The Interior

by Lisa See

  Hulan’s train pulled into Taiyuan at three-thirty. She made her way out onto the street, flagged down a dented Chinese-made taxi, and asked to be taken to the bus stop for Da Shui Village. As a young girl she had been to Taiyuan only a few times—when she’d come and left on the train and on those occasions when her team at the Red Soil Farm had participated in demonstrations at the Twin Pagodas, the double temples located on a hill that served as the city’s emblem. In those days few automobiles or trucks plied the streets. Instead the avenues and alleyways that made up the city had been filled with the reassuring hum of bicycles transporting people and merchandise. The air—even on a hot and humid day like this one—had been clear and filled with the perfume of flowering trees and the rich soil that even in the middle of the city exuded a warm scent.

  Twenty-five years had passed, and Taiyuan was not at all what Hulan expected. Her taxi driver jolted the car in and out of bumper-to-bumper traffic. He kept his hand on the horn, despite Hulan’s repeated requests that he stop. She rolled down her window—it was too hot not to—and her nostrils filled with exhaust and other fumes that spewed from factory chimneys.

  These last ten years had seen an invasion of another sort to Taiyuan. American companies, the driver explained, had set up joint-venture coal mines in the outlying areas and export companies in town. Australians were raising special pigs, which were not as fat as local pigs and considered to be far more tasty. New Zealanders had arrived with sheep to grow wool for carpets. Germans and Italians, meanwhile, had gotten into heavy industry. These varied enterprises had brought prosperity to the city. All around Hulan saw construction sites for offices and foreign hotels. For now, though, foreigners stayed at the Shanxi Grand Hotel. “Year in, year out, they live there,” the driver said. “Those VIP-ers have water every day, all day, while in the rest of the city we only get water on certain days of the week.” Then he added, bragging, “I went inside the Shanxi once. It was amazing, but then you think of the new hotels…” He sucked air through his teeth. “The Shanxi Grand will seem like nothing once they open.”

  After the driver dropped her off, she discovered that the bus to outlying villages to the south wouldn’t arrive for another hour. Carrying her bag, she walked down the block, passing an open-air café filled with customers. Another two doors down she found another café all but deserted. If she’d wanted a meal she would have gone back to the first place, but in such heat all she wanted was a bit of shade, a little solitude, a place to pass the time, and something cold to drink. The Coke came cool but not cold. At five, the owner of the establishment, a woman, returned to the table.

  “You have been sitting here too long! You have to leave so I have room for other customers!”

  Hulan looked around. There were no other customers. “I am a traveler.”

  “A Beijinger! Big-city woman! So what! I am a business owner, an entrepreneur. You are taking up space.”

  “As an entrepreneur you should be more welcoming to your customers,” Hulan retorted.

  “If you don’t like it, go somewhere else.”

  Hulan gazed at the café owner in surprise. This woman was insulting her in the same way a salesclerk in a Beijing department store might. Customer service had gotten so bad in Beijing that the government had inaugurated a politeness campaign and issued a list of fifty phrases that were to be omitted from speech. Either this campaign hadn’t filtered out to Shanxi Province, or the people here simply didn’t care.

  But maybe this campaign, like others before it, was doomed to fail no matter who ordered it. Hulan could remember back when the government had launched the Four Beautifications and Five Spruce-Ups Campaigns to combat incivility. In those days people had been accustomed to obeying every decree, and still no one had carried out the new orders. The masses argued that it was bourgeois to wait on customers, but Hulan had always seen the lack of manners in another way. It was hard to be polite to strangers when the government assigned the job and guaranteed the paltry salary no matter how rudely you acted. Now the pattern was hard to break. But clearly China’s most successful entrepreneurs had learned the benefits of good customer service, which might have been why the first café had been filled with diners and this one was about to lose its only patron.

  Hulan paid her bill and headed back to the bus stop. By now the sun had passed behind a tall building and shadowed the sidewalk. Hulan sat on the curb and waited.

