Yiyun Li - The Vagrants

Besides a few sparrows hopping among the chickens, the Gus’ alley was quiet. Nini knocked at the gate, first cautiously, and then a little harder. After a long moment she heard some small noises from the yard. For a moment her heartbeat became wild, her legs ready to take her fleeing before she was seen. But what would that make her except a useless child? She persisted, knocking at the gate, loudly this time.

The gate opened. Teacher Gu, leaning on a cane, stared at Nini. “What are you doing here?” he said. “Don't you know that people have important things to do besides waiting to be disturbed?”

Little Sixth pointed at Teacher Gu's cane and giggled for reasons known only to herself. Nini looked at him in dismay. She had imagined Teacher Gu, weakened and saddened by his illness, in need of comfort, and she could not help but feel that the old man in front of her now, like the other old men strolling in the marketplace or sitting by the roadside who enjoyed nothing but being harsh to a world that had, in their minds, mistreated them, was a stranger who had taken up the space of Teacher Gu's body. She breathed hard. “I heard you were sick, Teacher Gu,” Nini said, trying her newly discovered confidence. “I'm here to see if you feel better now, and if you need anything.”

“Why do you care?” Teacher Gu said. “Don't expect me to entertain anyone who has too much goodwill to dispense.” Before Nini could reply, he banged the gate in her face.

Little Sixth, startled, began to cry then hiccup. Nini looked at the gate. She thought of spitting and cursing, the way she dealt with every humiliation in her life, yet she knew that those actions would not bring her the satisfaction they had before. Teacher Gu, whom she had once loved and admired and wanted as a father, had become a lesser person than she.

Bashi seemed anxious when Nini and Little Sixth arrived. A whole table of food, ordered from Three Joy, the most expensive restaurant in town, waited on the table. He offered to take the baby, and when Little Sixth protested with flailing hands, he made funny faces and squeezed his voice to sing a song about a snail, which scared the baby and made her cry. Nini hushed them both and walked straight into the bedroom. Bashi's bed was freshly made, the sheet and blanket and pillowcases all with a matching pattern of a pair of swallows nestling together in a spring willow tree. “The holiday is for dead people,” Nini said, not yet recovered from the encounter with Teacher Gu. “You thought it was for you?”

Bashi smiled mysteriously. “Don't give me that stupid smile of yours,” Nini said. She brought the baby to the other bed, stripped after the old woman's death. Nini took a rope out of her pocket. The bed was much smaller than their brick bed at home, so she had to double and then double the rope again before binding it around the baby's waist and tying it to a pole on the inner side of the bed. Bashi seemed concerned, but Nini reassured him: Little Sixth was used to the rope; it would be a miracle if she were able to strangle herself or loosen the knot and fall headfirst to the ground.

Bashi watched Little Sixth explore her new territory. “What a nice baby,” he said. He knelt at the bedside so that he was at eye level with her. He made squeaky noises and funny faces, which Little Sixth did not appreciate, and when she cried again, he stood up with resignation. “What if she gets bored?” he asked.

“Why would she get bored?” Nini said. “She lives this way every day.”

Less than convinced, Bashi went to the kitchen and fetched a whole bag of crackers. At each corner of the bed, he put a stack of crackers. He rummaged in the closet and found a pair of old silk shoes that had belonged to his grandmother, who had had bound feet, so the shoes were no bigger than a child's palm. More intrigued by the shoes than the snack, Little Sixth grabbed them and chewed on the embroidered flowers.

Nini looked on as Bashi busied himself making Little Sixth comfortable. What a strangely good man he was sometimes, she thought, wasting his time on a baby. She went out to the living room and sank into a huge cushioned chair. Bashi's solicitousness made her feel important; she could easily be the mistress of this household, making him her servant.

After a few minutes, Bashi came out and said, “I've got a present for you.”

Nini turned to study him. When he was not behaving oddly, he looked almost handsome.

“Do you want to guess?”

“How would I know? Who knows which screw has come loose in your brain?” she said.

He laughed. “You're right,” he said. “It'd take you a million years to guess.” He went out to the storage room and, a moment later, came back with a cardboard box. The box was not a big one, but the way Bashi carried it, carefully balanced between his two hands, made Nini think of something expensive or heavy, or both. She wondered if it was a present she could hide from her parents and sisters.

Bashi put the box on the table and opened it; then he stepped aside, gave her a great bow, and invited her to step forward, as if he were a master magician. She squatted by the box and looked inside. She found neither expensive food nor jewelry; instead, the box was filled with ripped newspaper, and in the middle was a little gray ball with quills. She moved it with a finger and it rolled to one side, revealing nothing but more newspaper under its small body.

“So,” Bashi said. “What do you think?”

“What is it?”

“A hedgehog.”

Bashi watched Nini's face closely, which made her impatient. “What kind of present is that? You think I'm a skunk that needs a hedgehog for lunch?” she said.

Bashi guffawed as if he had heard the funniest joke in the world, and despite her wish to remain stern and angry, Nini laughed too. She lifted the hedgehog by its quills and put it on the table. It remained motionless, hiding its small face and soft stomach away from the world. “It's dead,” Nini said.

“Silly girl,” Bashi said. “It looks dead because I put it out in the storage cabin last night.” He picked up a dustpan and scooped the hedgehog into it. “Let me show you the trick,” he said, and carried the hedgehog to the kitchen. The fire in the stove was roaring and the kitchen was hotter than the rest of the house. Bashi took off his sweater and rolled up his shirtsleeves. “Now look,” he said, and placed the dustpan on the floor, close to the stove. After a while, the hedgehog started to move, slowly at first, and then it grew longer and flatter, its face showing up underneath its uncurled body. Nini looked at its pale pink nose and small beady eyes—the hedgehog looked confused, its nose twitching helplessly.

“Is he hungry?” Nini asked.

“Wait and see,” Bashi said. He put a shallow plate of water on the floor nearby, and soon the hedgehog crawled toward the water. To Nini's amazement, when it found the water, it gulped it all down without taking a breath.

“How did you know he was thirsty?” Nini asked.

“Because I tried this trick before you came,” Bashi said. “You freeze a hedgehog and then unfreeze him and he thinks he's just out of his hibernation and he's thirsty.”

“Stupid animal,” Nini said.

Bashi smiled and said he had another trick to show her. He took a jar of salt out of the cupboard and asked for her hand, and Nini stuck out her good hand in a fist. He grabbed her fingers and uncurled them, and she felt a small tickling sensation coming not from her hand but from somewhere in her body that she had not known existed before. He poured a tiny mound of salt onto her palm. “Hold still,” he said, and bent down to lick from her palm. She withdrew her hand before his tongue could touch it and the salt spilled all over the counter. “What are you doing?” she said.