Girls on the Line

by Jennie Liu

  “What’s your charge?” The man speaks to me from the other cell.

  I don’t answer. I’m not sure myself what I’ve done wrong. Is being pregnant and unmarried enough to get me locked up?

  “Second child?” he guesses. “He’ll be calling in the Family Planning officials.”

  People are always so nosy. I just keep quiet.

  He sighs wearily. “My neighbor said I was trying to steal his pigs. It was a dispute between us, and I got the bad end of it, because I didn’t have any money to pay a bribe. Have they processed you yet?”

  I was planning to just ignore him, but now I’m wondering what he means. His voice is not unkind. “Process?”

  “Get your information. Have you signed papers?”

  The cop still has my ID card, but I haven’t signed any papers. “No.”

  “That’s good. Get your people to come here and offer to pay a fine. Before he gets Family Planning involved. If you come up with some money right away, it will probably cost you less. It won’t get you the household registration papers for the baby, but they might leave you alone so you can try to raise the money for it.”

  I think of the money in my jeans—532 yuan, minus the bus ticket. And there’s still time to catch the bus. I have the ticket in my coat pocket. I have to get out of here no matter what. I scramble up clumsily and start yelling for the cop: “Officer! Officer! Officer!”

  The door to the room scrapes open. “What’s going on? What’s the noise about?”

  The bars are cold as ice on my cheek as I push my face against them. I thrust my arm out, waving at the officer. He’s the same one who brought me in. He swipes his mouth with the back of his hand, chewing. He must have just started eating his lunch.

  “I want to pay my fine!”

  He stalks over to my cell. “What’s this?”

  “I want to pay my fine. I have money!”

  He frowns. “But I haven’t charged you with anything yet.” He swallows whatever’s left in his mouth and tips his head to one side. “Your family was going to get your . . . husband—”

  “He’s in jail in Gujiao!” My mind races. I already told him that I wasn’t married to Yong. He probably hasn’t checked my ID number yet and is still confused about my status. “And my family doesn’t have any money! They were borrowing money to get him out of jail in the city.” If only he would just take the money and let me go . . .

  I pull up my coat, dig cash out of my pants pockets and hold it out to him. “Let me pay this! Please!”

  He looks thoughtfully at me, then at the money. I thrust the money at him, willing him to take it.

  “You should let her pay now.” My cellmate moves to his bars. I can see his hands wrapping around them. “Don’t involve the Family Planning Council. They’ll force her to abort and make her pay for it. Or charge her with huge fines if she keeps the baby. She’ll never get out from under the weight of that debt.” He still thinks I’m breaking the one-child policy, but the truth is that I’ll be loaded down with fines all the same. This fills me with so much panic that I feel dizzy.

  “Besides, she might have that baby any moment.”

  I see the chance my cellmate is giving me. I grip my belly, double over with a gasp, and fake a pain.

  “You stay out of it!” The officer points a finger at my cellmate.

  Clutching my stomach with one hand, I push the money at him again. “Please, Officer!”

  “She says her family won’t have the money to pay those big fines.” My cellmate ignores the officer’s order. “Her man is in jail. Let her pay what she has and be done with it, eh? No one has to know anything about it. She’ll go to the city. Let it be their problem. You see those unlucky marks on her. Better to get those pocks out of here.”

  The officer’s eyes turn to me, and I can feel the flicker of them—one, two, three, four—as they jump from one pock to another. He grabs the money, shoves it into his pocket, and takes out the key. As he opens the cell door and hands me my ID card, he keeps his eyes averted, like I don’t exist.

  I bolt out of the cell. As I pull open the door to the outer room, I half-turn toward my cellmate. He nods at me. I tick my head back at him and go. I don’t know why he decided to help me, but I’m not going to waste the chance he’s given me.