  The bus, when it arrived, was filled to capacity with commuters. Still, Hulan and five more people were able to squeeze onto the back-door steps. At first the bus moved slowly through the crowded city streets. After twenty minutes and only two miles, the bus reached the huge bridge that traversed the Fen River. Hulan couldn’t believe what she saw. Twenty-five years ago the Fen had been a huge, raging river a half mile wide. Today it was a meandering stream. The now-wide banks were lush with river grasses and shrubs. Children played. Families picnicked. A few people flew homemade kites.

  But this wasn’t the biggest surprise. In another few blocks the bus driver stopped at a toll booth, paid a fare, then entered a brand-new, four-lane expressway. What had once taken hours of start-and-stop driving accompanied by honking at the pedestrians and animals that crowded the roadway now zipped along. Within minutes the bus passed the turnoff for the Jinci Temple, renowned for its Song Dynasty Mother Temple and for its Three Everlasting Springs. Another few miles and the bus was flanked by undulating oceans of millet and vast areas planted with corn and sorghum.

  The bus made quick stops in Xian Dian, Liu Jia Bu, and Qing Shu before arriving at the crossroads for Da Shui Village. Alone, Hulan stepped off the bus. After it pulled away, she took a moment to orient herself. Behind her, the expressway led back to Taiyuan. Before her, if she was recalling correctly, lay the village of Chao Jia and town of Ping Yao. About three miles down the road to her right—and this she would never forget—was where the Red Soil Farm had once had its compound of dormitories, storage buildings, work sheds, and kitchens. The land all around her for as far as she could see had been a part of that commune. Undoubtedly this land had been redistributed in 1984, when China’s entire collective system was dismantled and individual plots were given to peasant families.

  It was now about seven o’clock. Da Shui lay about two miles to her left, but she wouldn’t have to walk that far. If Suchee’s directions were correct, Hulan would have to go only about one li, or a third of a mile, to reach the farm. The evening couldn’t be described as cool, but the air felt fresh and clean compared to that on the train, in Taiyuan, or on the bus. As Hulan began to walk, she took her time, enjoying the gentle bombardment of the country on her senses. The moisture-laden air hung heavily over the fields, creating a pale haze. The humidity gathered on her skin in a fine, damp, vaguely soothing film. One of the fields had just been irrigated, and the smell of the wet red soil and the fragrance coming off the plants was heady. She heard no sounds of technology, only the crunch of gravel under her shoes and the thrumming of cicadas in their evensong.

  At last Hulan left the road to walk along a raised pathway that led left through the fields. Now that she was among the plants, she saw things a little more clearly. From afar the fields had looked green and lush, but these crops weren’t thriving. They were barely hanging on. This was the height of the growing season, yet the green leaves were stunted. If this was happening aboveground, it was surely happening below, repressing and deforming the growth of the edible tubers. How odd, Hulan thought. The climate here was no worse for growing than in other parts of China. Irrigation had never been a problem, for this entire region was known for its springs and wells. Water had always been so abundant in this particular area that the village had honored the fact. Da Shui meant Big Water. But from what Hulan saw around her, these plants were starved for that very substance.

  When the next two fields seemed far more healthy, Hulan allowed her optimism to rise, but this was deflated when Suchee’s home came into view. These days one way to gauge a peasant fam
ily’s prosperity was if the old mud-brick house had been torn down and replaced with one made from fired brick. On the train Hulan had seen many fired-brick houses. Then, on seeing the changes in Taiyuan, she’d supposed that some of that city’s prosperity was a reflection of greater prosperity in the surrounding countryside, but her hopes and guesses had been wrong. Only three hundred miles from Beijing, this was the primitive interior.

