The Vagrants

Tong looked at the flower, made of white tissue paper and attached to a long stem, also made of white paper. His mother sighed and did not move. Tong accepted the flower and the woman smiled. “You're a good helper for your mama,” the woman said to Tong, and then turned to his mother. “Every family will receive a white flower tonight. It won't pose any danger if you just leave the flower in the basket for us tomorrow. We'll be there before sunrise.”

Tong's mother closed the gate quietly behind the woman. She and Tong stood in the darkness and listened to the woman knock on their neighbor's gate. After a moment, Tong nudged his mother and handed her the paper flower. She took it, and then tore the flower off the paper stem and squeezed both together into a small ball. When Tong raised his voice and asked her why, she put a warm, soft palm over his lips. “We can't keep the flower. Baba will find out and he won't be happy.”

Tong was about to protest, but she shushed him and said the matter was better left where it was. She led him gently by the arm and he followed her into the front room of the house. His father was still snoring in the bedroom. The dishes that his mother had reheated had grown cold again, but she seemed too tired to care now. She sat him down at the table and took the seat on the other side. “You must be starving now,” she said.

“No.”

“Don't you want to eat something? There's your favorite potato stew.”

“No.”

“Don't be angry at me,” she said. “You'll understand when you're older.”

“Why don't you want to take the flower back tomorrow? The auntie said it wouldn't bring any trouble.”

“We can't trust her.”

“But why?” Tong asked.

“We don't want to have anything to do with these people,” his mother said. “Baba says they're crazy.”

“But Baba is wrong and they aren't crazy,” Tong said.

Tong's mother looked at him sharply. “What do you know to say so?” she said.

Tong did not speak. He thought about the leaflets he had kept and made into an exercise book. He had read the words on the leaflets; the part that he could grasp sounded reasonable to him— they said that people should have the right to say what they thought; they talked about respecting everyone's rights, however lowly people were in their social positions. Tong himself understood how it felt to be looked down upon all the time as a village boy.

“Don't question your parents,” Tong's mother said. “We make decisions that are in our own best interests.”

“Mama, is the auntie a bad person?” Tong asked.

“Who? The one with the flowers? I don't know. She may not be a bad person, but she is doing the wrong thing.”

“Why?”

“The government wouldn't have killed the wrong person in the first place.”

“Was my grandfather a bad person?”

Tong's mother was quiet for a long time and then got up to close the bedroom door. “Maybe I shouldn't tell you this,” she said. “But you have to know that the story Baba told was not all true. Your grandpa did beat an official but it was over a widow he wanted to marry after your grandma died. The official also wanted to marry the woman, so they had a fight after an argument in a diner. When the official was beaten, he announced that your grandpa was a counterrevolutionary and executed him. There was nothing grand in the story, and Baba knows it too.”

“So was my grandpa wronged?”

Tong's mother shook her head. “The lesson for you is: Never act against government officials. Don't think Baba is only a drunkard. He knows every rule by heart and he doesn't make mistakes. Otherwise, he would not have lived till now, with a counterrevolutionary father.”

“But what if the government made a mistake? Our teacher says nobody is always right.”

“Let other people be wronged—it has nothing to do with us. Remember Baba's story of the emperor? You have to harden your heart to grow up into a man, do you understand?”

Tong nodded, though he didn't know what to think of her words. She had never talked to him about such things, and she looked unfamiliar , almost intimidating. She watched him a moment longer and then smiled. “Look how serious you are,” she said. “You're a little boy and you shouldn't worry yourself with grown-ups’ business.”

Tong did not reply. His mother urged him to eat again. He shoveled the food into his mouth without tasting it. Then he heard a noise and ran to the gate, but it was only wind passing through the alley. He came back and asked his mother if they should go out and look for Ear.

She sighed and put on her coat. “Another boy that constantly asks for attention,” she said tiredly. “Why don't you wash and go to bed now? I'll go out and look for him.”

“Can I come with you?” Tong asked.

“No,” she said, and her voice, harsher than usual, stopped him from begging again.