The Vagrants

by Yiyun Li

  It was past lunchtime when the principal, talking through the PA system, announced that it was time for an hour break for lunch. They were not to discuss anything with their classmates or their parents, the principal said. Anyone who broke the rule would find himself in grave trouble.

  Tong walked slowly. That morning he had noticed the sudden appearance of many black caterpillars nicknamed “poplar stingers,” and now, only half a day later, hundreds more had appeared on the sidewalk and the alley walls. Many had been crushed by careless feet and bicycle wheels, their tiny bodies and innards drying in the sun.

  When Tong entered the room his parents both looked at him and then returned to their conversation. “Who knows?” his father said. “Maybe the government means it only to be a setup to scare people a little and nothing serious will come of it in the end.”

  Tong sat down at the table, a bowl of noodle soup in front of him. His mother told him to hurry up, as both of them needed to return to work within half an hour. “The way this is carried out gives me palpitations.”

  “A woman's heart palpitates at anything,” Tong's father scoffed. “A crushed sparrow could make your heart jump out of your mouth. Let me tell you: The law does not punish the masses. You don't even need to go far—just think how many people were beaten by the Red Guards in 1966. Now that their behavior is considered bad and illegal, do you see any former Red Guard being punished? No.”

  Tong ate slowly, each mouthful hurting him while he swallowed. When his mother urged him to eat faster, he said, “Baba, why doesn't the law punish the masses?”

  “So you finally have a question about something other than that dog of yours,” Tong's father said. From afar came drawn-out sirens. Tong's mother stopped her chopsticks and listened. “Sounds like a fire engine,” she said to his father.

  His father went out into the yard and looked. In a minute, he came back and said, “You can see the smoke.”

  “Where is the fire?”

  “East side.”

  On any other day he would ask to be excused and rush to the fire, but Tong only sat and nibbled on a noodle that seemed endless. His mother felt his forehead with her palm. “Are you sick?”

  “Lovesick for a dog,” Tong's father said.

  Tong did not answer. He forced himself to finish his lunch so his father would not comment on his eating habits. Perhaps nothing bad would happen, after all, as his father said. This hope cheered him as he walked to school. But what if his father was wrong? Grown-ups made mistakes, as they had said nothing would happen to Ear. Plunged back into despair by the thought, Tong felt cold in the spring breeze; his legs stumbled, as if he were walking in cotton clouds.

  Two different teachers, from yet another school, were assigned to Tong's class, and one by one the students went in to answer the same questions for a second time. The two teachers were less intimidating this time, and Tong was able to look up at their eyes. They seemed to find nothing unusual in the sleeping patterns of Tong's parents. “Are you sure?” one of the teachers asked every time Tong answered a question; her voice was gentle enough that Tong did not find it hard to lie. By the end of the questioning, Tong felt relieved. The teachers were nice to him—they wouldn't have been if he had already been found out. Indeed, he had done nothing serious except look for Ear; the more Tong thought about it, the less real the signature he had left on the white cloth became, and soon he stopped worrying about the petition.

  ***

  NINI HAD NEVER KNOWN that a secret could have a life of its own. That she had a place to go someday consumed all the space in her chest in no time; expanding still, it made her small breasts ache. Her limbs, even the good hand and leg, seemed to get farther away from her, the joints becoming loose and out of control. Nini studied herself in an oval-shaped, palm-sized mirror that her second sister had hidden underneath her pillow; even though the mirror was only big enough for part of her face at one time, the person in the mirror was no longer the ugly self she remembered, her lips fuller, her cheeks rounder now, always flushed.

