I Live in the Slums

by Can Xue

  The person in the kitchen shouted, “Daisy! Daisy!” Who was it?

  He kept shouting, and Daisy kept answering. But the quilt smothered her voice. At last, Daisy jumped up. Groping in the dark, she dressed and put on a pair of boots. She intended to light an oil lamp, but the matches on the bed stand were wet, maybe because of the snowflakes that had drifted in. Daisy heard Dad and Mama sleeping soundly. When it snowed, they always slept well. Who was in the kitchen? No one. It was just the ice that had formed in the sink. It blinked at her in a sinister way. She looked outside: it was bright out there. The sky was an inspiring off-white; the wind had stopped.

  She went through the kitchen and out the back door. The snow was deep, more than halfway up her boots. Each step required great effort. Not daring to go far, she stood in the backyard. Just then, bird calls came from the sky. There were five birds—the same off-white color as the sky, but a little darker. The sky was strangely light. They kept circling over her head, now higher, now lower. It was as though something had attracted them, and also as though they couldn’t find a place to alight. Their sorrowful sound was something Daisy had never heard.

  It was so cold that the branches on the willow trees had turned into popsicles and were resentfully flashing their fluorescence. Daisy was curious: Would she be frozen if she stayed in the backyard a long time? She withdrew cautiously to the doorstep. A bird dropped to the earth right in front of her. Daisy bent to pick it up, but it soared away. She tried again, and this time she got hold of it. But what she grasped wasn’t the bird; it was snow. She stood there holding the snow, thinking to herself, This isn’t a dream. She took another look: the other four “snow birds” had stopped not far from her and were looking at her curiously. They weren’t an off-white color, but a bright silver that stood out in the shadows of the wall.

  “Daisy! Daisy!” That unknown voice called again from the kitchen.

  Once again, she heard the chilly sound of water being poured back and forth between containers.

  She glanced past the wall into the distance: a river was there. The surface of the river water was also light, fusing with the light of the sky, and river and sky were indistinguishable. The river water was probably frozen. Now except for the voice in the kitchen calling her every so often, it was curiously quiet all around. Daisy motioned the birds away. She jumped on the stairs to frighten them, but the birds didn’t respond.

  Daisy didn’t want to go back to the house. When her gaze stopped at the river, she recalled crossing it with her brother. The ice was so slippery that they had slid back and forth on it, playing wildly. And then her brother had made his way into an ice cave. She saw him go in and knew it wasn’t an accident. At that time, it was as quiet as it was now all around. And the sky was dazzling. She remembered it all so well.

  “She got up so early. This child has too much on her mind.”

  It was Dad speaking. Daisy’s nose was already numb from cold. She went back to the kitchen. How odd: her dad wasn’t in the kitchen. She heard snoring from the bedroom over there; he was still sound asleep. Who was impersonating Dad? Daisy was amused.

  Mama got up and came to the kitchen to cook breakfast.

  Daisy took off her boots and helped Mama start the fire. She warmed up quickly.

  “Mama, last night someone was making a disturbance in the kitchen,” she said.

  “That’s okay. Your grandpa used to live here.”

  As Daisy watched the flames, her heart constricted.

  It was a snowy morning. Dad and Mama went to the river to see relatives. Daisy stayed at home, a little bored. She was also tired of looking out at the snow covering earth and sky. She embroidered for a while, and then put her embroidery away and sighed. A thought came to her: she would go and look at the tombs. She didn’t like going to that kind of place. Every spring on the grave-sweeping holiday, she avoided going there with her parents. She was afraid. Now she was fourteen years old, so naturally she was no longer afraid. Still, for some reason she had never gone.

  She walked through two villages and came to a third. The tombs were a kilometer and a half past the third village. This village was called Mosquito Village. The name reminded her of the mosquitoes buzzing everywhere in the summer. No one was in the village. The door to each home was closed. Not even a dog showed up. Taking a closer look, she saw a layer of snow on the flagstones in front of each house. Was this village uninhabited? Or was everyone hiding inside and not coming out? Stifled sounds came from some houses. Dogs. They were suffering terribly.

