A Certain Smile Read online

  The doorman hailed one, and when she stepped into the tiny car behind a driver locked inside his protective Plexiglas enclosure, Li bent to shake hands. "If you have no business or social plans for dinner, I would be pleased to take you to my favorite restaurant."

  She met his eyes. Seemingly lidless, they were clear and direct, dark, liquid, beautiful, revealing nothing. He's a stranger who picked me up at the airport. All I know about him is the little bit he's told me . . . if it's the truth. But he seems safe, and he's somebody to talk to. She started to say yes, then tightened her lips. This is crazy. I'd never go out with a stranger in America; why would I do it in China ?

  "A restaurant," Li said quietly. "Very public. A place where people can talk, and perhaps become friends."

  She flushed, feeling young and inexperienced. Maybe, if I checked on him, she thought. ... "If you give me your number at work, I'll call you later, when I know my schedule."

  "A good idea." He wrote it down. "Please leave a message with my secretary if I'm not in my office."

  Secretary. Office. How respectable it sounded. But of course he had an office; he had told her last night that he was a construction engineer. She had been too tense to pay much attention, but it occurred to her now that that was yet another way they differed from each other. She designed cashmere sweaters: small, soft things that could be folded up and tucked away. He created buildings, huge, solid structures that thrust into the sky, visible from afar. Almost a parody of feminine and

  masculine stereotypes, she thought. Really, they had nothing in common: not their work or their cultures, not their history, not their ideas about the world and themselves, not even what they ate for breakfast.

  But, in spite of all that, she liked him. She liked his quiet voice and the change in his face when he smiled, and the serious way he listened to her. And his English was so good it was almost like talking to an American. And what could be more public, and safe, than a restaurant? And so she nodded. I should smile, she thought; I should look friendly. But her lips were stiff, as if caution could protect her from disaster, and she could not force them into relaxation. She wondered if Li were insulted that she was so cool. She could not tell; he gave nothing away. "Fll call later," she said, and met his eyes, and that was as close to warmth as she could get.

  Her taxi careened through the streets of Beijing, swerving to dodge bicyclists who looked neither right nor left, and buses, trucks, vans, cars, and motorcycles that cut back and forth without wasting time on hand signals or glancing at rearview mirrors. Pedestrians crossed the streets at their own deliberate pace and, miraculously, drivers managed to avoid them. Horns blared, black fumes poured from exhaust pipes, policemen waved batons that were universally ignored. Miranda sat upright, rigid with the certainty of disaster, her eyes darting from one side of the road to the other. The lanes seemed reserved for different groups: the outside ones were the quietest, used by bicyclists and old men and women, mostly women, stooped low between the long poles of loaded handcarts they pulled behind them. In the two inner lanes crammed with motor vehicles, all—at least to Miranda—was chaos and terror.

  "Ignore it," Li had said the night before, as the airport taxi plunged into the teeming streets of the city. "Most often, most of us get where we are going."

  "And when you don't?" she asked.

  He shrugged. 'There are many accidents, but most of the fatalities are cyclists and pedestrians. In a car, you have a better chance."

  She smdied his face, but, in the darkness and the flickering lights from oncoming headlights, she could not be sure whether he was serious or not.

  Now, alone in the taxi, she was repeating his words to herself— in a car ... a better chance —when suddenly September sunlight broke through the clouds, and the sudden burst of brighmess made everything seem less alarming. For the first time, she unclenched her fists and began to notice the tall sycamore trees lining the streets, the throngs on the sidewalks, the food vendors, the shops opening for the

  day. h4ost often most of us get where we are going. She gave a small laugh. What a comfort.

  The taxi crossed Changping Road, familial" to her from studying her map, and she knew they were close to the Haidian industrial district. She ran a hand through her hair, and took a small mirror from her purse to examine her face.

