Girls on the Line

by Jennie Liu

  Her eyes sweep across the room to the window, over the beds full of smelly sheets and the rumpled heaps of the wards. The sleet has turned to heavy, wet snow. Just looking at it chills me to the bone. I shiver, dreading going back out there. To me, it looks cold, wet, and miserable, but it’s obvious that Yun sees something very different.

  Chapter 16

  Yun

  The good thing about the adult unit of the Institute is that there’s hardly any staff. At least that’s the way it is on this floor where the wards are silent and harmless. It’s like they’re locked inside their heads.

  Luli and I slip through the halls and head downstairs, following Guo. When we get to the back door, Luli hesitates. There’s a rough moment when she looks at Guo. He isn’t grinning like he was yesterday, when they carried me in and we saw each other. Even though I was acting like I was mentally disabled, I peeked open one eye and raised my eyebrows at him. His blank face cracked open like a melon on display at the market. Now he looks dumb again. So much like the foundlings at the Institute, standing in their cribs, waiting for their food. I know he has Down syndrome, but he isn’t as slow-witted as the Institute staff think. Still, we have to leave him behind. We can’t do anything for him.

  “Guo, we’ll visit you again,” Luli says. Her voice quavers.

  He beams. “And bring the baby with you!”

  I flinch but don’t say anything.

  Luli and I leave, going out into the wet snow. I take a deep breath. The air smells like metal, like coal and exhaust. With a burst of energy, I speed toward the gate as fast as I can with my heavy belly. I pound on the window in the little door of the guardbox. “Let us out!”

  The watchman is startled. I laugh at the expression on his face as he opens it.

  “What’s this?” he says, glancing at the swell of my belly. “You’ve been released?”

  “This isn’t a jail! I wasn’t arrested. I needed social welfare, but not anymore. My family came for me.” I nudge Luli with my elbow. Her face is a swirling hotpot of fear, amazement, and giddiness. It makes me want to laugh some more.

  “I’d better check with the director.” He reaches for the phone.

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m not a registered ward here!” I stamp over to the gate, feeling the baby turn inside me. Now seems like a good moment to use my trick. I clutch my belly and gasp, faking pain.

  Luli cries out. She has an expression of utter horror.

  “She’s taking me to the hospital!” I tell the guard. I motion fiercely to Luli, willing her to snap out of her shock. She rushes over. I put one arm around her neck, and we hobble to the nearest big avenue and get a taxi.

  ***

  We have to stop by the factory so Luli can get her money. I wait in the taxi and watch her cross the empty plaza. The snow is more water than fluff, melting when it hits the concrete, the slick places mirroring the white of the sky. I try not to think about what’s going to happen. The other time we went to the clinic, they mentioned pills, cramping, bleeding.

  I try to push that out of my mind and gaze at the factory complex on the other side of the gates. Everyone is inside working now. I can see myself in there, bent over my adapter cords and black twist-ties, watching the clock, stiff-necked. I know I won’t be working at this factory, but I hope to be working somewhere soon.

  Luli returns, worry written on her face. I give the driver the address of the Modern Women’s Health Clinic.

  “I’ll pay you back as soon as I find a position and get my first pay,” I say to Luli.

  She waves aside my promise. “Yun, I don’t think this is a good idea. The baby is so big. Are you sure terminating now will be”—she presses her lips together for a moment and glances at my stomach—“safe?”

  I turn away from her and stare out the wet-streaked window. I don’t know. I don’t want to think about it.

  The snow has turned to sleet again. It makes a faint pizzle against the glass that I can hear between the tharummph, tharummph of the windshield wipers. The colors of the signs and lights of the stores glow brightly amid the silvery-gray rain. Funny how just a short time ago I was feeling so happy, free. But now, I’m as low as anyone can be. Trapped, scared.

  At the clinic, we eventually get shuttled to the doctors’ office and meet with the same one I saw all those months ago, though she doesn’t seem to remember me. I lean forward and mutter what I need so the other doctor in the office and his patient can’t hear. My doctor gives me a look as if she’s been struck by lightning. For a full minute she doesn’t say anything.

