A rose-colored sunrise greeted us when we got up. Mom had breakfast ready and waiting for me. I took a few deep breaths on the balcony, stretched my muscles, and then got into the shower. Over tea, I told Mom that I had made an appointment online last night with a specialist and would take her to the doctor today, then I could get busy with my own things. She said your brother called early in the morning and said he would drive to pick me up later and your sister-in-law would take me to the hospital. You take care of your own business, leave me alone, and I’ll be back with you in a couple of days.
At this moment, escape and freedom are my only goals. I bit my lips and clenched my fists. My appearance provoked my mother’s love and pity, and she came over and kissed me on the forehead, saying, “Don’t come back if you can leave. My mother’s words stirred up waves in my heart, deep down I wanted to blame my mother for my predicament and let her take some of the blame, but now I fully understand her, in fact I have no slight reason to blame her, I came home to put myself in harm’s way and to see who I really am. It wasn’t like she thought she was, that as soon as she heard her mother was sick, she came back and tried to take care of her despite everything.
After my mother left, I took out my phone book and jotted down a few important numbers and names of people. The first was Director Li Leiyang. I dug out my summer clothes and found a white sleeveless shirt and a pair of jeans to put on. Then I compiled the relevant certificates about my study and work abroad, photos from various cultural promotion activities, especially the honorary certificates issued by the Chinese Embassy, and carefully placed them in the file folder. The text message sent to Director Li was quickly answered: Meeting. Contact again. I had completely forgotten his admonition not to text.
I assessed the situation. It was clear that no Uyghur could enter or leave the border freely unless there was a special mission. Why couldn’t I have a special mission? I found the kebab in WeChat and left him a message saying I had an important situation to report to him. Within a few minutes he replied to me and said he could meet me at the KFC store on Friendly Road in an hour.
I carefully put on my makeup, put my hair in a pill, calmly looked in the mirror, took off my jeans and put on a bright sleeveless dress, stuck a shopping card worth 10,000 yuan on a gift box of fine Turkish pastry Baklava with transparent tape, then wrapped it in gift paper and put it in my satchel and locked the door and went downstairs. I would rather get there early and wait. When I got to the KFC store I asked for a cup of milk tea, pulled out my pocket book and started flipping through it.
“You’re early, huh?” A man’s voice rang in my ears and I was busy putting away my books. Kebab was still wearing civilian clothes, and his short stature looked very smart. He sat down next to me and touched my fingertips and asked me what I wanted to drink. I said I would like a latte. He went over and brought a cup of milk tea and a cup of coffee and returned to his seat. He looked around, then picked up his cup and walked straight towards a corner, I hurriedly followed. After sitting down, his small eyes looked me up and down as if he wanted to study me first. I gave him a small smile and began a conversation that only old friends can have.
I walked down the busiest street in Urumqi in my well-fitting sandals and with a bouncy stride. The offer to the kebab had piqued his interest, as evidenced by the initial carelessness with which he talked to me to the unsettling grin on his face as he finally stared at me without looking away. That lewd smile did not deter me, rather I felt smug that I had managed to capture his needs. He said it had to be reported to his superiors and told me to wait for news. He also accepted my gift and seemed to pick up on my hint when I told him that the pastry was particularly expensive and could only be eaten by myself and not given away.
When I passed by the new medical community council, I rang the doorbell thinking that there was still an hour before the end of the day. A pair of eyes looked through the peephole and immediately opened the door. I asked a secretary in? He said I do not know, you go up and see for yourself, on the fourth floor.
The secretary’s surname is Liu, he is in the general office office. When he saw me enter, he looked impatient and told me to say something quickly. I briefly recounted what happened to me after I returned home, hoping to be deregulated to let me return to teaching. He gave me a blank look with a frown and said in a clearly mocking tone, “Your situation is rather complicated, and you want to go back? Back to Turkey?!” It was as if I wanted to go back not to some country on Earth but to Mars, which he found hard to believe. He eased his tone and yelled, “Wait, we’ll know where you’re going when the assessment report from the household officials and Officer Zhang comes out.” After saying that he waved his hand in a tired manner and let me out. I asked him in the softest tone of voice to take care of his health and not to work too hard. He bowed his head and ignored me.
