The Vagrants

The moment would come when, in gentle yet firm words, Mrs. Gu and Teacher Gu would forbid her to hurt herself again. She was not ugly at all, they would tell her, embracing her when she did not resist. They loved her, they would say, and in their eyes she was as precious as a jewel. She would not believe their words, but they would tell her again and again, until she softened and cried. Nini had learned to make her stories longer each time until she could not stand the wait for the final moment when her loneliness and hunger were soothed by the two people who cherished her as dearly as their own lives. When the moment came—it could arrive anytime, on the way to the marketplace or the train station, or when she was patting the baby to sleep or cooking supper—Nini held her breath until she was on the edge of suffocation. Her heart would pump hard afterward, and her limbs would remain weak with a pleasant numbness.

Then, inevitably, a guard in a red armband shouting into her face, a slap on her shoulder from her mother, or a curse from one of her sisters awoke Nini from her dream. It was then that Nini would dream other dreams, conjuring other worlds that would make her the Gus’ daughter. Sometimes her parents had died, and she was on the verge of being sent to an orphanage with her sisters, when Mrs. Gu and Teacher Gu ran to her rescue. Other times Nini's parents kicked her out of the house, and the Gus, hearing a knock at their door, would come and pull her from the dark and cold street into their warm house; they had been waiting for the moment as long as she had, they told her, saying that all would be well. In one dream Nini's mother beat her to unconsciousness and she woke up to find herself in Mrs. Gu's arms, the woman's eyes full of thankful tears because Nini had not died.

What would she live for, now that she knew Mrs. Gu and Teacher Gu had never been the gentle parents she dreamed about? In her dreams they would never turn their backs on her.

“Now, now. Why are you so sad? Are you missing me already?”

Nini looked up and saw Bashi, spinning a sheepskin hat in his hand like a magician, his forehead shining with sweat. She took a deep breath and looked around. She was halfway to the birch woods; the snow was dirty on the frozen river. She licked the inside of her mouth and tasted blood from having bitten herself so hard. “Why are you here?” she asked, sniffling.

“I've been waiting for you, remember? Since this morning.” Bashi made an exaggerated gesture of pointing twice to his wrist, though he did not wear a watch. “But you didn't come.”

“My mother sent me to the denunciation ceremony.”

“Did you see the woman?”

“No.”

“Of course not, because you don't belong to any work unit,” Bashi said. He walked closer and put his hat on Nini's head. It was too big for her. He adjusted the hat but it still sat low on her eyebrows. “You look like a girl soldier in a movie,” said Bashi.

“Which movie?”

“I don't know. Every movie has a girl soldier. The Guerillas, The Tale of a Red Heart, The Pioneers. Have you seen them?”

Nini shook her head.

Bashi clicked his tongue and made a sound of being surprised. “One of these days I'll take you to a movie.”

Nini had never been to a movie theater. Once in a while, her parents would go to see a film with their work units; her two sisters went with their school too. In the summer, a white screen would be set up in an open field by the Muddy River, and every other week a film would be shown, but Nini was always the one left with the baby at home. They would stay in the yard as long as they could, listening to the faint music coming from the river, until swarms of mosquitoes came and buzzed around them.

Bashi watched Nini closely. “Why, you don't want to see a movie with me?”

“But you'll still give me the coal even if you take me to a movie?” Nini asked.

“Coal? Yes, anytime,” Bashi said, and circled an arm around Nini's shoulder. Taken aback, she struggled slightly, and Bashi let her go with a chortle. “Why don't we find a log and sit down,” Bashi said, directing Nini upstream. She tried to catch up with his long stride; when Bashi realized this, he slowed down.

“Do you know who I saw today?” he asked.

“No.”

“Do you want to know?”

Nini hesitated and said yes.

“I saw the counterrevolutionary.”

Nini stopped. “Where is she?”

“Dead now.”

“Did you see her alive?”

“I wish I had. No, she was dead already,” Bashi said, and twisted Nini's left arm gently behind her back. “They bound her arms this way, so her middle finger was pointing at her heart. And bang,” he said, pushing his index finger into Nini's back.

Nini shuddered. She withdrew her arm, and hid her bad hand in her sleeve. “Where is she now?” she asked.

“Why?”

“I want to see her.”

“Everybody wants to see her. But believe me, there's nothing to see. She is as dead as a log. Heavier than a log, in fact. Do you know how I got to know this?”

“No.”