Yiyun Li - The Vagrants

“I haven't been back home,” Han said. “I need to leave in ten minutes.”

“Why?”

Han gazed at Kai and did not reply. Could it be possible that he had heard about the protest planned for tomorrow? She wondered who could have leaked the information, but she did not know Jialin's friends. Things were under control, in trustworthy hands, Jialin had informed Kai, the stage set for Kai and Mrs. Gu on the day of Ching Ming. But perhaps his trust was misplaced. She wished she had met his friends.

“If I ever became a nobody,” Han said, and sat down on the only chair in the studio, “or worse than a nobody—if I became a criminal and was never able to give you anything again, would you still love me?”

Kai looked at Han, his eyes filled with an agony that she wished she could share. The heroines she had performed onstage never faced a husband proclaiming his love: They were maidens giving up their lives for a higher calling, mothers leaving embroidered kerchiefs in the swaddling clothes of their babies before taking the journeys that would not return them to their children, and wives of fellow revolutionaries; in the case of Autumn Jade, her husband was the villain, who had not loved Autumn Jade or had the right to love anyone.

Han walked toward Kai and embraced her. She made herself remain still; after a moment, when he broke down weeping into her hair, she touched the top of his head. He had heard speculation in the provincial capital that the faction standing behind the democratic wall would win in Beijing, Han said, after he had calmed down; the man they had supported with the kidneys would lose the power struggle, if the rumor was true.

“Do your parents know?”

“I came to meet them and the mayor an hour ago,” Han said. “My parents are worried that the mayor might give me up to protect himself.”

Kai looked at Han; his smooth, almost babylike face had a day-old stubble now, and the whites of his eyes were bloodshot. “How could you be made responsible?” she said.

“The kidneys,” Han said, and explained that their enemy in the provincial capital, who seemed to be winning so far, was now investigating the transplant and Gu Shan's execution, which he claimed had violated legal procedures.

“Is that true?”

“If not for this, he'd find another excuse to attack us,” Han said. “It's the same old truth— the one who robs and succeeds will become the king, and the one who tries to rob and fails will be called a criminal. “

Kai grabbed the edge of the table where she was leaning, and tried to steady herself. When Han finally looked up, the tears in his eyes had been replaced by a rare look of resolution. “Can you promise me one thing?” Han said. “Can you write up a divorce application and sign it, with today's date, just in case? I don't want anything horrible to happen to you.”

She was not the type to abandon a family because of some rumors, Kai said weakly.

“This is no time for emotion,” said Han. “I know you love me, but I can't destroy your future. Write an application. Say you no longer love me and you want to raise our child by yourself. Pretend you know nothing and let's hope they won't demote you. Draw the line now, and don't let me ruin your future and Ming-Ming's.”

Kai shook her head slowly.

“Do you want me to write a draft for you? You need only to sign.”

Kai had long ago stopped loving the man in front of her; perhaps she had never loved him. But she felt an urge to hug him as a mother would, to comfort a child who had tried hard to act like a brave man. Han broke down again in her arms, and she let him bury his face in her hair, feeling the dampness on her collar. Nobody would love her as much as he did, she remembered his saying on their wedding night; she had looked up at a poster of Chairman Mao on the wall of the hotel room when he whispered the secret into her dark hair, uncut and long as a maiden's.

APRIL 4, 1979, Tong wrote in his nature journal, and then read the weather forecast on the right-hand corner of Muddy River Daily. Sunny. Light wind. High 12° C, low −1° C. He recorded the numbers and then went out to look for Ear. Saturday was a half day at school, and he was surprised that Ear had forgotten; he had told Ear that morning to come home around midday, and Ear had never failed to do so on Saturdays. Tong wondered what the dog was up to. He was no longer a puppy and had secrets of his own. Some evenings Ear looked indifferently at the food Tong brought out to the cardboard box. Tong wondered if Ear had been up to something naughty, stealing food from other dogs or from the marketplace.

He called Ear's name as he walked from alley to alley. He spotted several dogs, but they turned out not to be Ear, all busy with their own lives on this spring afternoon. Perhaps he shouldn't blame Ear, Tong thought; after the long winter, who wouldn't want to run wild a little? He circled the town and then walked up to the river.

The ice drifts, which not long ago were entertaining teenagers, had melted, while the boys had taken up a new, more exciting game in the alleys, where they formed gangs that bore the names of wild beasts and fought to make their groups’ names endure. The fights started harmlessly, with fists and kicks, but soon smaller groups merged into bigger ones, and weapons of all sorts were created by stealing, whetting, grinding, and imagining. The authorities, however, ignored the gangs—parents and teachers and city officials were busy worrying about feeding their families and securing promotions, but this spring they were also preoccupied with the trouble that had intruded on their lives in the form of uninvited, mimeographed leaflets. A line had been crossed. Which side would they choose? they wondered secretly at work, and asked their spouses at home.

The troubles and indecisions of the grown-up world did not trespass on the many worlds occupied by other, less anxious lives. As they did every year, children in elementary school found a new craze. This spring, for the girls, collecting cellophane candy wrappers replaced the plastic beads of last year, and for the boys, gambling with serialized martial arts heroes replaced a similar game with folded paper triangles. Girls in middle school remained aloof to the street fighting, even though some of the rumbles were for their attention. Unaware of the boys’ youthful ambition, the girls lavished their passions on their most intimate girlfriends. They sat on the riverbank or in their own yards, their hands locked and their fingers interwoven; they murmured about the future, their voices no more than whispers, for fear they would startle themselves from the dream about a world that would soon open like a mysterious flower.

Tong walked past a pair of girls sitting by the river singing a love song, neither of them noticing his distress. Soon he reached the birch woods, and a young man crouching in front of a shallow cave stood up at his approaching steps. Tong walked closer and saw a gray ball with arrows embedded in it on the ground. “What is it?” he asked.

The man turned to Tong and hissed. “Don't wake up my hedgehog.”

Tong recognized the young man, though he did not know his name. “Don't worry,” Tong said. “He's hibernating so you won't wake him up by speaking.”

“Spring's already here,” the man said.

“But it's not warm enough for the hedgehog yet,” Tong said. He had read in a children's almanac, retrieved by Old Hua from a garbage can, that hedgehogs would not wake up from hibernation until the daytime temperature rose to 15 ° C. He told this to the young man and showed him the recordings in his nature journal. Snakes too would wake up around the same time, Tong said, though turtles would wait longer because it took longer for the river to warm up. The man shrugged and said he had no use for the information. “My home is definitely warmer,” he said. He put on his gloves and scooped up the arrowed ball.