The Vagrants (39 page)

When the two men left with his father and slammed the gate in his mother's face, she stood in a trance and then called Tong's name, and when he did not answer, she raised her voice and called to him again.

He did not reply, holding his breath, his blood pumping in his ears in heavy thumps. He watched her listen for a minute and then go into the house, still calling his name. If he tiptoed to the gate, he might have enough time to run before she caught him; if he jumped onto a passing night train, he might be able to get back to his grandparents’ village by the next day. Back at the village, nobody would blame him for anything; they knew him to be a boy destined to make a big and important name for himself.

Tong's mother came out to the yard, still calling his name in a low voice, but he could hear her panic now. He crawled out from the box and stood up. “Mama,” he said. “I'm here.”

IF SHE KEPT STILL ENOUGH
in the chair, Nini thought, the ghost of Bashi's grandmother, if the old woman's ghost existed at all, would perhaps think Nini was part of the furniture in the room. Nini looked at the posters, Chairman Mao shaking hands with General Zhu, a fat boy holding up a cheerful golden carp, and a pair of red magpies chirping to each other as messengers of good luck, all of them dusty from coal ashes now, hanging dimly on the wall. The old woman would not like it if Nini did not keep her house neat and clean, Nini thought, slowly pulling one leg and then the other onto the chair and crossing them. In the bedroom Little Sixth stirred and cried a little, but after a while she fell asleep again. They were a family now, Bashi and Nini and the baby.

The fish soup was steaming hot on the table, the two bowls of rice looking invitingly delicious; the fried tofu and steamed sausages and pickled bean sprouts all beckoned to her rumbling stomach. This was her first supper with Bashi, and she had gone to great lengths to make it a special meal. She picked up one chopstick and dipped it into the soup and then sucked it. The taste made her hungrier, yet she dared not steal a bite, for fear that it would bring bad luck to the life she would share with Bashi from now on.

It had been a while since Bashi left, and she wondered how long it would take for him to return with news about her sisters. Could he have bumped into her parents or other suspecting adults? Would they ask him where she was? Nini wiggled her toes, which were falling asleep, and looked up at the ceiling. There were no eyes watching her, and she picked up the chopsticks and caught a slice of ginger from the fish soup. That led to another ginger slice and then a small bite of the fish, from under its belly. The tender flesh cheered her up—why should she care about a future she had no control over? If indeed there was heavenly justice, she would be heading to hell-she had destroyed the lives of Little Fourth and Little Fifth, and she'd better enjoy her own while she still could. Nini took another bite, and then another. When she had finished a whole fish, she wrapped up the bones in an old newspaper and threw them into the flames in the stove. The remaining fish looked lonesome, and she wondered if it was one more sign of misfortune for her, as married couples should do everything in twos.

A strange smell came from the stove, reminding Nini of her father's sheepskin hat that had been shoveled into the belly of the stove under their bed at home; it was Little Fourth and Little Fifth who had dreamed up this mischief, for reasons that Nini didn't understand, but it was Nini who had received a good beating on their behalf, her back swollen for a week afterward.

Nini poked the burning fish bones with the iron tongs but the nauseating odor became stronger. She went into the bedroom and rummaged through the closet and chest of drawers, and found nothing but an old bottle of floral water that must have belonged to Bashi's grandmother, the green liquid already sticky. She opened the lid and poured a small amount in her palm, and was horrified by the pungent fragrance condensed by years of sitting in the bottle. It made her sneeze.

Nini put her hand under running water for a long time and then sniffed her palm. It was less noticeable. She was relieved when she found half an orange left next to Bashi's pillow. She peeled one slice and sucked it while putting the rest of the orange into the fire. The fire engulfed the half orange and soon the room was filled with a more pleasant smell.

Someone knocked on the gate. She turned off the light in the room and slipped out of the house and into the storage cabin. The pounding of something metal on the thin wooden gate frightened Nini. Soon these people would come in, devils sent by her parents to destroy her hope of a happy life, and Bashi was not here to protect her; soon they would drag her away from this house and put her back into the jail run by her parents.

