The Interior Page 22

  “Your words are true,” Suchee said. “But many people were able to retrieve their old lives. Shaoyi was not one of them, and neither was I. Like most girls, I had been betrothed almost since birth. I know this is a feudal idea, but even in those dark times customs didn’t change that much in the countryside. Naturally, the family heard of the cause of my mock marriage and called off the engagement. My parents tried to find another match for me, but who would take into their family a broken piece of jade? When Shaoyi came to our door, my father decided to accept him.”

  Hulan understood the devastating implications of what Suchee was telling her. In China a daughter was never considered to be a member of her birth family. She was raised as an outsider—someone who consumed valuable rice until she went to the family of her husband. Upon marriage the bride’s family had to provide a dowry, while the groom’s family had to pay a bride price. A poor family such as Suchee’s might have anticipated a few bride cakes, a few slivers of pork, and maybe a jin or two of rice. But as a broken piece of jade—a girl who had lost her virginity—Suchee was effectively worthless. No family would pay for her, and her parents couldn’t afford a larger dowry. However, Shaoyi too had been worthless. He no longer had access to his family. He certainly had no ties to anyone in Da Shui or any of the other neighboring villages. By being taken into his wife’s home, Shaoyi lost his identity. He traded in his last name and took on Ling as his new surname.

  “At first I was happy,” Suchee continued. “Then I saw the way he suffered. You city people do not understand hard work. Do you think a man who’s supposed to be an engineer is capable of chopping down trees for firewood, of plowing the fields with an ox, of using a long-handled hoe to work the land all day, every day, year after year? Even my father felt sorry for Shaoyi. Sometimes my father would say to him, ‘Go help Mama and Suchee with their work.’ And Shaoyi would have to obey, because he was no longer a true man. What could we give him to do? He couldn’t cook. He didn’t know how to patch clothes or”—and here she gestured to the work before her—” make shoes. My mother taught him how to shuck corn. Day after day he would sit outside stripping the cobs of their kernels, or separating seed, or cleaning the rice. Neighbor men saw him doing this work and ridiculed him.

  “Every year Shaoyi wrote to his family in Beijing, hoping that they would be able to get him assigned to a work unit in the capital and get him a residency permit. But when the government saw he had a wife and child in the countryside, they ignored the applications and even the bribes. To our government he had become a country bumpkin like me. Each year he became thinner and quieter. He developed ulcers and arthritis. Every winter I wondered if his lungs, which had been so damaged during his confinement, would finally fail. I made him tea with ginger and onions. I held his head over steamed vinegar to clear the congestion. But every night he coughed. When his sputum turned from green to red, I knew there wasn’t much time left. The barefoot doctor prescribed a tonic, but he died anyway. For too many years he had eaten bitterness.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry is not the word I want to hear,” Suchee said.

  “Then what do you want? For me to make it up to you? I’m trying…”

  “I’m glad you came for Miaoshan. And yes, that will help me. But I’m thinking of something else tonight. Despite all that happened, I know we were good friends. As I look back over the years, I can remember others. Madame Tsai on the next farm has always been free-spoken with me. Tang Dan’s wife was also good and funny when we worked in the fields. She is dead many years now, but I will always remember her. But you were my closest friend.”

  “I feel the same way,” Hulan admitted. “I have not had other friends since you.”

  “Then why did you report us?” Suchee implored. “It would have been so easy to look the other way.”

  “In those days I didn’t believe in a one-eye-open, one-eye-closed policy—”

  “No! You said those things and then you ran away. It’s the same with your foreigner now.”

  “It’s not,” Hulan said. “David’s trying to make me into something I’m not. He’s trying to control me.” But even to Hulan’s ears these words rang hollow.

