by Yiyun Li
Bashi longed to be with Nini the way he had once yearned for his grandmother's bosom. Sometimes he worried that something was wrong with his male root, but it never failed to rise dutifully when he was thinking about Nini. The problem occurred when she was next to him, a tangible body, warm and soft. He could not desire her the way he wanted to. The prenuptial bridal check he had made, on a whim, haunted him; that glimpse into a secret pathway she had opened to him, with trust and ease and even playfulness, shamed him. Her thin hair, cut short carelessly by her mother, looked like a bird's nest. Her pointed chin, her bony arms, and her forever-chapped lips made him want to take her in his arms and rock her and croon to her. But even this desire made him nervous in front of her. What would she think of him, a man with more than one screw loose in his brain?
Nini, however, seemed unaware of his struggle. The morning after Ching Ming, she had come into the house as naturally as daylight. She had moved around as if she had grown up there. Bashi waited for her to bring up the topic of marriage again; he believed everything he had told her when he had conducted his bridal check, but he knew that marriage to a twelve-year-old was easier said than done. Nini, on the other hand, did not press him, as he had dreaded she might. She talked more, even a bit chatty; she jokingly criticized his messy bedroom, and before he had a chance to defend himself, she took it upon herself to put everything in order for him. She did not blink when she discovered his foul-smelling socks and underwear beneath the bed. He protested when she gathered the laundry to wash, but she refused to listen. If a man knew how to take care of himself, she said, what would he need a woman for?
Nini seemed not to understand her value, Bashi thought. She did not put on any of the airs that other women did when being courted—or perhaps she was just a golden-hearted girl. Overwhelmed by his good fortune, Bashi was eager to find a friend with whom he could share his love story, but there was no such person in his life. Through his mind ran all the people he knew—the Huas naturally came up first, as the more Bashi thought about it, the more he believed the Huas to be the only ones willing to offer the assistance that he and Nini needed. But suppose they were old-fashioned and didn't approve of a marriage arranged by the two young people themselves?
Bashi found Mrs. Hua in the street in the morning; the arrests, made the night before, had caused little ripple in the everyday life of Muddy River. “Was your marriage to Old Hua arranged by your parents or his parents?” Bashi asked.
The old woman did not stop sweeping. She was aware of being addressed, yet ever since her dream about the death of her youngest daughter, Bunny, she had found it hard to concentrate on a conversation. The blind fiddler, coming and then leaving with his heartbreaking tunes, had made her nostalgic for her days and nights on the road. She talked to her husband about giving up their home and going back to the vagrant life. They could visit their daughters, the married ones and the ones who'd been taken away from them, before they took their final exit from the world; he said nothing at the beginning, and when she asked again, he said that he imagined these visits would not do the daughters, or themselves, any good.
“Mrs. Hua?” Bashi touched her broomstick and she gazed at him. More than any other day he looked like someone she had known from a long time ago. She closed her eyes but could not locate the person in her memory.
“Did you have a matchmaker to talk to your parents and Old Hua's parents?”
This boy, who was serious and persistent at asking irrelevant questions, baffled her—who was the person returning to her in his body?
“Mrs. Hua?”
“I met him as a beggar,” she said.
“You mean, nobody went between your parents and his parents as a matchmaker?”
“No matchmaker would visit a couple of dead parents in their graves. My husband—he had been an orphan since before he could remember.”
Bashi was elated by Mrs. Hua's answer. He himself was an orphan, and Nini was nearly one. Of course they needed no blessings from their parents, alive or dead. “What do you think of Nini?”
Mrs. Hua looked at Bashi with an intensity that frightened him. He wondered if he had made a mistake bringing up the topic. Would the old woman become suspicious and turn him over to the police?
It was the boy flutist, Mrs. Hua thought. The boy who had once come and begged to become their son. Mrs. Hua looked up at the sky and counted. What year was that? The year that she and her husband had first thought of their deaths and the girls’ lives without them—1959 it was, when the famine had just begun, a hard blow for everyone but hardest for beggars. They had four daughters then, Morning Glory at thirteen, Peony at ten, Lotus at eight, and Hibiscus, seven. The flutist was not older than twelve himself, an orphan who went from village to village, as they themselves did, and begged with his flute.
“Do you play flute?” Mrs. Hua asked Bashi.
“Who is Flute? I don't know him. Does he know me?”
The boy twenty years earlier had talked in this glib way too, but the music he had played could make a stone weep, such was the sadness that his flute had carried; he could make a dead man laugh in his coffin too, when he was in the mood. The boy had made much older girls fall in love with him; even some married women, when their husbands were at the fair or in the field, stood in front of their doors and teased him with jokes usually meant only for married men and women, behind closed doors. Despite all the attention he got, the boy came and begged Mrs. Hua and her husband to adopt him; he would call them Baba and Mama and would support them with his flute, he promised, but her husband refused. With his flute and his sweet words, he would put all their daughters through hell, Old Hua said to Mrs. Hua afterward; she agreed but not without regret, and now the boy had come back to her in another incarnation, flute-less, yet she recognized him.
