Page 185 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

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