Yiyun Li - The Vagrants

“I'm serious,” Bashi said. Mrs. Hua's silence made him nervous and eager to prove himself. “I'll treat her well.”

“I've seen you grow up these years, Bashi,” Mrs. Hua said. “I've known you enough not to suspect you as a bad person, but anyone else who hears you say this will think you crazy.”

“Why?”

“She's still a child.”

“But she'll grow up,” Bashi said. “I can wait.”

Indeed, why couldn't the boy have the right to think of marrying Nini? What if they had let the young flute player be part of the family—they might have more now to their names, a daughter and a son-in-law to see them off to the next world, music that added color to their dull lives, grandchildren to love.

“Who would marry her and treat her well if not for me? I love her,” Bashi said, and he stood up straighter as he made the bold claim. “She's never happy in her own house. Can you be my matchmaker? Can you talk to her family on our behalf? They can't get a better offer.”

“She's too young,” Mrs. Hua said.

“You married your daughters young to other families, didn't you?” Bashi said. “I can wait for her to grow up. I can pay for Nini to live with you. I just need to have their word that Nini will be mine.”

Mrs. Hua looked at Bashi. The wheel of life, with its ruthless revolving, could be merciful at times. The boy had come back to her, giving her a second chance, but what was the right thing, for any mother, any woman, to decide? “Let me talk to my husband,” she said. “Can you come to our place in the afternoon? We'll have an answer for you then.”

IT TOOK TONG a long walk to gather his courage for school. He imagined his teacher asking for an explanation about the previous day. He would never get the red scarf now that he was a dishonest boy, pretending to be sick and skipping school. The teacher had once said that a small crack in the bottom of a ship would wreck it in the open sea, and Tong imagined himself a deteriorated soul heading toward a sinful life, and the thought made his eyes fill with tears. He would admit his wrongdoing first thing this morning, before the crack widened and made him into a young criminal.

The teacher, however, was in no mood to question Tong. Classes had been canceled from the first through the sixth grades. The principal had announced an emergency meeting for all teachers and staff, and the students were herded into the auditorium, watched by nobody. Soon the unsupervised auditorium exploded with noise. Boys from the upper grades ran wild along the aisles, and the younger boys, even though they dared not leave their seats, hurled paper planes at one another. Girls shrieked when they were bumped or hit by the boys, and some brought out colorful plastic strings to weave key rings in the shape of goldfish or parrots. No question was asked about why they were kept there, or how long it would go on; as far as the children could see, this day of happiness would last forever.

Tong sat among a few quieter classmates, boys and girls who could sit still in their seats for hours when required by their teachers. There was a war coming, the girl sitting next to Tong whispered to him. What war? Tong asked, and the girl did not answer, saying only that she had overheard her father say so to her mother. She was the kind of girl who blushed at every word she said, and Tong looked at her crimson face, finding it hard to believe her.

Half an hour later, the principal led the teachers into the auditorium. He blew his whistle with all his might, hurting everyone's eardrums. The students quickly returned to their seats, and the auditorium soon became quiet. The principal stood at the podium and, as usual, cleared his throat several times into the microphone, which cracked and magnified the sound, before beginning his speech.

“An outbreak of a counterrevolutionary epidemic has caught Muddy River unprepared,” he said. “I want you all to understand that the situation is urgent, and if we don't watch out for ourselves, we may be the next ones infected by this virulent disease.”

Some children shifted in their seats, a few coughing and others rubbing their noses.

“It is time that we cleanse our hearts and our souls with the harshest disinfectant,” the principal said, banging on the podium to emphasize each of his words, the children's hearts pounding along with his fist.

“You've all been born under the red flag of revolution and grown up in the honeypot the party has provided,” the principal continued. “Sometimes this privilege may be the exact reason that one forgets to appreciate one's happiness in this country. Now answer me, children, who has given you this happy life?”

It took a moment of hesitation before some upper-grade students answered, “The Communist Party.”

“I can't hear you,” the principal said. “Say your answer louder if you have confidence in it.”

A few teachers stood up and signaled to the auditorium, and more voices joined the chorus. It took several rounds for the principal to be satisfied with the roaring answer. “Long live the greatest, the most glorious, and the ever-correct Chinese Communist Party,” he said again with a thump-thump of his fist. “Do you all understand these words? What does this mean? It means our party has never been wrong and will never be wrong; it means that anything we do will not escape the scrutiny of the party. I know you've all been taught to respect your parents, but what are they compared to the party, our foremost parents? You are the party's children before you are the children of your parents. Everybody is equally loved by the party, but when someone makes a mistake, just as when a child makes a mistake, the party will not let a single wrongdoer slip by. No one will be spared; no crime will be tolerated.”

Tong's eyes were swollen and hot. How could he, a child loved by the party, skip class only because of a missing pet? How could he have forgotten that he was destined to become a hero? Softhearted-ness would make him useless, as his father had said; he was meant to be a special boy, and never again would he allow himself to forget it. He shouted the slogans with the other students—he could not hear his own voice, but he was sure his voice would reach the party, asking for forgiveness.

After the meeting, the students lined up and went back to their homerooms. The upper grades were required to write down in detail what they and each member of their families had done on the day of Ching Ming. The smaller children were given the time to think and recollect, their teachers patrolling the aisles so those boys and girls who tended to daydream in class would be constantly reminded to focus.

His dog had disappeared the evening before so he had been looking for his dog on the day of Ching Ming, Tong told the teachers in the separate classroom, when it was his turn to confess. The two interrogators, sitting behind the desk with notebooks open, were both strangers—they had been called in from another school, as the school district had instructed that schools swap staffs so the children's answers wouldn't be influenced in any way by their own teachers. The younger one of the two, a woman in her thirties, took notes and then said, “What's your dog's name?”

“Ear.”

The two teachers exchanged looks and the other one, a man in his fifties, asked, “What kind of name is that?”

Tong wiggled on the chair, made for an adult, his feet not reaching the floor. The chair had been placed in the middle of the room, facing the desk and the two chairs behind it. Tong tried to fix his eyes on his shoes, but having their own will, his eyes soon wandered to the four legs underneath the desk across the room. The man's trousers, greenish gray, had two patches of a similar color covering both knees; the woman's black leather shoes had shiny metal clips in the shape of butterflies. Tong did not know how long he would be questioned—even though the principal and teachers had said nothing of the signed petition, he knew that it was one of the things he had to hide.