  ***

  Out on the street, the icy wind blasts trash and dust every which way. There’s less than an hour until my bus arrives, but I know I can’t wait inside the station because Wei might still be there, waiting for his bus to Jiaocheng. I don’t want to take the chance of going into any of the shops or restaurants either because it seems like everyone knows each other in the village. Instead, I hide in an alley stamping my feet and breathing into my hands, hoping no one will notice me. Luckily, the freezing temperature keeps people inside or hurrying along the streets with their heads tucked under their hoods.

  Finally, I hear the screech of the bus pulling to a stop. I peer around the building. Two passengers get on. I wait a few moments more before I dart aboard. I thrust my ticket at the driver, find a seat near the front, and slide down as much as my big stomach allows.

  The door shuts, and the bus starts off. I sigh. My fingers find the back of my neck, and I begin to yank out strands of hair. I realize I haven’t needed my old habit these last few months at Ma’s. Now, all my things are gone. I have no money. I have a baby that I don’t know what I am going to do with. A hopeless mess!

  The baby turns inside me. I grab a fistful of hair and tug hard, feeling my scalp lift away from my skull. Why have I let so much time pass? Now, since I gave the cop all my money, I can’t even pay for a termination. If I have the baby, Ma will want to take care of it. But if it’s a girl, Yong will sell it. And sell me too? It sounds too unbelievable. But Yong’s own brother doesn’t think so. I remember his face when he talked about Yong. He seemed as sad as Luli whenever she talked about her granddad.

  I still have my cell phone. I pull it out from deep in my coat pocket. Over the past few months, I’ve slowly stopped checking it every moment. The calls and texts from my friends, all unanswered, have gradually trickled off. I only use it to stay in touch with Yong now, and I don’t even hear from him that much. I scroll through the other numbers. Zhenzhen, Hong, Ming, other friends who seem like strangers now. My thumb hovers over Luli’s number. But there’d be no point in calling her now. She’ll be at work. Besides, I have no idea how to explain why I disappeared without warning and ignored her messages for months.

  My belly tightens, cramping all the way around my back. I gasp, and my breath catches in my chest. The pain is very real this time.

  Chapter 15

  Luli

  In the middle of the night, I’m roused by a low buzz. At first I think it’s the alarm, but suddenly I realize it’s my phone. I pull it out from under my pillow and fumble it open, wondering who’s calling me this time of night.

  “Luli?” The voice is muffled. I can hardly hear it.

  “Yes?”

  “Luli, it’s Yun.”

  “Yun!” I yelp and bolt upright in bed. One of my roommates groans. I lower my voice. “Where are you? Are you okay?”

  “I’m at the—” She seems to be whispering. I can’t make out what she is saying.

  “Yun, I can’t hear you. Speak up.”

  She raises her voice a bit. “I can’t talk. I’m at the Institute. Will you come here?”

  “At the Institute!” Even though I went looking for her there several months ago, I’m astonished to hear that she’s there now. “What are you—”

  “I have to go! Come as soon as you can. Tomorrow. Please!”

  She clicks off and I’m left wondering how she ended up back at the orphanage. Surely she’s not working there? What happened with Yong—with the baby? I try to count the months, but I don’t know exactly when Yun got pregnant, so I can’t be sure when she would’ve been due. For the rest of the night, I hardly sleep at all.

  The next morning, for the first time
since I started at the factory eight months ago, I don’t show up for work. Instead, I get on the earliest bus.

  As I get off and walk toward the Institute, sleet and wind spitting in my face, my mind circles with questions. Has Yun gotten rid of the baby and asked for a job here? Or did she have it and bring it here to give it away? But that doesn’t make sense. People leave their unwanted babies on the street or someplace where they’ll be found, too ashamed to bring them to the Institute in person.

  “What’s this?” The gatekeeper opens the door and pokes his head out of his guardbox. “More visits from old friends?”

  “What do you mean?” I mumble, a little surprised he recognizes me.

  He comes out and slams the door behind him. “Yesterday we had a young lady like you curled up in front of the gate here.” He gestures at the ground. “Only she was like this.” He puts his hands in front of his stomach, traces out a big mound, and frowns disapprovingly. “Turns out it was one of you girls who went out a couple of years ago.”

