Threads

by Ami Polonsky

  I nod and force myself to smile. “Just tired,” I say, leaning my head back against the hard plastic seat and closing my eyes. “Jet lag.”

  Unlike Lola’s ghost, I can’t skydive, and I can’t fly. I need a real-life plan. That’s what Lola would say if she were still here. You need a plan.

  Back on the ground, I walk ahead of Mom and Dad, who are still talking to their new friends. Dad is carrying my dragon kite. I still feel like I’m floating in the cable car as I lead the way back toward the park. Up ahead, colorful kites dot the light-blue, cloud-laced sky.

  “I didn’t realize how well-known this festival is,” Dad says to me, handing me my kite once we reach the park. He straightens out the gold ribbons on the dragon. “Marcy and Mason told us they’ve been planning their trip here for months.”

  “Yeah, cool,” I tell him absently, still thinking. Mom, Marcy, and Mason join us.

  “What a great kite,” Marcy says.

  “Thanks,” I say. “That man over there made it.” I point to where he’s still sitting, across the street from us. It does look like he has sold a lot of kites, like his niece had predicted. She is nowhere in sight.

  I keep picturing Lola inside of Yuming’s factory. I need to get to Yuming. “So, there’s more going on tomorrow?” I ask Marcy.

  “Oh, yes! I was telling your mom and dad—tomorrow morning there’s a big kite ceremony with a twenty-meter-long dragon kite! Should be spectacular!”

  I turn to my parents. “We should stay for that,” I say. I wish Lola were here to help me convince them. Instead, she is sitting side by side with Yuming in front of a sewing machine. “We should stay in Sunma tonight.”

  “Oh, honey, I’d love that,” Mom says. “But all our stuff is back at the hotel, and, anyway, I’m sure there aren’t any rooms available here. Hotels will have been booked far in advance.”

  “True,” Mason pipes in. “Unless you want to stay in the room next to us with no bathroom,” he jokes.

  “What do you mean?” I ask quickly, picturing Yuming and Lola looking up from the sewing machine.

  “Oh, apparently, the room that joins up with ours doesn’t have a working bathroom,” Mason says. “The only reason we know this is because the Korean couple that had booked it left in a huff.”

  “That’s a shame,” Mom says.

  “The manager kept pointing to a washroom at the end of the hall, but they wanted nothing to do with that,” Marcy goes on. “I don’t blame them. They probably reserved the room ages ago.”

  I look at Mom and Dad. “Do you think that room is still available?” I ask Marcy.

  “I’d imagine so,” she says. “I don’t know who would want to stay in a room with no bathroom.”

  “I bet you could get that room very cheaply!” Mason chimes in.

  “Yeah, can we?” I plead. I’m so close now. I have to get to Yuming; I have to save her.

  “It would be fun,” Dad says. “But, like Mom said before, we don’t have any of our stuff. And we’ve already paid for the room in Beijing.”

  “And no bathroom?” Mom asks.

  “But…but Lola would have loved this,” I stammer. “She loved the kite festival in Shanghai, and the giant dragon kite—remember how they had something like that at the other one? Remember how much she loved it?”

  “I remember, honey,” Mom says. “But it just doesn’t make any sense. We were going to have dinner at that restaurant near the hotel. And then, tomorrow we were going to do the Beijing museums….”

  But I need more time to save Yuming! I want to scream. I’m sure my face is turning red, and I’m trying not to cry. The adults are looking at me curiously.

  Mom glances at Marcy and Mason. She looks tired, and like she doesn’t feel like explaining everything that’s happened to us in the past few months. “Honey,” she repeats sadly, “it just doesn’t make sense. I’m sorry.”

  “The ashes,” I say suddenly. “Lola’s ashes. I might want to do something with them here. Tomorrow.” The lies come easily. “Lola loved the dragon at the kite festival, and I think I want to do something with her ashes.” Marcy and Mason are staring at me, and Mom and Dad look like they’re going to cry now, too. “But tomorrow morning,” I say again. “Not yet.”

  Mom nods slowly. She turns to Marcy and Mason. “I’m so sorry,” she says. Dad nods at her, like he’s relieved, and Mom turns back to me. “Okay, sweetie. Let’s go see if that room with no bathroom is still available.”