  Suchee’s small compound had been built according to old customs, based on practical and political considerations. The building faced south toward the warmth of the sun and away from the north from which invaders had always come. There was a small walled-in courtyard of ten by ten feet, which protected a well. Other than this, the hard-packed land that nestled between these walls was devoid of buckets, potted plants, a bicycle, or any of those items that spelled a life lived above a subsistence level. This side of the house had a door with a window opening on each side. There was no glass, which was fine at this time of year, but cruel during the winter when Suchee would have to stuff the openings with dried grass. If she were feeling particularly prosperous, she might even seal the window further with newspaper held in place with glue made from flour and water.

  “Ling Suchee!” Hulan called out. “I am here! It is Liu Hulan!”

  From inside the house Hulan heard a squeal, then her own name called out. A moment later an old woman stood in the doorway. “I didn’t think you would come,” the old woman said. “But you have.”

  “Suchee?”

  Seeing Hulan’s uncertainty, the woman came forward and took her arm. “It is I, Suchee, your friend. Come in. I will make tea. Have you eaten?”

  Hulan stepped over the high threshold, which was designed to keep flood waters out. Except for the single bare lightbulb that hung from a rafter in the center of the room, she could have been stepping back in time a hundred, even a thousand years. The room held two kangs, beds made from wooden platforms. Once again memories rushed back. Hulan remembered her shock as a twelve-year-old on learning that people slept on these platforms instead of in soft beds. How the bones of Hulan and her young comrades had ached until the peasants had shown them how to make mattresses out of straw. Later that year, when freezing winds had come down from the north, the peasants had taught them to make quilts from raw cotton and to set braziers filled with hot coal under the platforms for warmth.

  “Sit, Hulan. You must be tired.”

  Hulan did as she was told, perching on a stool made from a crate turned on end. She glanced around. There was so little here. The table, the upturned crates, the two beds. A shelf held two cups, four bowls—two large for noodles, two small for rice—three serving dishes, and an old soy sauce container filled with cooking utensils and chopsticks. To the right of the door was a small cabinet where Hulan supposed Suchee kept clothes and linens. On top Suchee had put together a simple altar with some sticks of incense, three oranges, a crudely carved Buddha, and two photographs. These would be of Suchee’s husband and daughter.

  Once the water was on, Suchee joined Hulan at the table. Too many things had happened in the last twenty-five years for these women to go straight to the reason Hulan had come. They needed to reconnect, to reestablish a rapport, to build again the trust that had once bound them almost as blood relatives. Yes, there would be time to talk about Miaoshan, but for now the two women spoke of Hulan’s trip, of the changes she’d seen in Taiyuan, of life in Beijing, of Hulan’s coming baby; of Suchee’s crops of millet, corn, and beans, of the water shortage, of the oppressive heat.

  Years ago they had been girls together, but since then they’d traveled very different roads. Except for those two years on the Red Soil Farm, Hulan had lived the sheltered and privileged life of a Red Princess. She had never wanted for clothes or food. Her position had allowed her considerable freedom to travel not only across China but also to the United States. She was not afraid of the government or of nature. All this showed in Hulan’s clothes, in her smooth, pale skin, in the way she held herself as she sat on the upended crate, whereas, if she had seen Suchee on the street in Beijing, she would have taken her for someone sixty or seventy years old.

  As twilight faded into darkness, Hulan began to see her girlhood friend hiding behind the old woman’s face. Under the flickering light of a kerosene lantern—electricity was too expensive to use on a daily basis—Hulan saw how a lifetime of backbreaking work under an unforgiving sun had taken its toll. As a twelve-year-old Suchee had been stronger and far more robust than Hulan. But Hulan had spent the rest of her teenage years in America, eating meat at almost every meal, so now she was perhaps four inches taller than Suchee. Beyond this, Suchee’s back was already curving into a dowager’s hump due to years of carrying water and produce on a pole slung across her shoulders. Suchee’s face pained Hulan most of all. As a girl Suchee had been beautiful. Her face had been round and full of life. Her cheeks had glowed pink. Now her skin was wrinkled and stained dark brown from the sun.