  Yun. So she is still pregnant. “Where is she? Is she okay?”

  “She wouldn’t talk to anyone.” He pulls open the gate to let me in. “I don’t know how she got here. Didn’t see anyone drop her off, didn’t see her walk up. Don’t know how long she was there before I noticed her. She was just huddled up there. Wouldn’t answer me. I got the director, and as they were getting her inside, one of the caretakers recognized her.”

  “Is she still here?” I turn toward the looming block of the orphanage.

  “The police came. I heard she didn’t talk to them either. They sent her over to the other building.” He juts his chin toward the building for disabled adults, a twin to the orphanage. “I guess they deemed her mentally deficient.”

  I nod slowly, though I don’t know why. She can’t be mentally disabled. I know she isn’t. I move toward the building, gazing at three rows of windows, dirty but as orderly as a factory. On the second floor, two figures stand at one of windows, looking down into the courtyard. One of them puts outstretched hands up to the glass and waves at me wildly. I squint and shift, trying to see past the white glare of the winter sky on the glass.

  Yun. She’s waiting for me. She begins pointing and gesturing. She wants me to go to the back of the building.

  I go past the double glass-fronted doors with my head dipped, hoping no one sees me, and hurry around. Just as I come to the back door, it swings open, and Guo is standing there.

  “Guo!” I smile, and he grins, his wide-set eyes pinching at the corners. I realize I’ve rarely seen his open-mouth smile. He’s clearly glad to see me, and I’m glad to see him. Although he never talked much, he often trailed Yun and me around the Institute. I suddenly feel bad that I haven’t visited him here.

  I slip inside and pull the door shut behind me. “It’s been a long time. How are you?”

  He only bounces his head, though the smile stays plastered on his face.

  “Do they treat you well?”

  “The same.” His voice comes out in a croak. Again I realize how little I knew him. He was like a shadow to us.

  “Did Yun send you to get me?”

  He nods, and I follow him up the stairs. Inside, the building seems the same as the orphanage. Dim, white-tiled halls, lit only from the open doors of some of the rooms. The fluorescent lights aren’t turned on, and the floors and wall tiles are grimy. I peer into the rooms as we go down the hall. Old men and women sit watching small televisions or staring off into space. Some who can walk are pacing. Most of them wear mismatched old clothing, though many have on light-blue Institute-issued shirts.

  Everything is dirty, much worse than the orphanage building, and the halls smell terrible, like a toilet. At least the orphanage often had the smell of bleach and cleanser. They keep it up for when potential parents come by. Here, I’m sure visitors are rare. And I don’t see any staff.

  Guo stops at a room filled with rows of narrow metal beds with thin mattresses. Several women curl under blankets in the cold room. He points to a bed behind the door but doesn’t follow when I go in.

  Yun is sitting on the side of a bed, her stomach sticking out in front of her like she has a large ball under her coat.

  Her eyes light up when she sees me. “You’re here!” She gets up clumsily. “I knew you would come!”

  I rush over to her and clutch her arms. “Don’t get up!” I help her ease herself back down on the bed. I kneel in front of her and keep hold of her arms—studying her face, her pocks, her reddened skin, wind-burned but healthy. She is well. I thought I’d lost her, but she is well, and she still has the baby inside her. I feel tears welling up. I cover my face and sob.

  Yun starts patting my hair. “Why are you crying?”

  I start laughing—laughing and crying both. She never did understand people. She just looks at me, puzzled and slightly irritated.

  I swipe at my snotty nose with my sleeve. “Where have you been? Were you really in the country? With Yong’s ma?”

  She nods curtly.

  “Why didn’t you tell me where you were going?”

  “Don’t know.” She reaches up and begins to pull on a lock of her hair. It’s much longer now. “Everything just happened.” I take her hand and move it away from her hair, remembering her terrible habit of pulling out strands whenever she was nervous or sad. If it got too bad, the caretakers shaved her head. “Did Yong kidnap you?”