  It was not the first time her mind had been occupied. Before Bashi there had been Teacher Gu and Mrs. Gu, but some longings seemed to be more demanding than others, and Nini felt her body was too small to contain her secret now. She had to bite the inside of her mouth to avoid blurting the news to a stranger on the street or, even worse, to her own family. In the end, when it seemed that she was going to explode, Nini picked up the baby and told Little Fourth and Little Fifth that she was taking the baby to the marketplace. The two girls begged to tag along, but Nini said she had other things to tend to, and they would not be of any help. To appease the girls, Nini gave them each a candy she had brought home from Bashi's house. She promised more snacks if they remained well behaved in the house. Couldn't they play in the yard? Little Fourth asked, and she promised that they would not step into the alley. Nini hesitated. The two girls were growing into a pair of twins, and once they had each other, their world was complete. It was usually fine to let them play in the yard, but Nini decided that this time it would not hurt for her to exercise more authority so that each favor would be returned with gratitude and obedience. She told the girls that she would have to lock them in the house. They looked unhappy, yet neither complained. They stood side by side, each sucking on the candy and watching Nini close the door and padlock it from the outside.

  “I've found you a brother-in-law,” Nini whispered to Little Sixth in the street, her lips touching the baby's ear.

  The baby pointed to a police car with lights flashing on a side street and said, “Light-light.”

  “I'll find you a good husband too, and people will be so jealous that their eyes will turn green,” Nini said to Little Sixth, imagining the helpless infuriation of her parents and the two older girls. If Little Fourth and Little Fifth behaved, she would consider helping them too. She pulled gently until the baby had to look at her instead of the police car. “Listen. Do you want a better life? If you do, you have to stick with me. Don't ever love anybody else in the family. Nobody will make you happy except me, your big sister.”

  “Sis,” Little Sixth said, and put her wet mouth on Nini's cheek.

  “Your brother-in-law,” Nini said, and blushed at her audacious name for Bashi. “Your big brother, he knows how to make a stone laugh.”

  The baby babbled, practicing saying “brother,” a new word for her.

  “He's rich and he'll give you a dowry when it's your turn to get married. Don't ever expect that from anybody else.”

  When they entered Bashi's house through the unlocked door, for a moment nobody replied to Nini's greetings. The bedroom door was closed. Nini knocked on the door. “I know you're inside. Don't try to play a trick on me,” she said.

  There was no reply from the room. Nini put her ear on the door and heard a rustling of clothes. “Bashi?” she said.

  A second, he replied, his voice filled with panic. Nini pushed the door open. Bashi rushed to her, a hand buttoning his fly. “I didn't know you were coming,” he said, panting a little.

  She studied his flushed face. “Who's here?”

  “Nobody,” Bashi said. “Only me.”

  Nini shoved Little Sixth into Bashi's arms and went in to check. She found Bashi's reaction suspicious, and instinctively she knew it was another woman he was hiding from her. She picked up Bashi's unmade quilt from his bed but there was no one hiding underneath. She peeked under the bed. On the other side of the curtain, his grandmother's bed was empty. So was the closet.

  “What are you looking for?” Bashi said with a smile, the baby sitting astride his shoulders and pulling his hair.

  “Are you hiding someone from me?” Nini asked, when she could not find a trace of another woman in the bedroom.

  “Of course not,” Bashi said.

  “Why else were you sleeping in the middle of the morning?”

  “I wasn't really sleeping. I came back from a walk and thought I would take a rest in bed,” Bashi said. “In fact, I wa
s dreaming about you when you came in.”

  “What idiot would believe you?”

  “Believe me,” Bashi said. “I have no one to think about but you.”

  Nini thought of laughing at him but he gazed at her with a desperate look in his eyes. “I'll believe you,” she said.

  “I talked to Mrs. Hua.”

  Nini felt her heart pause for a beat. “What did she say?”

  “She did not say no,” Bashi said.

  “But did she agree?”

  “She said she needed to talk to Old Hua, but I think they will agree. I can't see why not. Mrs. Hua looked like she was ready to kiss me when I said I wanted to marry you.”

  “Nonsense. Why would she want to kiss you? She's an old woman.”

  “Then do you want to kiss me, young woman?”

  Nini punched Bashi on his arm. He jumped aside, which made the baby shriek with happiness. Nini opened both arms, trying to catch Bashi, and he hopped around, all three of them laughing.

