The Interior (Red Princess 2)

“At least you can come to the village,” Hulan said. “Get a bowl of noodles, walk around.”

“I’ve seen that village. What’s there? Nothing I haven’t seen a hundred times before in my own village. No, I’d rather stay here and save my money.” Peanut sighed and rolled over to face the wall. “See you later.”

Hulan stared at Peanut’s back, knowing that she probably wouldn’t be returning. “Okay,” she said, then added, “take care of yourself.”

Without turning, Peanut held up an arm and waved as if to push Hulan out the door. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

Back in the courtyard, the men who worked in the warehouse waited for the gate to open, while about fifty women and girls boarded the bus, their attitude very different from those left behind. Going back to their families, if even for a day and a half, gave them a buoyancy, a sense of expectation. Hulan took the seat next to Siang, and the bus drove out of the compound. Neither spoke and Hulan chose not to push it.

Just outside Da Shui Village several barefoot children waited for their mothers. After a flurry of hugs, they set off toward their homes, perhaps stopping at the meat shop to pick up a few slivers of pork with their hard-earned salaries. Siang said good-bye and turned down one of the alleyways. Hulan adjusted her bag on her shoulder, then hurried back onto the road.

A half hour later, she cut down into a cornfield. She called out that she was there, and Suchee called back so that Hulan might come toward her voice. A minute later they were face to face. Suchee’s shirt was wet with sweat, and her face was streaked with the red earth that had dusted up as she’d hoed a furrow.

“I go back to Beijing today to follow the story,” Hulan plunged in. “Before I leave, I want to see Miaoshan’s belongings from the factory and ask you a few more questions.”

Suchee set down her hoe and led the way along the furrow back to the house. From under Miaoshan’s kang Suchee pulled out a small, unopened cardboard box. “The factory sent a message to me through the men in the village that I should go and pick this up,” Suchee said, holding the box on her lap. “I haven’t opened it.” Her lips trembled, then she brusquely set the box down and went outside.

Hulan found a knife and slit ope

n the tape that held the box closed. On the top was folded a black miniskirt and a little lace blouse. The label said THE LIMITED, and Hulan had a vague memory of that chain of mall stores in California. She set these aside and pulled out a pair of Lucky Brand jeans and a T-shirt with a Wal-Mart tag. She’d seen these T-shirts before, since they were manufactured in China and often pirated out of factories by employees or the seconds were sold off in free markets, but the jeans brand was new to her and she wondered where they’d come from. Unzipping a toiletry bag, Hulan found a toothbrush and toothpaste, a hairbrush, gel, and hairspray, Maybelline mascara and eye shadow, and a bottle of White Shoulders perfume. Then she flipped through several glossy magazines filled with colorful photographs, looking for hidden papers or notes but encountering none. Some underwear littered the bottom of the box. Tucked into the sea of cotton was something wrapped in tissue and tied with silk ribbon. Hulan opened the package and found a bra and panty set of pink silk edged with black lace. Things like this could certainly be found in China, but not in Da Shui Village or even Taiyuan. Hulan looked for the label and read NEIMAN MARCUS.

Hulan repacked the box and slid it back under the kang. She went outside, stopping at the shed to pick up a hoe, and waded into the field to find Suchee. Once she reached her friend, she eased into the space next to her and began working the soil around the base of the corn. She hadn’t done this in more than twenty years, but the movement came back to her as though it had been yesterday—the chop into the soil, the quick jerk to lift it up, and then going back into the mound to aerate. Occasionally she bent down to pull out a weed. Soon sweat ran down her face, and the hand that had been punctured throbbed. Her shoulders, already sore from the factory, burned from a combination of her exertions and the sun’s rays coming through her cotton shirt. She knew her discomfort was compounded by her pregnancy, but at the same time realized that peasant women never stopped working for such an insignificant reason. At the end of the furrow, the two women crossed over to the next row and bent once again to their labors. Hulan’s mind was filled with questions she wanted to ask, but she was reticent, not knowing how to bring up Miaoshan’s sexual activities. But soon enough Hulan lost awareness of proper conduct, time, and even of the heat as she glided into the ancient rhythm of human and soil.

Two hours later, as they reached the end of yet another row, Suchee stepped out of the field to where she’d left a basket. She set down her hoe, squatted down on her haunches, and motioned for Hulan to join her. Suchee reached into the basket and pulled out a thermos. She poured hot tea into the tin cup that served as the thermos top and handed it to Hulan. The bitter green liquid cut through the dust that coated her throat. She gave the cup back to Suchee, who noisily sipped the last of the liquid, then refilled the cup.

Hulan looked at her hands. On Thursday morning her hands had been those of a Red Princess and an investigator at the Ministry of Public Security—smooth, pale, with tapered fingernails. After three days in the countryside her hands were scratched, her nails cracked and ragged, and her palms a mass of broken and unbroken blisters. The bandage that covered the deep gouge was caked with dirt but still protected the wound, which hadn’t stopped throbbing. Hulan longed for the cool shower she knew awaited her at the hotel, at the same time realizing that Suchee would never waste water on such a frivolous luxury. Hulan remembered back years ago to the Red Soil Farm and how in the morning people would wash their faces and brush their teeth in the communal water trough, then return at night to wash their hands, faces, feet, and teeth in the same water, which was changed only every three or four days.

“You have questions about Miaoshan,” Suchee said at last, “but your manners keep you from asking them. You should know that the customs regarding visitors and etiquette no longer matter to me now that my daughter is dead.”

“I’ve heard things about Miaoshan that trouble me,” Hulan said. “You say she was to be married, and yet I hear of other men.”

“There were no other men. Miaoshan loved Tsai Bing.”

No mother wanted to hear what Hulan was going to say, but she relied on the fact that Suchee had insisted that she wanted the truth at whatever the cost. “I have met a man, Guy Lin, who says he is the father of Miaoshan’s baby. I believe him. Did she ever mention him to you?”

Suchee turned her head away to face into the green of the field as though she had not heard.

“There is also a girl at the factory who says that Miaoshan was meeting with a foreigner.” Hulan had used a euphemism, but the meaning was clear. “I believe this girl, especially when I add it to what I found among Miaoshan’s belongings. You said that Miaoshan dressed like a foreigner. I hadn’t thought this that important. So many of our young women—no, so many women in all of China—now dress to copy Westerners. But I was thinking of the clothes that we make here to look like clothes from the West, not the real thing. Even in Beijing I would have trouble finding the type of nu zai ku—’cow boy pants’—that Miaoshan had.”

Suchee opened her mouth to speak, but Hulan held up a hand to stop her.

“There is more. In the box in your house I found perfume, panties, and a bra. These are not from our country. These are foreign. You might even say corrupt. There can only be one explanation: The foreigner gave these things to Miaoshan. I have a guess about who this was. Did Miaoshan ever talk to you about Aaron Rodgers?”

Suchee shook her head, but still kept her eyes averted. Her fingers began to fret the hem of a pant leg.

“What about Manager Red Face?” Hulan asked.

Again Suchee shook her head.

“Another name has also come up,” Hulan continued. “It is that of your neighbor Tang Dan.”

Suchee slowly rotated her face to Hulan. Her eyes were filled with pain and anger. “That is a lie.”

“Tell me,” Hulan said.

“Tang Dan is my neighbor. I was a friend of his wife’s. She helped me when Miaoshan was born.”

“But Tang Dan is a widower now.”