Page 137 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

What was she concerned about? Without making a sound, Woman Wang was
watching Little Ping. Little Ping had already picked up one coin. She knelt there
and lifted it up. The coin sparkled in the sunlight; this was like some sort of
ceremony.
“Little Ping! Little Ping!” Woman Wang shouted at her.
“Shhh. Don’t say anything. I’m working!” Little Ping replied quietly.
Once more, she concentrated on crawling. Woman Wang left the croquet
ground and went home.
She ran into Woman Yun at the door. Woman Yun said to her, “Those people
from the management council came again. I have no idea why they keep coming
here. We’re all willing to be relocated—it’s just a matter of living somewhere
else. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes, that’s it. I don’t care one way or the other about moving,” Woman
Wang said.
“You don’t care?” Woman Yun raised her voice all at once.
She glared maliciously, as if she wanted to pierce Woman Wang with her
gaze.
“I’m saying—It’s okay with me to move. These days, even the dead
sometimes have to be relocated. I actually . . .” Woman Wang couldn’t go on.
Woman Yun walked past her haughtily.
Woman Wang remembered that she had burned documents during the night.
Woman Yun had lived in this wooden building as long as Woman Wang could
remember. Back then, she had been a young single girl who wore thick makeup.
She lived upstairs, and no one had ever been seen visiting her. Yet surprisingly,
she had so many documents to destroy. Could she just be bluffing because she
felt bad about having nothing to leave behind?
Woman Wang gutted the fish, washed vegetables, and sat down to rest for a
while. Her hand brushed against her pocket: inside was something hard. To her

surprise, it was a small packet of coins wrapped in plastic. She poured the coins
out on the table, and found that the packet also contained some fragments of
quartz. She leaned close to smell it. It smelled of sulfur. She thought back: she
was certain that Little Ping’s mother was the only one who had come in close
contact with her at the market. What kind of information was she transmitting?
At a loss, Woman Wang made out the vague outline of quartz. In her excitement,
her hands began trembling. To her surprise, mother and daughter had been
colluding all along. These coins were dull, not in the least shiny. Some were
encrusted with mud. They wouldn’t interest people. They were absolutely unlike
the ones that Little Ping had picked up. But how to explain these bits of quartz?
Maybe Little Ping’s mother had made her way into Woman Wang’s fantasy.
Woman Wang remembered her pale arm and the blood flowing from her hand.