The Vagrants

Bashi smiled. He drew the curtain and Nini saw the old woman, eyes closed as if in sleep, the blanket pulled up all the way and tucked tight under her chin. Her thin gray hair was coiled in the style of an old woman's bun, with a few strands escaping the hairnet. She looked like an old woman Nini might have liked, but maybe death made people look kind, as none of the old women she met in the marketplace was nice to her.

Bashi put a finger underneath his grandmother's nose for a moment and said, “Yes, she's as dead as a dead person can be. Now you take a vow in front of her.”

“Why?”

“Nobody fools around with dead people,” Bashi said. “Say this: I swear that I'll never tell Bashi's secret to other people. If I do, his grandmother's ghost will not let me have a good death.”

Nini thought it over. She did not see much harm in it, as her parents reminded her often that, with all the pains and troubles she had brought to the family, there would be nothing beautiful in her death. For all Nini cared, there was nothing good in her life either, so why should she be fearful of an ugly death? She repeated the words and Bashi seemed satisfied. He sat down next to Nini and said, “I'm going to kill Kwen's dog.”

“Because Kwen beat you yesterday?” Nini asked. She was disappointed. A dead dog didn't seem to fit with a solemn vow in front of a grandmother's body.

“More than that. He's a devil, and I'm going to make the whole town see it. There's a lot I'll tell you later. For now, you just have to know that I'm going to kill that black dog of his before I can go on with the rest of my plan.”

Nini nodded. She did not know if she wanted to hear more of Bashi's plan. The old woman, no more than five feet away, distracted her.

“So here's how it will work. Dogs are not old women and they don't take a liking to ginseng roots, right? What is to a dog as a ginseng root is to an old granny?”

Nini looked at Bashi, perplexed.

“Think, girl. A sausage, or a ham, no? Dogs like meat, so do you and I, but we are smarter than dogs,” said Bashi. “This is what I'm going to do: I will give the dog a sausage a day until he wags his tail at me whenever he sees me, and then, bang, a sausage cured with pesticide. The poor dog will never imagine that his only friend in this world has killed him. How does that sound?”

Nini fidgeted. It seemed that Bashi could sit here talking to her, or to himself, all morning. If she did not return in time to cook before her parents came home for lunch, as she hadn't the night before for dinner, her mother would let that bamboo broomstick rain down on her back again.

Bashi looked at her. “Don't you like my plan?”

“It's not good to think of other things before taking care of your grandmother,” she said. “I don't have all day to sit here talking to you.”

“The business of the living comes before that of the dead,” Bashi said. “But you're right. I need your help to get her into the casket before you leave.”

“You don't want to hire some professionals?”

“I'd have to burn her for them to be hired,” Bashi said. “It's all right. We can do it ourselves.” He pulled a trunk from the corner of the bedroom. “I think she got everything ready here. Find what you need and dress her up well. I'll get the casket.”

Bashi left for the storage cabin before Nini replied. She opened the trunk. Silk and satin clothes lined the inside in orderly layers: coats, jackets, blouses and pants, shoes, and caps. She touched the one on the top with her good hand and her chapped palm caught a thread. What a waste, to bury such fine clothes with a dead woman, Nini thought. She rubbed her hands on the outside of her pants hard before she touched the clothes again. Piece by piece she took them out of the trunk and piled them neatly next to the old woman on the bed. When she reached the bottom of the trunk, she saw several envelopes, each bearing a number. She opened the first one and saw a stack of bills, mostly of ten or five yuan. Nini had never seen so much money. She bit her lips and looked around. When she was sure Bashi was not in sight, she put the money back into the envelope, folded the envelope once in the middle, and slipped it into her pocket.

“The casket is too heavy for me,” Bashi said when he came in a moment later. “I wonder if the carpenters put some lead in it. Let's not worry about that part now.”

Nini's voice quavered when she pointed out the envelopes to Bashi. He checked their contents and whistled. “I thought she saved everything in our bank account,” he said. He pulled out two ten-yuan bills and handed them to Nini.

She shook her head and said she did not want the money.

“Why not? Friends stick together, so why don't we share the good fortune?”