Yiyun Li - The Vagrants

Bashi sighed. “I'm teaching you how to do the trick,” he said. “You need to hold still or else the hedgehog will be scared.”

Nini looked at Bashi with suspicion, but he seemed preoccupied with his demonstration. He poured salt onto his own palm and told Nini not to make any noise. He knelt by the hedgehog and held his hand out to the hesitant animal, his palm flat and still. After a moment, the hedgehog moved closer and licked Bashi's palm, his tongue too small for Nini to see, but Bashi winked and grinned as if he were being tickled. Soon the small pile of salt in his palm disappeared. The hedgehog moved away, slow and satisfied. Nini looked at Bashi questioningly. He smiled and signaled her to wait, and a minute later, the hedgehog started to cough vehemently. Nini was startled and glanced around, even though she knew nobody had come into the house—the noise the hedgehog made was low and eerily human, as if from an old man dying of consumption. Nini stared at the hedgehog; there was no mistake that the animal was coughing. Bashi looked at Nini and started to laugh. The hedgehog coughed a minute longer and curled back into a painful ball. Nini poked it a couple of times and when she was sure it would not cough for her again, she stood up. “Where did you learn this mischief?”

Bashi smiled. “It doesn't matter. What's funny is that the hedgehog never learns to stay away from the salt.”

“Why is that?”

Bashi thought about the question. “Maybe they like to be tricked.”

“Stupid animal,” Nini said. She lifted the balled hedgehog and put it back into the box. “What else can it do besides cough?”

“Nothing much.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“It's up to you,” Bashi said. “It's a present for you.”

Nini shook her head. She could not think of anything to do with the hedgehog, and it made her feel empty, all of a sudden, after the good laugh with Bashi. “What do I need a hedgehog for?” she said.

“You can have it as a pet.”

“Why don't you keep it?” she said, and went into the bedroom to check on Little Sixth. The baby had discovered the crackers. Nini watched Little Sixth nibbling one. Today was a day that she had been waiting for, but now she was agitated for reasons she did not understand.

Bashi followed her into the bedroom and offered more crackers to the baby. Nini snatched them away before Little Sixth got ahold of them and the baby started to cry. “Are you going to fill her to death?” Nini snapped.

Bashi scratched his scalp. He seemed perplexed by Nini's sudden change of mood. After a moment, he offered cautiously, “I've got another idea.”

“Your ideas are boring,” Nini said.

“Maybe not this one,” Bashi said. “We can eat the hedgehog. I've heard hedgehog is one of the best tonics.”

“We're not eighty years old and don't need ginseng and hedgehogs to keep us alive,” Nini said. “Who wants to eat that ugly thing with all the quills?”

Bashi smiled and told Nini to come over with him so he could show her one more trick he had heard about. She was not interested, but anything was better than staying in the bedroom with Little Sixth, who, after crying halfheartedly for a minute, began to suck her fist. Nini knew that soon Little Sixth would doze off. She went out to look for Bashi and found him in the yard. He was digging the freshly thawed dirt with a shovel, and when he got a pile of it, he poured some water over it and patiently kneaded the mud, as if he were an experienced baker.

“Are you cooking a mud pie with the hedgehog?” Nini said.

“Close,” Bashi said. He went into the room and brought the box out. The hedgehog was still a frightened small ball. Bashi lifted it out of the box and put it in the mud dough. “Do you know how beggars cook the chickens they steal?” Bashi said. “They wrap the chicken up in mud and put the whole thing into hot ashes. When the roasting is done, you break the mud shell and eat the tender meat. The same with hedgehog, I heard.” Bashi rubbed mud onto the hedgehog until it was totally enclosed. He rolled the ball in the mud a few more times and worked to make it perfectly round.

The fire in the stove hissed. Bashi tried in vain to blow on the fire to put it out; Nini laughed at him and slammed the damper shut. Soon the fire went out, smoldering quietly. Bashi poked the mud ball into the amber ashes. Together they stood and watched the mud ball in the belly of the stove, the outside drying into a crust. After a moment, Nini sighed and said, “What do we do now?”

Bashi turned around with his two muddy hands sticking out like claws. “We can play eagle-catching-the-chick,” he said, and bared his yellow teeth. “Here I come.”

Nini limped away with a happy scream, and Bashi followed her, always two steps behind, making a funny screeching noise with his grinding teeth. They circled the living room and then Nini ran into the bedroom. She threw herself onto Bashi's bed and panted. “I don't like this game,” she said, with her face buried in the pillow.

Bashi did not reply. Nini rolled over and was surprised to see him standing by the bedside, gazing at her with a strange half smile. “Don't stand there like dead wood,” she said. “Think of something better to do.”

“Do you want to marry me?” Bashi said.

For a moment, Nini thought he was joking. “No,” she said. “I don't want to marry you.”

“Why not?” Bashi said. He looked hurt and disappointed. “You should consider it before you decide. I have money. I have this place all to myself. I'm your friend. I make you laugh. I'll be good to you— I'm always good to women, you know?”

Nini looked at Bashi. His eyes, fixing on her face with a seriousness that she had never seen in him before, made her nervous. She wondered whether her face looked especially crooked. She turned and hid the bad half from his gaze.

“Think about it,” Bashi said. “Not many men would want to marry you.”

Nini did not need him to remind her of that. Anyone who had eyes could see that she would never get a marriage offer. She had blindly hoped that Bashi would not notice her deformed face, but of course, like everyone else, he could not get it out of his mind. “Why do you want to marry me then?” she said. “Aren't you one of them?”

Bashi sat down by Nini and ran a finger through her hair. She did not move away even when she saw that he had mud on his hand. “Of course I'm different,” Bashi said. “Why else do you think I'm your friend?”

Nini turned to look at Bashi, and he nodded at her sincerely. She wondered if she should believe him. Perhaps he was what he said, a man different from everyone else in the world; perhaps he was not. But what harm was there even if he was lying? He was her only friend, and even if he did see her as a monster, he seemed not to be bothered by it. She had no other choice; he was not a bad one, in any case. “Will you marry me if I agree to marry you?” Nini said.

“Of course. What do I need other women for if you agree to marry me?”

Not many women would want to marry him, Nini thought. She wondered if she herself was his only choice, but no matter how strange a man he was, she was on the bottom rung when it came to marriage and he was somewhere higher up. “What do we do if we agree to marry each other? When do I get to move out of my parents’ home?” she said.

Bashi circled Nini's eyes with his muddy finger and then sat back to look at the effect. “Look in the mirror and see what a silly girl you are,” he said. “If people heard you say this, they would all laugh at you.”

Nini felt the tightening of her skin around her eyes. “Why would they want to laugh at me?” she asked.

“No girl should express such eagerness to marry a man, even if you can't wait for another minute.”