kitchen, in the thrum of almost one hundred cooks, at my station, which was for wrapping. Wrapping was the most difficult, the most pleasing, the most subtle part of making Gou Bu Li’s baozi. Each glossy-white bun had to be in the shape of a tight-budded chrysanthemum, closed at the top with no less than eighteen pleats. Mine were perfect. I worked with care. I kept my eyes down.
One of the waiters from upstairs approached. “Comrade Liang?”
“I am he.” I did not interrupt my pleating rhythm.
“There is a special order from a table upstairs.”
I looked up. There were no special orders. Just baozi, pork and cabbage. “What is it?”
“They made me repeat it. They said they wanted xiao wo tou.”
“Ei? Say that again.”
“Xiao wo tou. They said it was your specialty.”
“Nonsense,” I said. “Never heard of it. Don’t know what it is.” Though I did, exactly.
“They said you would know,” he said.
He was young, the skin on his face tight as a plum. “Listen,” I said, “you go back. Tell them you are sorry, we don’t make that at this restaurant. What are you standing there for? Go!” And I watched him scuttle off.
I did not see the boy again that night. When we finished I cleaned my area quickly and returned to the bunk room in time to roll up my few articles of clothing and hide them under my pillow. My hukou, my household registration, which gave me the right to exist in China, a home, a place in the pattern — this I left in its sewn-in pouch in my inner pocket. Later I would have to find a way to get rid of it.
I washed thoroughly, scrubbing every patch of myself, thinking it was possible I might never wash again. I crept back into the bunk room after the lights were out, so nobody saw me hoist into my bunk with all my clothes on, even my shoes.
I lay as quiet as a stone while the moon rose over the Tianjin rooftops. The roomful of men, worn-out kitchen men who had cooked by hot steamers and cleaned and gone finally to their beds, quieted to a soft forest of sighs and snores.
I waited hours to get up. To climb down I had to step on the bed of the man below. “I’m sorry, Comrade.” And I whispered a local slang word for the bathroom. The man snorted and returned to sleep. I hunched down the center aisle, holding my midsection as if ill, concealing my bundle. I slipped out and passed the rear of the kitchens. The last of the men were inside cleaning, and they had set racks of leftover buns in the doorway, which they would divide up later and take home. I took five dozen, wrapped them in three tight cloths in my bundle, and continued on, holding my middle, into the latrine, then out again through a back door that gave onto a Tianjin alley. We were never prisoners in our workers’ collectives, but if a man did leave, there was nowhere else to go.
I set out walking. First I cut across the city, with its silent shadows, and then through the hours of thinning buildings and finally the countryside, due east, by the stars. Later, by the sun. I walked without stopping until I came, finally, to the flats that led to the sea. The air was cold, which was good for the baozi. As a cook I was well fed, better than most people, and I had the reserves to walk a night and a day without food. I only drank, stopping when I could at farmers’ pumps.
By the time I reached the flat, fine, oily sand it was night again, and I could walk no farther. I stumbled out onto a pier crowded with boats. There were fishing boats, squat, of dark, heavy wood, and lined up in their berths, the larger craft — metal-hulled diesel-engine boats scavenged from the years of war, patched, remade, bumping the wood pilings, lines clinking. I had taken my last steps; if I did not lie down, I would collapse. So I staggered out along a wooden plank beside one of the berths, maneuvered my leg over the rail, and stepped aboard a boat. It was a large one, fourteen meters of hull at least. Three metal doors. I pulled at one; it opened. Down a ladder was a wedge-shaped space, and a bunk. I untied the baozi from my waist and collapsed.