The Vagrants. Yiyun Li

times that she was living not only on her parents’ blood and sweat but also on that of her younger sisters.

      The fire had been built up in the belly of the brick bed. Nini’s father was sipping cheap yam liquor from a cup, but he did not look as gloomy as he did when he drank in the evenings. Her mother came in with a plate of fried bread. Nini was shocked to find such an extravagant breakfast.

      Nini’s father beckoned to her and said, “Come on. If you don’t hurry, we’ll finish yours for you.”

      Her sisters all giggled, a little nervously at first, more boldly when their mother did not shout and tell them to stay quiet. Even Little Sixth was making loud and happy noises. Nini’s father dipped the end of his chopsticks into the liquor, and then let the liquid drip into the baby’s mouth. Nini’s mother raised her voice to stop him but only in a laughing and approving way. The three-year-old and the five-year-old clamored and asked for a taste of the liquor, and their father gave them each drops of liquor too. The two older girls, already in school, knew better and did not ask, but they both sat close to their father. Lately they had begun to compete for his attention, the second daughter running to get his slippers and tea when he came home. But hard as she tried, replacing their mother in many ways to care for their father, Nini could see that she was no rival for the third daughter. The eight-year-old was a barometer of their father’s mood—when he was in a good humor, she acted as if she had been his only love, demanding more attention with soft whining and intimate gestures; when he was in a bad mood, she kept to herself and tiptoed around the house.

      Nini climbed up on the bed. She huddled at the corner of the table farthest from her mother and asked the ten-year-old, “What happened to the brown hen?”

      “We’ll make a chicken stew tonight for celebration,” her mother answered. “Feast on. Every wronged soul has a day to be compensated. I’m happy to see the day finally come.”

      Every spring, peasants from the mountain came down to Muddy River with bamboo baskets full of new chicks, yellow, fluffy, all chirping and pecking. Young children timidly asked for one or two as their pets and were surprised when their parents paid for ten or fifteen. The chicks died fast, breaking many children’s hearts, but by the time summer came, with luck a few chickens would still be alive, among them a hen or two that would soon begin to lay eggs. Nini’s parents did not have the money to buy in large numbers, so they farmed out Nini’s sisters to watch the chicks in the spring so that they would not be devoured by hungry stray cats. In the evenings, when Nini cooked for the family, her sisters helped the neighbors round up the chickens for the night. Sometimes a family had an extra chicken left by the end of the summer, and they would give it to Nini’s family. The transaction was based on trust and understanding, but the neighbors were often left with none after a whole season, and no one could be blamed for that.

      Nini thought about the brown hen, which liked to peck around Nini when she washed the family laundry in the yard, in the warmer season. It did not surprise Nini that her mother would choose to kill the brown hen over the white one. Nini had never tasted chicken before, and she wished the brown hen was not the first she would be eating.

      Nini’s father downed another cup of liquor. Despite his heavy drinking, he was gentle with Nini’s mother and never beat her as other drinkers in the neighborhood did their wives. Except for the eight-year-old, most of the time he ignored the rest of his daughters. He sighed often, and sometimes wept while drinking alone at night, when he believed that the girls had fallen asleep. Nini stole glances at him on those nights from her corner of the bed. Her mother, leaving him alone as if his tears did not exist, folded matchboxes quietly.

      “Let me tell all of you,” Nini’s mother said. “Always be kind to others. Heaven has an eye for mean people. They never escape their punishments.”

      Nini’s sisters nodded eagerly. Their mother lovingly slapped the biggest piece of fried bread onto their father’s plate. “That whore of Gu’s is your example,” she said. “Learn the lesson.”

      “Who’s the whore?” asked the eight-year-old.

      Nini’s mother poured another cup of liquor for her husband, and a cup for herself. Nini had never seen her mother touch alcohol, but she now sipped the liquor with relish. “Nini, don’t think your parents are unfair to you and make you work like a slave. Everybody has to be useful in some way. Your sisters will marry when they are old enough, and their husbands will take care of them for the rest of their lives.”

      The eight-year-old grinned at Nini in a haughty way that made Nini wish she could slap the girl.

      “You, however, won’t find someone willing to marry you,” Nini’s mother continued. “You have to make yourself useful to your father and me, do you understand?”

      Nini nodded and squeezed her bad hand beneath her leg. She liked to sit on her bad hand until it fell asleep. In those moments the hand was like someone else’s, and she had to touch each finger to know it was there.

      “Someone has put a curse on us through you, Nini, and that’s why we never get to have a boy in our family. But today, the one who has done this to us gets to see her final day. The spell is over now, and your father and I will have a son soon,” their mother said, and their father held out a hand to stroke her belly. She smiled at him before turning to the girls. “You’ve all heard of the denunciation ceremony today, haven’t you?” she said.

      The ten-year-old and the eight-year-old replied that they were going with their school, and Nini’s mother seemed satisfied with the answer. “You too, Nini, take Little Fourth, Little Fifth, and Little Sixth to the East Wind Stadium.”

      Nini thought about the young man Bashi in the street, and the willow tree past the birch woods by the river. “Why, Mama?” asked the eight-year-old.

      “Why? Because I want all my daughters to see what happens to that whore,” her mother said, and divided her own bread into four pieces, and handed them to all of Nini’s sisters but not to Nini or the baby.

      Nini’s father put down his cup. His face was flushed, and his eyes seemed unable to focus. “Let me tell you this story, and all of you will have to remember it from now on. Your mother and I, we grew up together in a village in Hebei Province, where your uncles and aunts still live. Your mother and I—we fell in love when we were in the fifth grade.”

      The ten-year-old looked at the eight-year-old, and both giggled, the younger one bolder than the other. Nini’s mother blushed. “What are you telling them these old stories for?” she said, and for a moment, Nini thought her mother looked like a different person, bashful as a young girl.

      “Because I want all my children to know what you and I have gone through together,” Nini’s father said. He lifted the cup and sniffed the liquor before turning to the girls. “In our village, if you go back there now, people will still tell you our love story. When we were fourteen your mother went to Inner Mongolia to visit her aunt. For the summer, your mother and I wrote to each other, and together we used more stamps than all the village would ever use in a year. The postman said he had never seen such a thing in his career.”

      “Honestly, where did you find the money for the stamps?” Nini’s mother said. “I took money from my aunt’s drawer and never dared to ask her if she noticed the missing bills.”

      “I stole copper wiring from the electric plant, remember, the one next to the Walnut Village. And I sold them.”

      It must have been the first time Nini’s mother had heard the story, for her eyes turned as soft and dreamlike as Nini’s father’s. “I’m surprised they didn’t catch you,” she said. “And you didn’t get yourself electrocuted.”

      “Had I been electrocuted, who would give you the sparks now?” Nini’s father replied with a chuckle.

      Nini’s mother blushed. “Don’t tell these jokes in front of your children.”

      He laughed and put a piece of pickled tofu into her mouth. The liquor made both of them daring, with happy oblivion. Nini watched them and then turned her eyes away, half-fascinated and