The Interior Page 17

  Hulan stretched out. The sheets were unwashed and they smelled.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “Where do I get fresh linens?”

  The other women looked at her as if she were crazy.

  The girl who’d spoken before said, “Same bed. Same sheets. Don’t worry about it. You’ll get used to it, if you can last the night.” Her forehead wrinkled again and she giggled.

  “I am Hulan.”

  “People call me Peanut,” the girl said. “They call me that because I am small like a peanut.” She was small, but Hulan thought it was the girl’s peanut shape combined with her goofy facial expression that had earned her the nickname. “You’d better hurry. Lights go off in twenty minutes. If you want to use the bathroom, you should go now. It’s down the hall on the left. You won’t miss it.”

  Hulan followed the directions, passing room upon room of women and girls—some barely teenagers. By and large there was little conversation. Chinese people had always lived in crowded conditions. With so many generations living in a few rooms, Hulan’s compatriots had learned how to be alone in a crowded space. Most of the women were already in their beds, their backs turned to the doors, trying to sleep or already asleep. Others lay on their backs, staring at the ceiling or the bunk above them. A few sat on the concrete floor talking, while others changed from their pink uniforms into extra-large T-shirts for sleeping. She passed one room where a girl no more than twelve sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor crying. She was obviously too young to be away from home, and yet Hulan had also been on her own in this very county at that age.

  Peanut had been right about finding the bathroom. The smell led Hulan straight to it and she was shocked by what she saw. This was an American company, so she’d expected to find American-style facilities. Instead this was almost as bad as a public latrine. There were stalls but no doors. There were toilets but no seats, and the floor was slippery and wet. The big vats of water that lined the opposite wall told Hulan that this place had no running water. Hulan dipped a pail into the water and went to a toilet. Looking around, Hulan asked a woman where the toilet paper was stored. “In the company store,” the woman responded gruffly, turning her head away. “You can buy it tomorrow before breakfast or during lunch.” Without looking Hulan’s way, she tore some paper off her roll and said, “Here, you can have this.”

  When Hulan was done, she poured the water into the back of the tank, flushed, and took the empty pail back to the water vats. She then went to the sink—a long trough with several spigots but again no running water.

  “We have water for one hour in the morning and from eight to nine in the evening,” the woman said.

  “Is the water safe for drinking?”

  “Even in my home village we boiled our drinking water, but the Americans won’t let us have braziers or any other cooking utensils.” Then she added dryly, “You can buy bottled water in the store tomorrow.”

  When Hulan got back to her room, she slipped off her shoes, lay down on the bed, and waited. At five minutes to ten she got up again. Just as she was about to leave, Peanut whispered, “You have to stay here. Lights out in a few minutes. You can’t get caught outside the room.”

  Hulan put a hand on her stomach. “I think the bus made me sick. I have to use the toilet again.”

  “Just come back as soon as you can.”

  Hulan threaded her way not toward the bathroom but toward the exit. A few feet before she reached it, the lights went out and the hall was pitched into utter blackness. Hulan groped her way forward, found the door handle, and pushed her way outside. The moon glowed through the thick, humid air. She edged around the side of the building, pulled out her phone, dialed the number for the Shanxi Grand Hotel, and asked for David’s room.

  “Hello?” His greeting sounded worried.

  “I’m okay,” she reassured him.

  “Where are you? You said you’d be back here for dinner.”

  “I couldn’t get away. This place…It’s worse than I thought.” She flexed her wounded hand and winced at the pain.

  “I’ll have Investigator Lo come and get you.”

  “No!” Hulan glanced around but still didn’t see anyone. She lowered her voice. “I can’t leave now. They have us locked in the compound.”

  “I don’t like this. I know I sound like some dumb male, and I’ll admit it, maybe that’s part of it. But Jesus, I wish you weren’t in there.”

  She cut him off. “Have you met the Knights yet? What are they like?”

