Rickshaw Boy: A Novel (23 page)
Once again, Xiangzi could say nothing.
X
iangzi’s period of idleness lasted till the fifteenth day of the first month, the day of the Lantern Festival, when he could no longer endure it.
Huniu, who was in good spirits, busied herself boiling glutinous rice balls and making dumplings, visiting temples during the day and viewing colorful lanterns at night. Xiangzi had no say in anything as she plied him with all sorts of tasty treats, some bought on the street and others homemade. The compound was home to seven or eight families, most of whom packed a dozen or more people into a single room. Among them were rickshaw men, street vendors, policemen, and servants, all caught up in activities of one kind or another, with no time to relax. Even children were put to work, fetching gruel in the mornings and scrounging for bits of coal in the afternoons. Only the very youngest were free to play and tussle in the compound, their bare bottoms turned red by the freezing air. Ashes from stoves and dirty water were unceremoniously dumped in the middle of the compound and left there; the water froze on the ground and served as a skating rink for the raucous children when they returned from their coal collecting. The days were hardest on the elderly and the women. The old folks, hungry and in need of warm clothing, lay on their ice-cold brick beds, waiting for their younger kin to bring home a bit of money so they could eat. Sometimes their wait was rewarded, sometimes not. If they returned empty-handed, the angry young men were just looking for an excuse to start an argument. Meanwhile, the famished old folks had no choice but to swallow their tears. The women not only had to take care of their elders and their children but also deal with the family’s wage earners as well. And being pregnant did not free them from their duties, even though they had to get through the days with chunks of corn bread and bowls of gruel; no, it was still their duty to go fetch gruel from the public canteens and perform whatever other odd jobs cropped up. Then, after the old folks and children were fed and put to bed, they washed and mended clothes under the weak light of an oil lamp. Clad in rags and with a bowl or less of gruel in their stomachs, the heavily pregnant women did their work only after everyone else was fed, with wind whistling in through holes in one wall and carrying all the warmth out of the tiny rooms through cracks in another. Riddled with disease, these women had lost most of their hair before they reached the age of thirty, but they worked on, from sickness to death, when they were buried in coffins paid for by charitable people in the community. Girls of sixteen or seventeen, having no trousers to wear, simply wrapped a tattered cloth around themselves and did not venture outside—for them the rooms were virtual prisons where they helped their mothers with their chores. If they needed to visit the latrine, they first made sure that the compound was deserted before slipping outside unnoticed. They did not see the sun or blue sky all winter long. The ugly ones would take over for their mothers in time, while the decent-looking girls knew that sooner or later they would be sold by their parents to enjoy a good life, as they say.
Huniu felt smug about living in such diminished surroundings. As the only resident of the compound who had no need to worry about food or clothing, she was free to take strolls and enjoy life. With her head held high, she came and went as she pleased, comfortable in her superiority and happy to ignore her poor neighbors for fear of being contaminated by them. Peddlers who came to the compound sought out customers to buy their cheap fare: meat pared from bones, frozen cabbage, raw bean juice, mule and horsemeat. But after Huniu moved in, peddlers of sheep’s head, smoked fish, buns and pastries, and spicy fried tofu began shouting their wares at the compound gate. As Huniu carried her purchases back to her rooms, nose in the air, children would stick their thin, dirty fingers in their mouths when she passed by, as if she were royalty. Intent on enjoying the fruits of life, she could not, would not, dared not witness the suffering of others.
As someone who had been born to poverty, Xiangzi took a dim view of her behavior; he knew what it was like to suffer and had no appetite for the expensive food she brought home. What disturbed him even more was the realization that she was plying him with good food to keep his mind off going out to pull a rickshaw, like fattening up a cow to get more milk. He was little more than her plaything. Out on the street, he’d seen a scrawny old bitch set her sights on a strong, well-fed male when she needed a lackey. He not only hated this life but also was worried about what he was becoming. A man who sold his muscle had to keep fit at all costs; good health was everything, and at this rate, one day he would be reduced to skin and bones, an empty hulk. The thought made him shudder. Pulling a rickshaw was the only way he could survive. Out all day running, he’d return home at night and sleep like a baby, dead to the world. By not eating her food, he’d stop being her plaything. There was no way around it—no more compromises. If she’d buy him a rickshaw, well and good; if not, he’d rent one. And that is what he did, without telling her.
