The Vagrants

He tried another time with both hands but the brick did not yield to the strike. When he examined his hands, the sides of both of them were bleeding. Unfazed, he told Tong's mother to stop fussing, when she brought a clean, soft rag for him. He tried two more times, and when the brick refused to surrender, he kicked it, which seemed to hurt his toe more than it had his hands. He cursed and hopped on his good foot to the storage cabin, and before Tong's mother could protest, his father hit the brick hard with a hammer. The brick broke but not into two halves; he squatted down to study it and roared with laughter. Tong moved closer with his mother, and they saw three rusty iron rods in the middle of the brick, holding it together. “Where did they steal the construction blocks for their shack?” Tong's father said. He wiped his bleeding hands carelessly on his pants and drank more liquor, content with the fact that he had not lost face. When he was urged once again by Tong's mother to go to bed, he retreated into the bedroom with a last cup, and soon his snores thundered through the closed door.

Tong and his mother sat by the table and she smiled at him. “What a funny man he is,” she said quietly, and shook her head with admiration. The dinner was cold now and she stoked the fire to heat it up for Tong, but he was not in the mood for eating. “Mama, do you think something has happened to Ear?” he asked.

He shouldn't worry, Tong's mother said. Before he could reply, he heard a noise. He rushed to the yard and was disappointed to find that it was not Ear scratching on the gate but someone knocking. He opened the gate. In the yellow streetlight Tong saw the unfamiliar face of a middle-aged woman, her head wrapped in a shawl. She asked for his parents in a low voice. Next to her on the ground was a big nylon bag.

“Are you coming because of my dog? Did something happen to Ear?” Tong asked.

“Why, is your dog missing?”

“He's never been out so late,” he said.

“I'm sorry to hear that. But don't worry,” the woman said.

The grown-ups all said the same thing, without any offer to help. Tong stood aside but before he could invite the woman into the yard, his mother came to the gate and asked the woman what had brought her.

“Comrade, you must have heard of Gu Shan's case by now,” said the woman. “I'm here to talk to you about a rally on Gu Shan's behalf.”

Tong's mother looked around before apologizing in a low voice that she and her husband were not the type of people who cared for this information.

“Think about the horrible things that happened to a child of another mother,” the woman said. “I'm a mother of three. And you're a mother too. How many siblings do you have, boy?”

“Three,” Tong said.

His mother pulled him closer to her. “I'm sorry. This household is not interested in politics.”

“We can't run away from politics. It'll catch up with us.”

“It's not that I'm not sympathetic,” Tong's mother said. “But what difference would we make? The dead are dead.”

“But if we don't speak up now, there will be a next time, another child maybe. A thousand grains of sand can make a tower.

We each have to do what we can, don't we?”

Tong watched his mother, who looked away from the woman and apologized again. Once in a while, beggars from out of town would stop in their alley, asking for money and food. Tong's father never allowed these people near their yard, but his mother always looked embarrassed when he shouted at the poor and hungry strangers that he was an honest worker and had no obligation to share his blood-and-sweat money. Sometimes when Tong's father fell into a drunken slumber, his mother would wrap up a few leftover buns and leave them outside the gate. When Tong got up early the next morning, the buns would always be gone. Did the beggars come back to get the buns? he asked his mother when his father was not around, but she only shook her head and smiled, as if she did not understand the question.

“Comrade, please listen to me just for this one time,” the woman said. “We're having a memorial service for Gu Shan tomorrow at the city square. Come and meet her mother. Perhaps you'll change your mind then and sign the petition to support the rally.”

Tong's mother looked flustered. “I can't go—I—my husband won't be happy with it.” She looked around as though to check if he was coming.

“I'm asking for your own heart and conscience,” the woman said. “You can't let your husband make every decision for you.”

Tong's mother shook her head slowly, as if disappointed at the accusation. The woman unzipped the nylon sack and brought out a white flower. “Even if you don't want to sign the petition, come with this white flower and pay respect to the heroic woman and her mother,” she said.