The Secret Mother

by Victoria Delderfield

  “Ricki will come back, Mum. She always does.”

  “I’m not so sure this time.”

  Nancy shuffled into the cavity of the bedroom and sat down on the bed.

  “Mum, can we talk?”

  “Of course, what is it?”

  “I’ve been thinking about the orphanage … Were they all girls? I mean, is that why we were abandoned, because nobody wants girls in China?”

  Her mum dabbed her eyes. “We were never allowed inside, Jennifer.”

  “You never met her, did you?”

  “No, never.”

  “Were there many other babies?”

  “About a dozen. The orphanage staff brought you to the hotel. You were everything to us. You always will be.”

  “But it is true? I mean, did May abandon us because we were girls?”

  Her mum shook her head. “I don’t know her reasons, darling. I could never leave you. Not ever.”

  “I need to know,” said Jen.

  “I can’t magic her out of a coma.”

  “We could go to China.”

  Her mum got up and went to the window. She glanced back and forth at the street.

  “We could go and find out about May,” repeated Jen.

  “Where is she? It said on the News there might be snow. What if she’s had one of her asthma attacks?”

  “Mum?”

  Nancy dropped the edge of curtain.

  “May never talked much about her past, but we know some things … Yifan was a doctor, right? And you said May was in Nanchang, so maybe we could start there? We could go back to the welfare institute or the embassy … There must be somebody who can tell us more.”

  “I can’t think straight right now, Jen. All I want is to see Ricki’s face again.”

  “She can’t avoid us forever.”

  “I hit my daughter. What if something’s happened to her? It’s all my fault.”

  “What if, what if! What if I need answers, Mum?”

  “Jen, I’m so sorry.”

  “I have to go back. I’ll go myself if you won’t.”

  Her mum stood motionless, staring into the dwindling light. “My mom always used to say that if you faced your fears they became smaller. You’re a very bright young woman, Jen. Very bright and very precious to me. I’d do anything for you, to protect you and Ricki.”

  Jen squeezed her mum’s trembling hand. “Let me go back.”

  “I know, darling. I know. And I will, I promise. I promise we’ll go. Just as soon as … Oh God, what if she never comes home?”

  The fox and the chicken

  “Herr Schnelleck, I write to inform you of the details of your visit to Forwood Motor Corporation. The enclosed itinerary includes maps, contact names, accommodation details and, most importantly, our productivity figures which, I’m sure you’ll agree, are exceptional and that –”

  Manager He broke off and gazed into space. “Wait,” he said, “Delete that last bit. It needs more … more –”

  “More grease?” I suggested, wondering how much longer it was going to take and whether I’d ever get any sleep.

  “No, not grease – more about me.”

  Manager He began to pace back and forth across the small bureau. This was his fifth version of the letter to Schnelleck.

  “I disagree.”

  He spun round. “What did you just say, 2204?”

  “We want him to feel important, don’t we? To understand he is like a god to us. Schnelleck is our gateway to the West, you said. Why not ask what he wants to see and do in Nanchang? Play to his European temperament – his ego.”

  “Hm.”

  The wall clock in his bureau ran half an hour ahead of time; it was now five thirty. I was tired and still hadn’t asked him about Zhi’s whereabouts or floated the subject of weekly days off for workers. For the last three hours it had been all Schnelleck, Schnelleck, Schnelleck and I was sick of hearing about him. Who was he anyway, that he should be so important? China was a big country. Did we really need to impress the big noses in Europe?

  “Do you mean we’re to flatter him? You honestly believe a man of Schnelleck’s judgement won’t immediately see through it? Ha! 2204, you have a lot to learn. You forget Schnelleck is a European.”

  I stared at the characters on my typewriter, shot down by his remark.

  “Although, I suppose a little Chinese courtesy never hurt anyone. It is what we’re known for. Let me see … This shouldn’t tax me. I just need to think clearly.”