  She wished she were beautiful. But then, she never had been; she didn't know why she still worried about it. She had a pleasant, friendly face (she had told herself that over the years, never able to come up with a more exotic description); she knew many people called it a bright and open face, prettier when she smiled—but she could not see anything dramatic enough to attract a stranger in an airport. My eyes are good, she thought critically, widening them; they were large and long-lashed, changing from hazel to green to light gray, but her skin was pale and her blond hair v/as nothing like the golden blond of fairy tales and magazine models: it was too fair, almost white in the sunlight, and short and curling around her face, which was easy to take care of but hardly glamorous or memorable. But that's the point, she thought: nothing about me is memorable. I do have a good mouth, though. Women's mouths usually get smaller as they age, but thank goodness mine hasn't done that. And I'm not really so old. I mean, I don't feel old, and forty isn't exactly ancient.

  Except that I don't feel young. It's been ten years since Jeff died, and even if I wanted to get married again I probably wouldn't be able to. Men want young girls, not ordinary-looking middle-aged women with two teenage kids and no money to sweeten the pot.

  Her taxi came to an abrupt halt and she put out her arm to stop herself from being flung forward. She glanced at the building before her, assumed it was the right one, and counted yuan from her wallet. "Don't tip them," Li had said. "It's not done, and not expected." But she was an American; how could she not give a tip, even though the driver had terrified her for most of the drive? She added one coin, and waited, but no smile or "thank you" was forthcoming, and she turned away, faindy annoyed. Even if tipping weren't done, especially if tipping weren't done, he could have had the grace to thank her for it.

  Inside she was directed to a conference room, and when the door swung open, she saw fifteen men and women around an enormous table, all of them looking at her, all of them looking alike. She knew they didn't, really, but their faces seemed cut from a mold, and so did their eyes: dark, lidless, intense, never blinking or revealing their feelings. And their language slid up, down and sideways around sounds

  that had no resemblance to anything she recognized as words. It was the most foreign language she had ever heard.

  Taking her place at the conference table, she felt isolated, almost a nonperson. She knew that partly that was because she had no experience with other cultures, and so the tiniest differences from American ways loomed huge and threatening. But maybe that will change, she thought. I haven't worked with them. Maybe they'll turn out to be the same as the people I know in Boulder.

  "Miss Graham, we welcome you," said one of the men in clipped English. "May I present our executives and our manufacturing group. I am Wang Zedong, director of manufacture; this is our vice-president, Xie Peng; the general manager of the factory, Zhang Yinou ..."

  The names rolled past Miranda and she knew she would never remember them all. Wang Zedong, she thought, director of manufacture. Zhang Yinou, general manager of the factory. The ones I'll be working with. The ones I really have to remember. And Li told me the first name is their last name. Something else I have to get used to. 'Thank you, Mr. Wang," she said when he ended his introductions. She opened her briefcase. "I hope you've had a chance to look at the designs we sent you two weeks ago."

  "We have studied them carefully." Wang fanned Miranda's drawings in front of him. "There are some areas of difficulty we need to address, but we do have other designs and solutions at hand to help us solve these problems, if we all agree."

  Difficulties. Problems. They wouldn't start that way at home, Miranda thought. They always f
ound a few good things to say first, a scattering of praise for fine work, a smile, a nod, maybe a few jokes, questions about spouses or children ... something personal. Not here, she thought. Nothing personal here.

  She forced her trembling hands to stillness as she brought out her own drawings, and samples of cashmere knits and weaves, braids, buttons, toggles, and spools of thread. There was nothing complicated in what she was here for, she told herself; she had done it before, at home. She just had to stand firm and get good pricing and reasonable manufacturing schedules, repeat the whole process at two other garment companies, and then go home, maybe even before the eight days were up.

  "Difficulties?" she asked.

  "This knit suit." Wang drew out one of Miranda's watercolor sketches. "You specify four-ply cashmere and the suit has a shawl collar, which makes a very heavy jacket indeed—^"

  "I want it heavy," Miranda said, and heard a note of anxiety in her voice that she knew should not be there. "The suit is meant to be worn with a blouse or lace sweater; I've designed lighter knits that are two-piece outfits."