  Nini was the first to calm down. She was tired now, she said, sitting on Bashi's bed. Little Sixth pulled Bashi's hair, demanding more rides. He marched around in the bedroom, singing a song about soldiers going to the front in Korea, the baby patting his head and Nini humming along. When he finished the song, he lowered the baby and put her next to Nini. Then he took the baby's kerchief and folded it into a small mouse and played tricks with his fingers so that the mouse jumped onto Little Sixth as if it had a life of its own. The baby screamed with joy; Nini was startled and then laughed.

  “What a lucky man I am to have a pair of flower girls here,” Bashi said.

  Nini stopped laughing. “What did you say?”

  “I said with one trick I made both of you laugh.”

  “No, you said something else,” Nini said. “What did you mean?”

  Bashi scratched his head. “What did I mean? I don't know.”

  “You're lying,” Nini said, and before she knew it, tears came to her eyes. She sounded like the bad-tempered women she saw in the marketplace; she sounded like her own mother, and she was ashamed.

  Little Sixth chewed on the tail of the kerchief mouse and watched them with interest. Bashi looked at Nini with concern. “Do you have a stomachache?”

  “What ideas do you have about the baby?” Nini said. “I tell you— she's not yours. She'll have the best man in the world.”

  “A man even better than I?”

  “A hundred times better,” Nini said, though already she was starting to smile. “Don't ever set your heart on Little Sixth.”

  “For heaven's sake, she's only a baby!”

  “She won't always stay a baby. She'll become a big girl and by then I know you won't like me, because she'll be prettier and younger. Tell me, is that your scheme, to marry me so you will one day get Little Sixth?”

  “I swear I've never schemed anything.”

  “And when the baby is an older girl—”

  “I'm her big brother so of course I'll watch out for her. Pick for her a man a hundred times better than I.”

  “Brother-brother,” Little Sixth said, the kerchief still between her teeth.

  She did not believe him, Nini said, trying to keep her face straight.

  “I'm serious. If not, all the mice of the world will come and nibble me to death, or I will be stung by a scorpion on my tongue and never talk again, or some fish bone will stick in my throat and I will never be able to swallow another grain of rice,” Bashi said. “I swear I only have you in my heart.”

  Nini looked at Bashi and saw no trace of humor in his eyes. “Don't swear so harshly,” she said in a soft voice. “I believe you.”

  “No, you don't. If only you knew,” Bashi said, and took a deep breath. “Nini, I love you.”

  It was the first time he had said love, and they both blushed. “I know. I love you too,” Nini said in a whisper, her arms and legs all in the wrong place, her body a cumbersome burden.

  “What? I can't hear you. Say it louder,” Bashi said, with a hand on his ear. “What did you just say?”

  Nini smiled. “I said nothing.”

  “Ah, how sad. I'm in love with someone in vain.”

  “That's not true,” Nini said, louder than she'd intended. Bashi looked at her and shook his head as if in disbelief, and she panicked. Did he misunderstand her? “If I were not telling the truth, the god of lightning would split me in half.”

  “Then the goddess of thunder would boom me to death,” Bashi said.

  “No, I would die a death a hundred times more painful than you.”

  “My death would be a thousand times more painful than yours.”

  “I would become your slave in the next life,” Nini said.

  “I would become a fly that keeps buzzing around you in the next life until you swat me to death.”

  Neither spoke, as if they were each entranced by their desire to demonstrate their willingness to suffer for the other. In the quietness they listened to the baby babbling. Nini wondered what they would become now that they knew how much they desired each other. When Bashi touched her face, it was only natural for his lips to touch hers, and then they let the rest of their bodies drag them down to the bed, onto the floor, without a sound, and they held tight to each other until their bones hurt.

  Bashi picked her up and put her on his grandmother's bed. Little Sixth watched and then, when the curtain was drawn, she lost interest. She crawled on Bashi's bed, from one end to the other, exploring the new territory, enjoying the freedom without the rope that bound her to the bed. Soon she rolled off the bed, but the pillow she had been dragging along cushioned her. She cried halfheartedly and then crawled to the other bed, past the curtain that threatened to tangle her, around a pair of big shoes and then another pair, bigger, and finally she reached the place she had set her mind to, under the bed where her big sister and big brother were panting in their inexperienced joy and agony. She picked up half a stick of ginseng from under the bed and chewed it. It was sweet at first but then it tasted awful. She took the stick out and threw it as hard as she could, and it landed in one of the big shoes.

