Free Mountain Girl River Girl by Ye Ting-Xing

dozen washcloths, as well as two tiny bottles of scented water. All the while, as they went from one store to another, she uttered a stream of words to try to persuade Pan-pan to stay with her.
    “You can find a job here. Tongren is not as grand as the capital, but it’s not a village, either. You’re only fifteen. Your mother would never let you go to Beijing if she were still alive.”
    Ah-Po’s going-away package had been different and unexpected. The night before Pan-pan left for Tongren, she gave Pan-pan a shoulder bag made of faded green canvas with a red star stitched on the flap, like the ones soldiers used to carry. She told Pan-pan it had been left behind by Sun Ming, the Beijing girl. Ah-Po had washed it and put it away with the piece of paper, and had forgotten about them both over the years.
    “If you find her, I wonder if she’ll recognize her bag,” Ah-Po murmured as she laid it on the table, her wrinkled hand brushing the creased star. It was only after everyone else had gone to bed that Ah-Po presented Pan-pan with four hundred yuan folded neatly inside a handkerchief. It was the first time Pan-pan had seen so much money. She shook her head and pushed Ah-Po’s hands away.
    “No, Ah-Po, I can’t,” she said over and over again. “The money is for your hou-shi— your funeral arrangement.”
    “You silly girl, I’m still healthy and strong and can start saving again. Besides, if you find Sun Ming and a job in Beijing, you’ll take care of things for me after I am gone from this world. If it makes you feel better, consider it a loan,” she had said lightheartedly but with a forced smile. Later, she carefully sewed a pocket in Pan-pan’s undershirt to keep the money in and secured it with a safety pin. “Don’t spend it until you have to,” she admonished. The lump had pressed against Pan-pan’s chest ever since she left Guiyang.
    And it turned out to be a long journey. Over the past few days Pan-pan had grown fed up with the click-clack of the steel wheels, the sway of the car, the constant nattering of strangers’ conversations, and, most of all, the irritating cigarette smoke. It was Sun Ming’s thirty-year-old address that kept her spirits up. She knew nothing about city living, but one look at Sun Ming’s address was enough to fill her with excitement and anticipation. It had three sets of numbers and a dozen words! In Pan-pan’s village there was no need for any kind of identification beyond the name of the recipient. Everyone knew where everyone else lived.
    With one last lunge, the train came to a complete stop. Pan-pan let out a long sigh of relief. Only twelve hours more and her voyage would be over at last. She yawned, stretching her arms upward, her fingertips touching the cold wooden railing of the luggage rack.
    “What’s that awful smell!” the elderly woman next to Pan-pan burst out. Sniffing hard and blowing through her nostrils, she searched in both directions.
    Pan-pan moaned quietly as a hot flush climbed up her neck and onto her face. Clutching her arms against her rib cage she turned her head away from the accusing looks of her neighbour, only to be caught by the intense, fearful stare of her own eyes reflected in the window. How could you be so careless and forgetful? she cursed herself. It ought to be etched in her mind by now. Suddenly she felt hungry and tired, crushed by the homesickness she had tried so hard to suppress since leaving her village. Her happiness at the prospect of an end to her journey, which had warmed her just a moment ago, vanished like thin smoke, replaced by a surge of anxiety that when the train reached its final destination, she would be left in a strange city totally alone. And by then she would be even farther away from home and the mountains in Guizhou.
    “Deal with it when the time comes.” Xin-Ma’s motto sounded in her ears and calmed her a bit. Pan-pan stuck her head out the window, immersing herself in a sea of singsong