  Wang waited patiently, then went on as if she had not interrupted him. "A heavy jacket that is nearer the category of coat than suit. That involves a different group of knitters and therefore the pricing is different as well."

  "I don't understand. No one could confuse this jacket with a coat."

  "Ah, but in manufacairing terms, the weight, the design ... I will ask Yun Chen to explain it."

  Yun Chen held her own copy of Miranda's sketch. Like all the women there, she wore a severe dark suit, and no jewelry or makeup. She was older than Wang, Miranda thought, but you really couldn't tell how old Chinese people were: they were either smooth or incredibly wrinkled. This woman's English, too, was clear and clipped as she described the different knitting machines for heavier garments, the knitters who specialized in them, the inspectors who had separate checklists for them. "It is of course labor, as you know. Miss Graham; we do not stamp these out like automobile parts. We are known for our excellent products, for the skill of our labor, and we know how long each type of gamient will require to be done perfectly, and therefore what will be the cost."

  "And what is the cost?" Miranda asked.

  Wang gave a figure and Miranda wrote it down, calculating the exchange rate and figuring what the stores would charge their customers. She shook her head. "The suit would cost over eight thousand dollars; we must keep it to five."

  "Partly it is the tiger-eye buttons," said Yun Chen. "We could reduce the price by using another button."

  Miranda looked at her in disbelief "You think changing the buttons would cut the price almost in half?"

  "Perhaps bone," offered one of the men.

  "Or plastic," added another woman, this one with small wire-rimmed glasses. "We have one that looks like bone, very like, it is an excellent product."

  "This is not serious," Miranda said in frustration.

  "But if the suit is three-ply instead of four," said Wang, "we could use our standard knitting machines. We understand, Miss Graham, that one- or two-ply would not achieve the look you want, but surely three-ply would be satisfactory."

  Someone spoke in Chinese and Yun Chen answered in Chinese and

  Wang translated, "Three-ply cashmere is accepted by most people; many find four-ply too heavy, certainly too heavy to wear indoors. Three-ply is certainly adequate."

  Miranda felt as assaulted as she had in the airport. / didn 't come here to end up with an "'adequate" line, and you 're the ones who used the word ''excellent just a few minutes ago. But she could not say that aloud; it sounded too critical, it might make them angry.

  "Perhaps without the shawl collar," said another woman with a long braid down her back. "A smaller collar, notched, you know, would work with three-ply and be very smart. And the braid could be left off the collar and cuffs; it is not essential."

  Miranda was sketching small alterations in the margins of her watercolor drawing as the voices swirled about her, picking away at her design. Maybe it's not as good as I thought it was. As Talia thought it was. Maybe all my designs are just ordinary, like lawnmowers or bicycles, and the only important thing is how cheaply they can be made, for how much profit. She did not really believe that, but at this moment, when she heard only criticism, with no smiles or jokes or small talk, and not a word about how interesting her ideas were, how cleverly she had devised sleeves or collars or buttons ... or anything complimentary, it was not easy to believe in herself or to fight for her designs. "I'll think about it," she said at last.

  "Yes, very good," said Wang, as if she were a student who had given a satisfactory answer. He brought out another sketch. "Now, this sweater, the V-neck, it has no difficulties; the cable stitch at the cuffs and the hem will take a little longer to set on the machines, but we are quite skilled in that." He named a price and Miranda wrote it down, and they discussed colors and scheduling and quantities. Miranda made notes, telling herself that she would go through them tonight, in her hotel, and if anything seemed questionable she would bring it up tomorrow, when she was fresh.

