Yiyun Li - The Vagrants

“You must need a lot of coal to keep this house warm,” Nini said when she entered the front room. It was divided by a high shelf into a kitchen—with a sink and a water tap, a stove for cooking, and several cabinets with painted flowers—and a living room, which had its own stove for heating. The wall of the living room was covered with posters showing scenes of heroes and heroines from revolutionary movies and operas. Nini touched the table in the middle of the living room, heavy-looking with old-fashioned carvings on its four sides. Two armchairs, dark red, with intricate patterns carved on their backs, showcased soft, inviting cushions. “Where is your mother?” Nini said.

“Heaven knows. She remarried and left me here.”

Stupid woman, Nini thought. No one would ever make her give up this luxury. Before she voiced her opinion, she heard some familiar rustling. “Mice,” she said, and squatted down to look for the source of the noise. Her own house was infested with mice, their nibbling keeping her awake at night. They ripped old clothes and, sometimes, new sheets of cardboard that her family used to fold into matchboxes. Except for the baby, every one of the girls in her family was trained to hunt down the mice and put them to death with a single twist of the neck.

“Don't worry, I've got my cure,” Bashi said. He went into the kitchen and, a minute later, came back with a box wrapped in fine red satin. Inside were a few dry roots, wrinkled and earth-colored. “Ginseng roots,” Bashi said, and handed the box to Nini.

She touched the red satin with her finger. She did not know how much money the ginseng roots cost; the box itself was expensive-looking and finer than anything her family owned.

“My grandpa was a ginseng picker, and my grandma loved ginseng roots. The best medicine in the world,” Bashi said. “But of course they don't make you live forever.”

“Where is she now?”

Bashi gestured at the bedroom. “We'll get to it in a minute, but let's take care of the mice first.” He broke a small branch from one of the roots and put it by Nini's mouth. “Do you want to taste? Sweet as honey.”

Nini opened her mouth but Bashi took the ginseng root away before she had a bite. “Ha, I'm kidding you, silly girl. Only people older than seventy can eat ginseng. Too much fire in it. It'll make your nose bleed and your skin and flesh burn and rot.”

Nini shut her mouth tight, a little angry. She did not know why she had agreed to help Bashi. She thought of leaving him with his grandmother and returning to her own life, finding a few deserted cabbage leaves and then going home, watching her little sisters play with the baby, telling them horrible stories if they made Little Sixth cry, threatening to feed them ginseng roots if they dared to complain. But Nini found it hard to move her legs. Bashi had promised many things, coal to take home, vegetables too. Friendship, and something else that Nini could not put into words.

Bashi found a jar of honey and dipped the ginseng root into it. When he got the root out, it looked dewy and delicious. Nini had eaten honey only once, in Teacher Gu's house. Her stomach grumbled.

“Here,” Bashi said, pushing a spoon and the jar into Nini's hands. “Eat the whole jar if you like. I don't care for honey myself.” He wiped the ginseng root clean of the dripping honey. Nini stuffed her mouth with a spoonful of honey. He was a good person, after all, generous and kind, even though his jokes left her confused at times. “What are you doing?” she mumbled through the sweet stickiness between her lips.

“This is my invention of mouse poison,” Bashi said. “Mice love honey, like you, don't they? So they'll eat the ginseng root without thinking and then they'll get such a fire in their stomachs they will wring themselves to death regretting they took that sweet bite of stolen food.”

Nini shuddered. She looked at the jar in her hands. “Did you put poison in the honey?”

“Why would I?” Bashi said. “You thought I would poison you? What a funny thought. You're not a mouse. You're my friend.”

Nini looked at Bashi's grinning face and felt slightly uneasy. “Do you have many friends?” she asked.

“Of course,” Bashi said. “Half the people in Muddy River are my friends.”

“You have other girls as friends too?”

“Yes. Men and women. Young and old. Dogs, cats, chickens, ducks.”

Nini could not tell if Bashi was joking again. But, if he did have other girls as friends, did they ever come here? The way he had behaved on the way here, making sure people did not see them together, made her suspicious. “Do you bring girls to your house often?” she asked.

Bashi shook his hand at her, his face taking on a serious look.

“Are you all right?” asked Nini.

Bashi wiggled a finger at Nini. “Don't make a sound,” he whispered. “Let me think.”

Nini looked at Bashi. With his pouting lips and knotted eyebrows, he looked like a small child pretending to be an adult. He was a funny person. She could never tell what he would do next. She had heard neighbors warn their daughters not to talk to strangers; her parents had told her sisters too, but the warning had never been issued to her, as nobody seemed to think she would ever be in danger. Nini studied Bashi again. If he ever did anything very bad, she had a voice to warn his neighbors. But perhaps her worry was unnecessary. He was not a stranger. He was a new friend, and Nini decided that she liked him, in a different way than she liked Teacher Gu and Mrs. Gu. They made her want to be better, prettier, more lovable, but what difference would it make now? They hated her and wouldn't allow her back into their house. Bashi made her forget she was a monster. Perhaps she was not.

“Yes,” Bashi said, clapping his hands after a moment and smiling. “I've got the whole plan worked out.”

“What plan?”

Bashi beckoned Nini to follow him into the bedroom. The curtain between the two beds was not pulled up. He sat her down on his unmade bed. “Can you keep a secret for me?” Bashi asked her.

Nini nodded.

“You can't tell anyone,” he said. “Can you do that?”

“I don't have other friends besides you,” Nini said.

Bashi smiled. He drew the curtain and Nini saw the old woman, eyes closed as if in sleep, the blanket pulled up all the way and tucked tight under her chin. Her thin gray hair was coiled in the style of an old woman's bun, with a few strands escaping the hairnet. She looked like an old woman Nini might have liked, but maybe death made people look kind, as none of the old women she met in the marketplace was nice to her.

Bashi put a finger underneath his grandmother's nose for a moment and said, “Yes, she's as dead as a dead person can be. Now you take a vow in front of her.”

“Why?”

“Nobody fools around with dead people,” Bashi said. “Say this: I swear that I'll never tell Bashi's secret to other people. If I do, his grandmother's ghost will not let me have a good death.”

Nini thought it over. She did not see much harm in it, as her parents reminded her often that, with all the pains and troubles she had brought to the family, there would be nothing beautiful in her death. For all Nini cared, there was nothing good in her life either, so why should she be fearful of an ugly death? She repeated the words and Bashi seemed satisfied. He sat down next to Nini and said, “I'm going to kill Kwen's dog.”

“Because Kwen beat you yesterday?” Nini asked. She was disappointed. A dead dog didn't seem to fit with a solemn vow in front of a grandmother's body.

“More than that. He's a devil, and I'm going to make the whole town see it. There's a lot I'll tell you later. For now, you just have to know that I'm going to kill that black dog of his before I can go on with the rest of my plan.”