A Girl Named Faithful Plum by Richard Bernstein Page A

Academy, so I can go by myself. Probably I won’t get chosen. Then I’ll be able to visit the famous places in Beijing and come back to Baoquanling and never leave it again.
    Having composed this letter to Zhongqin in her head, Zhongmei got up and made her way back to the house, intending to write it down and send it off right away.
    But when she arrived at the entrance to Big Stone Bridge Lane, Chen Aiyi was waiting, excited about something.
    “Ah, there you are!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been waiting for you. I have something to tell you, something amazing.”
    Zhongmei was so surprised, she was speechless.
    “Let’s walk home together and I’ll tell you as we go,” Chen Aiyi said, and she embarked on a confusing story, which Zhongmei didn’t understand at first.
    “I’ve known this for a couple of days, but I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure,” Chen Aiyi said.
    “Didn’t want to tell me what?” Zhongmei asked impatiently.
    “That I found Policeman Li!” Chen Aiyi said.
    “You found Policeman Li?”
    “Well, not exactly.”
    “Oh,” said Zhongmei.
    “I didn’t find Policeman Li, but I found his wife. She’s very nice, and I’m sure Policeman Li is nice too. They’ve been so worried since they couldn’t find you, but now they have, or, I should say, I’ve found them, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that Policeman Li is coming for you today!”
    “He is?” Zhongmei was happy, but she was also nervous. She had built up such an unfavorable opinion of Policeman Li during the past couple of days that she wasn’t sure she really wanted to meet him anymore.
    “Yes,” Chen Aiyi was saying. “His wife works in the same factory as me. Isn’t that amazing? Such a big city, Beijing, millions of people, so many factories, and we work in the same one! I found out because after you arrived and I went to work, I told some of my co-workers that there was this girl from Heilongjiang and she’s come to Beijing for the dance auditions, and nobody had come to pick her up at the train station, so she was staying with me.”
    Chen Aiyi paused to catch her breath.
    “Well,” she resumed. “The day before yesterday, somebody I know told me that she heard there was another woman at the factory who was also talking about a girl from Heilongjiang. This other woman said that she was looking for her. Naturally, at first I thought there must be lots of girlsfrom Heilongjiang, so I didn’t think much of it, but then yesterday my friend told me that the other woman’s husband was a policeman! She works in a different part of the factory from me. I went to see her during my rest break. The woman had a picture of the girl they were looking for. It was taken some time ago, but as soon as I saw it, I knew it was you!”
    Chen Aiyi stopped and smiled at Zhongmei. They were just outside the gate to their courtyard.
    “But what if they don’t want me?” Zhongmei asked.
    “What if who doesn’t want you?”
    “Policeman Li and his family,” Zhongmei exclaimed. “He didn’t meet me at the train station. Maybe they don’t want to take care of me.”
    “Of course they want you,” Chen Aiyi said. “Just go in and get ready. He’s going to be here very soon.”
    Zhongmei, reassured but still not certain that finding Policeman Li would turn out to be a good thing, scampered into the house and quickly put her few things into her small cloth suitcase, rushing so much that she didn’t even bother to fold the city outfit Zhongqin and Zhongling had made for her but just stuffed it in. She grabbed the suitcase and ran out to the courtyard. She looked out into the lane in anticipation of the man in a policeman’s uniform who would soon materialize.
    She saw no walking policeman, only a large man on a motorcycle slowly navigating the potholes of Big Stone Bridge Lane. As he got closer, Zhongmei realized that he was wearinga policeman’s uniform, green with red shoulder tabs and a large visored hat that