  A dark-faced boy who looked like a leopard was fishing in a hollow at one end of the village. Thick ice had formed on that hollow.

  “Where are you heading?” he asked fiercely as he raised his unruly eyebrows.

  “I’m going to look at the tombs.”

  “You’ll die. You’ll never come back from there. You’ll freeze to death.”

  “Blah-blah-blah. How could that be?”

  “This summer, Qibao went by himself and never came out. At least three people have to go in together, so that if something happens, someone can come back to report it.”

  “Are there zombies out there?”

  “Bah! No, not that kind of thing. You’re still going, aren’t you?”

  His expression became earnest, as if he was afraid that Daisy would give up her plan.

  And so Daisy walked into that endless expanse of white. At first she could still hear the muffled whimpers of dogs. And then all was silent.

  Looking down, she saw her footsteps in the snow. Then, a little scared, she turned around and looked again. She saw that in fact she hadn’t left any footprints in the snow. Daisy stood there indecisively. She wanted to go back to Mosquito Village, but Mosquito Village had disappeared and she couldn’t remember how to get there. Luckily, the snow had stopped, and the sky was clean and fresh. The tombs in the distance were like packages of white steamed bread. There was no end to them! How could so many people be buried here? Did outsiders also choose this place for their graves? Daisy recalled what the boy had said: she was afraid of going in and being unable to get out. She also feared freezing to death. She thought the boy had purposely made her come here. Oh, what an evil boy!

  She finally reached the tombs. All of them were exactly alike. Which one was her brother’s? She stopped thinking about it. Silence was everywhere. She would like to hear a voice, but there was none.

  All of a sudden, she saw a plump little animal crouching on the massive tombstone to her right. It was pale red, and its skin was so thin that it was transparent. Its legs and feet were weak, quivering as they tried to support its disproportionately large body. Its head was wrinkled, sort of like an old man’s. She was attracted to this little creature and no longer felt terrified. What species of animal was this homeless little thing? A rat or a frog? Maybe it had a home in a certain tomb and it had come out for a walk and a breath of fresh air.

  Daisy mustered her nerve to pet it. Its skin was warm, like satin. It was indifferent, staring at her through half-open eyes. For some reason, the expression in its eyes made Daisy think of Dad. Dad was so lonely. This summer, he had deliberately fallen asleep in the backyard, letting the mosquitoes bite him. He had even told Daisy to take the mosquito repellent away. After midnight, she heard him singing army songs.

  Maybe it was a rat, but why did it have no tail? Rats were high on the list of animals she liked. She had dreamed of living in the oldest house in one end of the village. Rat holes were everywhere inside the house and outside the house. These little creatures were always busy with something. Daisy wanted to hear it make a noise, but it didn’t utter any sound. It seemed afraid of the cold; it should go back into its hole.

  She was a little cold. She needed to move around to warm up. As she was thinking this, she saw a road. It forked away from the tombs, leading to an open area. Daisy ran a few steps and then turned around to look at the little thing again. Then she ran into the distance, her mind all at once empty. The space betw
een sky and earth had become very light, and Daisy narrowed her eyes. She didn’t feel very good. She stopped and turned around. She wanted to run back to the tomb where the little thing was. She ran and ran, but never saw the tombs. It seemed she had lost her way at the fork of the road. Not only did she not see the tombs, but Mosquito Village had also disappeared. Daisy began to worry. Where was she? In her memory, this should be a place with many watery depressions, with some hills rising beyond them. Perhaps the watery depressions had now been frozen over, but she didn’t see any hills, either. This was simply a clearing. Daisy had never seen such a large clearing; it was even larger than the cemetery she had just passed. The word plains was not in her vocabulary. The sky was abnormally light, and her eyes hurt. There was no way to observe places a little farther away. Just then, a wisp of smoke curled up before her.

  She ran toward the smoke. It appeared to be quite close, but it was a long time before a girl’s profile gradually came into focus. She was a girl much like Daisy, wearing yellow clothes and burning hell money for her ancestors. The snow had melted on the large clearing all around her. A pile of not yet burned hell money still lay on the ground.

