Blue Gold (16 page)

“Papa would be ashamed of you,” she told him.

Her words wounded him, as she had intended, but he lashed back. “Papa was too soft! He couldn't protect us,” he said. “Only Kayembe can protect us.”

“I won't marry him!”

“Yes, you will, Sylvie. Kayembe will make us rich. He'll give us a future.”

Sylvie shook her head, revolted by the idea of growing rich by causing even more suffering for the people back home. “Where did that coltan come from?” she demanded,
nodding toward the trucks. “Who did he steal it from? Who is he selling it to?”

“Keep quiet!”

“How many people did he kill because of it?” Olivier looked away. Sylvie studied him. There was hardly anything of her brother left in his hardened face. “Have
you
killed for coltan, Olivier?”

His eyes locked onto hers. “No!”

“But you will.” He had no reply. “We're going to Canada,” she said, more determined than ever.

“You're crazy,” Olivier scoffed. “You think those foreign doctors care about what happens to us, just because you're their pet?”

“There are people in Canada who want to help us. You can stay here if you want to, but the rest of us are leaving!”

Olivier's brow furrowed with worry, as though he saw his plans unraveling. “No you're not! We're going home to North Kivu, where we belong.”

“You can't stop me.”

“But Kayembe will,” he told her. “Don't be stupid, Sylvie! He's strong because people are afraid of him. If you make him look weak, he'll kill you. He'll kill all of us. Mama, the children. All of us.” Sylvie turned away, not wanting to hear any more, but Olivier was unrelenting. “You're wrong about Kayembe,” he said. “He's a patriot. He's getting his coltan from our people, the small miners.”

“He's with the Mai-Mai! They're like all the other fighters—they don't care about the people.”

“He's only helping the Mai-Mai until the Rwandans have been chased out of the Kivus. Then we can all leave Nyarugusu and go home.”

“He's greedy like all of them, Olivier.”

“You don't know anything!” he shouted angrily, throwing up his hands. By reflex, Sylvie cowered, afraid he would hit her. Seeing her fear, Olivier seemed suddenly ashamed. His shoulders slumped, and a confusion of emotions played over his face—helplessness, sadness. And something else, something Sylvie was unable to name. He was the one who had seen their father die. Was he seeing it again now, in his mind? “You don't know what people are capable of, Sylvie,” he said, pleading with her to hear him. “I do.”

Searching his face, Sylvie tried to understand what he
wasn't
saying. A monstrous thought took shape. “Olivier,” she said, barely above a whisper, “did Kayembe kill Papa?”

Olivier squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them again, it was clear that a door had closed. He would give nothing more away.

“Be glad Kayembe wants you, Sylvie,” he told her flatly. “It's the only way, for all of us.”

He wasn't being stubborn now. He was simply stating the facts as he saw them. Sylvie didn't bother to argue. Secretly, she knew he could well be right. There was no guarantee Marie and Alain could get the whole family out—that was only wishful thinking. Marrying Kayembe might be the sacrifice she had to make to save the family, no matter what other life might be waiting for them, far away in Canada.

LAIPING WAS GETTING USED TO WORKING
the night shift and sleeping through the day—although the daytime heat sometimes kept her awake, sticky with sweat. On Saturday, her shift worked overtime, with the promise of a day off on Sunday. But at the end of the Saturday shift, the supervisors decided they were falling too far behind on the new product, and told them they would have to work overtime on Sunday as well, if the company was to meet the American launch date.

She hadn't forgotten her promise to Min to find out when Kai's meeting was going to be held. She'd been thinking hard about how to get in touch with him, apart from going to the Internet café and hoping to run into him. But with working overtime all weekend, she didn't even have time to do that.

By Monday, Laiping had worked eight days of eleven-
hour shifts, without a day off. She was so tired that she went for long periods in factory working like a brainless robot, so when on Tuesday evening following marching exercises Mr. Wu approached her, she was nervous.

“You, come with me,” he said. His expression was grim, and frightened Laiping.

“Why?” she asked.

“Don't ask questions. Just do as you're told!” he barked.

Mr. Wu led Laiping down the wide staircase. When they reached the ground floor, they turned down a long narrow corridor where the factory offices were located.

“Mr. Wu, can you please tell me where we're going?” she asked politely.

“You'll find out soon enough. We're almost there.”

At last he stopped at a door marked,
Lau Ceon-Cau, Assistant Manager, Human Resources.
Mr. Wu knocked on the door.

“Come in,” came a woman's voice.

Mr. Wu opened the door and indicated Laiping should enter. Inside, a woman of about Laiping's mother's age, wearing a gray business suit and black-rimmed glasses, sat behind a desk. Laiping recognized her as the lady who had spoken to them on their first day at the Training Center. Her smile had been as wide as her whole face then, but today she looked stern and angry.

“Please come in, Mr. Wu,” she said, and now Laiping recognized her voice, too. She was the loudspeaker lady!

Mr. Wu bowed his head slightly and told her, “This is the worker you asked to see.”

“Sit down please,” instructed the loudspeaker lady. Her voice was tight with displeasure—not at all like the friendly tone she used to encourage the workers during morning exercises. Laiping took a seat in a chair facing the desk.

“I will leave you then,” said Mr. Wu with another bow.

“I am Miss Lau,” the loudspeaker lady told Laiping once Mr. Wu had closed the door behind him.

“Hello, Miss,” replied Laiping, trying to hide the terror she felt.

