Yiyun Li - The Vagrants

At the moment Dafu wept into his pillow, parental worries plagued many more hearts outside the hospital. A mother who had just helped her panicking daughter with her first period could not close her eyes next to her snoring husband. She remembered her own mother, constantly checking the panties of all her daughters for fear they would be raped or seduced by strangers. The daughter who had escaped the sad fate envisioned by her mother had become a mother herself, and was now horrified that the ghost of her mother's fear had decided to make its home in her own heart.

In another bed in the same block, a man reminded his wife to warn their two teenage daughters not to dress up in bright colors. But it was no longer forbidden to look beautiful, his wife pointed out, defending their daughters and thinking about her own youthful years that had withered before she had ever blossomed. People would notice and talk, the father said, unwilling himself to broach the awkward topic with his daughters, who had, with their swelling breasts and fuller lips, made him avert his eyes and feast instead on other girls’ young bodies along the street.

Nini's parents did not sleep. Her father's hand on her mother's belly, which was starting to show, they talked with hope about a son, not wanting to share their dread about yet another girl. On the other end of the brick bed, Nini eavesdropped, praying to unknown gods and goddesses that they would be given a baby girl.

Jialin's mother worried too, about the remaining time in Jialin's life, but more about his three younger brothers, who had stolen her money to buy three pairs of sunglasses. Earlier that day they had come home with the shining black things on their faces, and when she looked at them she saw in their lenses six duplicates of herself, face tired and hair gray. She wondered if they were on their way to becoming the newest gang members in the city, but when she talked to her husband about this worry, he replied that it was natural for the boys to grow into men.

In the Huas’ shack, Mrs. Hua dreamed about her seven daughters. Sometimes they would come to talk with her about a newborn baby girl who did not please the husband's family, or a long-awaited son whose arrival had finally stopped another husband's beating; the younger ones talked about their orphanages, where they were too cold or too hungry or had too much labor. On this specific night the youngest daughter, born with a cleft palate and nicknamed Bunny by her older sisters, came and told Mrs. Hua that she had decided to go home; she was coming to say goodbye to her parents because the years she had lived with them were the happiest of her life. For a moment, Mrs. Hua felt the girl's breath on her cheeks, and then the girl vanished, leaving Mrs. Hua in a cold sweat. She bit her finger; the pain was real, so she was not dreaming. She lay in the darkness for a moment and started to cry. Bunny's ghost had come to say her final farewell, Mrs. Hua told her husband when he was woken up; something had happened and the poor girl was now on her way to the otherworld. Old Hua held Mrs. Hua's hand; after a while Mrs. Hua calmed down. They would never know what or who had killed their little girl, she said, and he replied that perhaps heaven had known it would be harder for the girl to live on.

A middle-aged carpenter and his apprentice, both in their undershirts and covered with sawdust and sweat, moved their sawhorse to let Kai enter her flat. The hallway shared by the four families on the floor had been turned into a temporary workshop, and out of curiosity Kai asked which family they were working for. The harmless question, however, seemed to throw both men into instant confusion; they glanced at each other, and when the older man lowered his head, the young apprentice replied that they had been assigned a political task by the city government.

Kai frowned. Before she had a chance to question the men further, the door to her flat opened and Han smiled at her mysteriously. He had a surprise for her, he said, and told her to close her eyes. The young carpenter glanced at Kai and Han with timid curiosity, and Han told the boy to keep working, before he pulled Kai into the flat. What was it? she asked, but Han insisted that she keep her eyes closed. Kai sighed and let him hold her hand and guide her into the living room. When she was told to open her eyes, she saw in the middle of the room a huge cardboard box with a blue television set printed on it.

“When did you get out of town?” Kai asked. The only place to buy a television set was in the provincial capital, with a special permit, and even though Han had been talking about buying a TV for days, Kai thought it would take weeks before permission could be granted.

“I didn't take one step out of my office today,” Han said. “And I didn't have to spend a penny.”

Kai nodded absentmindedly. Han seemed to be disappointed by her lukewarm reaction. “It's a present,” he said. “And only three families in Muddy River got them. Guess who?”

“Your parents and the mayor, and us?”

“Nothing escapes your eyes,” said Han. “Who else deserves such a prize?”

“For the kidney transplant?”

Han smiled and said that the mayor and his wife had recommended the carpenters, as they had finished a top-quality TV stand for them just two days earlier, and he had asked that the carpenters finish by the next day. Shouldn't the neighbors be consulted before they let the carpenters use a public space? Kai asked, but Han dismissed the question and said that he believed the neighbors would feel just fine about it—the men in the three other families occupied positions not much lower than Han's, yet they were the ones who had reached their limits, as Han put it; he himself was the only one on their floor with a future.

Kai nodded, and then asked if there was other news.

“I need to talk to you about something,” Han said as the door to the nursery opened. Ming-Ming walked out on tiptoes, his hands pulled up by the nanny's hands. He looked at his parents and led the nanny toward the sofa. Han had rearranged the furniture in the living room to make room for the TV stand, and when Ming-Ming climbed onto the sofa, now close to the light switch, he reached out to turn on the light, and then off, and then on and off. Kai and Han, both preoccupied with their own thoughts, watched the baby in the blinking light.

Finally, Han made a gesture toward the nanny. Kai picked Ming-Ming up and kissed him, but he wiggled out of her arms to go to the sofa. Kai asked the nanny about the baby's lunch and then told her to dress the baby warmly and take him for a stroll around the city square. A walk before the nap? the nanny asked in surprise, and Kai answered that it was a warm day and he might as well get some fresh air.

Han stood next to the window and watched the street. “I'm sure you've heard of the situation out there,” he said, once the nanny had shut the door to the flat.

Fifteen hundred copies of the first leaflet had been distributed three nights earlier, but by noon the next day they had been torn down by the sanitation squad, and no one had mentioned it since. A couple of nights later a second leaflet showed up, this time talking not only about Gu Shan's execution but also about a democratic wall movement in Beijing. By now Kai thought it would be suspicious to pretend to be unaware of it. “The leaflets,” she said, feeling her words filled with a bitterness that only she herself could detect. She wished she had been part of what was happening in Muddy River.

“This nonsense about the democratic wall, and the talk of the dead woman, neither would be much of a headache if treated separately.”

“Why?”

Han waved a hand to dismiss the topic. Lunch was ready, he said, and they might as well enjoy a good homemade meal.