Those who seek punishment will get what they ask for, Han said.
The patrol greeted the police, and pointed out Han and Kai, but Mrs. Gu paid little attention to the men surrounding her, mumbling something before she wiped tears from the corners of her eyes.
Why don't you just let her go? Kai said to Han, and she quoted an old saying, Favors one does will be returned to him, and pains one causes will be inflicted on him.
Han glanced at Kai, saying that he did not know that she could be superstitious.
If you don't want to believe in it for yourself, at least believe in it for your son, Kai said. The urgency in her voice stopped Han, who looked at her with half-smiling eyes. He said he had never known she would take up the beliefs of the old generation.
A mother needs all the help possible to ensure a good life for her child, Kai said. What if people direct curses at Ming-Ming because of what we do?
Han shook his head, as if amused by his wife's logic. He greeted the policemen and told them to escort the old woman home and find someone to clean up the street. Let's not make a big fuss this time, he said, echoing Kai's words and adding that there was no need to put additional stress on this day. The other men complimented Han for his generosity: More power to him who lets someone off without pursuing an error, the older policeman said, and Han nodded in agreement.
THREE
Mrs. Hua did not see the policemen remove Mrs. Gu from the site of her crime; nor would Mrs. Hua have realized, had she witnessed the scene, that the woman who was half dragged and half carried to the police jeep was Mrs. Gu.
Like Mrs. Hua herself, Mrs. Gu would never become a grandmother. Mrs. Hua was sixty-six, an age when a grandchild or two would provide a better reason to live on than the streets her husband scavenged and she swept, but the streets provided a living, while the dreams about grandchildren did not, and she was aware of the good fortune to be alive, for which she and her husband often reminded themselves to be grateful. Still, the urge to hold a baby sometimes became so strong that she had to pause what she was doing and feel, with held breath, the imagined weight of a small body, warm and soft, in her arms. This gave her the look of a distracted old woman. Once in a while her boss, Shaokang, a man in his fifties who had never married, would threaten to fire her, as if he was angry with her slow response to his requests, but she knew that he only said it for the sake of the other workers in the sanitation department, as he was one of those men who concealed his kindness behind harsh words. He had first offered her a job in his department thirteen years ago, when he had seen Mrs. Hua and her husband in the street, she running a high fever and he begging for a bowl of water from a shop. It was shortly after they had been forced to let the four younger girls be taken away to orphanages in four different counties, a practice believed to be good for the girls to start anew. Mrs. Hua and her husband had walked for three months through four provinces, hoping the road would heal their fresh wound. They had not expected to settle down in Muddy River, but Shaokang told them sternly that the coming winter would certainly kill both of them if they did not accept his offer, and in the end, the will to live on ended their journey.
The crossroad at Liberation and Yellow River, said Shaokang, when Mrs. Hua came into the department, a room the size of a warehouse, with a desk in the corner to serve as an office area. She went to the washstand and rinsed the basin. There was little paste left; he had given her much more flour than needed, but she knew he would not question the whereabouts of the leftover flour.
Mrs. Hua went to the closet but most brooms had not yet been returned by the road crew. When all present, the brooms, big ones made out of bamboo branches and small ones made out of straw, would stand up in a line, like a platoon of soldiers, each bearing a number in Shaokang's neat handwriting and assigned to a specific sweeper. Sometimes Mrs. Hua wondered if in one of Shaokang's thick notebooks he had a record of all the brooms that had passed through the sanitation department: how much time they had spent in the street and how much they had idled in the closet; how long each broom lasted before its full head went bald. The younger sweepers in the department joked behind Shaokang's back that he loved the brooms as his own children, but Mrs. Hua saw nothing wrong in that and knew that the joke would come only from young people who understood little of parenthood.
Mrs. Hua picked up the brooms that belonged to her and told Shaokang that the night before she had dreamed of painting red eggs for a grandchild's birthday. Mrs. Hua spoke to Shaokang only when there was no one around. Sometimes it would be days or weeks before they had a chance to talk, but neither found anything odd in that, their conversations no more than a few words.
A dream is as real as a blossom in the mirror or a full moon in the river, said Shaokang. He did not look up from the notebook he was studying. Mrs. Hua sighed in agreement and headed to the door. Earlier that morning she had told the same dream to her husband, and he had replied that it was a good dream, if nothing else.
