The Vagrants

After waiting for a while she left too, walking away from the city center and into a more crowded world where cats, dogs, and chickens shared the alleys and the afternoon sunshine with dozing old men. It was a world Kai had once been familiar with—before she had moved away to the provincial capital she had lived in one of these alleys with her parents and siblings. The shabby house had been one of the reasons for her mother's unhappiness, as she believed that Kai's father had not climbed up the ladder fast enough to move them into one of the modern buildings. Only after Kai's marriage to Han did her parents get the flat that her mother had been dreaming of all her life. Their farewell to the alley was celebrated by Kai and her family at the time, but now she wished she had never left this world.

Kai found Jialin's house and pushed the slate gate ajar. The yard, the standard size of fifteen feet by twenty, was filled with all sorts of junk: unused pickle jars placed haphazardly on top of one another; inner tubes twisted and hung from the handlebars of a rusty bicycle, its two wheels missing; cardboard boxes crushed flat and piled high; three metal chain locks displayed prominently, forming a triangle inside which were three bayonets. They belonged to his three younger brothers, Jialin had told Kai the first time she visited him; he was walking her out to the gate then, and the passing comment about his brothers, along with the clutter, were mere facts about some strangers’ lives. But six months later, seeing them again, Kai knew she would one day remember these details as part of the world Jialin had inhabited; one day they would be used to construct him in her memory.

The door to the house opened. “Do you need help?” asked an older woman wrapped in a long cotton coat.

Kai pointed to the shack and said in a muffled voice that she was looking for Jialin. The older woman, who was no doubt Jialin's mother, with traces of him recognizable in her face, nodded and waved before closing the door.

His mother had learned not to ask about his life, Jialin explained when he caught her glancing back at the closed door of the house. He let Kai into the shack and pointed to the only chair.

“Your mother—she's not working today?” Kai asked.

“She has a cold.”

“And your brothers—are they at school?”

Jialin looked surprised by the small talk that never occurred between them. He hoped they were at school, he said, but rumors were that they had become part of a street gang and skipped school for their own business.

“Do your parents know?”

“The parents are always the last to learn of any bad news.”

“Don't you want to talk to your brothers, or at least let your parents know?”

They expected him not to interfere with their lives, Jialin said; in return they left him to his own world. Besides, they were only his half brothers, and there was little reason for him to step in front of their birth father and claim any responsibility. Did he share these stories about his life with his other friends? Kai wondered, thinking of all the questions she could not ask him.

Jialin waited for a moment, and when Kai did not speak, he asked if there was anything she needed to speak to him about. Yes, Kai replied, the same request she had put to him all along: a protest on Shan's behalf, not for her life now but for her rights to be recognized as wrongfully executed. Kai spoke of the suspiciously expedited trial and of Shan's kidneys, transplanted into another man's body; she spoke of Mrs. Gu's insubordinate action at the crossroad, remembering Mrs. Gu's straight back when she had been dragged away from the smoldering fire. It was time to wake up the townspeople of Muddy River to the atrocity and injustice done to a daughter and a mother.

Neither spoke for a moment after Kai had finished her speech. Then Jialin beckoned her to a corner of the shack and removed some plastic sheeting. Underneath were a mimeograph set and a pile of newly printed leaflets. Kai picked one up; she recognized Jialin's handwriting. It was a letter addressed to the townspeople of Muddy River, dated on the day of the execution. Kai looked up, perplexed. “Did you have them ready yesterday?”

“Yes.”

“I didn't know you had done everything by yourself.”

Jialin shook his head and said it had been done with the help of several other friends.

“But why did we wait if you had the leaflets ready?” Kai asked.

“Situations change every day,” Jialin said. Then he asked her if she had heard any news about the democratic wall in Beijing. Kai shook her head, and Jialin seemed surprised. He thought she would have heard the news even though she would not be allowed to broadcast it, Jialin said. She replied that she was no more than a voice for the government, and she relied on him more than anyone else for real news about the world.