The Scavenger's Daughters (Tales of the Scavenger's Daughters, Book One) (11 page)

With his daughters around him, he entered his home. He stopped to remove his shoes and set them on the low shelf. He reached into the basket for his slippers and dropped them on the floor, sliding his feet into them. He nodded when he saw his wife sitting in her rocking chair and cradling the baby. On the other side of the room, Maggi waved at him from her perch on her bench.

“Maggie Mei,
ni hao ma
?” he teased as he reached for his indoor jacket from the nail inside the door and slid it on, buttoning it to the top.

“Fine, Ye Ye,” she answered, beaming back at him.

As usual for this time of day, Maggi leaned over a rickety ironing board, happily ironing a large newspaper. He knew it made her proud that despite her disability, she was able to contribute to the family’s well-being by straightening and smoothing all the paper they gathered each week. After Maggi ironed them neatly, the other girls worked together to stack and bundle them for Benfu to take to the recycling center for selling. Each time he returned, Maggi was like a little jack-in-the-box on her bench as she excitedly urged him to tell her how many yuan the papers she’d ironed brought in. Paper was probably the least valuable of all his finds, but it was much easier to collect than the more-coveted abandoned bicycle and auto parts he sometimes came across. And goodness, when he was lucky enough to find discarded televisions and computers, the internal guts if still intact brought in his biggest income for the month. But everything helped and he was lucky he had a family that wanted to do its part in any way possible.

“Poppy
hao-bu-hao
?” he asked, moving to the small sink to wash his hands. The baby had brought a new level of energy to their home and despite his concerns that they were getting too old to raise any more children, he thought the presence of so much youth did a small part to keep him and his wife young.

Calli looked up, her eyes tired. “She’s fine. A bit colicky today but I think she’ll be okay.”

Benfu crossed the room and looked down at his wife. He put the back of his hand to her forehead. She didn’t feel hot and he was relieved. They couldn’t afford for Calli to get sick, as she was the glue that held his family together. She always had been and always would be. Without her, Benfu wouldn’t have the strength or desire to move forward in such a hard world.

“She might be okay, but what about you, Calli? You look tired.” He was concerned. Usually Calli never showed her fatigue.

“
Dui,
I was just getting ready to take a nap, if I can get this little beetle bug to sleep.” She sat rocking in the chair, while she held the baby over her shoulder and thumped her repeatedly on the back.

Benfu reached out for the baby. “Let me take her. You go lie down.”

His wife handed the baby up to Benfu and she stood, straightening the wrinkles from her apron. “Oh, I forgot to tell you, the new officer from the district came by today to ask if we have any more room. He brought our stipend.”

Benfu’s face darkened into a scowl, even as he settled Poppy gently in the crook of his arm. The local officials were very aware of the home they ran and had even brought at least a dozen of their daughters to them over the years. There just weren’t many places for homeless children to be sheltered and Benfu had gained the reputation of taking them in. Just in the last few years they began paying a small allowance for each child that came from them, though nothing for the ones Benfu brought home himself and not near enough to take care of all the girls. For the state, the monthly pittance was a small price to pay to avoid opening the orphanage. Ironically a beautiful
building stood empty on the richer side of town because it was too expensive to staff and keep running. Instead needy children were bumped from place to place, some ending up back on the streets where they were found.

“I hope you told him that we cannot take any more children.” Benfu was glad he had missed the meeting with the official. He was already dreading the day that he was too frail to work and he didn’t know who was going to support the daughters he had remaining in his care. Though he would never turn away a child, he preferred that now the officials start to find new families—younger parents—to open their homes. There were some scattered throughout the area but not near enough.

“I did.” Calli moved slowly across the room and sat on the edge of the one bed in the house. She bent down and removed her slippers, then lay back on her pillow. At her cue, the girls one by one stopped what they were doing and went to the corner and pulled their bamboo mats out, unrolling them to get ready for their afternoon naps. Maggi folded her last paper and pulled the plug out of the wall to disconnect the iron. She was visibly tired and though she would never voice a complaint, Benfu thought she looked relieved it was nap time.

He looked down at the baby girl in his arms and smiled. “It’s time for you to close your eyes, Mei Mei.” Half the time he called all the girls by the same nickname. These days it was harder and harder for him to pull the right names out of his old brain, and for the most part the girls seemed to like to be called little sister, anyway.

In his strong, warm arms the baby began to relax. Her droopy eyelids were soon closed. Benfu stood and took her to the cradle, laid her in it, and then tucked the cover tightly around her. He rose from the chair and stretched, yawning.

From the bed, Calli shook her head. “Five minutes with you and she’s sleeping like a baby panda. How do you always do that? You just have the magical touch, I suppose.”

“I guess I do. At least the gods have blessed me with something other than my good looks.”

Calli laughed and Benfu beamed at her. Nothing cheered him more than her giggles that still made her sound like a young girl to his old heart.

“Peony, I think it’s time you told Ye Ye what you did today.”

Benfu looked over to see Peony hang her head, two bright spots of red appearing on her cheeks. “What happened?”

Peony didn’t answer fast enough for her sister. Ivy piped in. “I couldn’t find my lucky coin until I looked in her bag. She took it!”

“Did you take your sister’s coin?” Benfu asked Peony. He wanted to take her outside and have a one-on-one talk with her but that would wait for the next day; right now her actions and his reprimand would be a lesson to all.

She nodded, her cheeks turning even redder.