  One by one, endlessly, it seemed, they went through the sketches. On one, Yun Chen suggested that the sleeves of a long cardigan sweater be turned into cuffs, and stitched in place, and Miranda agreed. On a cable-stitched sweater set, Wang said the cost could be reduced significantly over the entire production run by making the shell one inch shorter, and again Miranda agreed. "As long as the cardigan remains the same," she added, almost as if she were asking Wang to be kind and leave the cardigan alone. She bit her lip; she had to stop doing that, they work for us, she thought, not the other way around. But when Wang nodded graciously, she was as relieved as if she were indeed a supplicant and he a dispenser of largesse. /

  don't know how I'll do it, but I have to learn how to stand up to them.

  And finally, after a tour of the garment factory, the meeting was over. In the taxi Wang had called for her, Miranda sat back with a sigh. Like getting out of school, she thought, and was able to smile at that. They didn't even let me have a recess. And lunch was awful; served right there at the conference table, and then I couldn't eat because—

  "To where?" the taxi driver said, evidently exhausting his supply of English with those two words.

  Miranda sat up. She had something to do. She took an envelope from her purse and held it so that the driver could read the address. When he nodded, she sat back again. She had no idea where the address was, or what she would find there, but this was something she had promised to do, on her last day in Boulder, when she was packing to leave. A favor.

  Please, would you deliver a letter for me? It is to my parents and they have not heard from me in such a long time . . .

  Sima Ting was a young woman from Beijing, thin, plain, dark hair swinging about her face, thin hands gesturing as she spoke, legs tucked under her on the couch in an apartment in Boulder. She had fled China after the tanks rolled through Tiananmen Square, scattering and crushing the thousands of young demonstrators who had set up camp there. For two weeks they had cooked their meals in the enormous plaza, sung, debated, danced to the music of portable radios, hstened to newscasts, slept on concrete, and waited for the government to invite them to sit down and talk about democracy in China. And then, into the smoky flickering lights of torches and cooking fires, had come the hard beams of floodlights, and tanks and soldiers, and in one night the makeshift city had been swept away. All that had remained in the silent plaza was debris, skittering in the light wind across stones streaked with blood.

  Sima Ting, nineteen years old, was arrested, along with her brother and many of her friends. It was a month before she learned that the young man she loved had died beneath the treads of a tank; another six months before she was put on trial, found guilty, and sentenced to five years in prison. The day after her release, she met with an underground group of six young men and women who liked to sit around a table and discuss political change, and who occasionally sent lett
ers to newspapers suggesting legislation to protect civil rights. That meeting sent Ting back to prison, this time for a fifteen-year term.

  "And she'd still be there, except that she was very sick," said the woman who had sponsored Ting's trip to America, Nancy Magoon,

  one of Miranda's few close friends, was on the board of directors of a group that sponsored political refugees coming to America. When Ting was diagnosed with breast cancer, and told her choices were to remain in prison or leave China forever, it was Nancy who was called by people in Beijing who knew of her. And it was Nancy who welcomed Ting to Boulder, arranged for her medical treatment, and found her an apartment and a job at the library.

  "You'd like her," Nancy told Miranda at lunch one day. "She's very quiet, but who wouldn't be, after what she's been through? She needs friends, and since you're going to China, I thought you'd like to meet her."

  "I don't know if I'm going to China. I told Talia I wasn't sure."

  "Of course you'll go! You can't pass this up, Miranda; once in a lifetime you get a chance like this."

  Miranda gazed at her with a small smile, envying her lovely face, her smile that drew people to her, her sophistication, her perfect clothes, her energy. Everything I'm not. And yet, somehow, they were friends and loved each other. "How do you do that? There don't seem to be any obstacles in your world and there always are so many in mine."

  "Because you keep thinking about them, so they swell up like pregnant cats. Ignore them; you'll be amazed how fast they shrivel away to nothing. You can be a very determined woman, you know; if you work on that, there's nothing you can't do."

  "There's nothing you can't do. You're always helping one organization or another, getting people to do things they never thought they'd do, or said they definitely couldn't do; you and Bob go everywhere, you collect art, you go to parties, you give parties ... you have time for everything and you never seem in doubt or worried or overwhelmed ..."