Yiyun Li - The Vagrants

Soon the gates to the stadium opened, and people swarmed out, all chattering. Nini grabbed her sisters by their hands and walked closer to the crowd.

“The woman did not say a word throughout the meeting,” a man said. “I wonder if they drugged her.”

Another man swore that he had seen the woman open her mouth during the meeting. “She didn't look drugged at all to me,” he said.

“How could she speak? They must have cut her trachea,” another man said. “Didn't you see her neck was covered by a bandage?”

“Trachea? You fool. How could she live if her trachea was cut? It was her vocal cords that they cut.”

The first man shrugged. “She couldn't speak, for sure.”

“Pardon me,” Nini said, and raised her voice when she was not heard. “Pardon me, Uncles. Is the counterrevolutionary still in the stadium?”

“What's that to do with you?” one of the men said.

Nini stuttered and said they wanted to see the woman counterrevolutionary, but before she finished her sentence, she was cut off by the men. “What's there to see? They took her away first thing after the meeting was over. By now she's probably been shot.”

Disappointed, Nini told her sisters to stand farther away from the entrance so the crowd would not step on them. They waited until the crowd thinned and the last group of elementary students marched away. There was nothing for them to do now but go home.

THE ARMY PILOT did not look down at the city of Muddy River and its many upturned heads when he flew the helicopter over the giant statue of Chairman Mao. The flight to the provincial capital was no more than thirty minutes, and after that was the lunch he looked forward to. The meal, after a special operation, with roast chickens, beef ribs, and steamed fish, was fought over even among the best-maintained pilots. He thought about the first year he had joined the army, sixteen and a half and a full head shorter than the training officer who, at formations, liked to spit in his face and kick his legs. For the first three months they had not had a taste of meat. The pilot wished his training officer could see him now, one stripe and three stars on his shoulders. His father had often said that he who could suffer the insufferable would one day become a man above all men. A man above you all, the pilot thought, imagining the boys running in the crowded alleys, pointing out the helicopter to one another.

Among the upturned heads was Bashi's. He was standing across the river from Hunchback Island. The island, located at the eastern end of town where the Muddy River widened and turned down south, was a long and narrow piece of land in the shape of a whale's back. In the summer it was overrun by wild geese and ducks when their migration brought them north; in those months, children liked to swim out to the island and steal the eggs, which, unless cooked with the strongest spice, had a strong, unpleasant taste; the egg hunting was more for the fun of it than for practical reasons. Apart from the wild birds and children, once in a while other visitors included the police, who would clean up the island, as it was the site where executions for Muddy River and several of the surrounding counties took place. The last time someone had been shot dead on the island was the summer two years before, when a man from a neighboring county had been found guilty of raping a young woman and nearly strangling her to death. The policemen had cleared the island ahead of time, but a few daredevil young men swam there and hid underwater just offshore. Later they claimed to have seen the man's head pop like a watermelon at the single shot. Bashi was not one of the young men, but after a while he believed that he had been; he told people about how the man's member had pointed to the sky, inside his pants, even after he dropped dead like a heavy sack. “A man like him, you know, with problems down there,” Bashi said to men and women alike, with a knowing smile.

Bashi watched the red flags and the yellow tape that circled the island. With the unthawed river, there was no place to hide underwater, and Bashi was plagued by the yearning to outwit the authorities so he could get onto the island. If only he could will himself to become invisible! He would slip onto the island easily, walk around the policemen, and blow cool and tickling exhalations onto their cheeks. He could even talk to them in the charming and breathy voice of a young woman, calling them intimate nicknames, thanking them for finishing her painful life for her, inviting them to join her for some real fun on the other side. Bashi imagined the policemen, especially the one who had threatened him earlier in the street, scared out of their wits and wetting their white uniform pants. He guffawed until he had to lean on a tree to catch his breath. No one would dare to set foot on the haunted island again; he could build a hut on the island and live with the woman, who would certainly devote her life to him because he was her savior.

Twenty-eight the woman was, Bashi remembered from the announcement. Twenty-eight was not too old. Bashi lived with his grandmother, a much older woman, without a problem, and he was sure the woman would love him as his grandmother did. If she became too lonely on the island when he had to go home and spend time with his grandmother—certainly the woman would understand such an arrangement—he could ask Nini to be her companion, a handmaiden even, a trustworthy one because no one would be interested in what Nini knew. He then realized that Nini was probably waiting by the willow tree now, her small crooked face looking serious. Oh well, he could always find her later and spin some tall tales about the execution so she would be entertained. It was hard to make her smile, her little rag face with the scowl, but Bashi would not mind trying again.

Someone tapped Bashi's shoulder and said, “What are you doing here, smiling like an idiot?”

Bashi looked up and saw Kwen studying his face. Kwen had never married, and Bashi had always wanted to ask him what it was like being an old bachelor, having no woman to warm the bed or wash his feet for him; Bashi wondered whether Kwen dreamed about women the way he himself did, but such questions might be offensive. There were only a handful of people in the world that Bashi would not bother with his chattiness, and Kwen was one of them. People said Kwen was not an easy character. All the dogs in town behaved like kittens in front of him. Rumors were that the mountain wolves were scared of him; snakes too, and even the black bears. Bashi had never doubted these claims. He had once seen Kwen whip his black dog, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth; his face had been almost gentle, with a patient smile, but the dog, the beast that had been mean to nearly every creature in the world, had been docile as a lamb, its head low to the ground, as if begging for mercy.

“Did you hear me?” Kwen said again. Close-up, Kwen looked like any old man, a face with its usual wrinkles, squinting eyes, two front teeth missing and the rest stained yellowish black from cigarette smoking. Bashi smiled and raised both hands as if in surrender. “What a surprise. What are you doing here?”

“I'm here for what you're here for.”

“What am I here for?” Bashi asked with great interest.

“The execution, no?”

“Wrong. I'm here for a meeting,” Bashi said. “With a beautiful woman.”

Kwen shook his head. “If you said you were here for a date with death, I'd be more inclined to believe you.”

Bashi spat three times onto his palm. “Bad omen. Don't say that.”

“Where did you get that womanish habit?”

Bashi pretended not to hear Kwen. “So what are you doing here?” Bashi said.

“I'm having a date with death.”

“Come on,” Bashi said. He searched both coat pockets and finally found in his pants pocket the pack of cigarettes he had bought two weeks earlier—he had tried smoking four or five times, but he had found, once again, that he did not like the charred taste. Bashi tapped the bottom of the pack until one cigarette dropped out into his palm. “Here,” he said, and pinched the cigarette into a perfect round shape before handing it to Kwen.