Yiyun Li - The Vagrants

OLD HUA AND MRS. HUA left Muddy River the evening before the May Day celebration. There was little left for them to cling to in the town, or anywhere else in the world, their hearts rekindled by the hope of going back to the freedom of a begging life. Leaving with them was Nini, who had been disowned by her parents and who had pleaded with the beggar couple to take her along. It did not matter that she no longer remembered her daughters’ faces, Mrs. Hua thought; Nini would be their last daughter. They did not know that Nini had taken out all the cash from Bashi's trunk and hidden it in her socks; the stacks of bills rubbed the soles of her feet now, hardened into calluses from many days of blistering, but nobody found her limping suspicious.

She would take care of the couple, when they were too old to work, with the money in her socks, Nini thought. There was no reason for her to linger in Muddy River, though she knew she would be back in seventeen years, after Bashi served his sentence for molesting and kidnapping a young child. She had tried to visit him once, but the guards said only families and relatives were allowed. There was no point in making them understand she was his child bride; there was no point in explaining anything to anyone, the Huas included. The only thing to do was to count the days and years to come.

For raping and mutilating a dead woman's body, Kwen was sentenced to seven years. The morning of May Day, when the music and slogan shouting came from the loudspeakers outside the high walls of the prison, Kwen signaled for Bashi, who had been curled up in his narrow cot, to listen. They had both been beaten repeatedly by their cell mates, on account of their being newcomers as well as their women-related crimes. They were considered lower than the lowest creatures. The beatings seemed not to bother Kwen, and it would not take long before he became the one who organized such beatings, but at this moment, when Kai was driven in the police van to Hunchback Island, both Kwen and Bashi were slow in moving around because of their fresh wounds. Hear that? Kwen said to Bashi; another life on the way to the otherworld. Bashi did not reply, looking up at the old man with fear and disgust. Remember the other day, when we became friends over the woman's body? Kwen patted Bashi's shoulder and told him not to look so frightened. Heaven's door is narrow and allows only one hero at a time, but those going down to hell, Kwen said, always travel in pairs, hand in hand.

I am very grateful to: Elizabeth McCracken and Edward Carey, who gave sunshine and water and plenty of love to the novel when it was only a seed; Richard Abate, Chen Reis, Katherine Bell, Jebediah Reed, Barbara Bryan, Timothy O'Sullivan, John Hopper, and Ben George, for reading and rereading the manuscript; the Lannan Foundation and the Whiting Foundation for their generous support; Andrew Wylie, Sarah Chalfant, and Scott Meyers, for their hard work; Mitzi Angel and Kate Medina, for their insights.

And also to:

Brigid Hughes and Aviya Kushner, for their friendship, which makes my small world big;

James Alan McPherson and Amy Leach, for their beautiful minds;

Vincent and James, for keeping their mother from living solely in words; and Dapeng, for making the maps and the curtains, for keeping the memories, and for love.

Mr. William Trevor, for stories and hope.

YIYUN Li is a recipient of the Frank O'Connor Inter national Short Story Award, the Hemingway Foundation/ PEN Award, the Guardian First Book Award, and a Whiting Writers’ Award. She was also selected by Granta as one of the best young American novelists under thirty-five. She lives in Oakland, California, with her husband and their two sons.