  I stifled a yawn. What was taking him so long? Why couldn’t he see the obvious? Important visitors need buttering up or bribery. He should have seen the way Mother and Father fussed after Madam Quifang: the slaughtered pig, the new bottle of baijiu, the expense of the matchmaker. None of which mattered, now that I had pink satin shoes, lipstick and whitener. Perhaps it had not been drummed into Manager He as a child? To impress requires total humility of body, soul and wallet. He was a boy, a ‘little emperor’, of course he had not learnt it.

  Manager He suggested we take a short tea break. He took out his stash of candies and pulled up a chair beside me, sucking as he gazed into space. I took one without him noticing.

  “Manager, there’s something important I’ve been meaning to ask you. It’s that, well, many of the workers are so tired. Exhaustion is starting to affect productivity. The other day, I caught one dozing at her station holding a pincer tool!”

  He stirred. “Where were the time analysts? Useless cretins. Chen and Ting will do a better job, I’ll get them onto her. Nothing a pay cut can’t put right.” He loosened his tie and undid his top button. “Tell me, honestly, do workers not read factory regulations any more? They must know sleeping on the job is a punishable offence?”

  “Yes, yes, we’re told it every week, we sing about it in the company song. The rules are pinned up everywhere in this place.”

  “And still they don’t comply? Unbelievable. You see the scale of the task I’m up against, 2204?”

  “Yes Manager,” I said wearily. “The problem is, we’re all too tired to work anyharder. Physically, we’re exhausted to the point of passing out. It doesn’t matter how many extra hours you ask of us, we need more rest – time to recharge our batteries.”

  “Like robots,” he laughed, clearly taken by the idea. “Tell me, what would you be doing at home in the village? Working the fields all day? Gathering firewood, mucking out animals. I remember it well, even from childhood. You can’t seriously be saying the factory is more taxing than work for jia? Of course not! I know it and you know it. Any worker caught slacking on the job is a lazy mutton.”

  I wanted to laugh in his face. Had he sat for twelve hours on a stool staring at tiny wires and plastic buttons? If so, he would know factory work was twice as hard as farm work, where you could get away with being lazy for an hour here and there. Sometimes I wandered off into the woods and lay down on the pine needles with Little Brother; together we breathed in the smell of the earth.

  I stood up, deciding to take a different tack. “Manager He, may I ask you a question?”

  He rolled up his shirt sleeves and reached for his velvet dressing gown which hung on the back of his chair. Over the course of our night-time meetings, it became clear Manager He rarely left Forwood.

  “What is more important: productivity or accuracy?” I said, pacing behind him.

  “Without accuracy there are no sales. Without productivity there is no profit. They are of equal importance.”

  “But without enough time to rest, your workers are becoming both unproductive and inaccurate. The women in your department are like machines – from what I observe on the line, and in the dorm, we are desperately in need of repair.”

  “I don’t like what you are suggesting. I can’t send workers to be fixed. Ha! It’s easier to get new parts. They’re cheap and disposable, especially at this time of year. An inexpensive machine doesn’t need servicing, it needs scrapping.”

  “Can you afford to scrap
your entire workforce?”

  He spluttered on his tea. “2204, that’s enough. You are talking above your position. I’m worn out by your inane prattle about tired workers. Next you’ll be recommending I give women a lie-in every weekend! I know I asked you to inspire them from within, but this is taking things too far. Stop this foolish talk or I’ll have a mutiny on my hands. Workers are here for one reason only – money. The same reason I am here. Money makes this factory churn out cars and money will make the world sit up and take note of our country. Money can take a boy like me out of poverty and make him the most successful businessman this city has ever seen. What it can’t do is fix a bad machine. Now remember that.”

  “But our health …”

  “Ha! That’s it!” Manager He threw his hands in the air.

  “What is?” I asked.

  He clenched his forehead. “Money – ha! – genius. Why didn’t I think of it earlier?”

  “Think of what?”

  “Get back to the typewriter. I need you to get this down before it goes out of my head.”

