The Secret Mother (12 page)

“Wow, Hunan
mei,
you look like a fairy tale Yeh-Shen!” said Fei Fei. “Now all we need is Prince Charming.”

I laughed and brushed her off, but glanced over my shoulder in case Manager He was there.

Make the other girls sit up and take note
… he’d said. I imagined wearing the shoes around the dorm. That would give those gossiping idiots something to talk about. They’d be so jealous, especially Damei.

“Can I help you?” asked a shop assistant in a voice that really meant ‘
What are you two greasy hats doing here?’
Her nose wrinkled as if we smelled putrid. “What exactly are you looking for?”

“We’re admiring these pink satin shoes.”

She held up the price tag. “They are very exclusive. Only to be worn by educated women of class.”

The shoes were 250 yuan. I had enough, but not for the train fare to Hunan as well. I decided not to bother.

“Sorry, ladies, but if you do not intend to purchase those shoes, then remove them at once. Proper urban ladies do not appreciate the smell you migrants leave behind.”

I smarted. “And what if I were to buy them?”

“I doubt very much a worker like you could afford …”

I reeled Manager He’s money onto her palm. “This is enough isn’t it?”

She held each note up to the light, saw they were real, and then was forced to kneel and tie the buckles for me.

I gloated.

The assistant wrapped my new shoes in a pristine box lined with pink tissue paper, and I thanked her with extravagant sarcasm.

When we left the store, Fei Fei flung her arms around me. “That was brilliant. What a show, what a posh woman you make!”

“Just because I’m a peasant, doesn’t mean I have to be treated like shit.”

She stared at me. Her face seemed to suddenly lose some of its spontaneous happiness. I guessed we both wanted to be fairytale Yeh-Shens at heart.

We spent another hour or so inside the store. Fei Fei talked me into having a free makeover. The make-up was imported from America. A beautician asked what look I wanted?

“New,” I told her. I wanted to look brand new. She performed a miracle: applying creams, powders, even whitener to make me look more western. She plucked my eyebrows and outlined my lips in pencil, saying I had a pretty face if it weren’t for the bags under my eyes. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me.

“You’ve got to buy some,” Fei Fei said. “You look amazing.”

We joined the dwindling crowds on Ladies Street. Fei Fei had a spring in her step. I asked if there was still time to go to the market.

“Oh, yes. I almost forgot.”

We walked in contented silence. I felt much more optimistic now that I had bought my own make-up and shoes – more rational about the whole situation. In fact, away from Forwood, I wondered why I had ever thought of leaving the place. Besides, did I really think that I could walk back into the farm and expect forgiveness? Where else could I go all alone? I needed to stick at it. If I was clever, Forwood still offered a world of opportunity. I should stay smart – smart and beautiful! Before long, even Damei would be eating out of my hand. I’d be the friend of every worker – it would be in their best interest.

I hurried Fei Fei along, eager to get back to the dorm and try on my new shoes. The hairs on my neck quivered as I imagined slipping my feet into their pink satin, snug as a love letter inside its envelope. I gripped the bag’s taffeta handle as we left the market and didn’t let go, especially not to help the little Sichuan
mei
carry her melons.

No-one noticed me in the dingy half-light of the dorm that evening. The lights had gone off at nine. The bosses had probably decided to save on electricity. I expected the girls to improvise and light candles or open the shutters, but they were all too exhausted from shopping in town. Fatty’s slender body hunched in purposeful sleep and the bunk wires rasped. Damei snored. Ren brushed her hair in the darkness, chafing her comb against a cotter. She had washed earlier, but the smell of Forwood was still on her: flinty, metallic, cold.

“You still awake?” I whispered and tugged gently on the edge of her blanket.

There was no reply.

I turned onto my side to face the cold wall. At home, I slept with Little Brother and would lie awake listening to his tiny snore, his snuffle. He’d fling an arm across me and it would stay there, heavy and warm all night.

“Can we talk?”

“Go to sleep,” said Ren, drowsy.

“But there’s something I want to show you.”

Soon after, her breathing deepened and a snore caught in the back of her throat. She slept mostly on her left side, her bad leg stretched out like a stork.