  He sighed. “They didn’t show. They had bad weather in Tokyo. A typhoon, I think. Anyway, we’ll have to try and cram everything in tomorrow.”

  “Then how did you spend your day?”

  “I came back to the hotel and went for a run down along that creek they call a river. The rest of the day I was either on the phone or on the Internet. What else? Governor Sun just sent over a carton of papers, along with his signed waiver.”

  “So what are they?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “Financials of some sort. I’ll look more closely before I meet with him.” He hesitated. “But you know we shouldn’t talk about them anyway. He’s a client.”

  He was right, but Hulan wasn’t so sure she liked it. Still, he had his professional ethics and she had hers, which made answering his next question much easier.

  “Hulan, how do you think it will look if you’re caught in there?”

  “It’s going to be bad if I find something.”

  “But you’re not going to find anything.”

  “We’ve already covered this,” Hulan sighed. “This place isn’t what you think.”

  “You promised Zai and me—”

  “I know.”

  “I’ll be at the factory tomorrow at ten. I don’t want to see you there.”

  “You won’t,” she said.

  They exchanged good nights. Hulan punched the OFF button, put the phone back in her pocket, and went around to the entrance to the dormitory. She opened the door and waited for her eyes to adjust to the inky blackness. Suddenly a light flicked on.

  “What are you doing out here?” Madame Leung asked.

  Hulan looked down at the floor and didn’t answer.

  “You know the rules.”

  “I’m new, Party Secretary,” Hulan said tremulously. “I got lost.”

  “Your name?”

  “Liu Hulan, and I promise it won’t happen again.”

  Hulan felt Madame Leung’s eyes appraising her.

  “Are you the one who was asking those questions today?”

  “No, Party Secretary.”

  Looking at the ground, Hulan could see Madame Leung’s foot slowly tap on the concrete floor.

  “I will look the other way this one time,” the party secretary said at last. “There will be no penalty.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You may go back to your room. I’ll turn on all the lights so everyone will see you. If they ever see someone up and out again, they will know whom to report. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Party Secretary.”

  Madame Leung reached up and threw a series of switches. Without looking up, Hulan scurried past the party secretary. Hurrying back to her room, she felt the eyes of hundreds of women upon her. Moments after she settled onto her bunk, the lights were turned off. Hulan held her hand in front of her face and couldn’t see it. She lay there for a few minutes, listening to the breathing and occasional shifting of the other women in the room. Her thoughts were on Miaoshan. The mattress was only a few inches deep, but from within it Hulan could smell a distinctive scent that she remembered from America. It was White Shoulders perfume. No wonder the women who slept here talked of ghost spirits. The oppressively sweet odor had always reminded Hulan of death. As Hulan drifted off, she wondered how White Shoulders had found its way into a dormitory room deep in the interior of China.

  By quarter to seven the next morning Hulan had already had a cold shower, had dressed in her pink smock, had
stopped in the company store to buy toilet paper and bottled water at three times Beijing prices, had slurped down a breakfast of congee with pickled turnip, and had finagled a spot in line with Siang to enter the Assembly Building. At 6:50 a bell rang and the line began to move. Madame Leung and the guard Jimmy stood in the middle of the lobby. If Jimmy recognized Hulan, this would all be over. When she reached him, he stared directly at her, but she was just another woman in a pink smock with a pink bandana covering her black hair. Madame Leung put an arm out to stop the line. She handed Hulan and Siang passes, looked around, spotted Peanut, and said, “Take them to your post and teach them what to do.” Peanut nodded, and Hulan thought how strange it was that this place seemed to have so much security and the workers were so much under the control of the managers, and yet actual assignments could be as haphazard as who happened to be standing nearby at the time.

  “We’ll be watching you today,” Madame Leung said. “Remember, if you do well, you’ll be promoted. We reward good work. If you cannot do the work, do not despair. There are many jobs here at Knight. We will find something for you.”