  Our discussion was over. I resumed typing with a heavy heart. For a clever man, he could be incredibly short-sighted.

  Schnelleck was to receive the best money could buy. Five star accommodation, expensive restaurants, personal tours of the city, privileged entry into Nanchang’s historic sites and the opportunity to see Forwood at the peak of its productivity. As an extra sweetener, he would be given all the spending money he could possibly need. Oodles of it! I was staggered when the figure of ten thousand yuan was mentioned and Manager He raised it to twenty. It struck me that a factory that fed its workers pig’s blood soup, could ill afford a visitor like Schnelleck. But I kept my gob shut. The sooner he finished dictation, the sooner I could get back to bed.

  “Truly, I’ve excelled myself. Schnelleck will be overjoyed by such lavish expressions of Chinese hospitality. He’ll see we’re ready to open ourselves up to Europe and the world.” He gazed at the poster of Deng Xiaoping, as if he were a father. “He’ll realise any dream is possible in China.”

  Manger He’s dressing gown flapped open. The skin beneath his shirt was smooth, hairless.

  “This calls for a little celebration. Look in my filing cabinet at the back. Get the bottle will you?”

  “Yes, Manager.”

  I stood by the cabinet and poured two cupfuls of baijiu.

  We drank quickly.

  “Why the long face, don’t you like it?” he asked as he settled in the corner.

  “I was forbidden at home.”

  “Well you’re not at home now, 2204. I thought we’d established that.” He held up his cup for me to pour him another. His chest brushed my arm.

  “To productivity, accuracy, profit and great wealth!” Manager He downed it in one gulp. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Aiya! Drink of the gods – I swear it gives me a clear head – started drinking it at university and never looked back.”

  The baijiu tasted of warm honey, sweet and rich on my tongue. A sudden memory pulled on my heart, of father drinking liquor at the kitchen table, his cheeks pink after a day in the fields. Would they be coping without my hands? Had Madam Quifang made their lives unbearable since I ran away?

  “Funny,” said Manager He, “I always dreamt of this moment: standing on the cusp of success. There’s a real possibility Forwood will become the province’s most profitable factory.”

  I watched his lips and imagined them breezing across my face, planting kisses down my neck.

  He kicked off his shoes and settled deeper into the corner where the light didn’t quite reach. He poured himself another cupful of baijiu and then another. “Strange how life works out …”

  His voice was disarmingly woeful. “How a small amount of good might come from those bastards of destruction.”

  His head drooped and pressed against my thigh.

  “Do you know what it’s like to lose someone you love, Mai Ling? How old are you … twenty? The Cultural Revolution would have ended soon after you were born. You were lucky. It would have been better to have grown up in your time – in the new era.”

  I realised he was talking about our society and the way things were changing. I’d seen it for myself in Nanchang, what Manager He called the new era. Changes in the way people dressed and spoke, the brightly lit shops and restaurants like KFC which smelt of fresh paint. Even back home in the fields things were going a different way, only worse. Father could no longer rely on the State to buy our grain for a good price. He struggled to know how to be enterprising. The new era was not necessarily better for everyone, but I held my tongue.

  Manager He buried his head deeper onto my thighs. “My eyes saw things a young boy should never see. My father, my brother … they refused to give up the little food we had. The men, they didn’t even take them out into the yard. They did it right there in front of mother, I thought they were going to turn the gun on me too. Mother was wailing. She fell to her knees and, in her weakness, she surrendered our grain. One of the militia had a cut across his cheek, where his scarf did not reach. I thought about his scar for a long time afterwards, trying to work out where I’d seen it before. I realised he was the father of a boy I knew from the next village. That’s what happened back then, men betraying men in their commune, fighting to survive. I had barely the strength to pedal my bike, and was terrified of what might happen. I wanted to stay and protect her like a proper son, but Mother ordered me to get out. That’s how I ended up here in Nanchang. I fled to an aunt with every secret fen my family ever owned. The last I heard, everyone in the village had starved to death. I never heard my mother’s voice again.”