I was not discouraged at all when I left the office, this was just the beginning, my plan was just beginning, I believed I could save Nadier out, and I could also get an exit permit with a special mission. As soon as I got home I started contacting Xiao Ma and asked her to find a way to send me Nadiye’s information. After less than half an hour Ma Liyan sent me a photo with Nadiye’s ID number and full name in Chinese, as well as her household location at 321 Dunbaili Road in Kucha City. This morning kebab also said to me do not write a message, you can voice mail. It seems to be taken as a photo is also unable to monitor, Ma Liyan is really smart.
Back home in the kitchen casually find some food, and then began to organize the house of Sai Nanm. I was so distracted for so many days after my return that I didn’t care to take care of this boudoir. Her bed is a box Simmons, although outdated, but sturdy and durable. I lifted the lid of the box, filled with a variety of clothing, a camphor smell immediately filled the room. The four seasons clothes, covers and so on are washed clean, neatly iterated in the upper part of the box. Several new quilts and new mattresses with embroidered covers were placed in the box at the foot of the bed. Thinking about the current situation of the Senamese family, it was certain that she would never use the dowry again and would not be able to return it to her family for a while. The bedding needed some sunlight. When I pulled one of the heavy mattresses, a heavy laptop bag slipped out and my hand felt like it had been scalded by boiling water, so I hid it back.
I took the bedding set from Sanam to the lanai and put it on the drying rack. The bedding, made of high-quality cotton from Kucha, would double in size under the blazing sun, and I could still smell the sun when I took it back in the evening.
It’s been 10 days since I got back and my return ticket was voided. 4 days later they will return my old phone, which I’ve been careful not to use any software banned in the country and never use it to log into any websites, so they won’t find anything wrong with it. Then, there is nothing in the email used in China that would interest them either, unless they want to pry into my privacy. Before I left the country, Mr. Guo and I used to say things to each other by email in his office, mostly from him in response to my silence after a fight. Suddenly I remembered that I had sent Mr. Guo some information about the history of Xinjiang that I had downloaded from a foreign website. I had read these documents and strongly questioned the idea that Xinjiang had been a part of China since ancient times. Suddenly I felt danger was close at hand. If they found this email wouldn’t they be able to convict? But those documents containing sensitive information should be sent with another email address, that email address I did not tell Officer Zhang, that is I registered abroad specifically to send some private documents with Google email, Google are withdrawn from the Chinese market, they will not provide user information to China, so the police will not be so powerful to grasp the situation. I was relieved to think of this.
Waiting for the phone test results of these days, I want to pick up my mother back to live with me. Since junior high school to study in the city, after joining the work and early to leave and late to return, and mother alone less and less time, as the Uyghur proverb says “away from the eyes away from the heart”. She only has two children, us siblings, and after my father’s death, my mother has been living alone, keeping her old house with my father in Turks County, and refusing to go to Urumqi to live with my son. This reunion with my mother began with tears and complaints, she became shriveled and depressed, the wrinkles on her face like deep and long furrows, so I felt sorry that I had not done my duty to take care of her. “I thought of my mother’s face when she said that, and I couldn’t help but feel a sorrow in my heart.
I went downstairs and crossed the street to get on BRT line 1 on the eighth floor. After getting off at the South Gate station, I turned into Culture Lane. The streets here are not as lively as they used to be, the Uyghur vendors have all been driven back to their homes, leaving only the grocery stores on the street. The entrance to the neighborhood was equipped with face recognition devices, and there were long lines of people waiting to enter. Knowing that I could not pass identification as a priority population, I called my brother at the door and told him that I was coming to pick up my mother. After ten minutes or so, my mother came out alone with a travel bag. I held my mother’s arm and walked slowly to the BRT station. When I got on the bus, I found a seat for my mother and stood beside her myself, and all the way there we just made eye contact and looked deep into each other’s eyes.
“Where are you from?” An older woman standing next to me suddenly asked in a loud voice. I followed her gaze and she was asking a question to a young woman who had just gotten off the train and was standing by the door.