  The line moved forward again. Peanut showed Hulan and Siang how to wave their passes over the bar code reader. Then they entered the door. The women ahead of them automatically divided into two groups, each going down different corridors. Hulan’s line snaked left and right through the halls until she felt completely disoriented. Siang must have felt the same way, because she reached out and grabbed a pinch of Hulan’s smock. Peanut bounced along rapidly, once turning her head back over her shoulder to say, “Everyone feels lost in here when they start, but you’ll get used to it in a few days.” They entered the main workroom, the women moving briskly to their positions before the various machines. At 7:00 the machines clamored to life. Within minutes the clatter and clanking of the machines had created a deafening roar.

  Fortunately, Hulan and Tang Siang had been assigned to work with Peanut, who, although young, had a cheerful disposition and a great deal of patience. Peanut explained that they had been given the easy job of punching strands of plastic hair into minuscule holes in the heads of the dolls. Hulan remembered this task from the day before and thought that she’d gotten a lucky break. She was mistaken. Yesterday she’d been seated and she hadn’t yet hurt her hand. Today she stood before a conveyor that sped up as the morning progressed. What had seemed relatively easy the day before as the trainees had moved from station to station soon became impossibly difficult. As the machines continued to churn, the room’s temperature rose until the only respite came in the form of the slight oven-hot breeze that came off the moving parts of the equipment. After three hours Hulan’s hands burned with fatigue, her wound throbbed, her fingers were scratched, and her smock was damp with sweat.

  Siang’s hands, however, moved deftly, competently. After the morning break Aaron Rodgers, who circulated between this room and the final assembly area, stopped to compliment Siang on her abilities. “Thank you very much,” she said in heavily accented English.

  Aaron’s face broke into a smile. He leaned his head toward Siang’s and spoke into her ear. With the sound of the machines, Hulan couldn’t hear what he said, but she could see Siang blush, return his smile, and reply, “No, I am not a city girl. I am educated here in our local school. My father says English is very important.”

  Aaron Rodgers agreed, massaged Siang’s shoulders for a moment, then turned his attention to Hulan. Again there was absolutely no sign of recognition. Aaron looked right into her face and, keeping a proper distance, spoke Mandarin in a tone loud enough to be just barely heard over the din of the machines. “Your fingers are bleeding. We can’t have that on the figures.”

  “I’m sorry,” she responded in Mandarin.

  Aaron reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple of Band-Aids. “Use these. During the break, come to me. I will try to find you another job.”

  “I’ll do better,” Hulan vowed.

  “We’ll see,” he said. “For now, just get back to—”

  A woman’s high-pitched screams cut him off. Instantly a quiet fell just under the continuing drone of the machines as all of the talking among the women came to an abrupt halt. Once the machines were shut down, the woman’s screams seemed even louder as they reverberated through the echoing vastness of the room. Aaron took off at a trot; then the others left their posts and began crowding around the injured woman. Hulan edged into the throng, using her elbows to push her way to the front.

  A woman sat on the floor before the fiber-shredding machine. Her right hand gripped her left elbow, holding that arm up and away from her body as she tried vainly to stanch the flow of blood. The flesh along her forearm was sliced open, and two of her fingers were gone. Aaron knelt beside her, pulled his shirt off, and wrapped it around the arm. Without any hesitancy he picked her up. The crowd parted to create an aisle. As he walked toward the door, the woman began to struggle. “No! No! No!” Her screams now seemed louder, more terrified than before. Instinctively the other girls stepped back even farther. A few turned their eyes away. A minute later Aaron stepped out of the room, the door shut, and the woman’s screams faded. Someone near Hulan muttered, “We won’t see Xiao Yang again.” Then Madame Leung’s voice came over a loudspeaker. “Please return to your places.” The girls obeyed. Levers were pulled and buttons pushed. The machines revved back to speed, and the girls went back to their labors. Hulan held her spot just long enough to see the still bloody claws reach out, grab another fiber brick, and draw it into the machine’s thrashing maw.