“What do you think of Nini, Mrs. Hua?”
“Why do you ask, Son?”
“What do you think of my marrying her?” said Bashi. “Mrs. Hua, don't look at me like I have two heads. You're scaring me.”
“Why do you want to marry Nini?”
“She'll be so much better off with me than with her own parents,” said Bashi. “And I'd be the happiest man in the world if I could spend my days with her.”
Mrs. Hua looked hard at Bashi. For a year after the flutist boy had left them, Lotus had been in a cheerless mood, unusual for an eight-year-old. Among the sisters, she had been the closest to the boy; she had learned to sing to his accompaniment, and he had joked that they would make the best beggar couple, with his flute and her voice. Mrs. Hua had wondered then whether they had made a mistake by refusing the boy, but Old Hua, upon hearing her doubt, shook his head. Lotus was the plainest of the four girls, and the boy, with a face too smart for his own good, would one day shatter her heart. Besides, Old Hua said, did they want their daughter to repeat their own fate, married to another beggar, without a roof over her head?
“I'm serious,” Bashi said. Mrs. Hua's silence made him nervous and eager to prove himself. “I'll treat her well.”
“I've seen you grow up these years, Bashi,” Mrs. Hua said. “I've known you enough not to suspect you as a bad person, but anyone else who hears you say this will think you crazy.”
“Why?”
“She's still a child.”
“But she'll grow up,” Bashi said. “I can wait.”
Indeed, why couldn't the boy have the right to think of marrying Nini? What if they had let the young flute player be part of the family—they might have more now to their names, a daughter and a son-in-law to see them off to the next world, music that added color to their dull lives, grandchildren to love.
“Who would marry her and treat her well if not for me? I love her,” Bashi said, and he stood up straighter as he made the bold claim. “She's never happy in her own house. Can you be my matchmaker? Can you talk to her family on our behalf? They can't get a better offer.”
“She's too young,” Mrs. Hua said.
“You married your daught
ers young to other families, didn't you?” Bashi said. “I can wait for her to grow up. I can pay for Nini to live with you. I just need to have their word that Nini will be mine.”
Mrs. Hua looked at Bashi. The wheel of life, with its ruthless revolving, could be merciful at times. The boy had come back to her, giving her a second chance, but what was the right thing, for any mother, any woman, to decide? “Let me talk to my husband,” she said. “Can you come to our place in the afternoon? We'll have an answer for you then.”
IT TOOK TONG a long walk to gather his courage for school. He imagined his teacher asking for an explanation about the previous day. He would never get the red scarf now that he was a dishonest boy, pretending to be sick and skipping school. The teacher had once said that a small crack in the bottom of a ship would wreck it in the open sea, and Tong imagined himself a deteriorated soul heading toward a sinful life, and the thought made his eyes fill with tears. He would admit his wrongdoing first thing this morning, before the crack widened and made him into a young criminal.
The teacher, however, was in no mood to question Tong. Classes had been canceled from the first through the sixth grades. The principal had announced an emergency meeting for all teachers and staff, and the students were herded into the auditorium, watched by nobody. Soon the unsupervised auditorium exploded with noise. Boys from the upper grades ran wild along the aisles, and the younger boys, even though they dared not leave their seats, hurled paper planes at one another. Girls shrieked when they were bumped or hit by the boys, and some brought out colorful plastic strings to weave key rings in the shape of goldfish or parrots. No question was asked about why they were kept there, or how long it would go on; as far as the children could see, this day of happiness would last forever.
Tong sat among a few quieter classmates, boys and girls who could sit still in their seats for hours when required by their teachers. There was a war coming, the girl sitting next to Tong whispered to him. What war? Tong asked, and the girl did not answer, saying only that she had overheard her father say so to her mother. She was the kind of girl who blushed at every word she said, and Tong looked at her crimson face, finding it hard to believe her.
Half an hour later, the principal led the teachers into the auditorium. He blew his whistle with all his might, hurting everyone's eardrums. The students quickly returned to their seats, and the auditorium soon became quiet. The principal stood at the podium and, as usual, cleared his throat several times into the microphone, which cracked and magnified the sound, before beginning his speech.
“An outbreak of a counterrevolutionary epidemic has caught Muddy River unprepared,” he said. “I want you all to understand that the situation is urgent, and if we don't watch out for ourselves, we may be the next ones infected by this virulent disease.”
Some children shifted in their seats, a few coughing and others rubbing their noses.
“It is time that we cleanse our hearts and our souls with the harshest disinfectant,” the principal said, banging on the podium to emphasize each of his words, the children's hearts pounding along with his fist.
“You've all been born under the red flag of revolution and grown up in the honeypot the party has provided,” the principal continued. “Sometimes this privilege may be the exact reason that one forgets to appreciate one's happiness in this country. Now answer me, children, who has given you this happy life?”
It took a moment of hesitation before some upper-grade students answered, “The Communist Party.”
“I can't hear you,” the principal said. “Say your answer louder if you have confidence in it.”
