One

Yuhe was sent to the women's squadron of the M Prison Farm, where she became acquainted with a coworker in Section Two – Jintu Zou. This woman made an unusual impression: she was as thickset as a man, yet nimbler than any woman. When the workday begun, she walked in front. Her stride spanned twice the length of a regular prisoner's. When work was done, she walked in front, too – anyone else would've been completely sapped, yet she was as energetic as ever. After returning to the prison dormitory, while most prisoners were still washing and sluicing, Jintu would've already tidied herself up, changed into clean clothes, sat cross-legged on the floor, and begun sewing insoles for her shoes, stitch by stitch.

Whether you saw her up front or from the side, there was a masculine air to her features – a squarish face, prominent nose, wide mouth, swarthy skin; her eyeballs were gray-yellow, her hair terribly thick, that each one stood erect like a length of wire. How amazing her embroidery was! The moment she picked up a needle, her great fingers softened at once. The sewing needle trailed thin varicolored threads and, as though possessed, flew and dived and twisted and turned, before it landed tamely on the cloth again, forming wondrous patterns. She and Yueying Liu were the best embroiderers in the squadron, but they differed in the designs and colors of their needlework. Yueying's were dazzling, hers were mild.

Yuhe liked to watch Jintu embroider, and it wasn't just her; Xuezhen Li – the half-lunatic come back from America with a doctorate – also liked to watch, and whenever she watched, she didn't talk her nonsense so much anymore. After Yuhe'd watched a couple of times, the Section Two leader Runjia Su warned Yuhe, "Don't get too close. She's a needle; if you become the thread, she'll tangle you to death."

Yuhe wondered, "Tangle me to death, how?"

"Well, Junshu got tangled up with her, now she gets punished every year."

"What'd they do?"

Runjia didn't answer.

"What did they do?" Yuhe asked again.

Leader Su muttered, "Grinding tofu."

"Grinding tofu?" Yuhe suddenly understood and gasped, "are they lesbians?"

"Not so loud!" Runjia gave a hard glare.

Yuhe thought she'd guessed correctly, yet the words "grinding tofu" were still a mystery to her.

After Runjia's warning, Yuhe had deliberately observed the two, yet she didn't find Jintu or Junshu's behavior particularly unusual. Junshu seemed all right to her, elegant, svelte, quiet. She never cursed, and carried with her a rare intellectual air.

One Saturday evening in early summer, Officer Chen, quartermaster of the women's squadron, listened to the weather forecast on the radio. Then she called Yuhe into her office and said, "I'll be busy. Tomorrow, you go downhill to the food station in town, and sort out next month's rations for our squadron."

"Yes." Yuhe straightened up – what a marvelous surprise!

Officer Chen handed her a triplicate form with the farm's official seal, then took two dollar bills from her coat pocket and said, "Buy me two packets of baby formula in town. I have to feed Tao Tao." Tao Tao was her one-year-old son. Officer Chen added, "Bring a plastic sheet with you, wrap the formula well, I heard there's rain tomorrow."

When she returned to the dormitory, Fengzhu Yi asked, "Who were you talking to?"

"Officer Chen."

"The quartermaster? You're in luck, then."

"Why's that?"

She licked her dried-out lips and said, "If the quartermaster calls a prisoner to run an errand, it's got to be buying food, clothes, and the such, no? If the production officer calls, it's usually to pick up pesticides or help carry fertilizers. The worst is when the correctional officer calls, someone's bound to have reported you, then you knew they'd make you 'read the books'."

Runjia cut Fengzhu off and said, "Aren't you well-versed in reform methods! In political studies this evening, when you were picked to talk about new prospects in and outside the nation, how come you didn't have a word to say?"

Word had it that Yuhe was going to town. Those that sat on their bunk and sewed patches, or stitched insoles, or dozed on their pillow, all came crowding to her:

"Get me a half a pound of candy, please, I'll give you the money."

"I want a bar of soap."