  “You waited a long time. That wasn’t wise, you know. I’m surprised the Family Planning Council didn’t catch up with you months ago. Sometimes Family Planning forces women to have late-term abortions, but we’re not equipped to terminate a pregnancy this far along. And it’s highly unlikely a hospital would do it either.”

  I’m really scared now. There’s all kinds of chaos inside of me. The doctor must see that I’ve started to tremble, but she just says matter-of-factly, “You shouldn’t have waited so long. You’ll have to pay the social maintenance fee so you can get the birth permit. It will cost you a lot. Around 40,000 yuan.”

  A hopeless amount. More than I’d earn at a factory job in five years.

  Luli stands up. “Thank you,” she says meekly to the doctor. Pulling on my arm, she says, “Come on, let’s get out of here. Don’t worry, it’ll be all right. I’ll help you.”

  I let myself be led out.

  Chapter 17

  Luli

  We go to the restaurant next door to the clinic. There are only a few other people there, and the television is off. I can hear music playing from a radio in the kitchen. Over a steaming bowl of noodle soup, Yun stares out the window at the pool tables across the street. They’re covered in plastic tarps, sleet and snow lightly piling up in the dips. There’s no one out there now. I remember the first time I came here, watching Yun outside with Yong, her eyes burning so brightly. Usually she’s in quick movement, tossing her hair, smiling, laughing, talking. Now, her face is soft, relaxed, her head turned so I can just see the four pocks that draw everyone’s attention. Points of the star, like Granddad’s constellation.

  “Eat something.” I tap her bowl with my chopstick.

  She gives me a weak smile but goes back to looking out at the sleet.

  “I thought it might be Ming’s baby.” The words pop out of my mouth. I instantly wish I hadn’t said anything.

  Yun shrugs. “Might be.”

  I’m stunned speechless. I bow my head over my soup, stare at the bean threads swimming in the broth. I don’t know what to feel. All this time, I haven’t been able to decide about Ming. I hoped that he was over Yun, that everything between them had ended when Yun started seeing Yong.

  Well, I won’t let it bother me. I’m glad I know now. I stir my noodles and try to eat. Yun is my friend, and I’m glad I’ve found her. And there’s this baby.

  “Maybe he could help us,” I say. “You could get married. Maybe his parents would take you both in. They could help you pay the fines.”

  She gives a confused look. “Isn’t Ming your boyfriend now?”

  I put my chopsticks down and shake my head, trying not to show how the question stings.

  “We can wait for Yong to get out of jail,” Yun says. “I can have the baby, and he can find someone to take it. His brother says there are people who’ll pay, even for a girl.” The agitated lines are back between her eyebrows, a hard glitter in her eyes. “He can even sell me to some farmer, and then I’ll run away. I’ll make him give me half the money!”

  I draw back, shocked. “You would sell a baby? Sell yourself? And trust Yong to give you part of his payment?”

  The fire goes out of Yun’s eyes. She pushes away her bowl, hot soup sloshing over the edge. “Utterly screwed!” She folds her arms on the table and drops her head on them. I can see now that she doesn’t really trust him. That she isn’t seriously considering what she said. I l
ift a hank of her hair off the soup-soaked table and try to pat it dry with one of my gloves.

  “Tell me what you remember about your granddad,” Yun says, her head still down on the table.

  “What?” I’m not sure I heard her right.

  She raises her head. “Your granddad. Before he got sick, I mean. What was it like living with him? What was it like where you came from? Your home.”

  I stir my soup. It’s been a long time. And at the Institute it was easier to forget the past than to hang on to it.

  I take a deep breath. “In the morning before I went to school, I remember trailing him around the fields and helping him take care of the animals. Near dinnertime he would go out into the field and dig up the sweet potatoes we were going to eat.” A fleeting memory of Grandma chopping the potatoes comes back to me. My mouth trembles. I can hardly remember her at all. She died when I was very little. My parents I never knew at all.

  Yun says, “When I was with Yong’s ma and I saw old men in the village or out in the fields, I thought about you and your granddad. I knew you liked it out in the countryside.”

