Free The Interior by Lisa See Page A

surrounding countryside, but her hopes and guesses had been wrong. Only three hundred miles from Beijing, this was the primitive interior.
    Suchee’s small compound had been built according to old customs, based on practical and political considerations. The building faced south toward the warmth of the sun and away from the north from which invaders had always come. There was a small walled-in courtyard of ten by ten feet, which protected a well. Other than this, the hard-packed land that nestled between these walls was devoid of buckets, potted plants, a bicycle, or any of those items that spelled a life lived above a subsistence level. This side of the house had a door with a window opening on each side. There was no glass, which was fine at this time of year, but cruel during the winter when Suchee would have to stuff the openings with dried grass. If she were feeling particularly prosperous, she might even seal the window further with newspaper held in place with glue made from flour and water.
    “Ling Suchee!” Hulan called out. “I am here! It is Liu Hulan!”
    From inside the house Hulan heard a squeal, then her own name called out. A moment later an old woman stood in the doorway. “I didn’t think you would come,” the old woman said. “But you have.”
    “Suchee?”
    Seeing Hulan’s uncertainty, the woman came forward and took her arm. “It is I, Suchee, your friend. Come in. I will make tea. Have you eaten?”
    Hulan stepped over the high threshold, which was designed to keep flood waters out. Except for the single bare lightbulb that hung from a rafter in the center of the room, she could have been stepping back in time a hundred, even a thousand years. The room held two
kangs
, beds made from wooden platforms. Once again memories rushed back. Hulan remembered her shock as a twelve-year-old on learning that people slept on these platforms instead of in soft beds. How the bones of Hulan and her young comrades had ached until the peasants had shown them how to make mattresses out of straw. Later that year, when freezing winds had come down from the north, the peasants had taught them to make quilts from raw cotton and to set braziers filled with hot coal under the platforms for warmth.
    “Sit, Hulan. You must be tired.”
    Hulan did as she was told, perching on a stool made from a crate turned on end. She glanced around. There was so little here. The table, the upturned crates, the two beds. A shelf held two cups, four bowls—two large for noodles, two small for rice—three serving dishes, and an old soy sauce container filled with cooking utensils and chopsticks. To the right of the door was a small cabinet where Hulan supposed Suchee kept clothes and linens. On top Suchee had put together a simple altar with some sticks of incense, three oranges, a crudely carved Buddha, and two photographs. These would be of Suchee’s husband and daughter.
    Once the water was on, Suchee joined Hulan at the table. Too many things had happened in the last twenty-five years for these women to go straight to the reason Hulan had come. They needed to reconnect, to reestablish a rapport, to build again the trust that had once bound them almost as blood relatives. Yes, there would be time to talk about Miaoshan, but for now the two women spoke of Hulan’s trip, of the changes she’d seen in Taiyuan, of life in Beijing, of Hulan’s coming baby; of Suchee’s crops of millet, corn, and beans, of the water shortage, of the oppressive heat.
    Years ago they had been girls together, but since then they’d traveled very different roads. Except for those two years on the Red Soil Farm, Hulan had lived the sheltered and privileged life of a Red Princess. She had never wanted for clothes or food. Her position had allowed her considerable freedom to travel not only across China but also to the United States. She was not afraid of the government or of nature. All this showed in Hulan’s clothes, in her smooth, pale skin, in the