The Vagrants by Yiyun Li

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.
    “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