Hulan kept her eyes lowered. She spoke softly, humbly. "I have."
The man pulled himself out of his chair and crossed to Hulan. "Where have you been all this time?"
"I went to Beijing. People in my village say it's easy to go there and find work, but no one would hire me." Hulan's voice filled with anxiety. "They are not nice to country bumpkins like me."
"Like you? Like me, too!" The man signaled the waitress to bring tea, then said, "Sit down. I can help you."
The waitress brought the tea, poured it, and left without a word. Hulan's fingers shyly edged across the tabletop to her cup. The man said, "Take the tea. It will relax you and we can talk." As Hulan sipped, she kept her eyes focused on the greasy tabletop. The whole time she could feel the man appraising her. "Do you still have the papers I gave you?" he asked at last.
Hulan nodded and gave them back already filled out. She'd tried to answer each question as simply as possible, knowing that the closer to the truth her lies were, the easier they would be to remember.
"Liu Hulan," the man read aloud, glancing up at her. "A good, common name for women your age. There are probably some other Liu Hulans at the factory. You might enjoy meeting them. Your birthplace? Umm…" He crossed out what Hulan had written, then wrote in new characters. "We'll say Da Shui Village. It's less complicated that way. Now, what are your special skills?"
"Until my husband died, I worked in our fields. I can also cook, sew, clean, wash…"
The man shook his head impatiently. "They will teach you everything you need to know. Any illnesses?"
"No."
"Good," the man said. "Now sign here." When Hulan faltered, he said, "What is it?"
"How much will I earn?"
"Ah," he said, drawing out the syllable and assessing her again. "You are a thinking woman. Impudent but thinking."
Hulan stared at the man noncommittally.
"The contract is for three years," he said. "As I told you before, the factory will pay you five hundred yuan a month, plus room and board. You will have Saturday afternoons and Sundays off. You may leave the compound during those times, but since you don't live in a neighboring village, you will be allowed to stay in the dormitory for a small fee. You won't be lonesome, because most of the women who work there are from far away."
Hulan picked up the pen and signed.
The man's solicitous attitude instantly evaporated. "The bus comes at eight o'clock. It will stop right outside the village. Please wait there." With that he scooped up her contract and walked away.
Hulan raised her eyes and saw the man hunker back down into his group. She picked up her satchel, left the village, and went to stand on the dusty patch of land that passed for Da Shui's parking lot. At quarter to eight two other women arrived. Hulan ascertained that one of them, Jingren, about eighteen, had-like Hulan's cover story-retraced her steps to this town after failing to find work in Beijing. The other, Mayli, was about fifteen. She'd come here from Sichuan Province after some labor scouts had come to her village promising work in either Guangdong Province or Shanxi Province, even though she was below legal hirable age. The salaries were the same, Mayli explained, but if she came here, she was only a six-day bus ride from her village. "And no other women came with you?"
"Oh, there were many girls from my village who got on the buses. Have you been on a bus before?" When Hulan said she hadn't, Mayli said, "Everyone has her own meals packed. This is okay on the first day, but on the second day, with the smells and the winding road, many people were getting sick. For me it was very bad. The other girls are complaining, because I am so sick. Finally the bus driver can't stand it anymore. He leaves me in another village. I am there for five days. Can you believe it? But I had signed my contract, and the bus had to come back for me. I got here last night." She gestured back toward the village. "They found me a place to sleep. They said they usually send new girls to the factory on Sunday nights, so they can get processed first thing in the morning and work a full week. But they also have a bus that comes every day to nearby villages to pick up stragglers." Mayli looked at Hulan and Jingren. "What does that mean, to be processed?"
Before either woman could answer, the bus rounded the corner. It was neither a city nor a provincial bus, for it was far older than even those that usually plied country roads. The bus stopped and the door wheezed open. The three women picked up their parcels and climbed aboard. About a dozen women were already on the bus. Most of them had spread out their possessions so that no one would sit next to them. The driver ground the gears and began to pull away even before the three newcomers had found seats. Then someone at the back of the bus shouted, "Wait! Someone's coming!" The driver stopped, threw open the door, and Tang Siang, her hair a windblown mess, hopped up the steps. "I don't wait for people," the driver said. "Next time I will keep driving."
"It won't happen again," Siang called out over her shoulder as she came down the aisle, trailing her belongings behind her. She plopped down in a seat across from Hulan. After she'd arranged her gear, she looked across the aisle at Hulan, trying to place her. "I know you." "I am the friend of Ling Suchee." "Yes, I remember now, but you look different." Hulan ignored the remark, introduced her to Mayli and Jingren, then said, "I'm surprised to see you here."
Tang Siang ran her fingers through her hair. "It will surprise everyone, I think."
"Did you run away from home?" Mayli asked. "Something like that, yes." Looking at the expectant faces, Siang said, "My father is a strong man. I can even say he is a wealthy man in our village, but he is old-fashioned. He thinks he can tell me what to do, but I don't have to do it."
"What about Tsai Bing?" Hulan asked.
When Siang didn't answer, Mayli, her voice filled with girlish excitement, asked a series of questions. "Do you have a boyfriend? Are you betrothed? Is it for love or is it arranged?"
Listening to the three young women, Hulan thought back to her own girlhood-first on the Red Soil Farm, then later as a foreign student at the boarding school in Connecticut. She remembered her own naive dreams of how her life would be and realized that those dreams weren't much different on either continent, nor had they been truly changed by time or culture.
"I am not engaged," Siang said. "Not yet anyway." "Your father doesn't approve," Mayli said sympathetically. "Men want a lot of things," Siang said, trying to sound worldly. "But that doesn't mean I have to give it to them."
Hulan wondered if Siang was talking about her father or Tsai Bing. "So, did you run away?" Mayli repeated.
Siang tossed her long black hair over her shoulder. "Last night I went to the cafe. I said I wanted a job. But those men are cowards. They said they couldn't hire me. They said they would tell my father. You want to know what I said?"
Mayli and Jingren nodded.
"I said they would have far more trouble if they didn't hire me. So they let me sign the paper. Then this morning when my father went out to walk his land, I packed my things and came running."
"Won't your father come after you?" Mayli asked.
"My father will not interfere with the foreigners' business. That is one reason I know my plan will work."