  “Hey! Hello! Can you tell me if there’s a village near here?” Daisy asked.

  “Are you asking if there’s a cemetery? I can tell you; there isn’t.”

  Concentrating on the fire, she didn’t bother to look at Daisy.

  Daisy thought, What a strong-minded person! Daisy thought that if she followed her she would come to an inhabited place, but it seemed the girl wasn’t leaving any time soon. Daisy squatted down and watched the fire with her. The girl didn’t appear to be happy with Daisy, and she moved to keep her distance from her. After a while, she couldn’t stand it any longer and said to Daisy, “If you think you’ll be able to get home today, you’ve miscalculated.”

  “Then, where’s your home?”

  “Hunh.”

  “Do you live with the little mouse?”

  “How did you know? Huh?”

  She was staring at Daisy in amazement.

  “I saw it!” Daisy said, thrilled. “It’s so cute! Take me over there, take me there, okay? What’s your name?”

  All of a sudden, the girl prodded the hell money with a bamboo stick, and the burning pieces of paper flew toward Daisy’s face. Daisy’s face hurt from the heat. She covered her face with her sleeve and retreated.

  She smelled a strange odor. When she stood still and looked all around, the little girl had already run off. The hell money on the ground was scattered all over. Some of it was still burning; most of it had been extinguished. A stink began rising from the hell money. The sky was still so light that she couldn’t see anything even a little way away. Daisy was puzzled: where on earth did the girl live? How could she have disappeared so quickly without a trace? Suddenly she was ashamed of her timidity. She thought, Why couldn’t I also run into the snowy area as the girl did? Why should I be afraid of getting lost? Anyhow, hadn’t she been lost all along? The moment she was going to run off, she saw the little animal squatting there. Was it the same one? Before she could see it clearly, it took off toward the snow. It ran fast on its thin legs, so she couldn’t catch up with it. But it hadn’t run far. Daisy saw it go into a ditch: there had been a wide earthen ditch here all along.

  Daisy squatted beside the ditch and looked down. Besides the footprints of the little creature that had been left there just now, the snow-filled ditch unexpectedly contained human footprints. They must be the girl’s. But the ditch didn’t go anywhere. Glancing down from above, she saw that it was just a short ditch dug out manually. Where had the girl and the “rat” gone? The girl and “rat” were actually living somewhere in the open country! This idea was exciting. She left the ditch and strolled ahead.

  She didn’t know how long she walked. The light faded, and the shadows of hills appeared faintly ahead of her. Mosquito Village must be below the hills, but why did it seem as far away as the horizon? Furthermore, Daisy could not see the footprints she had left in the snow. How strange: the girl just now had left footprints. Even the “rat” had left footprints! She jumped up and down a few times, but left no impressions in the snow she stamped on. She remembered that the same thing had occurred eight years ago. Later she had forgotten the incident, not remembering it until now. That time, their family of four had walked along the river on the snowy land. They were going to Auntie’s home. Daisy had looked back and had seen that she was the only one who had left no footprints in the snow. She tugged at Dad’s clothing and asked about this. In a bad humor, he said, “Children shouldn’t always be looking all around.” At the time, she felt that this was a serious matter, and she was shaking from fright. Even after they reached Auntie’s house, she continued shaking. She suspected that she was suffering from a fatal disease and that she wouldn’t live much longer, and that her parents knew this but somehow they hadn’t told her.

  It would soon be dark. At last, she reached Mosquito Village. To her surprise, Daisy saw her father standing at the entrance to somebody’s home. He was eating corn on the cob.

  “Dad!!” Daisy was crying as she rushed toward him.

  “You’ve come back—that’s good, that’s good,” Mama said as she emerged from the house.

  The three of them went home in silence. No one talked the whole way.

  It was dark before they ate dinner.

  “Daisy, how come I always see a butterfly on your right cheek?” Mama asked.

  Daisy looked by the light of the kerosene lamp and saw a butterfly. It was black, clinging to the lamp chimney. She rubbed her cheek, and felt quite uncomfortable.