  I realize I’ve been holding my breath, and I exhale. Marcy and Mason look confused, but they lead us through the park, under strings and soaring kites, to an old building that says SUNMA VILLAGE HOTEL over the doorway.

  “It’s very historic,” Marcy says awkwardly, like she’s trying to make conversation.

  “Gorgeous,” Mom adds absently, studying me.

  “Can I meet you out here?” I ask, pointing to the hotel steps.

  Mom and Dad look at each other. “Sure,” Dad says. “We’ll be right out. You know where we are if you need us.”

  I nod and sit down on the cool stone step, my blue dragon kite in my lap.

  Yuming

  KAI GRUNTS AS he lifts Li off the bus seat. There are many people ahead of us, still waiting to depart, but Kai stands, holding his brother, anyway. “So lazy,” he mutters as Li rests his head on his brother’s shoulder, but Kai’s eyes look strangely nervous. “Yuming, you have forty yuan, right?”

  “Yes.” I look at Li again. He is very sweaty. I wonder what Kai is thinking—that the money won’t be nearly enough for Jing and me to get to Shanghai? That half of it should go to him and Li? Twenty yuan is barely anything, but he would be correct. After all, without them, I’d still be sewing in the factory.

  Kai nods, his eyes darting around the bus. In front of us, waiting in the aisle to depart, is the bored teenager, still listening to his music, and behind him, just in front of Kai, stands the boy’s father. I swallow hard, watching Kai’s shifting eyes. I watch them until they shift onto me.

  I look down. “Yuming,” Kai whispers, sliding back into the seat next to me, Li on his lap. “My hands are full.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” I whisper quickly, even though I know.

  His wallet, he mouths, rolling his eyes as though I’m some sort of idiot. He pulls me close. “Listen,” he goes on, barely audible, “distraction is the key. He needs to think the pressure on his rear is from something else—something that will make him feel compassion for you and not question you.”

  I think again of the time Wai Gong lost all of his money and shake my head quickly. “No.”

  “I’ve got Li,” Kai hisses. “How many hands do you think I have?”

  “Give him to me,” I whisper back. This is a lesson I do not need. Jing and I will be off soon to Shanghai, and this will no longer be my life.

  But Kai shakes his head again, raising his eyebrows, as if he knows infinitely more than I do. “No,” he says. “Li is peaceful now. I don’t want to wake him. Do it.”

  Up ahead, near the bus door, the line begins to move and my heart leaps into my throat as I imagine Mr. Zhang waiting for us at the bottom of the steps. Kai jerks his head toward the front of the bus, as if I need a reminder that we don’t have much time.

  Jing and I will need more money to get home to Yemo Village. I stand up and squeeze past Kai and Li, feeling like I’m in someone else’s body.

  Hands shaking again, I stand in the aisle behind the man. The line creeps forward. Jing gets up behind me, and Kai gives me a soft kick to tell me to hurry up. I reach slowly into my pocket, where the photograph of my family should be, and I pull out one of the bills I have left. I drop it onto the dirty bus floor. It floats down and lands silently. “Excuse me?” I whisper.

  The man doesn’t respond.

  “Pardon me?” I say, a bit louder.

  He turns around. His eyes are sparkling black, and soft wrinkles surround them. I wonder, suddenly, if he was disappointed t
hat his son listened to music the entire way to Sunma instead of talking to him. “Can I help you?” he asks.

  I look to the floor again, flooded with shame. He follows my gaze. “Ah,” he says, bending down to pick up the bill that landed near his freshly shined shoes. The wallet in his back pocket is only inches from me, but I cannot move; my hand is frozen. Kai kicks me again, but still, I stand there. I remember Wai Gong’s face when he realized his wallet was gone and how he dreaded telling Wai Po.

  The man stands up and hands me my money. I look at his feet and thank him as the line moves forward.

  Kai swears quietly and shoves me aside with Li in his arms. I inch forward behind them, my face burning with shame—both because I’d thought of stealing from the man and because I wasn’t able to. Now what? Jing and I need money if we’re ever to get home.

  Kai taps the kind man on his shoulder. “Pardon me?” he says. The man stops shuffling forward and turns around. “I apologize, but I believe my brother is ill.” Kai’s eyes are moist, and I think back to our escape from the cafeteria in the factory. I can’t tell if he’s scheming or serious. “Do you mind if I squeeze ahead of you?” he goes on. “I need to get him to a doctor.”