  I nod, though the countryside seems distant to me now. Long dead, like Granddad and Grandma. I’m a worker now. I wince, remembering that I’m missing my shift. I hope I won’t be fired.

  “I don’t want to marry some farmer,” Yun goes on. “I don’t want Yong. Or Ming. Or this baby. I know you think I should want it and take care of it because I was given away, but I don’t think I can do it. I don’t know how to be a mother! Your granddad wanted you, and he still couldn’t keep you.” Her eyes are level and clear. She nods to herself, making her decision. “If the baby’s a boy, I’ll let Yong’s ma raise it. She’ll give it a good life. And if it’s a girl, I’ll have to take it to the Institute. Maybe it will find a home.”

  I swallow a lump in my throat. I don’t want the baby to go to the Institute. But what else is there to do? This really is the only practical plan.

  “Let’s go back to the factory,” I say. “You can stay with me for now.”

  Yun eyes me doubtfully. “You’ll get fined if anyone reports us.”

  “I don’t care about that.” I give an impatient little shrug. “Besides, the factory’s running twenty-four hours to make up for the time it’ll have to close for the holiday. Lots of the girls will be working late shifts. And anybody we run into will be too tired to care whether you’re supposed to be there.”

  She doesn’t need much convincing at this point.

  By the time we head back toward the factory, it’s almost time for the shift change. Walking in the sleet, I see the red strips of paper pasted outside the doors of businesses, each with a poetry couplet in gold lettering. The couplets remind me that the Spring Festival is just a week and a half away. Shop windows are stocked with firecrackers, lanterns, fancy packaged gifts, and all kinds of huge tote bags the girls at the factory use to lug stuff to their relatives. Everyone is going home to celebrate the New Year with their families, plotting their travel plans when they aren’t being worked overtime.

  Near the factory, we hang back in the shadows until the trickle of people going through the gates begins to swell. Then we scuttle up behind a large group. I throw my arm around Yun’s shoulders so her big stomach is somewhat hidden by my body, and we pass through with no trouble. Everyone is wearing big coats and scarves, hunkering against the sleet, rushing to their departments. We trudge across the courtyard, into the dormitory building, up the stairs to my hall.

  Outside my room, I turn to Yun and put my finger to my lips before unlocking the door and poking my head in. The room is dark except for the light spilling in from the plaza floodlights. Three of my roommates are sleeping. All the other beds are empty. I don’t know those girls very well because they work different shifts.

  I usher Yun over to my bunk, the bottom one nearest the door. Yun sinks onto it, kicks off her boots, and struggles out of her coat, which is soaking wet. I hang it on the end of the bed while she gets under the blanket—a heavy wool plaid, ugly, but I bought it because it was warm and cheap. Yun throws me a grateful smile, and I remember her own pink comforter and wonder where it is now. She has nothing with her except her too-tight coat.

  She settles in to sleep. I decide that I’d better report to work for at least the overtime shift. After that, we’ll make a plan.

  Chapter 18

  Yun

  The need to pee overcomes me just as I’m about to fall asleep. I try to ignore it, but the baby inside me begins to move around, and I feel a little wetness leak out. I get up, squinting in the dark, and feel around under the bed for Luli’s slippers. There are two pairs, one soft and fluffy, the other the cheap black plastic kind old men wear. These, I know, must be Luli’s, so I jam them on my feet.

  Standing up in the dorm, I feel strange, out of place, exposed because of my big belly. My coat is hanging on the bedpost, so I snatch it up and put it on. The dorms aren’t heated, and a pregnant girl will attract more attention than someone wearing a coat to the bathroom.

  Luli’s room is just next to the toilets, so I make it in without anyone noticing me. I dart into a stall. The light is dim here, but when I pull down my underwear I notice a thick discharge that looks like I sneezed in them. I rub it away with toilet paper and flush it, but my underwear still feels a little damp.

  I slip back into Luli’s room, take off my coat, and quietly step to the lockers. I know she wouldn’t mind if I borrow some underwear. All the lockers have padlocks on them, but sometimes the girls just push them in without spinning the numbers or turning their key. I used to do that all the time. I spot a cheap-looking lock that seems like what Luli would buy and reach up to give it a yank.

