Yiyun Li - The Vagrants

The last time Kai and Shan had seen each other was in the autumn of 1966. Shan was the leader of a local faction of Red Guards, and when Kai returned from the provincial capital to Muddy River with her touring Red Guard troupe, the two groups faced each other in a singing and dancing duel in the city square. The competition to become the most loyal followers of Chairman Mao, and the animosity stemming from that rivalry, seemed pointless now; but Kai remembered that autumn as the beginning of her adult life, and sometimes she imagined that Shan would share with her the same recollections, of the September sun shining into their eyes on the makeshift stage, the workers from a road crew hitting the ground with their shovels to accompany the beats of their singing, the old people and small children gathering to watch them with great interest, and a lanky boy, who looked not much older than Kai or Shan, standing apart from the crowd with half a smile, as if he alone remained unimpressed by the performances of both groups.

The boy, with a grandfather and two uncles serving in the Nationalist army and fighting against Communism in the civil war, was an outcast from all the Red Guards’ factions in town. Two years after that, news came from Muddy River that Shan was imprisoned as an anti-Cultural Revolution criminal. The lanky young man, Shan's boyfriend then, had turned her letters in to the government in exchange for the opportunity to enlist. Had she remained in Muddy River, Kai thought now, would she have fallen for that deceitful smile? The mayor called for the guests to sit down now at the two tables, where bowls of soup and platters of food were waiting, steaming hot. A show of humbleness and reverence began, as people gently pushed each other around the table, declining the most privileged seats close to the mayor and his wife; only once the act was fully played out did the mayor announce that he would take the liberty of assigning seats for the sake of everyone's grumbling stomach. The guests sat down and began to enjoy the midday banquet.

NINI DID NOT GO HOME after visiting the marketplace in the afternoon. Instead, she limped across the town, her basket, half-filled with withered vegetable leaves, on her shoulder, until she reached the riverbank. The sun had left the heaviest clouds behind and was now midway in the western sky, a pale and cold disk. She had not spotted Bashi on the way back from the stadium, nor in the marketplace, where she remembered sometimes seeing him. She wondered if he was still waiting for her by the willow tree—Bashi seemed to be the kind of person who would stand there and wait—and she decided to go and look for him. Her sisters would certainly wake up from their naps by the time she made it back home, but she had padlocked the door from the outside. The only window was double-sealed. They could cry as much as they wanted; she did not mind as long as she didn't hear them.

Walking upstream along the river, Nini thought about her future. Her mother referred to all her daughters as debt collectors. She couldn't wait to marry every one of them off, she often said. They'd better learn to behave so that when they went off to their husbands’ houses, their mothers-in-law wouldn't whip the rascal souls out of their bodies. Her mother made it clear that if the girls offended their in-laws, they'd better brace themselves for their punishment and never expect their parents to help them. But these warnings were never meant for Nini. It was accepted that Nini, the meanest debt collector of the six girls, would remain a burden for her parents; no one would ever come to Nini with a marriage offer. If only they could have a son, and a daughter-in-law to see them off to the next world, Nini's mother said, and Nini understood that her mother was more interested in having one daughter-in-law than six daughters. Without a son, Nini, the unmarriageable daughter, would have to tend to her parents for as long as they lived.

Until that very morning, Nini had wished to become the Gus’ daughter. She had loved Teacher Gu and Mrs. Gu, their voices gentle when they said her name, their quiet household abundant with hot meals. The wish had become a dream that sometimes lasted for hours or days, in which Nini pictured herself living with the Gus. Misunderstandings would occur between her and her new parents— a smashed china bowl that had slipped from her bad hand, a misplaced wallet Teacher Gu could not find, or an overcooked dinner that Nini had forgotten to tend to. But they would never speak a harsh word or cast a look of suspicion at her; they knew she was innocent, they knew she always tried her best, but the mere thought of disappointing Teacher Gu and Mrs. Gu drove Nini to tears. She would pinch herself or bite herself on the useless part of her body when they were not looking at her, but sooner or later they would discover the marks and bruises on her body, and this would hurt their hearts more than it had hurt her body. Mrs. Gu would beg Nini not to do it again. Teacher Gu would sigh and rub his hands in helplessness. Nini would push them away and pinch and bite herself harder because she was not worthy of their love. Didn't they know that she was so ugly she would rather die, she would scream at them; then she would hurt herself more, because she deserved such punishment for screaming at the two dearest people in her life.

The moment would come when, in gentle yet firm words, Mrs. Gu and Teacher Gu would forbid her to hurt herself again. She was not ugly at all, they would tell her, embracing her when she did not resist. They loved her, they would say, and in their eyes she was as precious as a jewel. She would not believe their words, but they would tell her again and again, until she softened and cried. Nini had learned to make her stories longer each time until she could not stand the wait for the final moment when her loneliness and hunger were soothed by the two people who cherished her as dearly as their own lives. When the moment came—it could arrive anytime, on the way to the marketplace or the train station, or when she was patting the baby to sleep or cooking supper—Nini held her breath until she was on the edge of suffocation. Her heart would pump hard afterward, and her limbs would remain weak with a pleasant numbness.

Then, inevitably, a guard in a red armband shouting into her face, a slap on her shoulder from her mother, or a curse from one of her sisters awoke Nini from her dream. It was then that Nini would dream other dreams, conjuring other worlds that would make her the Gus’ daughter. Sometimes her parents had died, and she was on the verge of being sent to an orphanage with her sisters, when Mrs. Gu and Teacher Gu ran to her rescue. Other times Nini's parents kicked her out of the house, and the Gus, hearing a knock at their door, would come and pull her from the dark and cold street into their warm house; they had been waiting for the moment as long as she had, they told her, saying that all would be well. In one dream Nini's mother beat her to unconsciousness and she woke up to find herself in Mrs. Gu's arms, the woman's eyes full of thankful tears because Nini had not died.

What would she live for, now that she knew Mrs. Gu and Teacher Gu had never been the gentle parents she dreamed about? In her dreams they would never turn their backs on her.

“Now, now. Why are you so sad? Are you missing me already?”

Nini looked up and saw Bashi, spinning a sheepskin hat in his hand like a magician, his forehead shining with sweat. She took a deep breath and looked around. She was halfway to the birch woods; the snow was dirty on the frozen river. She licked the inside of her mouth and tasted blood from having bitten herself so hard. “Why are you here?” she asked, sniffling.

“I've been waiting for you, remember? Since this morning.” Bashi made an exaggerated gesture of pointing twice to his wrist, though he did not wear a watch. “But you didn't come.”