Bitter Winds (21 page)

Sky ignored the guard. “I guess I’ve been better. But tell me, what about Lily? Is she home? Is she okay? I’m so sorry for dragging her into this.”

Li Jin found her voice. Sky needed normalcy. “Yes, she’s okay. She’s home but it’s complicated. Ivy took her place and is still at the hospital. They’ve set a fine.”

Sky shook his head. “Typical. They know she’s too young and inexperienced to really be a Falun Gong practitioner. I told them so, but this is just another example of extortion of the people. We need a law to regulate the acts of hospitals and the government, and to prevent them from jailing normal people in mental hospitals.”

“We’re trying to take care of getting Ivy out, but let’s talk about you. How are you really?” Li Jin asked.

Sky looked up at the camera and winked. “Oh, they’re treating me like the little emperor in here. Besides being forced to attend brainwashing sessions every day to watch their ridiculous videos and listen to their lectures, I have to write thought reports before they’ll let me sleep. Their education helpers—meaning the brainwashing assistants—might force me to read material that slanders Falun Gong. But they know I won’t bend.”

Sami pushed the fruit toward Sky. “We brought more food, but you can only have this, and only in here, so start eating.”

Sky grabbed a handful of the longans and peeled one, then popped it in his mouth. Li Jin reached across the table and picked up a few. He needed to concentrate on eating, not peeling. Their time was slipping away fast.

She pretended not to see the many pin-sized scabs on his arms, though she wondered what had caused them.

He nodded toward the pile of clothing. “Thank you. Did Bai Ling send those?”

“Yes, she also sends her best wishes. She’s very upset,” Li Jin said.

“I know she can’t come here. She’s too delicate. But tell her the clothing is much appreciated. In addition to making me go entire days without relieving my bladder, they also make my room frigid cold. It’s their mental persuasion to make me cooperate.”

“What do they want you to do?” Li Jin asked.

“If it was me, I’d say whatever they wanted me to in order to get out of here,” Sami said.

“They want me to renounce Falun Gong, of course,” Sky said nonchalantly. “But I’ve been here before and I know the drill. I wasn’t even allowed to sleep the first thirty-six hours I was here, but they still didn’t break me.”

He looked so sad Li Jin felt her heart stir. “Are you homesick?”

Sky looked up. “Just like the poet Zhu Yufu did, I feel the loss. ‘Dark falls between the bars and I think of home, missing the warmth of a mother’s hand, yet here I lie against the wall, an accused man in a foreign land
.
’ ”

Sami snorted. “It’s not like you’re in a foreign land.”

Li Jin would’ve kicked her under the table if she could’ve reached her. She truly had no compassion sometimes. Sky didn’t seem to mind her sarcasm. He went back to eating his fruit, filling the cheeks that had looked so hollow. He’d definitely lost weight.

“Are you at least allowed to do your exercises?” Li Jin asked.

He shook his head. “Absolutely not. They have someone watching me at all times. They think taking away our exercise is the real torture for us practitioners. But they don’t understand, Falun Gong is not just about physical exercise—that’s just a misconception many Chinese have. Ours is different than other practices because we place greater focus on the mind than anything else.” He pointed at his head. “They can hurt my body, but they won’t touch the peace I have stored in here. And reciting poetry all day and evening keeps me sharp, despite the lack of sustenance in here.”

Li Jin watched him talk and saw some of the old spark return to his eyes. She didn’t really know anything about Falun Gong, but if it brought him happiness, who was she to judge?

“Is there anything I can do?” She didn’t tell him she was already working out a plan to get him sprung. She didn’t want the camera to catch her words. But she needed to know how much his fine was.

“Not for me. My fine is too high because this isn’t my first offense. Twenty thousand reminbi, if you can believe that. But they’ll let me go in a few months. If I say what they want, I’ll be sent to the cells on the second floor where the so-called
transformed
are kept. They’re sentenced to months of slave labor until they fulfill their sentence. But since I won’t fold, I’ll either be kept here or they’ll move me to another detention center outside of town.”

“Maybe you’ll be out of custody before then.” Li Jin looked at him and tried to convey the message with only her eyes.

Sky looked at the clock. “We don’t have much time before the guard takes me back. Listen, I need to tell you a few things you can do to help Ivy. First, go to the Public Security Bureau and fill out a grievance. They may possibly let you have an evaluation by a panel of doctors to prove that Ivy doesn’t need to be there, but you’ll have to push hard.”

“The bureau hasn’t been very helpful so far,” Li Jin said. That was putting it mildly. Her Baba had barely been able to see Ivy in the past week. She couldn’t imagine what the poor girl thought about her lack of visitors.

“They won’t. But you have to be strong. The authorities don’t follow the rule of law and they have friends everywhere. You can also ask for a diagnostic review from a psychiatrist who isn’t involved in the initial assessment. You might luck out on that but it’ll cost you.”

As he talked, Li Jin studied his face. He wasn’t even concerned for himself. He was more focused on giving them pointers on how to help Ivy.