  “Bashi,” whispered Nini.

  Inches away, Bashi gazed at Nini, and then buried his head into the curve of her neck. “Let's wait until we get married,” he whispered back. “I want you to know that I'm a responsible man.”

  Nini looked at her undone clothes and smiled shyly. He buttoned her shirt and together they listened to the baby talking to herself.

  “I'm going to find Mrs. Hua and Old Hua right after you go home,” Bashi said.

  “Tell them we want to get married tomorrow,” Nini said. “My parents won't care.”

  “How lucky I am,” Bashi said.

  “I am the lucky one.”

  They lay in each other's arms. From time to time one or the other would break the silence and talk of plans for themselves and the baby, their future life. After a long time Bashi looked at the clock and looked again. “It's near noon now,” he said.

  Nini looked at the clock and then listened. It was quiet for the time of the day, when normally schoolchildren and grown-ups would be going home for their lunch break. She sat up and said it was time for her to go; she moved slowly, as if her body were filled with lazy dreams too heavy for her to carry. She might as well let her parents and her sisters wait.

  “Are you coming in the afternoon?” Bashi asked. “I'll have talked to Old Hua and Mrs. Hua by then.”

  “I'll come after lunch,” said Nini. She turned her back to him and straightened her clothes. Before she left she put a small bag of fried peanuts in her coat pocket. For Little Fourth and Little Fifth, she said, and Bashi added some toffees.

  When Nini left Bashi's yard, two old women stared at her and then exchanged looks. It was the first time she had left his door in broad daylight—she used to be careful, sneaking in and out of Bashi's house in the semidarkness of the early morning—but let the women suffer in their nosiness and jealousy. She was his, and he wa
s hers, and Old Hua and Mrs. Hua were going to marry them very soon. She had nothing to fear now.

  The street was eerily empty. The marketplace was locked, and in the main street, most of the shop doors were shut. When Nini walked past an elementary school, the school gate opened and out ran children of all ages. School was letting the children go home late, she thought, and quickened her steps. She wondered if she could get home before her parents and sisters came back. They might not even discover her absence.

  A few blocks away from her house Nini saw the smoke rising. People with buckets and basins ran past her. When she entered her alley, a neighbor saw her and cried out in relief, “Nini, thank heaven you're not in the house.”

  Nini looked at their house, engulfed by fire. The smoke was black and thick against the blue sky, and the orange tongues of fire, nimble and mischievous, licked the roof. The neighbor shouted for her to stay at a safe distance; her parents were on their way, and so were the fire engines, he said.

  A few schoolchildren ran past Nini. They cried warnings at anyone passing by, more out of excitement than alarm, and soon they were ordered by the grown-ups to leave the alley. Nini looked at the neighbor who was running toward the house and who had, she hoped, forgotten her by now. She held the baby tight and slipped into a nearby alley, against the running crowds, wishing she could turn herself into a wisp of air.

  TWICE BASHI HAD WALKED PAST Nini's alley, but none of the neighbors who answered his knocking would provide him with any clue when he inquired about the whereabouts of Nini's family. The brick walls remained standing, but the roof had collapsed. The front room of the house, with its blackened holes where the two windows and a door had been, reminded Bashi of a skull, and he spat and scolded himself for the unlucky connection. An old woman who was probing the ruins with a pair of tongs, upon hearing his steps, looked up with alarm. Thinking that she was a neighbor, Bashi tried to start a conversation, asking her if she knew the family stricken by the disaster, but she seemed to be caught in panic and hurried away with a straw bag of knickknacks. It took Bashi a moment to realize what the woman had been doing, and he shouted at her to return what did not belong to her, but she was soon out of sight.