On the seventeenth day of the month he started pulling a rickshaw again, an all-day rental. After two long hauls, he experienced something for the first time ever—leg cramps and sore hips. He knew why and consoled himself by attributing it to a three-week layoff. A few more hauls to limber up his legs and he’d be back.
He picked up another fare, this time as part of a group of four. When they were all ready, they chose a tall forty-year-old to take the lead. He smiled, well aware that the other three men were fitter than he, but he gave it his all, unwilling to use age as an excuse for slowing the youngsters down. After they’d run nearly half a mile, the men praised him: “How’s it going? Getting tired? You’re doing fine!”
He called back breathlessly, “I have to keep the pace up with fellows like you behind me.” He was running at such a fast clip that even Xiangzi had to work hard to keep up. But the old fellow had a funny way of running: quite tall, he had trouble bending at the waist, so his torso was like a block of wood that forced him to lean forward and stretch his arms behind him. It looked more like dragging something along than running. Since his back was straight as a board, he had to swing his hips from side to side, while his feet, which barely cleared the ground, twisted their way forward at a good pace. It was obviously hard work. People had to hold their breath as they watched him take corners, seemingly caring only if he, and not his rickshaw, safely made it through.
When they reached their destination, he laid down the shafts of his rickshaw, hurriedly straightened up, and grimaced as beads of sweat dripped noisily to the ground from his nose and earlobes. His hands shook so badly he could hardly hold the money he was given.
A bond formed among the men, who parked their rickshaws together, dried themselves off, and began a round of banter. All but the older man, who kept to himself for a few moments, racked by dry coughs; after spitting out gobs of white phlegm, he recovered enough to join in the conversation.
“I’m beat,” he said. “My heart, my hips, my legs, they all pretty much fail me. I try to stretch, but my legs don’t want to move. That’s got me plenty worried.”
“Not the way you were running a minute ago,” a short twenty-year-old said. “You can’t call that slow. You’ve got no reason to feel bad. Look at the three of us—we were sweating right along with you.”
Even those consoling words were not enough to keep him from sighing.
“But you make it hard on yourself the way you run,” another one said, “and that’s no joke for a man your age.”
The tall fellow smiled and shook his head. “There’s more to it than age, my friends,” he said. “I tell you, men in our line of work have no business starting a family, and that’s the truth.” Having gotten their attention, he lowered his voice and said, “Once you’ve got a family, you’re on the go day and night, never a minute to yourself. Just look at my hips—stiff as a board, no spring in them at all. And if I grit my teeth and start running hard, I nearly cough my lungs out and my heart feels like it’s about to burst. Take my word for it, for men like us, spending the rest of our lives as fucking bachelors is the only answer. Even those fucking sparrows are free to pair off, but not us. And then there are the kids, a new one every year. I’ve got five, all waiting to be fed when I get home. Rickshaw rents are high, food’s expensive, and there isn’t enough work to go around. What’s the answer? Bachelorhood. Go visit a whore when you feel the need, and if you wind up with syphilis, so what. Everybody’s got to die sometime. This business of starting a family, you wind up with more mouths than you can feed, and you can’t die in peace.” He turned to Xiangzi. “Am I right or aren’t I?”
Xiangzi nodded.
A man looking for a ride walked up, and after the short fellow got the price he was looking for, he handed the fare over to the tall fellow. “You take him, old friend. You’ve got five kids at home.”
“All right,” he said with a smile. “I’ll take this one, though I shouldn’t. But I can buy some more flatbread to take home. See you later, friends!”
As he watched the man run off, the short fellow muttered, “A fucking lifelong bachelor, no wife to share a bed, while those rich bastards have four or five women to wrap their arms around!”
“Never mind them,” one of the others piped up. “People who do what we do have to be careful. What the tall guy said was right. What does marriage get us? A good time? No! It’s nothing but trouble. You gnaw on hard corn bread day in and day out, and are squeezed from all sides. That’ll finish off even the strongest among us.”
