Jonathan Dee - The Privileges

“So,” he said to her, “any boyfriend at present? Or boyfriends? At your age, that’s allowed, you know.”

She smiled at him. Irene sat across the bed from her, though at the moment he didn’t seem to know she was there, and Cynthia found it perversely satisfying that, for all the other woman knew, father and daughter were remembering something that had actually happened. His lips were cracked; she refilled a kind of sippy cup from the water pitcher that always sat by the bed and held it to his mouth. “A few,” she said to him, a little coquettishly, imitating the self he thought she was. “Nothing exclusive.”

“Well, you just have fun. That’s what youth is for. You don’t need me to tell you to be careful. You have your mother to do that.”

She wanted only to be generous. Still, she was worried that she was going to start holding things against him. It did get to her a bit that the past into which he was receding wasn’t what really took place, wasn’t even the past at all — more like something new. Unless this was a fantasy he had kept to himself for a long time, and now he had been stripped of the ability to maneuver between what was in his head and what was outside of it.

Several times, over those first few days, he would suddenly try, apropos of nothing, to get out of bed; he would submit when she touched his shoulder, but he kept looking around him for something on the floor, like maybe something had fallen there. The third or fourth time it happened, late at night when the two of them were alone, he passed from a mild curiosity into a state more like anger.

“Dad,” she said, “what — Dad, stop — what are you looking for?”

He looked up at her as if she were asking him to repeat something he’d already said ten times. “My shoes,” he said. “Where the hell have I put them? Do you know where they are?”

When her own panic and reluctance to restrain him physically reached the point where she started to cry, she caved in and buzzed for the night nurse, Kay, who was there in two seconds. Part of the reason she didn’t like relying on Kay was that her father seemed, in his deluded way, to be in love with her, and flirted with her ridiculously. Despite the fact that Kay was about sixty and fat as a house, Cynthia didn’t blame him. Her wry competence in even the scariest situation was fucking hot.

“Charlie, what are you worried about?” Kay said calmly. He stopped fidgeting and stared at her with his mouth open, like a baby. Cynthia felt herself starting to lose it again and went out into the corridor. Kay joined her out there about two minutes later.

“Is he all right?” Cynthia said, her voice shaking a little. “Did you give him anything?”

“He’s fine,” Kay said. “Just a little worked up. That happens. We try not to overdo it with the drugs.”

“It’s just, I don’t know what I did to set him off. He was looking for his shoes. It sounds so stupid. But that’s like the tenth time it happened. He was always kind of vain about his appearance. Maybe it’s you he wants to look all dapper for.”

Kay shook her head. “That’s not it,” she said, smoothing the front of her festive-looking uniform. “Believe it or not, that’s kind of a common one, the shoes. Or the coat, or the purse if they’re women. Had a lady in here just a few weeks ago who kept accusing me of stealing her hat.”

Cynthia looked at her, confused.

“They know,” Kay said. “On some level. They know they’re about to go on a trip somewhere, and they need to get ready. Yeah,” she said, nodding at Cynthia as she started to cry again, “I know, right? You think it’s a metaphor or something until you’ve seen it a few times.”

In Dongguan they stayed in a Western-style hotel where everyone spoke English and the food was badly cooked but still recognizable and you got a strange, xeroxed version of The New York Times slipped under your door; but in the morning when they drove out to someplace called Changan, nothing outside the bubble of the car was the least bit familiar anymore. The foundation had built a new dormitory for the people who worked at some factory — it even had the Moreys’ name on it, supposedly — and so they were all going out to have a look. One of the bodyguards had told April this part of China was called the Pearl River Delta, but that had to be some kind of marketing term because it was the butt-ugliest place she’d ever seen in her life. Nothing but concrete and smoke and claustrophobia and a sky that had no hint of blue in it anywhere. The fact that every character on every sign she saw outside the hotel was completely incomprehensible to her made her feel like she was a baby. She kept trying to hold on to her contempt for all of it but in truth the sheer strangeness was so menacing that she sat with her arms folded the whole time just to keep from shaking. The driver offered three times to give her his coat.

Adam sat beside her in the back, reading that little photocopied Times from the hotel. Past his head she could see the bodyguard, whose motorcycle traveled with them everywhere. Why? Why did no one seem freaked out about that except her? Her father had had some kind of meeting that morning, he wouldn’t say with whom. Business, he’d said. The fund, not the foundation. Whatever the hell that meant.

They hadn’t spoken much. Fear made her clam up and she was still mad at him for making her come. She wondered when they were going to get out of this district they were crawling through, which was full of these gigantic, toxic-looking factories, and then, incredibly, the driver coasted to a stop in front of one of them and turned off the car.

“Do I have to go in?” April said. “Can I just wait out here?”

Her father and their driver, who was also their interpreter whenever they got out of the car anywhere, traded amused looks, like it was all just hilarious. “Absolutely not,” her father said.

The first thing that happened was that they were given these huge headphones to wear, and she didn’t get more than ten feet through the door before she understood why. Even with the headphones on it was deafening. But at least this way your ears wouldn’t actually bleed. All the workers wore them too, and helmets and goggles and jumpsuit-like uniforms. It had to be more than a hundred degrees in there. The workers all stared at her as if she couldn’t see them too. They were girls — not all of them, but most of them — April’s own age or younger.

Some very nervous guy in a suit was giving them the tour, shouting at Adam and pointing to a clipboard, even though he must have known that there was no way to hear anything anybody said. Then a strange thing started to happen. Word began to get around the factory floor who the visitors were. April could see the workers talking to one another. One girl’s mouth fell open, as Adam stood nearby still leaning into their guide and nodding as if they were actually conversing, and then she boldly left her place on the line and skipped over to him. April froze. The Chinese girl was speaking rapidly and smiling and lowering her head. She took both of Adam’s hands in hers, and when he gave her a small smile in return and said You’re welcome , that was like a signal to the others, many of whom broke from their place on the line and came to gather around him. It was all happening in front of April not silently, exactly, but like a movie whose soundtrack has been replaced by roaring industrial static. Adam took the women’s hands and nodded courteously as if this were all the most natural thing in the world. When the wait to touch him got too long — at least one red-faced supervisor was screaming at them — another group broke away from the first and rapidly surrounded April herself. She was terrified. The girls lowered their heads and jabbered and took April’s hands in theirs, and when she looked down at one pair of hands that seemed unusually fair, almost pink, she saw that those were burn scars, and that was the last thing she remembered.