The Ghost Shift (18 page)

Mei felt like a tourist herself now—a stranger who didn’t know the place. She had thought she did, but now she carried the evidence of her ignorance in her pocket—Lizzie Lockhart’s passport, with her birthplace marked there: Guilin, China. They had been born together on the same day, in the same place, yet she’d never known that Lizzie existed. Nobody had ever told her, until too late.

She looked at her watch: one-thirty in the morning. They would be in Qidong soon, then a climb toward Yongzhou, and homeward. She got back into her bunk and slept fitfully until she felt a weight pressing on her foot. The snoring man had climbed from his bunk and was sitting on it, eating noodles.

The osmanthus trees rustled in the breeze as she hauled her bag from the train at Guilin in the morning light. This was what she missed most in Guangdong—the green lakes and hills, the clean air. It was a city of five million now, far bigger than in her childhood. But it had a sweet, provincial air—women with parasols smiled at her from motorcycles, and the streets were divided with flower displays beneath decorative streetlamps. After the terror of Dongguan, she was relieved to be back. Pushing her way through the crowd, she found a driver leaning on his taxi.

They took the second ring road past Xishan Park, then through tunnels into the city’s northern districts. Mei felt herself regressing to childhood as they drove, past her elementary school, along Fulu Road by Guilin Railway Middle School, where she’d trudged, day after day. Finally, he swung along the curving lane at Aishantangcun to her destination. Here, behind a barred gate, by green fields and ponds that stretched down to the Li River, under the wavy outline of the karst hills, was the closest thing she had to family.

She walked into the courtyard and stood, looking at the four-story block of the Social Welfare Institute. It smelled the same as ever when she put her head through the front door—an aroma of boiled food and bleach. A toddler rushed along the hallway, kicking a ball.

“Where are you going?” She squatted next to him.

“I want food.”

“It is back there.” She took his hand and they walked toward the babble of high-pitched voices, entering a breakfast room full of adults and kids.

“Come, Tian.” An assistant hurried him away to a table where toddlers sat, eating noodles. She glanced blankly at Mei as she reached to prevent one of the bowls falling off the table.

“I’ve come to see Zhu Wing.”

“You know the way?”

The handrail to the stairs felt low. She remembered being not much older than the boy, shrieking with laughter as she chased another girl up the stairs, hardly able to reach the rail. She wondered what had happened to those kids who’d been her gang, the closest thing she’d had to siblings until she’d discovered her sister, too late. Some of them had been adopted. Others must still be here, stranded in the adult home. One boy she’d played with had Down syndrome and had been left for adoption as a baby by the gates. She’d been relieved to escape, but now she felt guilty for abandoning them.

On the fourth floor, she walked along the hallway to the last door to the east, with a jade number eight pinned on the outside for luck and a nameplate: Zhu Wing. She dropped her bag and knocked.

After several moments, an old woman in a cotton tunic and pants opened the door. Her face was unlined, but her eyes were cloudy and she breathed shallowly. She stared at Mei, trying to figure out what she was seeing and then a smile spread across her face, like sunrise. She held her arms wide and Mei bent down for her embrace, crying at the feeling of comfort.

“Hello, my child.”

“Hello, Auntie.”

“Are you well, Mei?”

Mei nodded, unable to speak.

“Come in, come in.”

The woman guided her into a study with a small kitchen and a bedroom to one side. Mei stood for a while, with the light on her face. Wing bustled in the corner, heating water for tea and hunting for cake.

“What a pleasure for an old woman to have you back here. I don’t see many of my children now.” She carried a teapot to a table and set it down, waving for Mei to kneel by it.

“I’m sorry I haven’t visited for so long.”

“Hush, hush. You’re here now. That’s all that matters. And you brought a bag. Are you staying?”

“Only for a day or two.”

“You will have my bed. I prefer the mat on the floor anyway. It’s better for my joints.” She clapped her hands, and then her face turned serious. “There’s nothing wrong, is there?”

“Not serious. I’ll tell you later, Auntie.”

“Why have you come to see me now?”

Mei sipped her tea and bowed her head. She couldn’t look at the old woman as she spoke.

“I found something. I have it with me. I don’t understand it and you’re the only one who might.”

She reached into her pocket for the passport. The old woman looked at it carefully, holding it lightly in her hands. Then she walked to a table and reached into a drawer for a pair of spectacles. She knelt opposite Mei and leafed through to the identity page.

Wing looked at the photo for a long time and then traced her finger slowly across the image.

“Read this to me, will you. Mei? It’s all in English.”

Her voice was light, as if she knew the truth already but was trying to delay it. Mei read the lines slowly, letting the vowels of the dead girl’s name roll slowly off her tongue. When she came to the birthplace, Wing nodded and reached across to hold it again.

“Where is this girl now?”

“She died, Auntie.”

Wing placed the passport on the table and rose, walking into the bedroom stiffly. When she came out, she held three incense sticks and a figure of Buddha; she knelt and put it by the passport, then lit the sticks. There were tears on her face as she looked at Mei.

“Did you come all this way just to bring me sorrow?”

Mei flushed with anger at being blamed for a secret she should have known long before. Throughout her life, she’d had substitutes
for sisters, playmates who had come and gone. No one had mentioned the real one.

“Why did you never tell me?”

“I didn’t think it would be right.”

“Who was she, Auntie?”

“Later, child. It is a long story. First, you rest.”

“I’m not tired.”

“I knew you as a baby. You never admitted it, even when you screamed and stamped your feet. I would sing to make you stop. Do you need a lullaby, or have you grown up?”

Wing picked up Mei’s bag before she could protest any more and carried it into the bedroom, lowering the shade. When Mei lay down on the bed, she found that the old woman was right.