The prisoner that slept furthest from Yuhe's bunk was called Huilian; she took out a small leather purse from under her pillow, retrieved some money, asked others to pass it along to Yuhe, and said earnestly, "When you go in town tomorrow, grab me half a pound of fruit candy, the Shanghainese brand. I get nervous from time to time, sucking on some candy helps me calm down."

Huilian was around seventy, Catholic, gaunt of face, untalkative and unsmiling; her brows curved like thin willow leaves, and her teeth were well-kept and clean. Whether it was solstice day or midwinter, she wore a snow-white shirt next to the skin, which, coupled with her pallid complexion, made a rare sight for an old woman even outside of prison, let alone in it. Yuhe went to church school as a kid, and could imagine Huilian's poise back in the day; how come she winded up here, too? Qidan Jiang told her discreetly, "She conspired with foreigners."

Yuhe asked, "She gave them intel?"

Qidan cocked her head and said disdainfully, "As if! Take me, for example; I'd only spoken a few words to the foreigners at my church, and they ruled it as treasonous conspiracy too."

Pingsu and Yuhe were so "in sync" with Qidan that they didn't need to talk, they communicated with their eyes. Whenever Yuhe couldn't figure out about the formalities between prisoners, aside from asking Leader Su, she went to Qidan, who was anyhow more sympathetic than Runjia Su.

Yuhe said to Huilian, "Candy won't help with your condition, you gotta ask the nurse."

"You mean Yanlan Wu?" She shook her head.

"What's wrong?"

Huilian said, "She's no good, she never treats me like a patient."

"Why not?"

"She thinks I'm a minion of capitalism and imperialism,p an unforgivable vermin."

"She's an I-Kuan Tao believer – what right's she got to judge you? Catholicism sounds far better than I-Kuan Tao to me." Hearing such words from Yuhe, the ever-unsmiling Huilian cracked a laugh. Seeing her haggard, bony form, Yuhe said out of pity, "Half a pound's too little, you'll finish it in no time. If there's milk candy, I'll get you a pound."

"Milk candy?" Huilian's eyes sparked with light; then she sighed and said, "I can't buy that much – I'm not like you, I have no income."

Huilian had been a longtime patient, and had severe heart disease. The disease was treatable outside of prison, but once inside, one could only wait for death. The Squadron Leader permitted her to not work outside, and that was already magnanimity beyond the law – it was great lenience. Qidan secretly helped her with day-to-day tasks, and was thus reproved by name numerous times. She didn't care, she kept doing it. Once, she was reported for washing Huilian's underwear.

In the evening, during group study, she was made to stand, while Section Leader Mei Deng asked, "Were you wrong in what you did?"

Qidan answered, "Yes."

"How were you wrong? Tell me."

"I was wrong for breaking the regulations."

Mei Deng asked, "What do the regulations say?"

"No collusion between prisoners."

"Next time Huilian asks you to wash something, will you do it?"

Qidan didn't answer.

"Will you do it?"

She kept her head down – just kept her head down.

Mei grew irritated. She walked up to her and roared, "Will you do it or not?"

Qidan still didn't say a word.

Smack – Mei reached over and slapped her in the face.

This was Yuhe's first time seeing Mei get worked up and hit someone, and she didn't expect it to be Qidan. Qidan acted as though it was nothing; she turned her head back round. As she turned, her eyes met Yuhe's. In that moment, Yuhe felt that she was a hero.

Yuhe took the money from Huilian; Qidan leaned over and asked, "How much did she give you?"

"Fifty cents."

"Hold on, I'll add a few cents more."

Although all prisoners wore the same clothes and ate the same food, they lived quite differently. Yuhe transferred money to her mother every quarter, and although this payment never exceeded two or three dollars, it had made her most admired by other prisoners. Similarly, the late Mrs Wang-Yang, who, despite having four sons working in the commune, saved up a portion of her monthly two dollars fifty, which she sent to her sons every New Year, all the while mumbling, "Being a communard's no better than a prisoner – it's a position, but no money." Didn't Yueying also save up for her son working on the Chengkun railway? Therein lies the difference. Yuhe thought prison was tough, yet so many criminal countrywomen thought that, aside from lacking freedom, the prisoners lived better than communards! How strange.

