“I’ve done it before,” Jieling said. “You’re scared.”
“It’s just not a good idea,” Baiyue said.
“Because of the girl they caught in Guangdong. We’re not skipping out on our debt. We’re paying it off.”
“We’re not supposed to work for someone else when we work here,” Baiyue said.
“Oh, come on,” Jieling said. “You are always making things sound worse than they are. I think you like staying here being little Miss Lei Feng.”
“Don’t call me that,” Baiyue snapped.
“Well, don’t act like it. New Life is not being fair. We don’t have to be fair. What are they going to do to you if they catch you?”
“Fine me,” Baiyue said. “Add to my debt!”
“So what? They’re going to find a way to add to your debt no matter what. You are a serf. They are the landlord.”
“But if—“
“No
“What do you care,” Baiyue said. “You like it here. If you stay you can eat pork buns every night.”
“And you can eat congee for the rest of your life. I’m going to try to do something.” Jieling slammed out of the dorm room. She had never said harsh things to Baiyue before. Yes, she had thought about staying here. But was that so bad? Better than being like Baiyue, who would stay here and have a miserable life. Jieling was not going to have a miserable life, no matter where she stayed or what she did. That was why she had come to Shenzhen in the first place.
She heard the door open behind her, and Baiyue ran down the hall. “Okay,” she said breathlessly. “I’ll try it. Just this once.”
The streets of Shanghai were incredibly loud after weeks in the compound. In a shop window, she and Baiyue stopped and watched a news segment on how the fashion in Shanghai was for sarongs. Jieling would have to tell her mother. Of course, her mother had a TV and probably already knew. Jieling thought about calling, but not now. Not now. She didn’t want to explain about New Life. The next news segment was about the success of the People’s Army in Tajikistan. Jieling pulled Baiyue to come on.
They took one bus and then had to transfer. On Sundays, unless you were lucky, it took forever to transfer because fewer buses ran. They waited almost an hour for the second bus. That bus was almost empty when they got on. They sat down a few seats back from the driver. Baiyue rolled her eyes. “Did you see the guy in the back?” she asked. “Party functionary.”
Jieling glanced over her shoulder and saw him. She couldn’t miss him, in his careful polo shirt. He had that stiff party-member look.
Baiyue sighed. “My uncle is just like that. So
Jieling thought that, to be honest, Baiyue would have made a good revolutionary, back in the day. Baiyue liked that kind of revolutionary purity. But she nodded.
The plague-trash market was full on a Sunday. There was a toy seller making tiny little clay figures on sticks. He waved a stick at the girls as they passed. “Cute things!” he called. “I’ll make whatever you want!” The stick had a little Donald Duck on it.
“I can’t do this,” Baiyue said. “There’s too many people.”
“It’s not so bad,” Jieling said. She found a place for the boom box. Jieling had brought them to where all the food vendors were. “Stay here and watch this,” she said. She hunted through the food stalls and bought a bottle of local beer, counting out from the little horde of money she had left from when she had come. She took the beer back to Baiyue. “Drink this,” she said. “It will help you be brave.”
“I hate beer,” Baiyue said.
“Beer or debt,” Jieling said.
While Baiyue drank the beer, Jieling started the boom box and did her routine. People smiled at her, but no one put any money in her cash box. Shenzhen people were so cheap. Baiyue sat on the curb, nursing her beer, not looking at Jieling or at anyone until finally Jieling couldn’t stand it any longer.
“C’mon
Baiyue seemed a bit surprised to be called little sister, but she put the beer down and got up. They had practiced a routine to an M.I.A. song, singing and dancing. It would be a hit, Jieling was sure.
“I can’t,” Baiyue whispered.
“Yes you can,” Jieling said. “You do good.”
A couple of people stopped to watch them arguing, so Jieling started the music.
“I feel sick,” Baiyue whimpered.
But the beat started, and there was nothing to do but dance and sing. Baiyue was so nervous, she forgot at first, but then she got the hang of it. She kept her head down, and her face was bright red.
Jieling started making up a rap. She’d never done it before, and she hadn’t gotten very far before she was laughing and then Baiyue was laughing, too.
My little sister is so shy
But she’s pretty
Far too delicate—
They almost stopped because they were giggling, but they kept dancing, and Jieling went back to the lyrics from the song they had practiced.
When they had finished, people clapped, and they’d made thirty-two yuan.
They didn’t make as much for any single song after that, but in a few hours they had collected 187 yuan. It was early evening, and night entertainers were showing up—a couple of people who sang opera, acrobats, and a clown with a wig of hair so red it looked on fire, stepping stork-legged on stilts waving a rubber Kalashnikov in his hand. He was all dressed in white. Uncle Death, from cartoons during the plague. Some of the day vendors had shut down, and new people were showing up who put out a board and some chairs and served sorghum liquor; clear, white, and 150 proof. The crowd was starting to change, too. It was rowdier. Packs of young men dressed in weird combinations of clothes from plague markets—vintage Mao suit jackets and suit pants and peasant shoes. And others, veterans from the Tajikistan conflict, one with an empty trouser leg.
Jieling picked up the boom box, and Baiyue took the cash box. Outside of the market, it wasn’t yet dark.
“You are amazing,” Baiyue kept saying. “You are such a special girl!”
“You did great,” Jieling said. “When I was by myself, I didn’t make anything! Everyone likes you because you are little and cute!”
“Look at this! I’ll be out of debt before autumn!”
Maybe it was just the feeling that she was responsible for Baiyue, but Jieling said, “You keep it all.”
“I can’t! I can’t! We split it!” Baiyue said.
“Sure,” Jieling said. “Then after you get away, you can help me. Just think, if we do this for three more Sundays, you’ll pay off your debt.”
“Oh, Jieling,” Baiyue said. “You really are like my big sister!”
Jieling was sorry she had ever called Baiyue “little sister.” It was such a country thing to do. She had always suspected that Baiyue wasn’t a city girl. Jieling hated the countryside. Grain spread to dry in the road and mother’s-elder-sister and father’s-younger-brother bringing all the cousins over on the day off. Jieling didn’t even know all those country ways to say aunt and uncle. It wasn’t Baiyue’s fault. And Baiyue had been good to her. She was rotten to be thinking this way.
“Excuse me,” said a man. He wasn’t like the packs of young men with their long hair and plague clothes. Jieling couldn’t place him, but he seemed familiar. “I saw you in the market. You were very fun. Very lively.”
Baiyue took hold of Jieling’s arm. For a moment Jieling wondered if maybe he was from New Life, but she told