“Then you’ll take her chores for the next week. We don’t steal from one another or anyone else.” With that it was over and Benfu reached in his pocket and pulled out a letter. “I stopped by and picked up our mail. Looks like a letter from one of our girls. Which one?”

He walked over and handed it to Calli. He knew how to read but his eyes had gotten so bad he could barely make out the characters in the dim evening light. He needed glasses but that was an expense he couldn’t afford. Leaving the letter with Calli, he ignored the hopeful look he saw in Peony’s eyes and instead went to Maggi. He didn’t want to make a big deal that Peony waited each day to see if another postcard arrived for her, to see if the woman had begun corresponding again. It was when that wistful look came over her that he regretted ever giving her the cards.

“Hello, Maggi Mei, how are you doing today?” He bent, letting her slide her arms around his neck in a tight hug as he slipped his arms under her. He lifted her and took her to her waiting pallet. As soon as he dropped to one knee and set her down gently, her sisters moved to arrange her legs and settle her under the coverlet. Benfu slowly stood and rubbed his aching back. He wasn’t sure how many more years or even months he could continue lifting the girl as she was getting bigger each day that he grew older and frailer.

Calli watched him and shook her head and sighed. She pulled her glasses from her apron pocket and perched them on the end of her nose. She
smiled as she looked at the neat characters on the envelope. The paper was tattered and by the looks of all the chops imprinted on the front and back to show various signatures of approval, it had passed through many hands. It was a miracle it had made it to them.

“It’s from Mari.” She ripped open the envelope and unfolded the letter.

The girls all quietly sat up on their mats, anxious to hear news from their older sister. Marigold—Mari, they called her—was one of the few who, after a rocky start, now led a more exciting life than the others. Her letters were a welcome dash of drama to her family. They often got mail from the girls they had raised, but not all of them—as some worked too hard to have time to write—but enough of them that they received mail at least once a month. Each letter was treasured by all, but especially by Benfu and Calli, who worried constantly about each of them.

Benfu sat down beside his wife and pulled at the slippers on his feet. He scooted closer to the wall and leaned back on his own pillow. He sighed, glad to be horizontal and not moving for the first time all day. He took a deep breath and rested his arms across his belly. He didn’t want to tell Calli that he felt feverish. Instead he hoped if he didn’t bring it up, it would prove to just be exhaustion.

“Let’s see what Mari has been up to. Girls,
anjing
. Nai Nai will only read it once, so you’d better listen closely. Tomorrow you can all take turns reading it aloud to see if you can recognize each character.”

Jasmine popped up from her mat and, dragging her quilt behind her, ran to the bed. She crawled up and settled herself beside Benfu. He readjusted his arms so that she could use one for a pillow. He was glad she was still little enough to want to snuggle with them and couldn’t bear to make her return to her pallet. The smell of her hair wafted up to his nose like a gentle perfume and he inhaled deeply as he reached to pull her quilt up and over her.

Calli cleared her throat. The large room was quiet as she began reading the letter. Benfu watched the smiles form across the girls’ faces as his wife described Mari’s latest adventure when one of her husband’s camels tried to run away with a foreigner perched on top. Mari had married a farmer’s son
from a neighboring province but instead of farming, her husband had taken his early inheritance and spent it on a camel and camera equipment. Together they made their living from taking tourist photos at one of the places on the Great Wall. Benfu dreamed of seeing the historic structure one day but at this late time in life he doubted he ever would. It made him happy that some of his daughters had seen it—at least he could live vicariously through their descriptions of the magnificent project his people had accomplished.

“She says the foreign devil was from Germany and he made the camel mad because he was too fat.”

At that the girls erupted into giggles, earning a scolding look from Calli as she folded the letter and tucked it into her pocket. They loved it when Mari wrote about the camel adventures and the spitting and bucking that went on when their temperamental camel didn’t like some of the foreigners it was forced to carry. The amusing tales sent them into hysterics every time.

“Shhh, you’ll wake Poppy. When Linnea gets home I’ll read the rest of it. She’ll want to hear what her favorite sister has been doing, too. Now, let’s take a nap so we can get up and shuck that corn for dinner.”

The girls groaned in disappointment, then turned over and quieted. Calli lay back down again, her back to Jasmine and Benfu. Within seconds Calli emitted a small but constant snore.

Benfu drifted off to sleep thinking of his older daughters and the lives they were leading now. Each of them had started with sad stories but he hoped that they still remembered they had a home with him and Calli. He wished he could see all of them and his new grandchildren, but traveling around China was much too expensive and, like him, most of them were not well off.

With his eyes closed, Benfu could still recall all of their faces, though he sometimes struggled to put names to them. He chuckled one last time before he went to sleep, picturing a fat German foreigner on a spitting, farting camel with his petite Mari running after it.

L
innea looked around her to be sure she wasn’t being followed. She was meeting Jet again, this time at the park on the edge of town. She’d told Nai Nai she was leaving for work and she had earlier, but later she’d decided to enjoy the afternoon with Jet instead of working until dark. She wasn’t proud that she was hiding him from her family but she knew Ye Ye wouldn’t approve. He still didn’t know that the gift of corn and milk powder had come from her new friend, and if he did, it probably wouldn’t change his mind about the young man. Even though without Jet she’d have never been able to start her new T-shirt business, it probably still wouldn’t sway her Ye Ye. He’d told her to be responsible in repaying her debt but warned her not to get too involved with someone she knew nothing about.