  I stroked his hair. The famine and the Cultural Revolution that followed were times my parents never talked about openly.

  “I refuse to worship Mao. I survived and I owe it to my family to seek change. Deng Xiaoping is the one I salute – he’s a realist. He does not make excuses for what happened, but there’s no doubting his change in direction.”

  “Yes. President Xiaoping talks about the future, like you.”

  “There is nothing in the past worth holding onto, Mai Ling. We must always move forwards. That’s why we must secure Schnelleck, with him on board Forwood can expand. We are ready, I know it.”

  If only Ren could hear Manager He speak about change and progress, she would feel less cynical.

  “Have you heard about the President’s plans to create Special Economic Zones?”

  I shook my head.

  “I think we can do it, Mai Ling. If Forwood secures enough business overseas, we can put forward a case to make Nanchang a city for redevelopment. Consider the benefits: we’d be free to trade and make money without all the petty bureaucracy that has stifled business for so long.”

  He was talking fast, losing me in a flurry of words. His lips glistened with baijiu. I was still trying to imagine the horror of seeing my father and brother shot in front of me. No wonder Manager He got Chen and Ting to do his dirty work, it was obvious to me now. My instinct was to pull him to my breast.

  The bureau fell silent, as if the walls had read my thoughts. His warm hand pressed against my leg. This time, we were alone, no interruptions from Old Artist. The loudest sound was our hushed disjointed breath.

  He knelt and put his face to my feet.

  “My grandmother’s feet were like hooves, small and deformed. Yours are so long. They curl at the toes when I kiss them here.”

  “It tickles.”

  I stroked his face as he kissed my breasts. His talk was filthy. A vast impure ocean of desire opened suddenly before me and I felt myself falling and afraid.

  His body had a fervency I had only seen in animals. It felt as though he was digging something out of me as we made love. Afterwards, he slumped over his desk. I withdrew, weak and sore, my blood in droplets on the floor.

  He re-read Schnelleck’s letter as if nothing had happened. Silently, I willed him to put it down and talk to me. I wanted the comfort
of hearing my name. Mai Ling. Comfort like a piece of home, like red soil, or the smell of peasant tobacco.

  I longed to be innocent again. I wiped my tears, dressed and cleared away the baijiu cups. Replacing the bottle inside his filing cabinet I felt my hands shake. The strange, hot twisting of our bodies had turned to formalities, empty words. He was Manager, I was 2204. I hovered in the doorway. He had been so quick at the end – a fox stealing a chicken.

  “Before you go …” he said. “I want you to take this, in addition to your next pay packet.” He held out a thick wedge of yuan. “Go into town on your day off and treat yourself. Buy more clothes, find yourself a suit. Observe what the women wear in the city and emulate them. Buy underwear made in England and French perfume.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Manager. I’m really not like the urban women.”

  “You must.”

  “I …”

  “I want you to look like a lady who belongs to the new era. Come back and show me. Do you understand?”

  I nodded and took the money, curling it tight into my trembling hand. It felt as cold as the bureau floor.

  “I won’t forget what happened tonight,” he said. “You were very lovely. The best …”

  I silenced him with a kiss and pretended that he’d called me his special lady. The alarm was already ringing through the walls.

  The restaurant was half full of the usual lunchtime crowd. Businessmen who ate dim sum, a few local Chinese and their kids. On table six, a young couple cosied up in one of the white leather booths, playing footsie under the table. Stuart never took Jen out for a meal. He didn’t earn enough at the vinyl shop.

  A guy from the group on table eight signalled her over.

  “We’re wondering what the special is today?” He was in his fifties, but acting like a twenty-something. “We can’t see anything we fancy on the menu. It’s not exciting enough.”

  “We’re very particular about what we eat,” said his friend.

  Five pairs of eyes x-rayed her uniform; Jen felt like a Peking duck hanging in the cabinet.

  “We only do dim sum at lunchtime, sir.”