“Just came from Henan.”
“I’m also from Henan.”
“When did you come here? Are you used to it?” The young woman’s face opened up with a smile, shaking the trolley case in her hand and squeezed towards her hometown.
“Why not get used to it? Back home is not used to miles, this life in Xinjiang, the next life is still in Xinjiang.” She said this at the top of her voice with her eyes fixed on me and my mother, with a provocative tone. I gave her a blank look and cursed in my heart: “Motherly a bear than, why not dig your ancestral graves over it!”
The old woman, as if no one was there, loudly teaching the way of life in Xinjiang, the young woman with the first to arrive at the restrained coyly smile, did not say anything more. I raised my eyes and looked around, and found that except for me and my mother, the car was full of Han Chinese passengers. I turned around to face my mother and tried not to listen to her disgustingly harsh voice.
When I got home, it was late afternoon and my mother said she had already eaten dinner and just wanted some hot tea. I tossed myself a large vegetable salad. At the dinner table my mother gently inquired about my personal life, and I said that now was not the time to think about it. My mother sighed, knowing that I was not happy to talk about it. Mom pressed her shoulder and said her neck hurt, and I went behind her and began to massage her with the techniques I had learned in nursing school, and she let out a soft moan with her head down. I couldn’t recall how long ago I had touched my mother’s body, and it was hard to recall the attachment and intimacy between us. I don’t think I’m selfish or forgetful. The divide between my mother and I arose many years ago. At that time I was my father’s favorite little princess, the golden lump, and the two of us called each other “you” and always had endless things to say. My mother doted on my brother, and I remember him running to unbutton my mother’s bodice to eat two sips of milk when he was thirsty from playing, until he went to elementary school. One day we met my homeroom teacher, she told my mother that I had topped the grade in language, my mother said nothing, but pulled a long face, why was this first place not his beloved son? Once because I bought a bottle of shampoo with the money she had left over from letting me buy a light bulb, she grabbed my hair and hit my head against the wall, and said viciously, “Little bitch, I’ll marry you off if you do that again.” I don’t know why, but she was upset and I was her punching bag. She was beautiful, with dark eyes as dark as the night, the shadows under her eyelashes made her eyes unfathomable, and when she smiled slightly her cheeks would appear two dimples. Before she got married, my mother was a dancer in the county’s cultural and industrial troupe, tall and graceful as a willow. After getting married and giving birth to my brother, she did not perform on stage again and was transferred to the county cinema to buy movie tickets. I remember one of my classmates told me that her mother and father often quarreled because of my mother. My mother and father often quarreled too, mostly because of the way my mother treated me, and only when I grew up did I realize that it was one woman’s jealousy of another woman. One day, I had a stomachache and blood flowing from my lower body. The first time I had a good thing made me very scared and my class teacher, Ms. Cai Junfang, told me to go back. When I arrived home, I found the door locked from the inside, and my mother shouted from inside: “I’m taking a bath, you go play for a while and come back.” That morning my father went on a business trip, saying that he was going to Urumqi. However, somehow he came back that afternoon. I played poker and watched TV at the neighbors’ house, and finally had to leave when they had dinner. When I approached the house, I saw the door still closed, and my dad was inside, ranting and raving, and I had never heard him say such harsh words before. When I pushed the door in, I saw a man sitting by the door with his head hanging down and his nose bleeding, my mother sitting at the dining room table with her hair spread out and her eyes swollen from crying, and my brother standing behind my mother with a very frightening expression on his face. Dad saw me come in and immediately jumped up and rushed to the man, grabbed him by the collar and kicked and beat him and threw him out the door. I cried in fear, my father took my hand and went into my bedroom, his face was like dirt, sitting on my bed with his head down without saying a word, after a long time he slowly raised his head, his eyes filled with tears looked at me wanting to say something to me, but suddenly felt sick, covered his chest and fell to the floor, he tried with his last bit of strength to convey his dismay and love to me:” Princess, my poor child ……”, I will never forget the look in his eyes. My father was in the resuscitation room of the city hospital for three days and died early in the morning of the fourth day. The day my father died was Friday morning, which is a sacred day for Muslims, so the funeral had to be held in time for the gathering of rituals at the mosque. My brother left me alone to see my father one last time. My father was lying on my bed, a large beige cloth covering his jaw, as if he was asleep, with a light smile on his lips. I reached out and stroked his plump cheeks, his stubbly beard, his graying hair, and then placed his warm hand on my own face; I couldn’t believe he was just gone, it couldn’t be. I didn’t cry and murmured to him, “In a few days it will be your 60th birthday, I prepared a gift for you, I took the first place in the language test. I wanted to tell you on your birthday to make you happy. They say you’re dead, how is that possible, you wouldn’t leave your little princess to go to the other world by herself, I know you love me the most, you can’t let me go ……” I softly called out his nickname, that I had given him, “Pietro Ruo Shi, bad man Pietro Ruo Shi, cruel Pietro I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to get the best out of you. I shook his hand and my voice got louder and louder, and I got more and more angry, and I turned to him in Chinese and said, “I hate you, you can’t just leave me and go away, I’m so young, and you’re leaving me behind! I hate you, I hate you-you-you!” My brother ran in and hugged me and cried out as he pulled me away from my father’s side.