“Hello, what are you doing to my gate?”

Out of gratitude Nini almost wept when she heard Bashi's voice.

“Are you Lu Bashi?”

“I don't know any other Lu Bashi in my life.”

“Then come with us.”

“Where to?”

“You'll know when you get there.”

“That sounds exciting,” Bashi said. “But I can't go with you just now. I have more important business to deal with.”

“Be disappointed, then,” the man said. “Nothing is more important tonight than coming with us.”

Something metal was shaken outside.

“Are the handcuffs real? I remember I had a toy pair when I was this small,” Bashi said.

“Try them on.”

“Sorry, but I would rather be the one to cuff others,” said Bashi. “What are you here for?”

“You know better than we do.”

“I truly can't think of anything I've done wrong.”

“Well, you can keep thinking about it when we get to the station.”

Nini thought about opening the gate and dragging Bashi in before the men registered her existence. She could bolt the gate from the inside, and by the time the men broke it down she and Bashi would be gone from the yard, the house, and this world of horrors.

“But I'm busy tonight. Can I come tomorrow morning?”

A man grunted. “Look here. Do you know what this is? Can you read?”

“Arrest order. Now what is that for?”

“Well, let's go. I've never seen a person who talks as much as you.”

“Please, brothers, give me a hint. Is it because of a girl? Do you know if this has anything to do with a girl?”

“A girl!” the men said, laughing. “Did you get lost in your own wet dreams to think that we would come to get you because of a girl?”

“So it's not girl-related,” Bashi said.

Her parents, after all, did not care about her enough to go through the trouble to find her, Nini thought. Perhaps they would celebrate their good fortune in her loss.

The men again urged Bashi to go with them.

“Wait a second. Comrades, you are very gracious. Do you want to give me a minute to get a few things settled in my house?”

“You look enough like a man but fuss like a girl,” one man said, shaking the handcuffs again. “We have other houses to visit. We don't have the whole night to entertain you.”

“Please, just one minute. I have to tell my grandmother that I will not spend the night at home. You know how it goes with old women—they worry all the time even when there's nothing much going on.”

“Now don't fool us. Here it says you're the only resident in this house, isn't that correct?”

“True for the household register, but think of the ghost of my grandma—she raised me and she wouldn't leave me here all by myself so I talk to her every day and let her know where I am. If you take me away without informing her, what if she followed me to the station? What if she made a mistake and followed you two home instead and disturbed your children's sleep? Don't say you're from out of town and you don't worry about such things. Ghosts travel faster than you and me.”

Nini shivered in the darkness. She looked up at the ham hanging just above her head. What if the ghost was watching her? But what kind of a ghost was she if she didn't come to rescue her own grandson? Nini said a low prayer to the old woman and asked her to understand who her real enemies were.

“Are you bluffing? You know this is a new society where superstition has no place.”

“Well, if you don't trust me, take me away now. The thing is, you never know. Ghosts don't read newspapers and they don't listen to government broadcasts.”

“That's all right,” the voice that belonged to the older of the two men said. “Let's give him a minute. It's not like he can run away from us.”

“No, I won't run away from you,” said Bashi. “You have my word—I'll only be a minute.”

“What do you mean by that? We're coming in with you.”

“But my grandma hasn't invited you.”

“We'll be good houseguests.”

The gate opened and the three men came into the yard. Nini, squatting behind a jar in the storage cabin, remembered Little Sixth fast asleep in the bedroom, and her heart began to pound. “Do you smell that?” she heard Bashi say, after the door was open.

“What's the smell?”

“My grandmother's floral water,” Bashi said. “How long has it been since I smelled it? The last time she used it I was still a child going into the street without my pants.”

The two men coughed uneasily and one of them said, “Now hurry up.”

“You're not coming in with me? Perhaps my grandma knew you were coming and prepared some food for you.”

“Let's go now,” one man ordered suddenly with a sharp voice. “I'm tired of your superstitious nonsense.”

