Page 136 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

the mason had said. Did he live here in the Catfish neighborhood? And if so,
why had she never seen him? This wasn’t a big place: it wasn’t even one
kilometer in circumference. The night before, she had smelled quartz on his
body; it had made her hair stand on end. She believed he wasn’t a real mason.
After she got up, she remembered that Woman Yun upstairs had burned
documents. She walked outside and looked up and saw that all the doors were
tightly closed.

When Woman Wang was selecting a carp in the market, out of the corner of her
eye she noticed Little Ping’s mother.
Little Ping’s mother kept stirring the fish around with her pale hands.
Suddenly she was stung by fish fins. She cried out in alarm as blood gushed
from the back of her hand.
“Oh my!” shouted Woman Wang.
She took out a handkerchief and bound the wound for her. Then she looked
up, and saw the woman’s smiling eyes.
“Woman Wang, does Little Ping bother you too much? She’s a problem
child.”
“Not at all. Little Ping is well-behaved. She’s never bothered me.”
“Really? I’ve wanted to see what she’s like in your house, but she won’t let
me.”
“You may come over whenever you wish.”
The smile in the woman’s eyes vanished. She looked dejected and glum. She

was a conventionally pretty woman. Little Ping didn’t resemble her mother at
all. She looked the way she was supposed to look.
Woman Wang was about to leave when the woman asked, “Would you like to
go and see Little Ping? She’s out in back on the croquet ground playing a game
she made up. I’m kind of confused because she plays it all the time.”
They walked to the edge of the abandoned croquet ground, where they saw
Little Ping crawling on the ground. Her eyes were covered with a large
handkerchief. Woman Wang searched the field with her eyes, and before long
discovered the coins. Three altogether. Each one was thrown into a different
corner. Little Ping was fumbling around and crawling slowly in the field.
“See how patient my daughter is,” the woman said, distressed.
“You’re worried about her. Why?”

“No. I’m not worried. I just feel, I feel that the place she wants to go is so far
away! Will she give up halfway there?”
Covering her face with her hand, she ran off. She didn’t seem very happy.
What was she concerned about? Without making a sound, Woman Wang was