps with joy, and floods with anger. Her face is pale. Before I can say anything, she whispers, “What is wrong?” Then I realize why she looks frightened: She is reacting to how I look. I reach for her hand and try to act calm.

  “Come,” I say. “Let’s get a towel.”

  She studies my face, trying to figure me out, as I drag her back to the corner of the washroom behind the door. The Chinese woman has dried her hands. She glances at us while she pulls the door open and walks out. I grip Jing’s arm to hold her back and put a finger to my lips.

  “Pardon me,” Mr. Zhang says. Jing freezes. “Did you see two girls in the washroom?”

  I hold my breath, awaiting the woman’s response. She is silent at first. “Two girls?” she finally asks.

  “Yes. Two girls.”

  I stare at Jing. Her wide eyes search the bathroom. They stop and I follow her gaze to the high square windows on the back wall. But it’s useless. Mr. Zhang will burst through this doorway before we could even reach them. He’ll grab us and drag us—

  “No,” the woman replies. “I did not see them.”

  I am so overcome with relief my knees almost give way, but I catch myself.

  “Well, are you sure or not?” Mr. Zhang snaps, as though he doesn’t believe her.

  We are not safe yet. Jing’s jaw is clenched. Her hands are shaking. I push my ear to the door, but I can’t hear anything outside. Before anyone else can come in, I pull her to the opposite wall.

  “It was stupid to come here,” I hiss, anger overcoming my relief at finding Jing. “He knew just where to find us. Kai said this coffeehouse was the best place to beg.”

  “Kai…” Jing replies weakly. “He stole a backpack from a Japanese tourist. It was filled with food! He and Li are eating in the alley behind this building. I was just on my way to go
back and get you. We need to hurry. Mr. Zhang might check back there.”

  It’s almost too much information to take in. And I still don’t know why they all left me this morning. But I don’t have time to ask her about that now. “He’s probably out there in the coffee shop,” I whisper. “It would be foolish to leave so soon.”

  Jing points up to the windows and I nod. Together, we put a tall garbage can directly below the windows. “Quick,” I say. Jing climbs on top of the lid first as I hold the narrow metal bin steady. She pushes a screen out of one of the windows. I hear it clatter to the ground outside before she hoists herself up and quickly disappears through the frame.

  Hoping no one else will come in to use the restroom, I awkwardly clamber onto the garbage can and scramble for the window. Behind me, the door creaks open as I swing one leg over the window ledge and pivot to face the inside of the bathroom. Humid wind lifts my shirt in back. A lady walks in and calls out, “Hey!” when she sees me. Behind her, squinting into the room, is Mr. Zhang.

  Before I have time to think, I am already dropping to the ground—too fast and with no control. I can smell car exhaust, like the exhaust of Mr. Zhang’s bus. I can hear the sewing machines again already.

  I land painfully on gray dirt. Jing, Kai, and Li are waiting for me. “He saw me!” I yell as I get to my feet. “We have to get away from here!” I start racing toward the street that leads to the parking lot.

  The others follow and Jing grabs for my hand. “We cannot get separated!” she yells, and my heart threatens to burst. I squeeze her thin, cold hand. The crowds are thick. Mr. Zhang will be rounding the side of the coffee shop at any moment to look for us behind it. I push my way through a clump of foreigners. We duck between two souvenir stands and jump down from a low cement wall into the parking lot. I glance over my shoulder for a second. Li is holding Jing’s other hand, and Kai is close behind.

  “Nice escape,” Kai says to me, panting, when we gather behind a tour bus. I study him as though I’m seeing the real him for the first time. Leaving me beneath the Great Wall, asleep, with that man and his dog—that was foolish. I don’t blame Li—he’s too young. I should blame Kai and Jing equally, but, for some reason, I only blame Kai. She’ll be fine, I imagine him saying to Jing. Let her sleep. I’ll teach you to pickpocket. We can always come back for her later. Kai feels like a risk I can’t afford.

  Behind us is another bus—a city bus. I pull the others toward it. “We need to jump on just as it’s leaving,” Kai whispers, tugging me back by my shirt.

  I picture Mr. Zhang popping out from the other side of the tour bus. I can see the pale-pink factory. I can feel the hunger, the boredom, and the loneliness as I attach purse handles for hours on end for the rest of my life. “No,” I say. “Follow me. I have money.”

  I dash quickly onto the bus, kick off my filthy shoe, pull out the sweaty wad of bills, and hand them to the driver. “Four, please,” I say, shaking. I feel Kai’s eyes on me.

  The driver looks me over, surprised, but takes the money and hands me some change. I don’t stop to count it. Jing, Kai, and Li climb the steps behind me. We head for the back of the bus and duck into the last two rows of seats.

  Kai sits beside me, sweat rolling down his face, and peers at me suspiciously. “Where’d you—?”

  “Duck down!” Jing hisses. “Just in case.”

  Exhaust chokes me as the bus idles; I try to will it to move. I lean my forehead against the seat in front of me and squeeze my eyes shut. It’s early in the day, and I’m already so tired. Tired of this life “on the streets.” There are too many risks; too much is dependent on everybody else. I can’t think any more about the what-ifs. If Mr. Zhang saw us board the bus, we’re done for—that’s all I need to know.

  I pray to Wai Po’s and Wai Gong’s spirits. Please, get us out of here safely.