  10

  TWO HOURS AFTER HULAN TOOK HER PLACE ON THE assembly line for her first full day of work, Investigator Lo dropped David off in front of the Administration Building. As with Hulan’s initial visit, Sandy New heart stood on the steps to greet him. The two men shook hands, then went into the building, making their way down a corridor to a conference room where Henry and Douglas Knight awaited their arrival. There were no other attorneys present.

  Henry Knight’s handshake was straightforward and firm. He was of average height and lean. His silvery hair curled just over his collar. “It’s great to have you here,” he said. “Randall Craig and Miles Stout said they’d send us someone who was familiar with China, our company, and was quick on his feet. They say you fit the bill.” He looked over to where his son sat. “That’s my boy, Doug.”

  Doug raised a hand and waved. He looked to be about forty-five. Like his father, he was thin. But while Henry seemed spry and full of vigor, Doug came across as gaunt and lethargic.

  “Can I get anyone coffee?” Sandy asked. “I can have it brought in.”

  “No, thanks,” Henry said. “I don’t want some damn tea girl hovering around. We can break later.” Then, “That okay with you, Stark?”

  “Just fine.”

  The four men sat at one end of the table, leaving the other dozen seats empty.

  “We’re on a tight schedule with Tartan and I want to keep things moving along, so I’ll start with a quick review for your benefit.” Henry opened the file in front of him, waited for the others to follow suit, and said with a grin, “I’ve always liked the Tartan offer. They’re acquiring us outright. Doug retains his position as chief financial officer for five years. I gracefully exit and enjoy my retirement. Tartan asked for and received a non-compete clause, so that if I come up with any new ideas they’ll come straight here as they always have.”

  Henry checked the others, then went on. “But I don’t plan to do much in the way of development. I want to enjoy myself—travel a bit, visit my old haunts. Doug, on the other hand, is still young. I built this company and grew it to where it is today. We have these new technologies, and who knows where they’ll end up?” He turned his steel gray eyes on David. “I want my boy to be a part of that excitement.”

  “As I see it, everything you’ve asked for is right here,” David assured him. “But I wouldn’t be completely honest if I didn’t tell you that once a conglomerate like Tartan buys a
company like this, it gets to do what it wants. Sometimes the people who are left behind are squeezed out. Sometimes they’re uncomfortable with all the changes. Sometimes it’s a perfect fit. There are no guarantees.”

  “Is that what Miles told you to say?” Henry asked, grinning at David.

  “No,” David answered, “no, he probably wouldn’t have liked that I said that.”

  “An honest lawyer,” Henry said. “I guess that’s why they pay you the big bucks.”

  The others in the room laughed, as they were supposed to. David did too, realizing that despite Henry’s hard eyes and years of business, he fancied himself as a bit of a cutup.

  “All right, then,” David said, trying for a more lawyerly tone. “As I understand it, Miles Stout and Keith Baxter have gone through this about twenty times, so I know they’re satisfied. And I’m assuming that none of you or your lawyers are worried about the substance of the agreement—”

  “Yes, we’ve had lawyers look at things, but the buck stops with me,” Henry said. “I’m the one who makes the decisions.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want your attorneys here?” David asked. “Only a fool would go into a transaction like this without having representation.”

  “I’ve come a long way in business without using too many lawyers,” Henry said. “Mine have vetted everything. It looks good to them. My feeling is, why fly them out here first-class, put them up in a hotel, and hire them companions for the night, when I know my company better than anyone else? Put another way, it’s my money that’s at stake, and I’m satisfied.”

  David looked at Sandy and Doug to gauge their reaction to this outburst. Sandy drummed on the papers in front of him with his pen; Doug seemed to be daydreaming. Both were reactions that David had experienced with his own father on occasion. No, Henry Knight wasn’t the first entrepreneur to be a little eccentric. If that’s the way they wanted to play it, it was fine with David.