The house was filled with mourners in the three rooms except my bedroom, and the courtyard was filled with men who had come from near and far. They purified my father’s body, wrapped him in a white kefan (coffin), and moved him out of the room on a tabard. I realized at that moment that I was going to lose my father forever. I screamed as hard as I could and rushed to hug my father’s legs, but the crowd reached out and stopped me with a few hands pulling.
When the men went to the cemetery, the sadness in the house was not as strong as before, and the women began to drink tea and eat and talk softly. I desperately needed to be alone, and I didn’t want to sit there and wait for the mourners to come to my door. The urge to cry in the bathroom disturbed me, but the house was full of people, so I put on all my clean clothes in the toilet at the end of the orchard, put a bar of soap in one pocket and a small bottle of shampoo in the other, clutched some change in my hand and went out over the yard wall. I dried my tears under the rain spray and called out “Dad, Dad” over and over again until I was exhausted. When I returned home that day, my relatives told me that I had ignored the custom of running to take a bath at a funeral, while others said I was hard-hearted and not at all like my father’s daughter. Because they didn’t see me shed a single tear.
Our culture holds maternal love in the holiest of places, all mothers are great and good girls shouldn’t hate their mothers. I don’t look like my mother, but I imitate the way she walks, the tone of her voice, and I long in my heart for her attention and admiration. But she always complained that I was like a wild child, not close to her, not even able to say “mom”. As I grew older, my mother and I became more distant, because I understood the reason for my father’s deep irritation. When she looked at me with pleading eyes, begging for my forgiveness, I could not get over the hump in my heart. The duty of love called me to forget the past, but sober reason called me to remember it: these two emotions coexisted at the same time, half light, half dark, a black ghost always there, sometimes attached to my body, sometimes a few steps back for a while, always there anyway, unable to disappear. At the moment my fingers move over my mother, the body that gave birth to me, who is 70 years old, and no matter how things turn out for me, this meeting could be a farewell. Thinking of this, my heart was filled with tenderness, and I whispered to her about what I had seen abroad, and mentioned my relationship with Matthew. Mother did not say a word, she listened intently, a warm smile on her face.
Officer Zhang called and asked me to retrieve my phone. She took my phone out of the bag and handed it back to me, then said, “It’s pretty clean,” and I thought she was satisfied with what she heard. I took the opportunity to ask her to take care of my ID information so that it would not be reported to the police again. She agreed.
I seemed to be safe for now. Now it was time for me to find out where Nadieh was. I found Chief Li Leiyang at the X University police station, his office door open and looking down at his phone. I knocked on the door, he looked up at me, and I went in and sat across from him without waiting for his permission.
“Have you been to the top yet?”
“No. I retrieved the phone today. Didn’t find out anything.”
“That’s good.”
“This is my friend’s daughter. Please do me a favor and find out where she is now.” I opened the door and stated my intention and handed over the slip of paper with her name and ID number.