“Li Jin . . . are you listening?” he asked, tapping the table and bringing her out of her daydream. “This is important. Bad things happen to people accused of being Falun Gong. You’ve got to get her out of there before she becomes a statistic.”

“Yes, I hear you, and hurry up and eat more of the fruit.” She pushed an orange at him. He needed vitamin C; he looked pale and sickly. But he was still handsome.

He grabbed the orange and grinned up at her. “Watch how fast I can do away with all this fruit.”

Sami laughed at Sky shoving the pieces in his mouth. Li Jin watched them joking with each other, feeling like an outsider. But she wouldn’t let it bother her. She needed to keep a positive outlook and then maybe everything would work out okay.

And it just had to. Her family was depending on her to do something to help Ivy and Li Jin didn’t want to lose their trust. To finally have a family to call her own and then have it break apart or forever be heavy with the sadness the corrupt city officials had caused, was just too much to fathom.

I
vy sat watching from her bed as the oily-haired doctor distractedly pushed his glasses farther up his nose, then stuffed a cloth-covered metal ruler in the woman’s mouth. The orderlies had spread her out on the stretcher and were trying to hold her steady, but even with so many hands bracing her, the woman continued to thrash and buck, her eyed darting around wildly in a silent plea for help.

“Why are they putting that in her mouth?” Ivy cringed and felt her own jaws tighten. She’d admitted to Mo, after the girl had pretty much figured it out, that she wasn’t blind. And then the whole story came out. Since then Mo had treated her as if she were some sort of hero, as well as helped her keep the charade going.

“They don’t want her to bite her tongue off.” Mo sounded bored from the bed beside her as she took a long drag on her cigarette. The girl had given away her dinner ration two days in a row to trade beds so she and Ivy could be next to each other. Over the last week they’d forged somewhat of an unlikely friendship, and Ivy was finding out her Ye Ye and Nai Nai had kept her and her sisters sheltered from so much of the world. That life was tough out there was the most consistent lesson Mo was giving her.

“Why can’t they just leave her alone? She was fine until they came after her.”

“Remember the first day when I told you it was easier to just take the medication they hand out? This is why—refuse enough
and they’ll restrain you. Keep it up and they bring out the zapper.”

Ivy watched in horror as what she had at first thought was a blood pressure machine was wheeled closer and the doctor attached electric needles to both sides of the woman’s head. He turned the knob and called out for everyone to step back. When they did, he hit another switch and the machine sent out an electric shock that caused the woman to shriek as if she were being slaughtered. Her head went rigid and she thrashed only once more, then went limp. Her eyes stared up at the ceiling but Ivy didn’t think she was seeing anything.

“Next time, don’t refuse your medication!” the doctor bellowed down at her, then turned and stomped from the room. He called out to the staff still standing around the stretcher. “One of you stay here to monitor her. Unhook the machine, and if she still won’t take her lithium, come get me.”

The woman had avoided the morning meds line and huddled into a corner when they’d tried to order her to take the pill. It wasn’t long before her resistance had brought out the rest of the gorillas.

Ivy was thankful she at least wasn’t required to take any medication during the day. So far, they’d only made her take the nightly sedative along with everyone else on the ward. And Ivy didn’t give them any trouble about it. Now they no longer made her stick out her tongue or even checked to see if she’d swallowed the pill. She’d given them no reason to suspect she was anything but drugged each night.

The pills were strong and literally minutes after taking one each night she fell into a dreamless sleep until Mo woke her the next morning. She was glad she didn’t have to take the lithium, as many who were on it acted as if they were out of their minds. Mostly they sat around staring or drooling, but sometimes they went into crying jags that were unbearable to listen to.

She sighed. She’d had only one visit from her Ye Ye and he’d told her to stay out of trouble, for they were still working on getting her released. So Ivy hadn’t seen a familiar face for days and she’d had plenty of time to think about her last conversation with Lily.

“Ivy, listen. You shared your secret with me and now I’m going to tell you something.” Mo crept across the space separating them and huddled next to Ivy’s bed. Secrets. Was that all there was
? Her mother’s secrets. Her secrets. Mo’s secrets
.

“
Hao le
. What do you want to tell me?”

Mo stuck out her pinky and Ivy joined it with hers.

“Okay, you know the orderly named George?”

“The skinny one with the shaggy hair over his eyes?” Ivy asked.

“Yeah, he’s cute, isn’t he?”

Ivy squinted at Mo and shook her head. “Mo, what are you trying to tell me?”

Mo laughed quietly. “He’s going to leave the door unlocked after he finishes his rounds tonight and I’m going out to meet him in the laundry room. He’s promised me a pack of cigarettes if I come.”

George had just started working their room that week and Ivy had noticed he’d had his eye on Mo from the first day. He was older than Mo’s eighteen years, and not what Ivy would consider cute, but definitely an improvement over most of the men who wandered in and out of their room. Still, Mo was her only friend and if she got discovered, Ivy would surely be alone again.

“Please, Mo, don’t do this. You can’t trust him and what if you get caught? You know they’ll send you to a higher-security ward.”