The fluorescent tubes overhead cast a harsh light that gave Miss Lau a ghostly look. She picked up a small container from her desk that had a number on it: 12-298153—Laiping's employee number. Laiping recognized it as one of the containers where she placed the finished circuit boards, after soldering on the capacitors. Miss Lau took tweezers and lifted a circuit board out of the box.

“Is this your work?” she asked.

Laiping swallowed. “I guess so.”

“You guess so? Look at it.”

Laiping leaned over the desk to take a closer look at the circuit board, which Miss Lau had placed on the blotter. She felt her cheeks flush when she saw that one of the two capacitors had broken off. Laiping had no memory of producing such inferior work. Then again, she had so often snapped awake from half-sleep while on the night shift—perhaps the mistake had slipped by her.

“I'm not sure it's mine,” she stammered.

Lightning quick, Miss Lau picked up a ruler from the desk and—
thwap!
—struck Laiping on the side of her head with it.

“Let me assure you, it
is
yours,” she stated. She pulled several more circuit boards out of the container, each one flawed in its own way. “And this one, and this one, and these. Let me assure you of something else: if you wish to continue working here, such carelessness will not be tolerated!”

Laiping wanted to tell Miss Lau that a dozen flawed circuit boards out of the thousands she had made was not so bad. She wanted to tell her that mistakes must be expected if the supervisors insisted on working the employees to the point of exhaustion. But she stayed silent as she suffered a tongue-lashing about her laziness and ingratitude.

“Mr. Chen is taking a chance on ignorant girls like you by bringing you from your miserable villages and letting you work here,” said Miss Lau, the overhead lights glaring off her glasses so that Laiping couldn't see her eyes. “He's giving you the opportunity for a better life. It is your duty to repay him by working your hardest and your best, every minute of every day.”

“Yes, Miss Lau,” replied Laiping, bowing her head.

“As punishment, you will not work in the factory tonight and you will not be paid.”

“Yes, Miss Lau.”

Miss Lau reached for a small bound book that was resting on top of a file organizer. She handed the book to Laiping.

“Instead, you will spend tonight's shift copying out
The Sayings of Steve Chen
.” Laiping saw that this was the title of the small book. “Perhaps through his wisdom you will understand the dedication it takes to be successful and prosperous.”

“Yes, Miss Lau,” repeated Laiping humbly, but inside, she burned with the sense that she was being treated unfairly. She had worked so hard to please Steve Chen—she didn't deserve to be punished! She thought of what Kai had said about him getting rich by treating the workers like slaves. If she was supposed to think of Steve Chen as a father, he was a mean one. She remembered the video Kai showed her on his smartphone, of the Americans protesting Steve Chen outside a store, and took comfort from the fact that she wasn't the only one who knew the truth about him.

These thoughts raged inside Laiping's head as she followed Miss Lau down the corridor, the loudspeaker lady's heels click-clicking against linoleum, to a small room with one table and one chair and no windows. On the table there was a pad of cheap paper and a pencil. Laiping looked up and saw a surveillance camera pointed at the table from a corner of the ceiling.

“I'm leaving for the day,” explained Miss Lau. “Another supervisor will come and check on you later.”

“What if I need the washroom?” asked Laiping.

“You'll have to hold it. Cheer up, Laiping,” she told her, suddenly smiling her broad, tight smile. “You still have your job. This will help you to remember to be more careful in the future.”

“Thank you, Miss Lau.”

“You're welcome,” she said, the smile unfaltering, and exited.

Laiping opened
The Sayings of Steve Chen
and began copying characters and phrases:

Efficiency leads first to Productivity, then to Prosperity.

The ability to solve problems is the best way of judging a manager.

The ability to obey instructions is the best way of judging a worker.

Laiping found the sayings of Steve Chen boring, but she had liked combining tiny strokes on the page to make characters from the time she first learned to write at school. She took her time and made sure that her penmanship was neat and pleasing, just to prove that she was a careful worker. She kept at it steadily for several hours, enjoying the solitude—even though she was aware the entire time that she was being spied on by the security camera. Finally, a different manager came into the room, a man in a gray suit and striped tie. He took the pages that Laiping had copied and studied them. At last he nodded, she hoped in approval.

“What have you learned?” he asked Laiping.

Laiping was caught. She had been focusing so hard on drawing the characters that she hadn't paid much attention to the sayings themselves. But one of the posters she stared at every night during marching exercises bubbled up from her memory to save her.

“That if I don't work hard today, I can work hard finding another job tomorrow,” she said.

“Very good. I've been watching you,” he told her, nodding toward the camera. “I can see that you know how to work hard. After the meal break, you may go back to your job and receive half a day's pay.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Laiping, glowing at his praise. But at the same time, she kicked herself for being so eager to please, like a running dog. She was beginning to notice a pattern in the factory—one day they praised, the next they found fault. She wondered if the bosses were intentionally trying to keep the workers off balance.

 

LAIPING ATE MORE HEARTILY
at the midnight meal than she had all week, even though it was the same dish of rice, vegetables, and pork. Her coworker Bohai spotted her and joined her. Laiping wondered if he ever bothered to shower, because his hair was greasier than ever, and he smelled of old sweat. He hunched over his bowl shoveling food with his chopsticks, talking with his mouth full.

“So what happened?” he wanted to know, a little too eagerly. “Where did they take you?”

Nosy!
thought Laiping. “It's none of your business,” she said.

“Did they make you write a confession?” asked Bohai.

“A what?”

“That's how they punish people in metal processing. You have to write a letter to Steve Chen, telling him you're a lazy good-for-nothing and begging him to give you a second chance—then they'll let you keep your job.”

“How do you know?” she asked. “Were you punished?”