  “Of course,” the man says, turning his body sideways. Kai edges past him slowly. Li’s limp legs brush against the bus seat and then the man’s pants. Kai swiftly pulls a black leather wallet from the man’s back pocket—a wallet similar to the one Wai Gong had—and passes it to me.

  It’s thick; I’m sure it contains credit cards and bank cards and that taking it will ruin the man’s vacation. I don’t want to touch it, so I pass it quickly to Jing. She tucks it into the waistband of her pants, and I turn forward to watch Kai continue to make his way past the rest of the bus passengers and to the door.

  The line begins to move faster and my heart chug, chug, chugs with fear that the man will notice his wallet is gone. I need to get off this bus and away from him, but Mr. Zhang…Is it possible that he could be waiting for us just outside? Kai and Li are almost there. I look from the kind man to the bus windows, searching for a yellow Windbreaker. My eyes dart back and forth as my mind jumps from the father to Mr. Zhang and then to Jing. I am grateful that this life will soon be a memory.

  The man and his son climb down the steps. The father puts his hand on his son’s shoulder, and they walk toward the street corner without acknowledging Kai and Li, who are waiting on the curb. I stand next to the driver, envisioning Mr. Zhang racing across the street toward us, whispering that he has a knife and if we scream, he will kill us.

  My legs shake. The risk of being here, in this town, where Mr. Zhang could possibly come looking for us, feels like an unbearable mistake—an error of judgment. I can picture Wai Gong’s disapproving eyes over the xiangqi board.

  I turn to the bus driver as I run my hands over the money in my pocket. “Where are you headed to next?” I ask him.

  “Yetu Village.”

  “Is that to the south?”

  “Yes.”

  I nod. “How much per ticket?”

  “Fifteen yuan.”

  I look back at Jing. She appears to be thinking intently as she follows our conversation, and she glances out the window to where Kai, still holding Li, is waiting, looking around nervously. I take the money out of my pocket. “We could do it,” I whisper. “Get off, say a quick good-bye to the boys, give them—you know.” I nod toward the elastic of her pants. “Then we could get back on—get away from here—away from Mr. Zhang. In Yetu Village, we will be safe, and we can figure out how to get to Shanghai.”

  “What’s the holdup?” the driver asks impatiently. We are the last two people on the bus.

  “What time do you depart?” I ask.

  “As soon as you two get off,” he says, glowering. “I drive up the street, fill with petrol, and come back here to pick up.”

  “What are you doing?” Kai calls to us over the sound of Li’s coughing.

  “All right,” Jing says. “So get off. We’ll figure it out.” She peers deliberately through each window. “I don’t see Mr. Zhang anywhere.”

  The bus driver sighs and looks at his watch.

  I look through the windows, too, nod, and shove the money back in my pocket. Li hasn’t stopped coughing. This doesn’t seem safe, but we can’t just leave without saying our good-byes to Kai and Li. And we can’t keep all the money.

  On the street, though, my heart races as the bus pulls away. The gravity of the mistake we may have just made floods me. I am once again an animal being hunted. Jing and I join Kai and Li, and we turn in slow circles, scouring the streets for the yellow Windbreaker, the sharp, evil eyes, the greedy hands until I am dizzy. “We need to get away from here,” I say breathlessly. “This is the center of town—it’s the first place Mr. Zhang would come looking.”

  “That’s true,” Jing says quickly. She’s more nervous than I’ve ever seen her—perhaps because she’s so close; so close to her freedom.

  “We probably have ten minutes until the bus comes back,” I say. “Let’s move to—”

  “What do you mean, ‘until the bus comes back’?” Kai interrupts.

  I glance at Jing. “We’re going to go,” she says, looking down. Li stirs and unpeels his head from Kai’s shoulder. He straightens his back and coughs—a shallow and rumbling sound that reminds me of a crackling fire, and Wai Gong’s cough.

  “You’re leaving already?” Kai asks, his face hard.

  Jing nods.