Mo smiled slightly. “Can anyone ever really be trusted? You have to take chances in life to ever say you lived a little. And I’m dying to get out of this room for a while. You have to remember, Ivy, I’ve been here for months. If I don’t get out, even for an hour or so, they’re going to be passing me the lithium—not because they want to but because I’ll need it.”

Ivy shook her head. It was useless—Mo was too stubborn. No matter what she said, the girl was dying for a diversion from their boredom and would do whatever it took to get it.

“And anyway, I’m almost out of cigarettes,” Mo said, sending Ivy a mischievous grin.

Ivy wondered but wasn’t about to ask how she’d gotten her supply so far. She could only imagine. While Mo talked about escaping for just an hour, Ivy couldn’t help but think she would also like to leave the room. At least Mo had been allowed out into the courtyard a few times. So far they said Ivy hadn’t earned that privilege. More than anything Ivy wanted to see the crazy geese Mo told her tales about. She knew she was lucky to have found the girl, because if there was one thing Mo had, it was an abundance of stories of chaos involving those called The Crazies, previous patients who’d entertained others with their antics.

Her eyes wandered over to the woman on the stretcher and Ivy was again glad for the anonymity of her sunglasses to hide the pity she felt. She knew it wasn’t right that people were treated worse than farm animals just because they were depressed or confused. She’d never seen this much cruelty in her life.

“Hurry up, lights-out time,” Mo muttered from beside her.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” Ivy had a bad feeling about what might happen.

“I am. Orderly Cho worked the day shift today, so I don’t have to worry about him. And I promise I won’t stay gone longer than an hour. That should be all I need to talk George out of more than just one pack of smokes. And I might even get a rise out of him.”

“Rise?” Ivy wrinkled her forehead.

Mo laughed. “Yes, rise. Sex. You do know what sex is, right?”

Ivy felt her cheeks flame. Of course she knew what sex was. But George wasn’t much more than a stranger! She knew Mo was eccentric, but now she wondered if she wasn’t really a little crazy after all. She ignored her question anyway.

Mo finally stopped giggling at her and got serious again. “You just watch the attendant while I’m gone and if she wakes up and starts to head over to my bed, you’ll have to cause a scene or something to distract her.”

Ivy definitely didn’t like the sound of that. She didn’t want to be punished for acting out or causing a scene. She bit her lip and looked at Mo. The girl was doing her best to hide the excitement threatening to spill out of her. Even if no one else could tell, Ivy could see it in the sparkle of her black eyes. Mo had better get herself back safely, too. Ivy didn’t want to have to deal with the crazy place all alone.

Hours later Ivy lay under her thin cover and waited for Mo to return. It had been a long day of passing time lying about or shuffling around the room, bored out of her mind. Finally Mo had left her to go to the table and play cards, and Ivy wished she could drop the blind charade and play with her.

The staff members had teased them with promises of a courtyard visit if they were good, but eventually the patients had given up and most—at least the ones who were lucid enough to know what was going on—had slipped into quiet and even angry moods until meds were passed out and then everyone was ordered to bed.

Now Ivy listened to the sounds of snoring around her. This was the first time she’d been awake this late since her arrival on the ward. Mo had made her promise not to swallow her sleeping pill in case she should need to divert an attendant’s attention away from her empty bed. Ivy had been nervous they’d catch her hiding it under her tongue but everything had gone smoothly and she’d been able to slip it out and crumble it under her pillow.

When the lights officially went out, and the attendant laid her head on the desk behind the glass and closed her eyes, Mo had slid quietly down to the floor to wait, and thirty minutes later she was gone out the door George had left unlocked.

Now Ivy was nervous.
Really nervous
. Mo had said she’d only be gone for an hour at the most and that had passed thirty minutes ago. What was she doing? Was she okay? What if she’d escaped? Or been caught? The more Ivy waited, the sicker she felt.

She looked at Mo’s bed. The girl had used both hers and Ivy’s pillow to form what looked like a body under the cover. Hopefully no one would notice she was gone.

More minutes ticked by and Ivy felt her heart would explode with anxiety if Mo didn’t come back. Finally, frustrated she was being pulled into it, she slipped from her bed and squatted on the floor.

She waited another five minutes to see if anyone stirred and when they didn’t, she quickly scampered across the room, keeping to the edges of the beds until she got to the door. She looked once at the sleeping form of their attendant through the glass window, then slid out the door and left it cracked open as she crouched on the other side of it.

Outside in the hall the lights glared brightly, making Ivy feel like a rabbit caught in a trap. Luckily, she didn’t see anyone around, but which way was the laundry room? She could only go forward, so she slowly and quietly moved along the hall, listening for any sound. Around the curve another hall led the opposite way. Ivy strained and thought she heard the sound of machines, so turned and headed toward the noise.

She covered the last few feet and slipped through the door. Several machines on the far wall of washers were running, but they couldn’t mask the sound of Mo giggling from the other side of a line of dryers. Ivy also saw a tendril of smoke making its way toward the ceiling.