  Of course, she had lived a much fuller life than Hulan. She had married and borne a child. She had also lost both her husband and her child. When Hulan looked straight into Suchee’s eyes, she had to turn away. Behind the polite words Suchee was suffering from a loss that Hulan could not begin to imagine. Hardening her heart against the details that she knew would come, Hulan reached across the table and took Suchee’s hand. “I think it’s time you tell me about your daughter.”

  Suchee talked late into the night, recalling in painful detail Miaoshan’s last day. Suchee had just finished locking the ox into its shed when she met her daughter, who was coming home for the weekend, having been away for several weeks at the Knight factory. Seeing Miaoshan on the dusty pathway that led to the house, Suchee instantly knew that her only child was pregnant. Miaoshan denied this accusation. “I told her, ‘I am a peasant. I have grown up on the land. Do you think I don’t know when an animal comes into season? Do you think I don’t know when a creature is with child?’” Faced with these basic truths, Miaoshan had broken down completely. With tears streaming down her face—the Western display of emotion doing little to settle Suchee’s fears—Miaoshan had confessed everything.

  There were so many sayings that covered chastity and what happened when one didn’t protect it: Guard your body like a piece of jade, or, One blunder can lead to remorse. But Suchee didn’t believe in these kinds of reproaches. She had been young once herself. She knew what could happen in a moment of passion. “I told her that there was nothing wrong that couldn’t be fixed.” Then Suchee went on as if her daughter were in the room with her at this moment. “You can be married to Tsai Bing next month,” she said. “You know he has waited a long time. Tomorrow I will go to the Neighborhood Committee director. That old grandma will understand. You will have your marriage permission certificate by the end of the week. The child permission certificate may be a little more difficult. You and Tsai Bing are still young, and this will be your only child. But I am not concerned. I have known that busybody director for so long. If she wants to make trouble for you, I will tell stories of when she was young, eh? So don’t worry. I will take care of everything.”

  But her comforting words had done little to calm Suchee’s own emotions, and during the night she’d been jarred awake many times, feeling a sense of foreboding that went beyond the news of the pregnancy. “The next morning Miaoshan was dead, and the police wouldn’t listen when I said that the men in our village were getting rich by sending girls and women to that factory,” Suchee continued. “They don’t care what happens so long as they make their profit.” Before Hulan could question her about this, Suchee said in a voice filled with remorse, “But I let her go there! And when I saw she was happy, I let her stay! She liked the work and brought home most of her salary.” With that money Suchee had been able to buy extra seed and some new tools. But her worries blossomed again with each visit home, which became increasingly rare as Miaoshan began spending her weekends at the factory too. One minute Miaoshan talked sweetly, the n
ext her words were filled with turpentine. One day she combed her hair into pigtails, and the next week she came home from the factory in new clothes and with makeup all over her face. She talked about marriage, then almost in the next sentence switched to the subject of her desire to leave Da Shui and go to a big city—somewhere much larger than either Taiyuan or Datong.

  As Suchee talked, Hulan wondered if these were just the naïve dreams of a simple country girl. In her job at the MPS, Hulan had firsthand experience with members of this class who were illegally leaving their villages and flooding cities like Beijing and Shanghai, looking in vain for a better life, only to find bitterness. In their innocence they were often the victims of criminals and crime syndicates. Without residency permits or work units in the cities, they were also subject to harassment and arrest by the police. Was Miaoshan just another one of these dreamers?

  And parts of Suchee’s story didn’t make sense. Where was Miaoshan getting the money for new clothes, especially if she was giving the bulk of her salary to her mother? Where did Tsai Bing fit in? And what about Suchee’s comment about the men in the village? If Hulan had been in Beijing and if Suchee had been a stranger, she would have felt no compunctions about asking whatever she wanted, but she was in the countryside now and Suchee was a friend. She would need to tread softly.

  “I’m wondering about Tsai Bing and Ling Miaoshan,” Hulan ventured. “Was theirs a true love or an arrangement?”

  Instead of answering the question, Suchee asked one of her own: “Are you asking if we were following a feudal custom? Arranged marriages are against the law.”