The Vagrants

Did he still want to marry her, a bad-luck girl who had murdered her sisters and left her family homeless? Nini asked. It took Bashi a few minutes to understand the question. He tried to think of something to lighten Nini's mood, but his brain seemed frozen by her unblinking eyes. The Huas had agreed to take her in if her parents agreed to the marriage proposal, Bashi said, the news delivered with less confidence and joy than he had imagined. They could have been in heaven, Nini said; they could have been so happy. They could still be happy, Bashi said, but Nini shook her head, saying she was being punished for her happiness. Heaven was the stingy one, taking back more often than giving—Bashi remembered his grandmother's favorite saying and told it now to Nini. Heaven was the mean one, Nini said, and Bashi replied that, in that case, he would go to hell with her. For a while after that they watched Little Sixth crawl in the yard, their hands clasped together. They were two children for whom the world had not had any use in the first place, and in each other's company they had grown, within half a day, into a man and a woman who would have no more use for that world.

On the way to the hospital, Bashi saw unfamiliar faces loitering in twos and threes in the street. If not for the fire he would have been talking to these strangers, trying to strike up conversations, but now Bashi watched them with detachment. The world could have been collapsing but it would not have made any difference to Nini or to him.

The receptionist at the emergency room was unfriendly as always, and when Bashi could not pry any useful information from her, he thought of the two strangers in front of the hospital. “A busy day, brothers,” Bashi said when he approached them.

The two men looked Bashi up and down and did not reply. He offered them a pack of cigarettes. The younger one, not much older than Bashi, held out a hand and then, taking a quick glance at his companion, shook his head and said they had their own cigarettes.

“How disappointing. No offense, but I think it's unacceptable to refuse a cigarette offered to you. At least here in our town.”

The older man nodded apologetically and brought out two cigarettes, one for himself and one for his companion. The younger man struck a match and lit the older man's cigarette first. When he offered Bashi the match, already burning to the end, Bashi shook his head. “So, where are you from?” he said.

“Why do you ask?” the older man demanded.

“Just curious. I happen to know a lot of people in town, and you don't look like one I've seen.”

“Yes? What do you do?” the older man said.

Bashi shrugged. “Have you heard anything about this fire?” he said.

“There was a fire?”

“A house was burned down.”

“Bad luck,” the younger man said.

“So you haven't heard or seen anything? I thought maybe you would know, the way you have to stand here all day.”

“Who told you we stand here all day?” the younger one said. The older man coughed and pulled his companion's sleeve.

Bashi looked at the two and smiled. “Don't think I'm an idiot,” he said. “You're here because of the rally, no?”

“Who told you this?” the two men said, coming closer, one on each side of Bashi.

“I'm not a blind man, nor deaf,” Bashi said. “I can even help you if you help me.”

The older man put a hand on Bashi's shoulder. “Tell us what you know, Little Brother.”

“Hey, you're hurting me,” Bashi said. “What do you want to know?”

“All that you know,” the older man said.

“As I said, you need to promise to help me first.”

“You don't want to bargain on such things.”

“Oh yes? Do you want to know what that person did?” Bashi pointed to a middle-aged man, who exited the hospital and crossed the street.

The older man gave the younger man a look, and the younger man nodded and went across the street, running a few steps to catch up with the middle-aged man.

“If you can go into the ER and ask them if there was anyone hurt in the fire, I'll tell you what he did,” Bashi said, when the older man pressed again.

“Tell me first.”

“Then you won't help me.”

“I will.”

Bashi studied the man and then said, “I'll take your word. That man—I don't know his name but I know he works in the hospital-he signed a petition for the counterrevolutionary woman. Now you need to go in there and help me.”

The older man did not move. “Just that?”

“Why? This isn't important enough information for you?”

“Use your brain, Little Brother. If he signed the petition, why do we need you to tell us?”

“Then what do you want to hear?”

“Did you see anyone, say, who went to the rally without leaving a signature?”

That was what they were after, Bashi thought, and nodded with a smile, pointing to the entrance of the emergency room. The older man looked at Bashi and then flipped his finished cigarette into the gutter. “I'll do this for you and you better have something good for me in return.”