  “What are you doing?”

  I spin around. One of Luli’s roommates on an upper bunk snaps on a light clamped to the metal bedpost. We both blink at the harsh brightness.

  “Who are you?” The girl sits bolt upright in her bed, astonished. She looks several years older than me, maybe in her early twenties.

  “I’m a friend of Luli’s. I was going to borrow some clean clothes.” I move toward Luli’s bunk. “She said I could wait for her here.” I climb into the bed and cover up, trying to ignore the roommate’s prying eyes. I want to tell her to stop looking at me, but it’s probably best not to get on her bad side since I need to spend the night. If the roommates aren’t agreeable, they can report me. “Don’t worry about me.” I give a tight smile before I snuggle up under the scratchy blanket and turn my face to the wall.

  I hear her jump off her bunk and feel her standing next to my bed. I wish she would go away.

  “Where’s your husband?”

  I twist around to look at her, summoning the most tired expression I can make. “I’m just going to sleep for a bit.”

  “Luli’s probably working overtime until ten.” She gives no sign of letting up. “How did you get in here anyway?”

  “She let me in a little while ago.” I wish she would keep her voice down. I don’t want the others to wake up.

  The roommate puts her hand on her hips. “She shouldn’t have done that!” Her voice is sharp now, and I sit up and shush her.

  “What is it?” One of the other roommates rolls over in her bunk, a lower one near the window, and pulls off a red satin sleep mask.

  “Luli let her friend in while we were sleeping.” She doesn’t lower her voice. “She wants to wait here until Luli comes off overtime.”

  The third girl is awake now too. Although I can’t see her on the other side of the fabric someone has hung between the beds for privacy, I feel the bed shift since the bunks are connected head to foot.

  “But we have to leave for our shift in a little while.” The girl near the window swings her feet off and begins to smooth her mussed hair, which is bleached brown.

  “Yes, and there won’t be anyone here except for you,” the older girl says.

  The other two girls come to stand over me. The one I haven’t been able to see
is clutching an oversized stuffed Hello Kitty. “You can’t stay here. We don’t know you.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m just going to sleep. Luli will be back in a few hours.”

  The girls exchange looks.

  The one with Hello Kitty frowns at me. “Why don’t you go home?”

  I shake my head vaguely. “I used to work at this factory. Don’t worry about your stuff. I won’t take anything.”

  “She’s pregnant,” the older girl points out, causing the others to take in my middle. “Better go home to your husband,” she says to me.

  The long-haired girl gets a sly look. “Maybe she’s not married.”

  This is unbearable. I throw the blankets off and sit up. The girls gawk as if I’m the five-legged ox at the zoo. I hunch over my stomach and pull on my boots. I stand up, yank my coat off the bedpost, and leave the room, slamming the door hard behind me.

  For a moment I just stand outside the door, clutching my coat, not knowing what to do next. The hall is dim and quiet, but I know in just a little while the girls who work the second shift will be coming out of their rooms to get ready.

  The bathroom.

  It’s only a few steps away. I duck inside. Two girls are at the sinks, but they don’t notice me. I dart into the closest stall, shut the door, and lock it. Standing over the squat toilet, I lean against the tile wall. I can feel its chill through my sweater, so I put on my coat. The scent of cleanser doesn’t cover the familiar smell of waste and dirty laundry that is always in the bathrooms. I try to just breathe through my mouth.

  The girls at the sink are talking about their Spring Festival plans. The factory will be closing in five days. If all of Luli’s roommates go home for the holidays, then we’ll have two weeks of peace and quiet to figure something out. For now, I’ll just wait here until her shift is over.

  Chapter 19

  Luli

  When I arrive at the workroom, I tell Foreman Chen that I’ve been sick but that I don’t want to miss the overtime now that I feel better. He frowns but accepts the story with a grunt and motions me toward an empty station. I walk toward it, keeping my head down, though out of the corner of my eye I can see Ming, watching me from across the room.