Yiyun Li - The Vagrants

“What else did they say?”

“What's the point of repeating their words to you? What's been said had better be buried with me.”

Even though Kai's mother had always been dominating at home, she was known to be easily intimidated by her superiors. One could not be expected to be repressed all the time, Kai's father had once said, in explanation to Kai of her mother's behavior; she needed to vent her anger, he had said, and it struck Kai now that her father had served as a receptacle for her mother's bitterness; that must have been what killed him. “Stand up for yourself,” said Kai now. “Ignore my in-laws.”

“How easy for you to say that. They left word that you and I would not be allowed to see Ming-Ming anymore. Tell me, how do you ignore that?”

Kai looked away from her mother. Under the newly finished television stand she saw something blue. She bent and picked it up. It was Ming-Ming's favorite rattle, in the shape of a whale. She wondered if the nanny knew he had lost it, or if he had put it there as one of his games of hide-and-seek. One time before she had found a small rubber ball in her boot, and for three days after that, she had found different toys there, and she had known then that it must be a purposeful action on his part. She wondered if he would soon settle for a grandparent's shoe for the game.

“Why did you do it? What is it that you want that you haven't got?”

This question had never been put to Kai before. She shook her head. It was not what she wanted that mattered, she said.

“What do we do now?” Kai's mother said. “Do we know how much trouble we're in?”

Kai was struck by her mother's including herself in her daughter's fate. She thought of comforting her mother, but she would not listen. “You've always been such a good child,” her mother wailed. “You've always followed your parents’ and your teachers’ instructions and never made a mistake.”

Again Kai told her mother not to worry, knowing her words were too vague to do any good. Such a trustworthy child, Kai's mother repeated as if in disbelief; people had always told her it was her fortune to have a daughter who would not step on the wrong side of the line and who had helped her siblings prosper.

Kai left her mother and walked to the nursery. When she pushed the door open, the nanny, who had been eavesdropping behind the door, stepped back, panic and shame on her face. Kai pretended that she had not noticed; she asked the girl if she was willing to take some extra money and leave for home the next morning.

The girl stared at Kai as if she did not understand Kai's question. Kai sighed and explained that it was best for the girl to go back to her own parents, at least for now. “Are you worrying that your parents will be angry at you? I can write them a letter and tell them that you did nothing wrong here,” Kai said.

“My parents—they don't read.”

“Can you explain to them? Tell them that we'll send someone to get you back as soon as we settle things here,” said Kai. She wondered how much the girl understood the situation, and if this lie would be enough to offer her and her parents some comfort and hope.

“Who will take care of Ming-Ming?” the girl asked.

“He's with his grandparents for now.”

“But someone has to take care of him,” the girl said. “Do they know what Ming-Ming wants when he cries?”

“He'll be all right.”

“But they have never taken care of him. They don't know him,” said the girl. “They were pushing him to drink milk when he'd just wet his diaper.”

Tap water was being run in the bathroom behind the half-closed door, but Kai could still hear her mother crying. “Ming-Ming will be just fine,” Kai said. “You don't have to worry about him.”

The girl looked down at her hands without replying. She must have hurt the girl's feelings somehow, Kai thought, but she was too tired to think about what she had said wrong. She counted out money equal to an extra month's pay and handed the bills to the girl.

The girl did not take the money. She unbuttoned the top of her blouse and brought out a small jade pendant. “Could you give this to Ming-Ming?” she said. “I don't have anything else to leave for him.”

“Is it something special?” Kai said. “Don't give it away to a small child so easily.”

The girl gripped the pendant and insisted that Ming-Ming would not sleep without touching it.

“He'll do without it,” Kai said. She put the money into the pocket of the girl's blouse, and thanked her and then apologized for the disruption. The girl begged again to leave the pendant with the baby so that he could have something by which to remember her.

Kai accepted it; the girl bowed to Kai, then wiped her tears. Ming-Ming was the first baby the girl had taken care of other than her siblings; Kai wondered if there would be other babies in the coming years, and if farewells would become easier once they were a regular part of the girl's life.

“And please tell his grandparents that Ming-Ming likes to have someone touch the back of his ears before he goes to sleep,” the girl said.

Kai looked down at the pendant, a carved jade piece in the shape of a fish. It was an inexpensive one, the carving rough and amateur, the kind that a peasant's family could afford for their daughter. Han's parents would not allow such a thing near Ming-Ming, but Kai thanked the girl and said that she would buy a silver chain for the pendant so Ming-Ming could wear it around his wrist. She was welcome to come back and visit them, Kai said, and promised that once things settled down, the girl would be rehired. Her lie was delivered and received without much faith on either side; after a moment, Kai had little left to say but to wish the girl good luck in her own life.

HAN RETURNED TO MUDDY RIVER on the night of Ching Ming, after he had phoned the mayor with news of the victory they had been waiting for. In Beijing, the situation in the central government had taken a drastic turn after a late-night meeting, with the democratic wall now defined as an anti-Communist movement; the man to whom they had provided the new kidneys was on his way to cleanse the provincial government of the supporters and sympathizers of the democratic wall, and rumors were that he would either become the leader of the province or be promoted and move to the central government in Beijing. Yet the mayor had sounded halfhearted in his praise of Han's work, and it was only when his own parents got on the phone that Han understood the reason for the mayor's lukewarm response. Did he know what his wife had been up to? Han's mother yelled at him over the telephone, and then without waiting for an answer, she ordered Han to come home straight away.

On the trip home, Han practiced his defense, saying that he had been away and he had no idea what Kai had been doing in the past weeks. In his imagined conversation, he begged his parents and the mayor to help Kai out, and by the time he reached the door of his flat, he believed in his fantasy. Despite the request of his parents for him to report to them first, Han went straight home. It was in the middle of the night when, discovering his own wife absent from their bed, he woke the nanny up. Mrs. Wu—Kai's mother—had come that night and had asked Kai to go back to her flat, the nanny said, frightened by Han's grip on her arm; his parents had brought the baby home with them. Han looked at the nanny hard, as if she were lying to him, and when he saw that the trembling girl in her night-clothes was about to cry, he told her that she had better have a good sleep, as he would get Ming-Ming back first thing in the morning. The girl mumbled and said that she was to leave for home in the morning, as his parents had fired her. What nonsense, Han told her; he and Kai would both come home with Ming-Ming the next morning.