  Suchee pressed her advantage, confronting her old friend on her weaknesses. “You accuse us and then you are gone. You meet your foreigner in America and then you run away from him. You come back here and work in the Ministry of Public Security, knowing, I think, that no one will be your friend if you do that job. And then you meet your foreigner again. You are together long enough to get pregnant. He wants you to come to him. Even if we don’t admit it, every single person in China would like to leave. You have that opportunity handed to you—”

  “You’re twisting what happened—”

  “And you decide to stay here,” Suchee forged on. “So he comes to you. Here is what I think happens: You are seeing a future before you. You are thinking you will be happy. One minute later—not even long enough for the sun to go around the earth—you have turned things into bitterness, so that now you run away again. It is easier for you to be alone by your own actions than to be left by others—”

  Suddenly a flashlight beam crossed the window opening. “Hulan! Hulan! Are you here?” David’s voice called out.

  Never had Hulan been so happy to hear his voice. Across the table, Suchee kept her eyes steady on Hulan, taking in her friend’s reaction.

  “You can run away from what I’ve said here,” Suchee said in a low voice, “but it won’t change the truth of it.”

  “If all you say is true, then why have you stayed my friend?”

  “I don’t know that I have,” Suchee answered truthfully.

  “Then why did you write to me?”

  “Because I needed to know what happened to my child. I thought that if you had any decency, you would come—”

  “Hulan!” David cried out again. “Are you here? Is anyone here?”

  Suchee stood. “He’s come for you,” she said. “This must mean he loves you very much. And I can tell you love him or else you wouldn’t be so tormented.” She crossed to the threshold, looked back at Hulan almost in sympathy, then stepped outside. A moment later Hulan heard Suchee greet David in almost incomprehensible English. “Hello. I am Ling Suchee. Hulan is inside house.”

  Hulan covered her face with her hands, willed her heart to slow down, and tried to compose a look that would not betray her feelings. Suchee had distorted the facts, but that didn’t make them any less painful to hear. Hulan heard David say her name. She took a breath, uncovered her eyes, and looked up to see him standing in the doorway.

  “Where’s Suchee?” she asked.

  “Outside with Investigator Lo.”

  Hulan let the implications of that sink in. Vice Minister Zai must have told Lo about this place. She said, “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too.”

  Ignoring everything that Suchee had implied, Hulan said, “I’m not used to anyone telling me what to do. I reacted badly.”

  David sat down opposite her. “What about me? The words I spoke came from someone else. I’m not like that, Hulan.”

  “I know.”

  “This is a big change for both of us. Can we just leave it at that? Put this behind us and start again?”

  “I’d like to.” The relief Hulan heard in her voice embarrassed her. She eyed David to see if he’d noticed. He had. She watched him struggle with what to do next. Would they fight? Would they need to have an American-style discussion of feelings? Or would he stay true to his suggestion of “putting this behind them”? As for herself, she wondered if she’d be able to have a discussion of any sort. She had run away. Admitting that allowed the rest of Suchee’s words to skitter around in Hulan’s brain like free radicals. She needed time to give them form, to shove them out or accept them. She saw David studying her and realized that, as usual, he was calculating how much she could take before she shut down or ran away. Just as she felt another rise in panic, David seemed to come to a
conclusion of his own.

  He cleared his throat and said, “Driving out here, I thought about what you said about the factory. If it’s true—”

  “It is.” These words sounded weak, as though she’d lost a great battle.

  Again Hulan saw the wariness in David’s eyes. “I have to trust what you saw,” he cautiously went on. “Still, what you’ve told me doesn’t jibe with how I experienced Henry Knight. He thinks he’s doing good for these people, paying them well, providing housing. Beyond that, he said several times that his employees haven’t had serious injuries. Have you seen anyone else get hurt?”

  Apart from her own little scrapes, Hulan had to admit that she hadn’t.

  “So Xiao Yang’s injury and suicide could have been a totally random thing.”

  “Except that Peanut said that when women get hurt, they disappear.”