I reached beneath my bunk and felt for the bag with the pink taffeta handles. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t see what I was doing, I could feel. The satin was cool and perfectly smooth. I lay down and ran the satin up my bare leg, soft as a cat’s tail. Soft like the hands of Manager He. I closed my eyes and imagined him in his dressing gown.

“
Du
,” Ren mumbled in her sleep, “
Du …
”

I couldn’t help feeling annoyed; she was spoiling the pleasure of my new shoes. Perhaps I should wake her as I did Little Brother, when he dreamt about grass snakes.

“Du, come back!”

She jolted and I heard her racing breath, then a sigh as she lumbered over to face the wall.

I replaced my shoes in their box and curled my pillow into a tube, imagining it as Little Brother beside me in the narrow bunk. My nose and toes were cold. I packed my hands into my armpits where there was a measly residual heat. The skin on my face felt strange beneath the make-up. Tomorrow morning, the girls would wake and see how beautiful I looked.

But I couldn’t sleep. My mind flowed like the traffic in Nanchang. In the end, I decided to go and show Manager He my new belongings. I pinched the skirt and blouse from the foot of Damei’s bunk, where she kept it folded, and hurried out of the dorm.

The way was becoming familiar. Even in the dark, I could navigate the thirteen steps to the sanitary room, though it took a little more effort in high heels.

The place was eerily quiet without any workers. I walked over to the sink and set about refreshing my make-up. The mascara had smudged, my white skin was blotchy. I washed it away then re-applied the whitener, concentrating on my dimples. White, said the beautician, was the desirable colour for women who wanted to look beautiful: Western white, the shade of a garlic skin. I re-curled my lashes, freshened the eye shadow and softened my lips with gloss. It glided on easy as a silk
ch’ang-p’ao.

Already three o’clock. My feet hurried down the corridor into circuitry. A green light flashed above the pipework. I could have sworn it tracked me down the line, but I was distracted by a sudden movement in the bureau. It was him! I recognised his outline and the ruffled look of his hair. I teetered up the staircase, my knees wavering like willow. He sat hunched over his desk.

I expected him to tell me I was late, to point at his watch, to sigh, to set about shuffling his papers, but there was a silence between us that made my throat feel suddenly dry. I took up my stool in the corner, poured two cups of green tea and waited for him to speak.

He tasted the tea quickly, a few mouthfuls and it was gone. He poured another, his hand shaking.

“Let me,” I offered.

He startled as I moved closer.

“Productivity dropped again on Friday by half a percent.” He pulled back his swivel chair, crunching over some papers. “That’s almost a quarter of a car we’re losing every day.”

I hadn’t noticed before, but Manager He had a habit of resting the tip of his tongue on his bottom lip.

“A quarter of a car per day, a whole car every week, two cars per fortnight …” he gasped. “Something must be done before Schnelleck arrives. If he sees us in this state, our chances are up in smoke, along with our exhausts.”

I waited patiently for him to notice my shoes. “Every four days,” I corrected.

“Eh?”

“We are losing a car every four days, not every week; that is if we are losing a quarter of a car per day,” I said.

Manager He gulped. “Yes, exactly.”

Maybe my transformation was not so successful after all? Perhaps it was my turquoise eye shadow or the shape of my lips or the way my dimples looked beneath the white powder?

“What’s the news on the floor, 2204? How are they responding to the new food?”

“New food?”

“I had the menus changed yesterday after you said the pig’s blood soup wasn’t filling enough.”

“You listened to me?”

Manager He let out a laugh. “Don’t sound so surprised, that’s why you’re here. I can trust you. I knew that the moment I laid eyes on you.”

He glanced down at my shoes. I tried not to bunch my toes. “I see you made a purchase,” he loosened his tie. “Have the others seen them?”

“Not yet,” I said, “I’m waiting for the right moment. Tonight the lights went out early and …”

“Alright, alright, just don’t leave it too long, we’re in a sticky situation and I have to do everything in my power to speed up the department.”

Over his shoulder, I could see the towering papers on his desk. The sight of all that mess made my hands itch.

“Manager.”

“What is it, 2204?”

“I see you’re always so busy. It must be hard for you to keep order in your bureau on top of leading our department. Perhaps I could encourage productivity a little by helping you in here, with your papers?” I said, sensing the perfect excuse to see him more often.