“Are you scared, comrade?” Bashi said, but his laughing was interrupted when one of the men yanked him back and made him stumble down the steps. He cried out loudly, but the two men grabbed him and dragged him out the door. “Nana,” called out Bashi. “Did you hear the gentlemen? I need to be away for a night. No need to worry, Nana. I'll be back in a blink and you be good and stay here. Don't ever think of being naughty and following the gentlemen here, all right? I don't want you to get lost.”

Someone cursed and then Bashi screamed in pain. Nini squatted in the darkness and cried. She heard the neighbors’ gates open with creaks and then close. After a while, she came out of the storage cabin. A crescent moon was halfway up the sky, reddish gold. The gate to the alley was open just a crack. Nini walked quietly to the gate and looked out. The neighbors had returned home, every gate closed in the alley. She pushed Bashi's gate, inch by inch, until it shut soundlessly. There was no ghost in the world, she thought; the old woman was buried, cold in the dirt, and she would not come to rescue Bashi or be offended by Nini. They were at the mercy of strangers, as always.

THE WATER DRIBBLED
in a slow, hesitant rhythm, as the raindrops had done many years earlier in his grandparents’ garden, dripping from the tips of the banana leaves to a small puddle beneath. Any moment now his nanny would come, and he would have to shut his eyes, but she was always able to tell that he'd been crying. Look at your pillowcase, his nanny would say, and stroke his wet eyelashes with a finger, the light from the red lantern in her other hand warm on his face, but they were never able to expel his gloom, just as he was never able to find an explanation for his tears. Young Master has been crying again, he heard her say to his grandparents after she walked out of the bedroom, and his grandmother would explain, once again without losing her patience, that children cried so that all the sadness they had to carry from their last lives would leave with the tears.

A perfect cycle it was, Teacher Gu thought, one's life starting with the pain carried from the previous life, growing up to shed the burden only to accumulate fresh pain for the next life. Slowly the world came back to him, and with great effort he turned on the bedside light. He was in his shirt and underwear. His jacket and pants-soiled by his vomit, he supposed—had been washed and now hung on the clothesline, dripping into a small puddle on the cement floor. Gousheng had left a pot of tea by his bedside, still warm to the touch. How long had he been unconscious? Teacher Gu opened his mouth but no sound came from his scratchy throat. So this was what he was reduced to, an old man hung over, from nothing other than his own illusion of staying alive. Staying alive had been his faith since his divorce, and for this he had given up dignity, hope, anger, and his loved ones; but where did this faith lead him except back to this cycle that no one could escape?

Dearest love, my mind is as clear as a mirror wiped spotless under the silver light of a full moon,
Teacher Gu wrote, and put it with other notes to his first wife in a large envelope. For the last time he spelled out her name and address, and then screwed the cap carefully back on his Parker and inserted it, with his letters, in the envelope.

Underneath the bed was the old wooden chest where his wife had kept their precious possessions, and it cost Teacher Gu a great effort to drag it out. There was a Western-style suit in the chest. The suit had belonged to her grandfather, Teacher Gu told Shan the night before she and her comrades planned to come and cleanse him of his bourgeois possessions; the umbrella next to the suit, a souvenir of his parents’ love story. He would appreciate it if she could spare the few things he had kept from his parents. At the time, Shan sneered at his pleading, but the next day she decided to overlook the suit and the umbrella while she threw the other stuff into the fire, including her mother's silk blouses and Teacher Gu's college graduation robe.

Teacher Gu buttoned the suit and tidied his hair; it was one's responsibility to leave the world as a clean person.

The distance to the mailbox was longer than he'd thought, and twice he had to stop and catch his breath. The letter weighed no more than his own heart, and no sound came back when he dropped it into the metal box.

A dog barked; a feral cat whined and another answered in a shriller voice; a child cried in a nearby house and a mother sang a lullaby; the world was a beautiful place under the spring sky with the new moon surrounded by silver stars and a gentle breeze combing its unseen fingers through the long branches of the willow trees. Teacher Gu listened. His heart was a bottomless well; each small sound, a sigh and a whisper and the flapping of the most tender wings, was welcomed with deep-felt serenity.