  The bus lurches into gear and begins to rumble forward. I sit up, the back of my head on the window. In front of me, a bored-looking teenage boy sits beside his father.

  “Pardon me,” I say to him softly. “Can you tell me where this bus is headed?”

  He looks at me as if I’m an idiot. “Didn’t you see the big sign in the window? Sunma,” he says, putting his headphones over his ears.

  “The kite festival is this weekend,” the boy’s father adds, smiling at me kindly despite my ragged appearance.

  “Yes,” Kai whispers to himself with great relief, leaning back.

  I turn to him. “What?”

  “Sunma is far from here. Way north of the city.”

  “North of the city…Isn’t that where the factory is?” I whisper.

  “It’s not far from the factory, yes, but still it is a good place for us. Dan Temple is there. Lots of tourists! And,” he says, lowering his voice even more, his eyes gleaming, “the kite festival will be perfect for pickpocketing lessons.”

  The bus slowly makes its way through the crowded parking lot, leaving the Great Wall behind. But it’s taking me farther from Shanghai—farther from where I need to be. And I don’t want to be a pickpocket. I sift through the dirty bills the driver handed back to me. After buying the four bus tickets, I have forty yuan left, which surely won’t be enough for a ticket anywhere.

  “Where did you get all that—?” Kai begins again, but I sit forward, bombarded by a thought.

  “Mr. Zhang—” I interrupt. “If he saw us get onto the bus, he’ll follow us.”

  “What?” Kai asks.

  “The sign,” I go on. “There’s a sign on the bus that says Sunma!”

  “Oh, that,” Kai goes on, leaning back and closing his eyes. “Well, that would be unlikely.”

  Unlikely, I think, looking desperately at Jing in the seat behind mine. Li is leaning against her, falling asleep, oblivious to it all. Unlikely, but possible.

  “Not worth the risk,” Jing whispers, careful not to wake Li, her eyes locked on mine. “We can’t stay there long.”

  Clara

  I CAN’T GET the memory out of my mind. I remember how furious I was with Lola for making me search all over that crowded temple, thinking the entire time, What if she’s gone? Now I feel furious all over again.

  “What time is it?” I ask Mom as we walk down the steep stone staircase.

  She looks at her watch. “Just about noon.”

  I could be so close to Yuming’s factory right now, and I’m getting desperate. We only have a few more hours here, and I need to make something happen. I picture myself opening an ordinary-looking door in a huge pink factory and finding a room full of thin, overworked children inside. I picture Yuming looking up from her sewing machine, her eyes meeting mine. I need to get some more information about this area.

  Across the narrow street is the huge park. A few food and souvenir stands are clustered together near the entrance, and I watch a vendor hand ice cream bars to a woman and a little boy. Next to that stand, an old man is selling kites. Spools of string hang from an awning above him and the walls of his stand are cluttered with bright kites shaped like dragons, panda bears, and birds. I glance around. Think, Clara, think! Lola yells in my ear. Who here could help me?

  “We should eat ice cream for lunch,” Mom announces.

  “Brilliant idea,” Dad agrees.

  We make our way down the temple stairs. At the stand, I study the flavors in the refrigerated box, still wracking my brain for a way—some way—to find out about the factory. I never liked the Chinese flavors as much as Lola did, but I’m hungry, so I pull out a bar with a drawing of lychee nuts on it because it was Lola’s favorite. We show it to the vendor before I unwrap it, and I wander away from Mom and Dad, over to the kite stand. The old man is sitting on a crate, gluing a wooden rod to the dragon kite he’s working on.

  Two years ago, there was a huge kite festival in Shanghai, and we spent an entire morning there. It was sunny and clear, and the bright-blue sky looked amazing with millions of kites flying against it. We stayed until the smog blew back in.

  I
bend down to carefully touch a red dragon kite on a blanket on the ground. It reminds me of Lola’s kite from last time, except hers was pink. The vendor smiles at me as a girl about my age skips over and joins him. She asks him something in Chinese and then turns to me. “Have you come for kite festival?”

  Ask her! Lola would say. I glance over at Mom and Dad. They’re sifting through some postcards on a rack as they eat their ice cream. “Oh, no,” I say quickly. “I didn’t know there was one. We just came to see Dan Temple.”

  “Dan Si is very nice. The kite festival is today and tomorrow. Begins at six o’clock tonight.”

  I nod. That sounds cool, but I need to find out about the pink factory. “Um, do you know this area well?” I ask the girl quietly. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Mom and Dad glance my way.

  “I have lived here my whole life,” she says, lowering her voice, too, and eyeing me curiously.

  “Have you ever seen a pink factory in this area?” I whisper.

  “A pink factory?” she repeats in a whisper. “Let me ask my uncle.”

  I nod. I barely have any time to get this done—to get to Yuming. I need to save her, and suddenly I feel like I might cry.

  Mom and Dad start to walk toward me. The girl is asking the old man something quietly in Chinese, and my heart starts thumping. This girl and old man might just have all the information I need, but if they say something about the factory in front of Mom and Dad, my entire plan will be ruined; the entire trip will be ruined.

  I feel dizzy. The old man responds, glancing at me and gesturing with his paint-splattered hands. The girl turns back to me and gives me a secretive little nod before saying to Mom and Dad, “We have wonderful kite festival here. Today and tomorrow. Will you stay for it?” My breathing steadies.