  “For now let’s just say they’re fired, okay?” David said. Hulan could sense the emotions of the last hour falling away as he became caught up in Knight International’s problems. “That still leaves the alleged injuries. To me this suggests a flaw in the design or that some part of the manufacturing process is inherently dangerous.”

  “Those machines are dangerous.”

  “But you could say that about every piece of machinery on the planet,” he said. “The issue then changes from one about injuries to what happens if an employee gets hurt. And again, I have a hard time believing the Knights are irresponsible employers because I saw the way Henry reacted over that woman’s death. I don’t think he could have made that up. If he is, then he’s putting on an incredible act.”

  “Maybe Henry doesn’t know,” Hulan offered.

  “That’s not plausible. It’s his company. He built it. He takes pride in connecting to people, in knowing his products.”

  “But, David, how often does he come out here?”

  “Not as much as he’d like. He’s had heart problems…”

  “So maybe he hasn’t seen every part of the compound. Where are the worst conditions? On the main factory floor and in the dormitory. If he’s an honorable man, like you say, then he can’t enter the dormitory because it’s against company policy.”

  “Are you defending him?”

  “I don’t even know him,” she replied, “but I have to respect your judgment, especially when it comes to an American.”

  “But what about the factory floor?”

  She thought about this, then asked, “Have you taken a tour of the compound yet?”

  “I’ve seen parts—the Administration Building, a lunch room, the courtyard.”

  “One of the things I’ve noticed is that there are several places to meet with large groups of employees. There’s an auditorium, but the cafeteria could also be a place to talk to people, not to mention the courtyard. You could easily gather all of the employees out there. Maybe Henry hasn’t been on the factory floor because he’s never had to. Oh, maybe back on opening day, or maybe he goes to the final assembly room, but otherwise why would he go in there? And even if he did, it would be easy to keep him focused on the product, not the environment.”

  “Today he said that since the factory moved to China, he’s let Sandy and the others handle the manufacturing aspects of the business.”

  Hulan mulled this over, then nodded to herself.

  “What?” David asked.

  “What’s that American saying? Something about out of sight, out of consciousness?”

  “Out of sight, out of mind.”

  “That’s it. The first time I went to the factory, Sandy Newheart took me into the final assembly area. When you’re in there, it’s huge, with a hundred women working. You don’t think about what you’re not seeing. When I asked about what was on the other side of the wall, he got upset. What I’m trying to say is that the architecture of that place hides things. No windows. Excellent soundproofing. Doors that seem to go nowhere. Circuitous hallways that hide direction and dimension.”

  “I’m not sure I follow what you mean. You can’t ‘hide’ a room with seven hundred women in it.”

  “But you can,” Hulan said as she stood up. David followed her outside. They found Suchee and Investigator Lo sitting on their haunches next to the Mercedes, smoking Marlboros.

  “Suchee, can you get those plans you showed me before?”

  Hulan’s friend stood, went out to the shed where Miaoshan had been found, and came back with the manila envelope. Together they went back into the house. Suchee flipped on the single bare lightbulb. Hulan cleared Suchee’s shoe project off the table and wiped the dampness away with her forearm. After Suchee pulled out the papers, Hulan riffled through until she found the factory plans. The four of them leaned in, hovering over the main site plan. Hulan spoke in English, pointing out each building to orient the others. Quickly she flipped this plan aside to show the second-story designs and, tapping her finger across the paper, showed those few places where there were windows—all on the second story, all facing out over the wall as opposed to into the courtyard. Then she went to the Assembly Building specs.

  “Here’s the front door and the lobby. Right here they have a desk. There’s a button underneath the desk that unlocks the door into the main part of the building.” With her finger she traced the route to that door, and crossed to the foyer on the other side where the women separated into two groups. “If you go right, you eventually end up in the final assembly room. If you go left, you end up in the main manufacturing area.” From here she traveled along the serpentine hallways, hesitating before other doors which either led nowhere or to small closets or rooms. She tilted her eyes up to David’s. “By the time you’ve gotten to this main room, you don’t know whether you’re facing north or south, or where you are in relation to the rest of the compound.”