Chief Li made a phone call and a short female police officer soon appeared in front of us.
“You go check this person.” Chief Li ordered briefly.
The policewoman went out with the note and soon returned, whispering something in the chief’s ear.
While the policewoman was talking, Chief Li kept staring at me seriously. I did not dodge, I also looked at him, trying to read some meaning from his eyes.
After the policewoman went out, he left his desk and walked a few steps away from me, lowered his voice and said, “Her situation is complicated.” The voice was dry and dull.
“She’s not even 17.” I was a little agitated.
“She was initially at the education and training center in her household. she was transferred to another place in May, so I’ll try to find out more.”
“Please introduce me to a good lawyer. I want to be her guardian-in-fact.”
“There is a lawyer I know, a woman, I don’t know if she’s available.”
“Give me her contact information.”
Director Li did not ask anything, tore off a piece of paper quickly wrote down the lawyer’s name and number.
“In extraordinary times, it’s better for a lawyer to come forward will work better.” I took the note with a smile and offered to reach out and say goodbye to him.
I walked all the way back from the X University police station, trying to clear my mind. It was the time of June when the sun was shining in the summer moonlight. I walked to a street garden and tried to call my lawyer. The first thing I did was to enter the number into the phone book, and then search for her micro signal, chenghuiping1985. send out an invitation and wait for her to accept. Two pigeons are chasing and playing not far away. The two pigeons were chasing after each other not far away. The phone “ding-dong” sent out an alert, I hurried to check. The lawyer accepted my invitation and said: “Hello”.
I pressed the recording: “Hello, Director Li gave me your contact information.” Her avatar was a black square. I clicked on the black mass, which was a night sky covered with stars. It said: If you click on the big picture and see the stars, let me know.
“Yes, you do.”
“I need to apply to be a proxy guardian. I want to ask you to represent me.”
“You can do it yourself, as long as the local civil affairs bureau, neighborhood committee, village committee agreed to it.” She did not hear that I was not Han Chinese.
I sent another voice message: “Well, I know. I’m a bit special, I’m Uyghur. I want to be the guardian of my friend’s daughter, whose mother disappeared ten years ago and she came back from Japan after her father died in March this year. She’s now in education and training.”
“Well, got it. My legal representation is more expensive, so I’ll give you that in advance.”
“I’m willing to pay your legal fees as long as I can get it done.” After that I opened her circle of friends and saw her personality signature: not actively singing praises for the ridiculous part of the world. I smiled heartily, then said to her, “Let’s meet sometime.”
“Okay. I’ll look at the schedule and get in touch with you ha.” She replied readily.
When I got home, I smelled the spicy and sour aroma of lamb, tomatoes, peppers and cowpeas simmering together before I entered the house. I opened the door and said to my mom, “Mommy, are we having pulled pork today?”
“Yeah, I went down to buy some fresh vegetables and thought it would be a shame not to make some ramen.”
“Mom, I haven’t eaten such a delicious ramen in a long time.”
“You can make your own. You’re already 40 years old.”
“I do, but it’s not as good as yours. Besides, the lamb there is not as good as the one back home.”
Mom finely chopped green and red peppers and garlic in a small bowl, poured a few spoons of vinegar, and the room was immediately filled with an appetizing, slightly spicy vinegar aroma. I hurriedly sat down to enjoy the ready-made food.
For the first time, I told my mother the story of Senam, and told her my plan with a tone of pride and bragging, convinced of what I had said, that saving Nadieh was possible. I hid the conversation with the kebab, it was a secret, I didn’t want my mother to worry about me, it was really a gamble, I made a bet with my conscience and reputation. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to see the text messages from Kebab in time, and my phone was always at my fingertips. 7:00 or so Yang came, and I left her hanging in the living room, and went to the balcony with a cup of tea. Just sit down a short while later received two text messages, one is Cheng lawyer, she asked me Wednesday noon can meet. One was a kebab. I listened to the message of the kebab, he said “your situation is very dangerous, if possible, hurry to find someone, if not, it will be too late. Got it.” I did not ask anything, only returned “thank you” two words.
Recent Comments