Yiyun Li - The Vagrants

Nini looked up at Teacher Gu, and his eyes, tired and sad, seemed not to register her presence. She thought about the receipt in her pocket, something he would be looking for later; if he said a few kind words to apologize for Mrs. Gu, Nini thought, she would find a way to sneak the receipt back into the drawer, or just drop it by the door.

Teacher Gu did not notice her hesitation. He picked up her basket. “Mrs. Gu is not feeling well these days, and she does not wish to see you for some time,” Teacher Gu said, pushing Nini gently out of the door. “Don't come back to see us until Mrs. Gu feels better.”

In the street Nini opened the tin and put a biscuit in her mouth. The biscuit tasted sweet and stale. Teacher Gu had changed his mind too, dismissing her with a tin of biscuits that must have been sitting on the shelf for ages. Nini took the receipt out and looked at the red official stamp on it. She could not read, but a red stamp must mean something important, which made her happy. She squeezed the receipt into a small ball and threw it into a nearby dumpster. She took out another biscuit, nibbling and walking slowly home when someone tapped her on the shoulder.

Nini turned and saw a familiar face that belonged to a young man who spent most of his days wandering in and out of the marketplace. She stepped back and looked at him.

“Nini's your name, isn't it?” he said, baring his yellow and crooked teeth.

She nodded.

“You must be wondering how I know your name,” said the man. “Do you want to know how I know your name?”

Nini shook her head.

“And you have five sisters. Do you want to know what else I know about you?”

Nini stared at the young man without replying. On another day, in a different mood, she might ask the young man who he thought he was to bother with other people's business. She had heard grownups talk this way and she believed she had learned the right tone, impatient, and with authority. At least, when she talked to her sisters in that tone, they all seemed intimidated. She could make the young man speechless and embarrassed, but she was not in the mood for that today. The only thing she wanted to do was to bite the inside of her mouth until she could taste blood.

“If your mother gives birth to another daughter, they will become the Heavenly Emperor and Empress, do you know why?”

Nini shook her head.

“Only the Heavenly Emperor and Empress gave birth to seven daughters, the Seven Fairy Sisters,” said the man. “Ha.”

The man waited for her to laugh. He seemed disappointed when she did not. “My name is Bashi, Eighty.”

What an odd thing to have a number as his name, Nini thought. She wondered if the man had any brothers and sisters, and if they had names like Seventy, Sixty, and Fifty. As if he had guessed her question, the man said, “You know why Bashi is my name? Because I ate eighty dumplings the day I was born.”

Nini knew it was a joke too, but it was not funny, and she decided not to smile.

“Are you a mute?” Bashi said.

“Of course not. What a stupid question.”

“Good, you can speak. How old are you?”

“It's none of your business,” Nini said.

“I'm nineteen—well, nineteen and a quarter. I was born in July. July 7, an important day, because I was born on that day. Have you seen a history textbook? It lists all the birthdays of all important people, and someday it will include mine.”

Nini shifted the coal basket to another shoulder. She knew enough not to believe his words, but nobody had wanted to talk to her at this length before.

“How old are you? If you don't tell me, I'll have to guess.”

“Twelve,” Nini said. She did not know why the man was so persistent.

“Twelve? Wonderful.”

“What's wonderful?”

Bashi looked baffled by Nini's question. “Do you want to come and chat with me?” he said.

“Why?”

Bashi scratched his scalp hard and Nini watched big flakes of dandruff fall. “You can come to talk to me so you don't have to walk all the way to the railway station for coal. What you're doing is really stealing, I'm sure you know that. Nobody saying anything about it now doesn't mean someone won't pursue you in the future. Wait and see. Any day now they may come and charge you with stealing from state property. ‘What a pity’ people will say. ‘What a nice little girl but look at the trouble she's got herself into.’ Do you want to be caught like a thief? And paraded around town in a cage for people to throw stones at?” Bashi asked. “We have plenty of coal in our house. My grandmother and I live together, and she likes to talk to little girls like you. We can buy extra coal for you to bring home, and you don't even have to tell your parents. Think about it, all right?”

Nobody had ever used nice to describe her, and for a moment Nini wondered if the man was blind. But he was right that what she did was not legal. It had not occurred to her before, but she wondered now whether it was the reason she was sent to do it. She imagined the policemen coming to arrest her. Her parents would be relieved, and her sisters would celebrate because a competing mouth was eliminated from the dinner table. Mrs. Gu and Teacher Gu might not even wonder what had happened to her. The neighbors and strangers would all say it was their good fortune that the ugly girl had finally been plucked out of their life. No one would miss her.

Bashi told her again to think about what he could offer. Nini did not understand why people decided to be nice or, more often, mean to her. She imagined a house with good, solid lumps of coal. A few men and women walked past them in the street, all wearing their best Mao jackets and carrying colorful banners in their gloved hands. Some of them looked at Nini's companion with disdain, but most ignored him. Bashi seemed not to notice. He grinned and waved back at them. “Morning, Uncles and Aunties. Are you having a parade today? For the execution?” he said. “Who's this woman, anyway? Does anyone know her story?”

When none of the adults replied, Bashi turned back to Nini. “They are executing someone today. A woman. Think about it. One can't commit a crime and think one can run away without punishment.” Then, in a lower voice, he added, “Say, do you want to come and chat with me?”

“Where?”

“Come with me. I can show you my house now.”

Nini shook her head. It was getting late, and her mother would be cursing her and her bad leg for being slow. “I need to go home,” she said.

“Will you be free after breakfast? I'll wait for you upriver, by the old willow tree. You know that place?”

The willow was an old, gnarled tree with a full head of branches, like a madwoman. It was quite a walk from Nini's home, past half the town, past the birch woods on the riverbank, until one could see not the low row houses but the high chimneys of the generation plant. Nini had been there before Little Sixth's birth; she had not been charged with most of the chores then, and in the spring, sometimes she had been sent to dig new dandelions and shepherd's purses. Through the spring and early summer, her family ate the edible grass, boiled in water and salted heavily; they ate it long past the season, until their mouths were filled with bitter, hard fibers. The memory made Nini's mouth full of the grassy taste.

“How about it?” Bashi said. He looked at her as if her face were any other girl's face, her mouth not skewed to the left, her eyes not drooping in the same direction. Her left hand and left foot were bad too, but he seemed not to have noticed them either. “Are you coming?”

Nini nodded.

“Great,” Bashi said. He took a biscuit out of the tin in Nini's hand and popped it into his mouth before he walked away.