  Suchee muttered something. Hulan asked her to repeat it, which Suchee attempted in English. “You talk fast. I do not understand. But this is like the fields. No straight…” Suchee frowned, looking for the word, then reverted to Mandarin, rattling off several sentences and gesturing this way and that.

  Investigator Lo and Hulan nodded in understanding. Then Hulan explained to David that in the countryside paths between the fields were never built in a straight line; nor was there ever a direct route to a farm or a village. On the superstitious level, this was done to confuse ghosts. On the practical level, it had been done to baffle bandits, kidnappers, and invading armies. “The women who work in the factory—myself included—don’t see it, because they’re so accustomed to it.”

  “And Henry Knight designed his factory this way to confuse the people who work there?” David asked.

  “What if it was designed this way to keep out prying eyes, including his own?”

  “Hulan, if things are as bad as you say, is it conceivable that Henry Knight wouldn’t know? Put another way, who’s the only person who will benefit from a cover-up? It’s Henry Knight’s company. He’s selling it for a huge profit. Obviously if there’s something wrong, it needs to remain hidden until after the sale.”

  “What about his son?”

  “Doug? He’s going to make money with the sale, of course, but not as much as his father. And he’ll stay on after the takeover. Henry’s been fighting for that.”

  “So his son can take the blame when everything comes to light?” Hulan asked. “What kind of a father is he?”

  An uncomfortable silence clamped down over the group. Every person in the room knew what had happened between Hulan and her father. Hulan looked into each of their faces, seeing their sympathy. Keeping her voice steady, Hulan said, “But this isn’t a vendetta as far as we know. This isn’t one man against…” She faltered. When she next spoke, her tone was hard. “This is a big factory. If Henry knows, wouldn’t they all know? Madame Leung, Sandy Newheart, Aaron Rodgers, that security guard, even Doug Knight?”

  “And Miaoshan,” Suchee ventured.

  David’s and Hulan’s eyes met across the table as they considered. “What else
did Miaoshan bring home?” David asked.

  Hulan opened up more building plans, but no one could see their significance. There were also plot plans of the surrounding area, indicating that perhaps the company had once considered expanding the compound. But when Hulan showed David the spreadsheet, she noticed his involuntary intake of breath, then the way he swiftly recovered. On the left of the page were the names of the various action figures. Next to these names were numbers, whether in dollars or yuan Hulan couldn’t tell. She picked up one of the papers and stared at the names: Sam, Uta, Nick, Gaseous, Annabel, Notorious.

  “Why is it these six Friends?” Hulan asked. “The ten characters were designed as a team. Where’s Cactus?” She quoted the print ads and the history she’d seen on the brag wall at the Knight compound. “‘Sam and Cactus are best buddies, doing right together.’ It was a master stroke of marketing, don’t you think? A child can’t have Sam without at least having Cactus.” Suddenly she yelped in triumph. “It’s the stupidest code I’ve ever seen, but so stupid I would have missed it if I didn’t know something about the toys.”

  As soon as she said this, David immediately discerned the pattern. Sam, Uta, Nick, Gaseous, Annabel, Notorious. SUN GAN.

  “This is so obvious it has to be a set up,” Hulan said. Then, seeing David’s hooded look, she asked, “Have you seen something like this before?”

  David’s jaw tightened. Hulan was sure he wasn’t even aware of it. When he answered “No,” she knew he was lying.

  “What about the papers Sun sent you?” she pressed.

  David stared at her resolutely. The documents in his room bore a striking resemblance to these. They had the same typeface, layout, and the Knight letterhead. But he couldn’t tell Hulan any of that.

  “Investigator Lo,” Hulan said without taking her eyes off David, “perhaps you’d like to wait outside. This could mean political trouble for all of us, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to protect you.”

  Before Lo could respond, David sighed. “He doesn’t have to go anywhere.”