  “You can’t imagine,” she said to Mama, “that place is truly another world.”

  “I probably cannot imagine. I’m old,” Mama said despondently.

  Daisy was exhausted and fell asleep right away. But she woke up later, perhaps because of the water noise that person made in the kitchen. “Daisy, Daisy!” he shouted at her.

  Daisy was tired, and her whole body hurt, but she felt excited.

  The one who had called her was the boy from Mosquito Village. He was standing outside the kitchen, his face pressed against the window. Daisy walked over and opened the door.

  “Look!” He pointed at the sky.

  That kind of bird was filling the sky. Two were flying low, sweeping past in front of him, their feathers brushing his face. He burst out with “Aiya!”

  “Does it hurt?” Daisy asked him.

  “Sure it does. Their bodies are copper, their wings iron.”

  “So strange. But only yesterday, they were still snowflakes. I captured one of them . . .”

  “You’re lying!” He said sternly, “How could you capture them? Impossible! This kind of bird comes out only on snowy days. No one can capture them.”

  Daisy noticed that he was standing barefoot in the snow, and she couldn’t help but admire him. She motioned him into the kitchen to warm himself by the fire. He thought it over carefully before saying, “Okay.”

  They went into the kitchen. Daisy had just closed the door when they heard the birds bumping into the door, making da, da, da sounds. The door started to shake.

  “See. I told you they had copper bodies and iron wings.”

  Daisy lit the firewood in the stove. She saw the boy’s face gradually grow thinner in the firelight. Her heart thumped. She struggled hard, and said in a small mosquito-like voice, “You’re a lot like my brother. Tell me about Mosquito Village.”

  “I can’t speak of Mosquito Village things to outsiders.”

  Daisy sighed. She turned the flame up. She looked again: a black butterfly as large as a bat was resting in midair—that was where his face should be. And his hands were scratching at the ground, making a heap of earth scraps.

  “What are you doing?” she asked him in amazement. Inwardly, she was scared.

  “The thing you ran into in the cemetery—it’s my friend! Now do you get it?” He shrieked, “Look at how sharp
my claws are—That comes with practice!”

  “Ah! Ah!” Daisy sighed lightly.

  “That place belongs to us. It’s always like that on snowy days. You saw that. I squat with it in the cemetery. You don’t appreciate the place, so why on earth did you go there?” He made a gnawing sound with his teeth.

  The fire had not gone out yet when he left. Daisy supposed he was loath to spend time with her. She stuck her head out the door and saw the silvery white sky. All was quiet in the world. Not even the willow branches murmured. They were drooping in silence.

  “Daisy! Daisy!” Mama shouted as she walked in. “Who was here?”

  Mama pointed with the tip of her toe at the small hole scratched out of the ground.

  “Someone from Mosquito Village,” Daisy said softly.

  “I see. It’s been so many years, and yet their descendants still haven’t dropped the idea!”

  “Who?”

  “Those outsiders. Back then, you were still little. Your dad went to Mosquito Village for a short-term job, and got acquainted with them . . . Oh, why should I tell you this? It’s all in the past. Forget what I said.”

  She put the pot on the stove, getting ready to steam rice.

  “I’m sleepy, Mama,” Daisy said.

  “Of course you are. You haven’t slept well since you came back from there. Go to sleep.”

  Daisy went back to her room and lay down, but she couldn’t sleep. She was agitated, so she hurriedly dressed, put on boots, and went outside. She was in a daze, and only heard her father say from behind, “Daisy, ah, Daisy, where are you going?”

  As she passed the wide-open door, she kicked over a small bench without realizing it. She walked straight out of the backyard and came to the highway. She was so sleepy, but why hadn’t she been able to sleep? Later, she leaned against a large willow tree and dozed. In a dream lasting only two or three minutes, she saw a flock of silvery white birds plunge down like shadows sweeping over from midair. All of a sudden, the ground was covered with dead birds. And then, the “rat” emerged from the heap of bodies. She awakened with a start and returned to the backyard. Mama was just saying to Dad, “It’s those outsiders . . .”