A few teachers stood up and signaled to the auditorium, and more voices joined the chorus. It took several rounds for the principal to be satisfied with the roaring answer. “Long live the greatest, the most glorious, and the ever-correct Chinese Communist Party,” he said again with a thump-thump of his fist. “Do you all understand these words? What does this mean? It means our party has never been wrong and will never be wrong; it means that anything we do will not escape the scrutiny of the party. I know you've all been taught to respect your parents, but what are they compared to the party, our foremost parents? You are the party's children before you are the children of your parents. Everybody is equally loved by the party, but when someone makes a mistake, just as when a child makes a mistake, the party will not let a single wrongdoer slip by. No one will be spared; no crime will be tolerated.”
Tong's eyes were swollen and hot. How could he, a child loved by the party, skip class only because of a missing pet? How could he have forgotten that he was destined to become a hero? Softhearted-ness would make him useless, as his father had said; he was meant to be a special boy, and never again would he allow himself to forget it. He shouted the slogans with the other students—he could not hear his own voice, but he was sure his voice would reach the party, asking for forgiveness.
After the meeting, the students lined up and went back to their homerooms. The upper grades were required to write down in detail what they and each member of their families had done on the day of Ching Ming. The smaller children were given the time to think and recollect, their teachers patrolling the aisles so those boys and girls who tended to daydream in class would be constantly reminded to focus.
His dog had disappeared the evening before so he had been looking for his dog on the day of Ching Ming, Tong told the teachers in the separate classroom, when it was his turn to confess. The two interrogators, sitting behind the desk with notebooks open, were both strangers—they had been called in from another school, as the school district had instructed that schools swap staffs so the children's answers wouldn't be influenced in any way by their own teachers. The younger one of the two, a woman in her thirties, took notes and then said, “What's your dog's name?”
“Ear.”
The two teachers exchanged looks and the other one, a man in his fifties, asked, “What kind of name is that?”
Tong wiggled on the chair, made for an adult, his feet not reaching the floor. The chair had been placed in the middle of the room, facing the desk and the two chairs behind it. Tong tried to fix his eyes on his shoes, but having their own will, his eyes soon wandered to the four legs underneath the desk across the room. The man's trousers, greenish gray, had two patches of a similar color covering both knees; the woman's black leather shoes had shiny metal clips in the shape of butterflies. Tong did not know how long he would be questioned—even though the principal and teachers had said nothing of the signed petition, he knew that it was one of the things he had to hide.
“Who could prove that you were looking for your dog?” the male teacher asked.
“My mama and my baba,” Tong said.
“Were they with you when you looked for the dog?”
Tong shook his head.
“Then how could they know what you were doing?” the male teacher said. “What were they doing when you were looking for the dog?”
“I don't know,” Tong said. “I went out early. They always get up late on Sundays.”
“Do you know what they do on Sunday mornings?” the male teacher said in a particular tone, and the female teacher looked down at her notebook, trying to hide a knowing smile.
Tong shook his head again, his back cold with sweat.
“What did they do after they got up?” the male teacher asked.
“Nothing,” Tong said.
“Nothing? How could two adults do nothing?”
“My mama did some laundry,” Tong said, hesitantly.
“That's something. And then?”
“My baba fixed the stove,” Tong said. It was not exactly a lie—the damper of their stove had been broken and his mother had asked his father many times before he had fixed it the week before. It was something that a father would do on a Sunday.
“What else?”
“My mama cooked the breakfast and the supper.”
“But not lunch? Did she or your father go out to buy lunch?”
“Again?” the male teacher said with exaggerated disbelief.
Tong bit his lips and did not speak. His mother always said sleeping was the best way to save energy so they would not have to spend extra money for a lunch on Sunday but how could he explain this to the teachers?
“Did your parents leave home at any time in the morning?” the male teacher asked. “Say between seven and twelve o'clock?”
Tong shook his head. He had a vague feeling that they did not believe him, and sooner or later they would reveal his lie to the school and his parents. What would they do with him then? He would never get the red scarf around his neck by June.
“Are you sure?”
“I went home for breakfast and then they said it was a waste to look for Ear so I stayed home with them.”
“Did you find your dog?” the female teacher asked while she screwed the cap back onto her fountain pen and glanced at the roster, ready for the next student.
Tong tried hard to hold back his tears, but the effort gave way to the fear that he would be punished not only for lying but also for signing his father's name on the white cloth. The two teachers watched him for a moment. “Don't cry over a missing dog,” the woman said. “Ask your parents to get another one for you.”
Tong howled without answering. The male teacher waved to dismiss him and the female teacher led him out of the classroom by his hand. For a moment he wanted to confess everything to the female teacher, whose soft and warm palm calmed him a little, but before he could open his mouth, she signaled to his teacher to take him back and called out the name of the next student.
Tong waited in his seat, not talking to the other children. Nobody asked him why he was crying; already two girls and a boy before him had come back sniffling or sobbing, and no one had shown any surprise or concern.