  She shakes her head. “Not like that. He took me there so his ma could take care of me. Then he left, wasn’t even there.”

  “But you never answered any of my calls! Or texted me . . .”

  “I know. At first it was just that I didn’t want to talk about what was happening, or even think about it. I just wanted to ignore everything. I was so sick. I couldn’t do anything. Then so much time passed and I still hadn’t done anything. I didn’t know how I could see anyone like this . . . how I could explain myself. And once I got to the country it was like I was hypnotized. Ma treated me so nicely. She cooked such good things for me, fed me all the time, made me rest. She did everything for me.”

  There’s a tender quality to her tone that I’ve never heard. I realize she must’ve liked it there, must’ve liked Yong’s ma. “So what made you leave?”

  She looks away from me. “You were right about Yong.”

  I pull in my lip. “You mean about bride trafficking?” I whisper, glancing behind me at the other women in the ward, but no one is paying any attention to us.

  She gives another short nod. “He’s in jail now. But Ma and his brother are going to get him out.” Her eyes meet mine again. “If the baby’s a boy, they’ll want to keep it. If it’s a girl, his brother says Yong will sell it on the black market.”

  Sell a baby! What kind of world is this? Though at the same time I wonder why I’m surprised. We saw so many babies as good as thrown away here at the Institute. I suppose if their parents could’ve gotten rid of them and made some money, they would’ve done it.

  “And he might try to sell me too,” Yun adds.

  Now I feel as if I’ve been punched in the stomach. “What? We have to go to the police! Won’t they—”

  “I don’t want to worry about all that now. Once I was out of Yellow Grain Village, it’s like I got my senses back. I need your help. I have to get an abortion, but I don’t have any money left.”

  I struggle to keep up with what she’s saying. “But isn’t it too late for an abortion?” She’s so big, she looks as if the baby is about to come out any minute.

  “I don’t think so. The caretakers talked about it yesterday when I got here. But the Institute doesn’t want to pay the medical fees. They decided I’ll have the baby here, and they’ll put it up for adoption. They can make money on the donation from the parent who adopts the baby.”

  “What did you say about that?”

  “Nothing. I pretended I was mentally disabled so they would take me in. I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I was having pains on the bus
and thought the baby was going to come out any minute. But they’ve stopped. And I can’t stay here! I waited sixteen years to leave this place! I just want everything to go back like it was before any of this happened—working, being on our own. What if they try to make me a permanent ward? I can’t stay here another day!”

  I think about how she helped me come to the factory, let me stay in her dorm that first night. Could I get her into my dorm, hide her there? She’s so large now, I know she’ll attract attention. And what will my dorm mates say?

  “Do you have money?” Yun asks. “Remember, they said it’ll cost at least 450 yuan.”

  I nod reluctantly. It isn’t that I care about the money. I’m glad I’ve saved up enough to help her, but I’m scared for her. It doesn’t seem safe to have an abortion so late in her pregnancy. What if something goes wrong? I begin to tremble.

  “Don’t look like that,” Yun says impatiently. “I don’t know why you want me to have the baby. From the first minute I told you I was pregnant, you wanted me to keep it. After all the time at the Institute. All those foundlings. Didn’t that spoil you for babies?”

  “But those were babies no one wanted. Sick ones, sad ones, ones with no hope. Our baby wouldn’t be like that!”

  She presses her lips together. “Our baby?”

  “Yes! We’ll figure something out.” I take hold of her hands and squeeze them. “I’ll help you take care of it!”

  She shakes her head, bewildered. “Luli, why would you want to do that?”

  “Because I want to help you. We’ve grown up together. We’re like sisters.”

  She swallows. “But I don’t want a baby,” she says softly. She speaks with absolute calm. “I may know how to feed them and wash them and put clothes on them, but I don’t really know how to raise one. I want to go back to work, I want to have my own life.” A small smile eases into her expression. “Remember how simple it was? Just taking care of ourselves?”