Mr. Suo’s assistant was not much older than Zulfira, with sickeningly red lips and eyes that drooped as if he smoked hashish — or was simply bored with everything going on around him.
Suo and his assistant had surprised Hala and her aunt earlier that morning, before daybreak. Hala recognized the electronic beep when Suo’s assistant used his handheld machine to scan the barcode beside Zulfira’s photograph and trustworthiness rating posted beside the front door. Zulfira said the men had to make a record to prove to someone higher than them in the government that they had checked on all the Uyghur homes in their area.
They’d come unannounced six times in as many weeks after Zulfira’s husband was taken, always on some pretense — plastering the barcode on the door or checking the water quality from the kitchen tap — smelling, but not actually tasting it — and finally checking the structure of the house. The water often came out of the tap brown, and there were many cracks in the wall plaster, but Suo and his assistant ignored all those problems. The Bingtuan had condemned Zulfira and her husband’s comfortable old home in an old section of Kashgar and promptly bulldozed it to the ground.
The visits were always a surprise. Each time they’d come, fat Mr. Suo had stood on the front step with his hands behind him and asked if he and his companion could come inside. This morning, the men simply scanned the door code and barged in as if it were their home.
They looked surprised and disappointed that Zulfira and Hala were already out of bed and up working. Fat Suo said he needed to look at the walls again, paying special attention to the bedroom, picking up Zulfira’s blankets and putting them to his nose when he thought no one was looking. The younger man licked his freakish lips and looked oddly at Hala.
Suo turned suddenly, leaving the house without a word. The assistant had made a note in his small book and told Zulfira that he and his boss would return that evening. She would be well advised to have a hot meal prepared. She was, he said, to treat them as family, for that is what they were to be. The young man barked when he spoke, like someone who worked for the person in charge and thought that made him in charge as well. He never introduced himself, but Hala had heard the fat bureaucrat call him by name.
Ren.
Ren the bastard, Zulfira said, though Hala still did not quite know what that meant.
Hala wished she were bigger, stronger, so she could do something to help her aunt.
Zulfira must have read her mind, for she glared at her niece with narrow eyes as she expertly spun and pulled a skein of well-oiled noodles. “You will pretend you are invisible tonight,” she said. “Do not speak with these men. Not a word.”
“They are swine,” Hala said. “I wish I could—”
“Well, you cannot!” Zulfira slammed the noodles against the countertop over and over. “I am not your mother, but your mother has run away and left you in my charge. There is nothing either of us can do about that. We will feed these men and treat them kindly, and I will not hear another word from you about the matter.”
“That is not fair,” Hala said, tears of anger welling in her eyes, her face flushing hot. She chopped harder at her onions, narrowly missing her thumb. “I cannot believe what you are saying. The Bingtuan are the ones who took my uncle. They do not deserve our resp—”
Zulfira slapped her hard across the face, ringing her ear and knocking her off her stool. The cleaver flew from her hand and fell to the floor, where it buried itself into the cheap linoleum like an ax in soft wood.
Zulfira held the skein of oiled noodles in her hand like a club. “And yet,” she said, “respecting them is exactly what you are going to do.” Flour smudged her chin. Her eyes blazed. “Do you understand me, you spoiled little girl? You go away to your fancy gymnastics school with all the rich children and you begin to believe that you are so much smarter than we poor, unlearned Xinjiang Uyghurs who have not seen so much of the world. Well, let me promise you this, your ignorant aunt will break her broom over your back if you do not show these men respect.”
And respect was exactly what Hala showed. It did not matter, even a ten-year-old could see that. The rich odors of Zulfira’s
He tried to make small talk over a sweet pudding of rice, raisins, and shredded carrots, acting as if he had suddenly become head of the household. Hala chewed on her collar, soaking it, chapping the skin around her own neck. She could barely hold her tongue. At length, the bureaucrat excused himself to go to the toilet. Oddly, he carried a small plastic bag with him to the restroom.