A dream is as real as a blossom in the mirror or a full moon in the river, said Shaokang. He did not look up from the notebook he was studying. Mrs. Hua sighed in agreement and headed to the door. Earlier that morning she had told the same dream to her husband, and he had replied that it was a good dream, if nothing else.
Do you want some time off today? Shaokang asked.
Why would she, replied Mrs. Hua. He worried that the denunciation ceremony might bore Mrs. Hua, Shaokang said, and added that enough workers would be representing the sanitation department. As if boredom was something that people like her should be concerned about, Mrs. Hua thought, but she could use a day off to help her husband sort out the bottles that had been accumulating in their shed. Indeed, she was trying to fight off a cold, Mrs. Hua said, lying for the sake of the office desk and the brooms and the four empty walls. Shaokang nodded and said that after she cleaned up the crossroad she need not report to the denunciation ceremony.
The pile at the intersection was scattered by the indifferent tramping shoes of adults as well as the kicking feet of children for whom the half-burned fabric and scorched shoes all provided endless amusement. Mrs. Hua shooed a few persistent children away and cleaned the street while thinking about her dream from the night before.
Morning, Mrs. Hua, a voice whispered to her, too close to her ears.
Mrs. Hua, startled, saw Bashi, that good-for-nothing idler, smile at her. She mumbled that she wished he had better things to do than frighten old folks in the street.
Frighten? I didn't mean to. I was only going to remind you that Old Hua might be waiting for you at home.
Home? Rubbish collectors do not boast about home, said Mrs. Hua. It's a temporary nest.
But my home is your home, Mrs. Hua. I've told my grandma many times that you and Old Hua could move in with us any day you like. You know she's a bit lonely and wouldn't mind some old friends around, Bashi said, looking sincerely into Mrs. Hua's eyes.
Mrs. Hua shook her head and said, Nobody believes your sweet talk except your grandma.
I mean it, Mrs. Hua. Ask anyone in town. Everyone knows I am generous about my wealth, and ready to help anyone in need.
Your wealth? That's the money your father earned with his life.
Bashi shrugged and did not bother to refute the old woman.
Son, don't you worry about your future?
What do I have to worry about? Bashi said.
What can you do, son? she said. I worry about you.
I can go rubbish collecting with Old Hua, Bashi said. I can sweep the streets with you too. I'm a hard worker. See my muscles. Here and here. I'll tell you, Mrs. Hua, it's not a joke to lift dumbbells every morning. There were neither dumbbells nor muscles worth bragging about, but such stories came readily and convincingly to Bashi.
Street sweeping is a hard job to get now, Mrs. Hua said. In the past two years, the end of the Cultural Revolution had brought many young people back from the countryside, where they had been sent over the past decade. Even a street sweeper's position was something people fought over now. She would not be surprised one of these days to find herself replaced.
There's no permit required to go rubbish collecting, Bashi said. That's an easy thing to do.
It's a hard life.
I don't mind. Honestly, Mrs. Hua, I would love to go rubbish collecting, and baby collecting too, with you.
Mrs. Hua gathered the wet ashes on the ground without replying. It had been years since she and her husband had given up the seven girls they had found in their wandering lives as rubbish collectors, and she did not know what continued to capture the young man's interest, when the story had long ago lived out its due in people's gossip and curiosity. He asked them often, and she never offered much to satisfy him.
Would Old Hua and you bring up a baby girl again if you found a live one now?
Mrs. Hua looked at the sky and thought about the question. Hard as she triedoften at night when she was unable to sleepshe could not summon up clear images of the seven faces. How could she forget their looks when she had raised them from rag-covered little creatures left by the roadside? But old age played tricks, dulling her memory as well as her eyes.
Would you, say, keep an eye out for a baby girl? Bashi persisted.
Mrs. Hua shook her head. Too hard a life. A hard life for everybody.
But I could bring up the girl along with you, Mrs. Hua. I have the money. I can work too. I'm young.
Mrs. Hua studied Bashi with her cataract-bleared eyes. Bashi stood straighter and arranged his hat. The young man in front of her had not had the first taste of hardship in life, Mrs. Hua thought, and said so to Bashi.
I lost my parents when I was young, Bashi said. I'm as much an orphan as your girls were before you picked them up.
Caught off guard, Mrs. Hua could not think of what to say. She had not known that Bashi would remember his parents. After a moment, she said, Better to have left them to die in the first place.