  “We need to get off this main road,” I insist. “Someplace where we can see the bus returning, but where we’ll be out of sight.” I pull Jing up a sloped side street and into the recessed doorway of a closed shop. Kai follows quickly, Li still coughing in his arms.

  It’s shady and cool in the doorway, despite the late morning heat. Kai kneels. “Come on, Li,” he says, sliding his brother onto the ground. “My shoulder’s killing me. It’s nicer in here. You got overheated, that’s all.”

  Jing takes the wallet from her pants and opens it. Now that the man and his son are gone, the only question I have is how much money we’ll find inside. We’ll divide everything up, including the forty yuan. The money will take us to freedom.

  Inside the wallet are many, many cards, and Jing quickly sifts through them—credit cards, bank cards, cards I’ve never seen before. There’s a zippered pocket filled with coins that don’t add up to much. Jing pulls out the bills and I eagerly watch her count them. I can almost smell the rice fields back home.

  Five, ten, twenty, sixty. Kai curses and Jing sits back on her heels and stares at the sky. That will barely buy us anything. All that trouble for sixty yuan?

  Kai curses again, louder this time. He takes the wallet from Jing and dumps the coins on the store’s doorstep. Then he looks around quickly before darting across the street and tossing the wallet, still filled with its cards, into a trash can.

  “What a waste,” he mumbles when he returns. “With Yuming’s money, we now have, what, one hundred yuan?” He kicks the curb in anger, then goes back to his brother, who is slumped against the door. “Get up, Li,” Kai says, nudging him.

  Li doesn’t move. I peer down the street again, checking for a yellow Windbreaker, Mr. Zhang’s predator eyes, and then I turn my attention to Li. He does not look well. I put my fingers on his neck—the way Wai Po used to do to me sometimes—and snap my hand back quickly. His skin is so, so hot. “Li?” I say.

  He doesn’t respond. His breathing is ragged.

  “Li,” Kai says, “sit up. You’re going to have to get through this if we want to eat again today.”

  Jing stares at me, then strokes Li’s forehead. “Look,” she says, “he’s shivering.”

  “He’ll be fine,” Kai says, annoyed. “He probably went and got a lung infection again. He had one before.”

  “A lung infection?” I ask, my heart thudding. Like what killed Wai Gong? I drove him, on his tractor, to the clinic in the closest town. He could barely walk, and his b
ody burned with fever. A doctor listened to his heart as Wai Gong lay back, wheezing, on a cot in the one-room building, flies buzzing overhead.

  “He’ll be fine,” Kai says again, snapping me out of my memory.

  I swallow hard and glance around. In the park across from the square, bright kites fly, and crowds of tourists move in clumps. White-and-green taxis line the street to the right of the park, waiting for customers. Mr. Zhang could be anywhere. Li coughs again—a dry, painful sound.

  Down the main road, to our right, our bus is slowly making its way through the crowds of tourists in the street. “The bus is coming,” I tell Jing quietly, looking at Li. His breathing is quick and shallow now, as if each breath is not drawing nearly enough air.

  “So go,” Kai says, sounding nonchalant and annoyed all at once. “We’ll be fine.”

  “What will you do about Li?” I ask.

  “I’m sure his fever will break soon. I’ll leave him here, and go get some food and water. Nobody will bother him.”

  “Leave him?” Jing asks anxiously. “Here in this doorway? Sick? And with Mr. Zhang possibly still searching for us?”

  “Look,” Kai snaps, “when you live on the streets, you do what you need to do to survive.”

  “To survive,” I repeat, glancing back up the street at the creeping bus. The driver is honking at the surrounding traffic. “But what if…” I can’t say it. I think of Wai Gong’s ashen face in the bed at the clinic. He had seemed better when he went to sleep back home that evening; the doctor had told me that the medication would help him. I didn’t know. I didn’t know that when I pulled the covers around him at bedtime and kissed his hot cheek that by morning he would—

  “He’ll be fine,” Kai says again in a rush. “Like I said, he’s had a lung infection before.”

  In the morning, Wai Gong’s body was cold and hard. “But won’t he need medicine?” I whisper.

  Kai rolls his eyes as Li starts to cough again. He’s shivering uncontrollably now, and I look around for something—anything—to cover him with, but there’s nothing in sight. I pull off the oversize red T-shirt covering my white one and drape it over Li’s torso.