Yiyun Li - The Vagrants

“With the baby.”

“She can sleep anywhere, no?” Bashi said.

Nini's heart skipped a beat. “But you need to bury your grandma.”

“Do you think she'll mind if I don't go?”

“Yes,” said Nini. “Don't let her down.”

“But I may get sick and unfit for the burial trip.”

Nini smiled. She was pleased that the old woman's ghost could not compete with her. Out of modesty and caution, she suggested that Bashi buy a lot of paper money for the old woman's ghost in case she felt offended, and he agreed that it was a good idea. The more they planned, the more it seemed the perfect opportunity, Nini thought, for her to put a chain on his heart so it would not go astray to another girl. “How are you doing with Old Kwen's dog?” Nini asked. She did not believe anything he said about the dog, but it made him happy when she talked about it as if it were serious business.

It was going well, Bashi replied. He had been feeding the dog hams and steaks cured in hard liquor and now it had become his friend; what would a dog with a master like Kwen fancy other than that, Bashi said, and added with a smile that he was ready to launch a test of his poison very soon. Nini listened halfheartedly and ate with concentration.

“Of course, hard work gets rewarded,” Bashi said. “While I've been working on Kwen's dog, I've found something else interesting. That woman whose body you didn't see? Some people in town are trying to organize a protest on her behalf.”

A slice of pig-blood gelatin dropped from Nini's chopsticks into her porridge. “Why?” she said. “Isn't she already dead?”

“If you ask me, people go crazy for no reason,” Bashi said. “Have you seen the leaflets all over town?”

Nini said she had not noticed, and then remembered hearing whispered conversations between her parents in bed. One time her father had said that using a dead person as a weapon was a common trick and would get the troublemakers nowhere; another time he said that they themselves had their victory and justice. Both times her mother cursed with her usual venom.

“Who are these people?” Nini asked.

“They belong to a secret group, coming at night with white skulls as necklaces.”

Nini shuddered, even though she knew that Bashi was probably being his exaggerating self. “What do they care about the woman?”

Bashi shrugged. “Maybe the ghost of the dead woman came back and cast a spell so people are under her power now, and work for her.”

“That's nonsense,” Nini said with a trembling voice.

“Why else are these people willing to act like idiots?”

Nini thought about Mrs. Gu, her former gentleness and her sudden change of attitude. Nini had stopped at the Gus’ door several times in the past week, but neither Mrs. Gu nor Teacher Gu had come out to meet her. Perhaps Mrs. Gu herself was under the spell of her daughter's ghost and had become an unreasonable woman. “That old woman,” Nini said sullenly. “She hates me.”

“Who?”

“The mother of the executed woman.”

“Why do you have anything to do with her?”

“How do I know?” Nini said. “People all hate me.”

“Not me,” Bashi said. “I like you.”

“That's what you say now,” Nini said. “Who knows when you'll change your mind?”

Bashi swore this would never happen, but Nini was no longer in a mood to listen. She said abruptly that it was time for her to leave, and before Bashi could object, she went straight to the kitchen to get the coal for herself. Bashi scratched his head and begged her to let him know how he had offended her. She thought his eagerness to keep her pleased was ridiculous. If he wanted a smile from her she would give him one, but the way he worried like an ant on a hot pot made her happy. She said she would come back the next day after her parents and sisters left the house. “You can prove yourself to me then,” she said, and left without giving Bashi a chance to defend himself.

TEACHER GU SPENT TWO WEEKS in the city hospital, and was released the day before Ching Ming, along with other patients who had requested to go home for the holiday. Teacher Gu's left hand had recovered well, and with a barely usable left leg and a cane, he was able to move slowly. Mrs. Gu hired a pedicab, and on the short ride home from the hospital, Teacher Gu saw several people stop and watch them pass, some nodding at them and one even raising a hand to wave before scratching his head, as if he was embarrassed by his own gesture. Mrs. Gu nodded back, surreptitiously too, which did not escape Teacher Gu's eyes. He pulled up the blanket that was slipping away from his legs, and his wife, startled as if from a secret dream of her own, bent to rearrange it. “You must be cold without the boots,” she said. She took off her mittens, stuck her hands into the blanket, and held his feet. Through the cotton socks he could feel the warmth of her palms. “The doctor said to avoid the boots so the circulation wouldn't be blocked,” she said, as if she were placating a child. “We'll be home soon.”

Teacher Gu looked down at his feet, tucked away in the old woolen blanket, which bore a pair of phoenixes, the red and golden colors already fading. It had been a present from his first wife the day he had left for Muddy River, at the time a small, undeveloped town, perfect for his exile. The blanket, with its gaudy colors and patterns, was an insult to his aesthetics, and he remembered throwing it back to the woman who had decided to stop being his wife. She had picked it up and repacked it in his suitcase. It was time for them to believe in something less intellectual, she had said; it was an error for them to remain blind in their intellectualism.

Go to court your illiterate proletariat master, was his reply, hurled at her out of rage and self-pity. But later, when he calmed down, he puzzled over his first wife's words. She was always the wise one, choosing the winning side even before the civil war had tipped one way or the other. He, however, was a thorough dreamer, living in his ivory tower until an eviction order was slapped in his face.

It was time to leave their intellectualism behind. When Teacher Gu settled down in Muddy River he recalled her words and decided to teach night classes to illiterate women. In their progress he saw his merit, not as an intellectual but as a worker ant, moving the smallest grains of sand away from a mountain that lay between his people and an enlightened, civilized society. On the night of his wedding to his second wife, he brought out the blanket; a present from an old friend, he told his young bride. An expensive present it was, as a woolen blanket was still a rarity in provincial towns. His wife fell in love with it, and for the first few years, she treasured it and used it only on special occasions, holidays and anniversaries, and the first month of each new year. But like everything else cherished in a new marriage, over the years the blanket lost its original importance and was used now for practical reasons—it was a blanket of top quality, good for the severe six-month-long winter of Muddy River.

When they reached the alley, the pedicab stopped, too wide to pass through to the Gus’ door. Teacher Gu limped slowly toward home while his wife counted out the bills for the driver. A few chickens jumped aside and watched Teacher Gu, and he recognized his two hens among the group. He pushed the gate open and saw a pile of wood, cut and stacked neatly. A young woman heard his steps and came out of the house. They were back just in time for lunch, she said.

Teacher Gu studied the woman. She was in her late twenties, her medium-length straight hair covering the nape of her neck, parted to one side with a barrette; she wore a gray Mao jacket and a pair of pants in a darker gray. At first glance, she had the standard appearance of a young married woman, neutral-looking, as a wife was expected to no longer reveal any of her femininity and beauty to strangers. Yet a corner of her gauzy, peach-colored scarf spilled over the collar of the Mao jacket, perhaps with deliberate intent. Teacher Gu squinted at the scarf; on their wedding night his first wife had worn a silk robe of the same hue, peach being her favorite color.