“Ha Yut Ying,” she said. “Take machine number five. Pedal down to sew, pedal up to stop. You’ll receive twenty cents for each pair of slippers you complete, and if you don’t turn in ten pairs a day, your pay will be withheld until the end of the month.”
Machine number five was on the end of a long table, undesirable because it was farthest from the window. Heat collected in my corner, and within minutes of sitting at my workstation, a well of sweat simmered on the nape of my neck.
I counted twenty-four women in the factory, excluding myself and Mrs. Dang. I was the youngest, along with a girl my age wearing an orange headscarf, and the oldest were a pair of octogenarians who tied their white hair in skin-tight buns. The only chatter came from these two old ladies, who I’d soon conclude were immune from Mrs. Dang’s wrath. Everyone else who dared speak, even if to ask for a pair of scissors or more thread, met her harsh signature shout: “Shut up, you nosy cows!”
What gossip was there to listen to? Everyone was hunched over, practically welded to their machines for the next ten hours, and the only noises were whirring and tappity tap taps. My ears were already ringing.
I started to rise. I needed to tell Gu Ma there’d been a mistake.
“What do you think you’re doing, Number Five?” Mrs. Dang yelled from across the room.
Number Five. That was me.
Mrs. Dang stood on her stool, rolling a newspaper into a megaphone. “Piss breaks are only after lunch,” she shrilled.
I sat back down, my foot accidentally landing on the pedal. The needle on my machine punched up-down-up-down like a drill, making me jump.
A laugh bubbled out of someone’s throat. I knew without looking that it was the girl with the orange headscarf.
My jaw clenched. I bowed my head over my machine and got to work.
In the late afternoon Gu Ma appeared, striding down the aisles of workstations with a paper fan.
“Sui Chan!” she exclaimed, stopping next to the headscarf girl. “Fifty slippers already? You make your mother proud.”
I gawked. Fifty slippers? I had barely finished a single pair.
Next, Gu Ma’s shadow eclipsed me, and she snapped her fan shut.
“Your godmother said you could sew,” she said.
What godmother? I stared blankly until my aunt scowled. Was I supposed to play along? “I’m—”
She grabbed me by the sleeve. “Come with me.”
My cheeks burned as I rose, walking behind her down the long aisle.
Gu Ma’s office was in the next building, where the men worked on assembling rubber boots. The air inside was graylike cloudy rice water, and the vapors from the glues and paints stung my eyes.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” she said. “We produce over a hundred boots a day, and twice as many shoes.”
My aunt led me into a private room in a corner of the factory. The office was lavishly furnished, with gold-marbled wallpaper and wooden blinds over the windows. On her desk was a giant jade money frog for attracting prosperity, along with an assortment of other superstitious knickknacks, but what caught my attention was the altar with the faded photograph of her late husband, whom I had never met.
She closed the door. “Late on your first day, I hear. Doesn’t know how to change the bobbin and can’t even sew in a straight line.” She clucked. “Perhaps you’re not as capable as you were made out to be.”
“I’ve been listening like you asked,” I said in mild protest. “No one’s said anything. Everyone’s diligently working.”
“You’ve only been here one day. The girls are wary of newcomers.” Gu Ma sat, lighting a cigarette. “Aiya, don’t sulk, it makes you look like my mother.” Her pupils constricted as she inhaled. “Now look, I know this isn’t the life you pictured when your baba brought you to Hong Kong, but I assure you it’s temporary.”
“Will I go to school soon?”
“The war ended only a few months ago,” she reminded me. “Once things settle down, we can discuss your schooling, though to be frank, I don’t know why you want so badly to be educated. Your head is small, it isn’t suited for learning.”
“But Ah Ma said—”
“Said what?” Gu Ma practically spat smoke. “My mother’s spent her whole life in the countryside, what does she know of the world? Listen to me, Yut Ying. Your father came to me for a reason. Of course I’ll take care of you.”
I forced a smile. “Thank you, Gu Ma.”