Albeit the government hadn't advocated and launched a battle between "Reform and Anti-Reform", there was between prisoners ceaseless friction, discord and division, from which sprung disputes, rivalries, and even fights. However, on the single matter of food, all prisoners were in agreement.

"Yuhe, remember to grab me some canned pork! Get the greasiest ones." Junshu was the one speaking.

"How do I know if it's greasy?"

Junshu said, "Just look at the white layer of fat at the top of the glass can – the thicker the fat, the more oil there is; the thinner, the less."

Yuhe said, smiling, "Guess you learn something everyday."

Xuezhen leaned over, withdrew a brand new five-dollar bill from her shirt pocket, and declared, "I'll buy ten pounds of candy!" Such bravado!

Fengzhu thumped her on the back and said, "You think you're in America? Some brilliant ideas you have – ten pounds!"

Laughter roared in the prison dormitory. Yuhe said, "I can't buy that much."

Xuezhen huffed in dissatisfaction and asked, "Why do you buy for Junshu, then? Or for Huilian? No fair!"

She hadn't heard the word "fair" in a long time. Yuhe took the doctor's money and said, "I'll try my best – I'll get what I can for you."

By the time the crowd's dissipated, Runjia Su said to Yuhe, "Bring me half a pound of chili bean paste. Everything tastes so bland sometimes! There, use that bottle, there's twenty cents inside."

"Why do you put cash in the bottle? Money's the dirtiest thing there is," said Yuhe.

"Can't be much dirtier than the people here."

"I don't think I'm too dirty," said Yuhe.

Although the regulations forbade prisoners from causing commotions, in reality, only when everybody was asleep, did peace and quiet befall the dormitory crammed with dozens of prisoners.

Not long after, sounds of snoring fluttered through the dormitory. Yuhe used to be a long-term insomniac. The condition went away after she joined the squadron. After all, there was a cure for it: the cure was called "tiredness". After work, she was too tired to even talk; she wanted only to keel over and lie down, and it didn't matter where she laid down, or where she keeled over. Yet that night, Yuhe sensed not a hint of fatigue, but schemed with all her heart: what should she eat in town tomorrow? Stir-fried pork, definitely, she'd devour it in one go, every last drop. If there was fried pork liver, she'd order a plate too – goodness, it's been so long. And two crisp, golden, delicious fried breadsticks, and a bowl of fried rice, and a bowl of wonton, and rice wine, with two eggs stirred in, at least two. And finally, some dessert.

Yuhe knew that the prisoners came from all kinds of places – some used to listen to the radio at home, some listened to dogs bark at their door; some had been scholars for decades, some farmed their whole life; and now that they slept on the same bunk, they began to adopt similarities. The greatest similarity was the want for food, like a bowl of white rice, or an oil-glinting hunk of meat.

The next day, Yuhe was no less energetic from losing sleep. The Squadron Leader was on duty and, seeing that Yuhe didn't seem dressed for labour in the mountain, asked, "What are you doing today?"

Yuhe answered, "Officer Chen ordered me yesterday to go get the triplicate form in town, for our rations, ma'am."

The Squadron Leader asked again, "Just you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Officer Chen must've heard the Leader's inquiries; she hurried out of her room and explained, "It's just a triplicate form from the town, a literate prisoner should do."

The Squadron Leader nodded, and spoke no further.

Yuhe was overjoyed: this way, nobody could surveil her anymore; she could eat whatever she pleased; she could eat however much she pleased.

Yuhe went down the mountain, her feet darting as though on wings. She ran, like a lovestruck girl into the all-soothing embrace of her lover.