“I had night sweats. The change was coming. I’d wake at two o’clock every morning, my pajamas soaked. And it was a difficult summer, a terrible heat that year. I kept an electric fan on at night, and I would get out of bed and sit by the window, looking at the hills. Sometimes I’d cry. I knew my hope was gone. I was surrounded by children, but I’d never have my own.”

The light had gone by the time Mei woke up—she’d slept all day in a dazed, exhausted bundle. Wing had fussed over her after she got up, bringing her tea and water. Then she’d made them rice noodles with beef, and they had knelt by the table to eat. When Wing had cleared the bowls and lit candles in the room, she stood by the window and talked.

“That night, there was a noise in the courtyard. Nobody had told me of visitors. Do you remember Bai Gang? He retired when you were five, went back to his village. He came from Longshen—he ate pickled cabbage every evening, I remember. He was a nasty man. They must have sent him here as a joke, because he hated kids. We had to keep them out of his way.

“I looked out and there was Bai. He was out there, wearing a suit and a big grin. I remember because it was so unusual—he never smiled. He was standing by a Hongqi with a big square grille and Beijing plates. It had driven all the way, twelve hundred miles! I couldn’t believe it. The roads weren’t good, and this place was very poor then. I wondered if they’d come for Bai, but he looked like he had won at baccarat. It was a man and a woman. I couldn’t see them
well. They talked, and the woman opened the rear door and brought out two baskets, each with a baby in it. One of the babies was you, sweet thing. Bai took them inside, very chatty, lots of bowing. Five minutes later, they came out, and drove away. They never returned.”

“A couple brought me here?”

“Yes, Mei. You came in that car.”

“I’m from Guilin.”

“From Beijing.”

“But you told me I was from Guangxi—that my mother was a local woman.”

A sob rose in her throat as she spoke. She was like a child again, the teenager she had been when Wing had been the closest thing she had to a parent.
Not fair, not fair, not fair.

Wing knelt by her and held her hand.

“If I’d told you the truth, you’d only have told someone else. I thought it was better not to fill your heads with dreams. At breakfast, they said that Bai wanted to see me in his office. I was scared that he had seen me at the window, but he had a job for me. Twins had been left in the night, and they had to be cared for. I was to make sure they were well fed. I should tell him if they needed anything. I thought,
You think these two are special because they come from Beijing.

“I went to the nursery and you were there in your cots, sleeping. So pretty, both of you, with your dark hair, pink cheeks, and perfect fingers. I thought: How could anyone give them up? Not one, but two. To be blessed with twins. To be permitted two and then just to throw them away. It didn’t make sense. But I thought you were a gift—that you’d come when I needed you. You were the first to wake, Mei. You looked at me with those eyes and smiled. I slept better after you came.

“Whenever anyone asked, Bai would say you’d come in the night, and that was it. Many girls were left by the gates by mothers who wanted a boy. But there was nothing wrong with you. I was the only one who knew.”

One of the candles in the corner of the room started to flicker and smoke as the wick got close to the wax, and Wing rose to snuff it out.
Her voice had calmed and she had shed her self-consciousness at telling Mei things that she had hidden for years. Mei gazed at her as she shuffled around, spilling her old secrets.

“I told you you’d come here with a name but it wasn’t true either. I named you. I called you Song Mei because you were so beautiful—a beautiful plum on a tree. Your sister I called Song Ping, for peace. She would lie quietly and listen to you, bawling. I’d sit in the garden, gazing at you both, so happy to have you. This place wasn’t civilized, back then. Some of the staff were cruel, and the kids were left dirty. It was shameful. I protected you, as Bai told me to. But I didn’t have Ping for long.”

“Where did she go?”

“Bai called me to his office again, a month after you’d come. He wanted to know if all was well. He didn’t care about you. It was like he was raising a crop and he didn’t want it to spoil before he sold it. He told me a western woman was coming to take one of you. It was painful, like a knife through my heart. I’d thought I’d have you both for longer. I didn’t reveal my sorrow—I just asked him which one she would take. He hadn’t thought of that. ‘You choose,’ he said. Then he talked sternly. ‘She will not be told there are two babies. She has been granted one child. When she comes here, you will bring one baby to the hall for her. She will not go to the nursery, and she will not talk to any of the staff except for you. You will remain silent during the visit.’ I went to see you both in the nursery, knowing I had to make a choice. Which would I lose? You’d been the first to open your eyes, the first to smile at me. I held Ping tightly, but I knew it would be her.

“The woman came that week. She was young enough to bear her own child, but she cried when she saw Ping. I gave her the baby to hold, and I had to show her how to change a diaper. I could sense that she was kind. ‘She’ll be a loving mother,’ I thought. They took a photo of us together, and she sent me a copy. I still have it.”

Wing walked into the bedroom and reached under her bed for a box. She put it on the table, lifting the lid to reveal a bundle of papers. An old letter with a checked border lay near the bottom. It had a French Revolution airmail stamp with the goddesses of liberty, equality,
and fraternity in red, white, and blue. The woman’s name and address had been inscribed in Chinese characters, with a return address in English at the top left:

The photograph was inside. Wing pulled it out and handed it to Mei like a precious object. It was as she had described. The woman stood in a blue skirt and jacket with wide lapels, with an exultant grin on her face. She had one arm gripped around Wing’s shoulders. The baby was in the woman’s other arm, a glimpse of her face visible. The younger Wing smiled for the camera. Mei held it close to her face, straining to see her baby sister.

“What happened to her, Mei?” The old woman looked at her as if she had done her penance.

“She died, Auntie. She drowned.”

“How do you know that, little one?”