He wiped his brow. “I’m impressed by your attitude. The others never … Oh, I’m living in the past, what do they matter now?”

The heat in his bureau seemed to be intensifying.

“So, that’s a yes?”

“Let me take a closer look,” he said suddenly.

At first I thought he was talking about his paperwork, but instead he gestured to my pink satin shoes. I felt myself redden, but lifted my left foot and he grasped it. A shiver ran all the way up to my belly. His hands were warm as newly laid eggs, his fingers solid around my ankle. Was it my imagination or did he stroke the skin there? I kept very still and let him touch me, pushing aside the memory of Madam Quifang’s inspection.

“You’ve done well,” he whispered. “Your shoes, your face, I can see the way you’ve transformed yourself.”

I grinned stupidly and may even have laughed with nerves.

“Aren’t you hot?” he said.

I felt myself swell like a red-lipped eugenia under the noonday sun, but I was frightened to say yes in case it led to something beyond my control.

He lifted the hem of Damei’s stolen skirt and put his hand on my knee. I sensed he was about to move closer and that I would let him. I wanted to know: would the silk of my lips fall away easily? The taste of sugar tickled on my tongue as I remembered his candies.

“Ha-ha! The cherry’s surely ripening by the day,” came a voice from the doorway. “You’d better watch out or she’ll become a weed, growing where you don’t want her.”

Manager He smarted.

Old Artist’s cane clinked the edge of my stool. “What’s this, a new face for old?”

“I was instructed to buy make-up.”

“Ha-ha! Light me the spirit lamp, He-Chuan, before I set to work carving out this beauty.”

“You mean he’s staying?” I said, forgetting my place.

“There’ll be no opium tonight, Old Artist. I need your full attention. The portrait has to look perfect.”

The man removed his deerstalker, his yellow-white hair wafted into soft peaks. “Whatever you say, Manager, whatever you say.” He eased himself into the chair, creaked open his sketch book and began drawing.

Manager He returned to his paperwork. Occasionally, he paused to look at my portrait. “Good!” or “Yes, that’s it!” he’d say.

“Stop gawping at the Manager,” said Old Artist. “Or your likeness will be cross-eyed.”

After that, Manager He did not look until Old Artist declared it finished.

“You’ve not lost your talent,” he said. “Be sure to include the 4x4, as we discussed. Make it shine – shine like a new dawn at the beginning of a new era.”

Of course, I didn’t know what the portrait was for or why anyone would want a picture of me.

“Have you got everything you need? The shoes, the face?”

Old Artist rubbed his chin thoughtfully. I could feel his eyes roving towards my chest. “I suppose, there is more I could do to highlight the girl’s natural assets …”

“No, definitely not. Not this time. She must remain covered. I don’t want a riot on my hands. You know what those squabbling women workers are like these days. Even if the randy monkeys in engineering were to approve, what good are they without the women following suit?”

Old Artist shut his sketchbook and gathered up his battered attaché case. There was an awkward silence and I realised it was time for me to leave the men alone. My job was done, although an aching part of me wished it wasn’t.

Manager He walked with me a little way into the circuitry room. His tongue rested thoughtfully on his lip, as though fishing for the right words.

“You’ve done well, 2204, you’ve made yourself look very different, very … distinctive.”

Distinctive
… I breathed in the word. That meant interesting, unique; distinctive in a good way, not a woman hidden in a factory of identical overalls and lives.

I felt his hand squeeze mine and I reciprocated by rubbing my thumb against his. Just this once, what harm would it do? His breath became shallow.

“Am I good enough for you?” I whispered.

“Good as new.”

The green light above the pipework flashed, and Manager He promptly let go of my hand. “Come back tomorrow night and do some paperwork,” he said.

I nodded, feeling suddenly adrift. He gestured towards the exit and I hurried away, clumsily knocking into a chair. Once in the corridor, I ran dream-like in my beautiful fairy-tale slippers. I ran through a factory of bodies, breathing walls and fading lights, until finally my bunk found me and I became a feather settling down to sleep, falling where the wind had blown me; swept up and weightless in a gust of his breath. Unsure what separated my day from my night. I fell to sleep wearing my Yeh-Shen shoes, my pink satin dreams – content for the first time since arriving at Forwood.