With this comment, Xiangzi picked up his shafts. “I’m heading south,” he said in a conversational tone. “There’s no business here.”
“See you later,” the two youngsters said.
Appearing not to have heard them, Xiangzi walked off, striding purposefully. His hips ached, they really did. At first he planned to knock off for the day, but he couldn’t face the idea of going home. It wasn’t a wife who was waiting for him—it was a blood-sucking demon!
The days were getting longer. He made a few more rounds and it was still only five o’clock. After turning in his rickshaw, he killed some time in a teahouse, until a couple of bowls of tea spiked his appetite and he decided to get something to eat before going home. Once he’d finished off twelve ounces of meat-filled pastries and a bowl of red-bean millet congee, he belched loudly and then headed slowly home, where he knew a storm awaited. But he didn’t care, for he was determined not to argue with her. He’d go straight to bed and be back on the street with his rickshaw tomorrow, whether she liked it or not.
When he walked in the door, Huniu, who was sitting in the outer room, looked at him, her face a study in unhappiness. Xiangzi pulled a long face and thought about pacifying her with a friendly greeting. But he couldn’t do it. Head down, he went to bed. Without a word from her, the room was as silent as a cave deep in the mountains. Elsewhere in the compound, the neighbors’ coughs and conversation and the crying of children were crisp and clear and yet seemed to come from a distant mountaintop.
Without a word, like a pair of big, voiceless turtles, they lay down in bed and slept awhile. Huniu broke the silence after they awoke. “What were you doing out there all day?” Clearly irritated, she tried to make it sound light-hearted.
“I took a rickshaw out,” he mumbled sleepily, as if something were caught in his throat.
“I see! You just don’t feel right unless you stink of sweat, you miserable wretch. Instead of eating the meals I cook for you, you’re out in town having a great time. Don’t push me too far. My father came from a shady background, and there’s nothing I won’t do. If you go out again tomorrow, I’ll hang myself and show you I mean what I say.”
“I can’t sit around doing nothing.”
“You’re not going to go see the old man?”
“No.”
“Stubborn ass!”
Xiangzi could hold out no longer. He had to say what was in his heart: “I’ll keep at it till I have enough to buy my own rickshaw, and if you try to stop me, I’ll leave and never come back.”
“Hah!” she snorted, the drawn-out sound swirling around in her nose. She needed no words to express her arrogance and her contempt for Xiangzi, but there was more to it than that. She knew that while he was simple and honest, he was strong-willed, and men like that mean what they say. After all she’d gone through to land him, she couldn’t let go now. He was an ideal mate: honest, hardworking, healthy, and strong. Given her looks and age, finding another gem like him would not be easy. She had to know when to be hard and when to be soft, and now was the time to take the pliant approach. “I realize you’re ambitious, but you need to know how much you mean to me. If you’re not willing to go see the old man, why don’t I go? I’m his daughter, after all—so what if I lose a bit of face.”
“Even if the old man wants us back, I’m still going to pull a rickshaw.” No use holding back now.
Huniu held her tongue, never imagining that Xiangzi could be that clever. The words were so simple, but there was no mistaking that he’d no longer fall into one of her traps. He was nobody’s fool. With this in mind, she knew she’d have to tread more carefully if she was going to hold on to this big fellow—this big creature—who could buck and kick if pushed too far. She had to back off to keep from losing something she’d fought so hard to get. To hold on to him, she’d alternate between loosening her grip one minute and tightening it the next. “All right, if you want to pull a rickshaw, I can’t stop you. But promise me you won’t take a monthly job. I want you to come home every evening. You see, one day without you drives me out of my mind. I want you to promise me you’ll come home early every evening!”
Xiangzi recalled what the tall fellow had said that day. Staring into the darkness, he could see clusters of rickshaw men, peddlers, and coolies, all with bent backs, dragging their feet. That would be him one day. But he could not keep fighting with her. He’d won a victory by getting her to agree to his demand to pull a rickshaw. “I’ll only take odd fares,” he promised.