Rickshaw Boy: A Novel (27 page)
The rain hood was barely up when another blast of wind brought the dark rainclouds rolling in to cover most of the sky. The merging ground heat and cool air stank from the dry earth, feeling cold and hot at the same time. The southern half of the sky was bright and sunny, the northern half blanketed with dark clouds and threatening the worst. Panic was in the air. Rickshaw men struggled to put up their rain hoods, shopkeepers hurriedly took down their signs, peddlers hastily packed up their stalls, and people out on the street ran for cover. Another blast seemed to sweep the streets empty of shop signs, peddlers, and pedestrians, until the only things to be seen were willow branches dancing wildly in the wind.
The roadways turned dark even before the rain clouds covered the sky, turning a steamy, bright midday into a dark night. The winds brought raindrops crashing to earth, as if searching for something. Lightning cleaved the northern sky, creating blood-red scars. The winds were dying down, but the whistling sound made people tremble. Then it passed, leaving behind a sense of uncertainty; even the willow trees waited for what they feared might come next. More lightning, this time directly overhead, illuminating a squall of shiny white raindrops that thudded into the steamy ground. Large drops falling on Xiangzi’s back made him shudder. Then, as dark clouds filled the sky, the rain stopped. But only for a moment. The next blast of wind, the strongest yet, spread willow branches straight out, sent dirt flying, and brought down more rain. Wind, earth, and rain mingled in a cold, swirling gray mass that moved in all directions at once, swallowing everything in sight and making it impossible to distinguish trees from the earth or clouds. It was noisy, misty chaos. When the wind had passed, only the pounding rain remained, producing an impenetrable curtain, a mass of streaking water that sent countless projectiles surging up into the sky from the ground and spawned thousands of waterfalls cascading down from rooftops. Earth and sky merged as rain streaming from the sky formed a watery world on the ground with rivers of dark gray and murky yellow and an occasional flash of white.
Xiangzi was drenched—not a dry spot on his body. His hair was sopping wet, despite the straw hat he wore. Sloshing through ankle-deep water made for hard going, especially with rain pummeling his head and his back, hitting his face from all sides, and soaking his trousers. He could neither raise his head nor open his eyes, and he had so much trouble breathing he had to stop walking. He could only stand there, having lost his sense of direction. Dazed, all he felt was the bone-chilling water washing over him. A tiny bit of warmth remained in his heart as his ears filled with the sound of the downpour. He wanted to put his rickshaw down, but where? He felt like running, but the water held his legs fast. So, by now all but done in, he slogged forward, one foot ahead of the other, head down. For all he knew, his passenger had died in his seat, since no sound emerged as he was carried slowly along through the water.
When the rain began to let up, Xiangzi straightened up a bit and, exhaling heavily, said, “How about finding shelter for the time being, mister?”
“Keep moving!” the man said with a stomp of his foot. “You can’t leave me stranded here!”
Xiangzi contemplated putting his rickshaw down anyway and finding a place to get out of the rain. But since he was soaked to the skin, he knew that if he stopped he’d likely begin to shiver, so he clenched his teeth and started running, putting the depth of the water out of his mind. The sky turned dark for a moment, then brightened, as the blinding rain recommenced.
When they reached their destination, his passenger gave him the fare, not a penny more. Xiangzi said nothing, since life for him had ceased having any meaning.
The rain stopped and started again but not as heavily. Xiangzi made it back home, where he sought the warmth of the stove. He was shaking like a wind-blown, rain-soaked leaf. Huniu prepared a bowl of sweet ginger water, which he mindlessly gulped down before climbing into bed. His mind was blank as he slept fitfully, the rain sounding in his ears.
By four in the afternoon, the clouds had grown weary and emitted only an occasional weak bolt of pink lightning. Then those in the western sky began to break up, their black crests inlaid with streamers of gold. White mist rushed along beneath them. Lightning moved south, producing muted claps of thunder. Then the sun peeked through, turning the wet leaves a golden green. A double rainbow appeared in the east, the ends buried in dark clouds, the arches holding up a patch of blue sky. The rainbows were short-lived, as the clouds vanished and everything—sky and earth—was washed clean, emerging from the darkness as a cool and beautiful new world. Colorful dragonflies flitted about the puddles in the compound yard.
But only the barefoot children who chased after the dragonflies had time to enjoy the clear sky, now that the rains had stopped. Part of the rear wall in Fuzi’s room had collapsed, and she and her brothers were busily covering the spot with the straw mat from their brick bed. The same had happened at several places in the compound wall, but people were too busy cleaning up their rooms to worry about that. Occupants of flooded rooms with low thresholds were bailing out the water with dustpans and chipped bowls, while others were trying to repair crumbling walls open to the outside. In other places, water poured in through holes in the ceilings, soaking household items that were quickly moved up near the stoves or up onto windowsills to dry out. While the rain was falling, they had taken shelter in rooms that could easily have collapsed around them, burying them alive and sending them on their way; now, the danger passed, they assessed the damage and salvaged what they could. In the wake of the storm, the price of grain might drop a bit, but that could not compensate for their losses. They paid rent, but no one ever came to make repairs on their rooms, unless, that is, they were no longer livable. Then a couple of brick masons would come by to patch them up with mud and broken bricks, which would last until the next time they crumbled. If the family refused to pay their rent, they would be evicted and their belongings held back. No one cared if the run-down houses were death traps. Living in decrepit, dangerous houses served them right if that was the best they could afford.
Sickness was the worst thing the storm left behind. Whole families trying to earn a bit of money were often caught outside in a sudden downpour. The bodies of people who lived by their strength in the summer were forever covered with sweat and ravaged by cold northern rainstorms that were sometimes marked by walnut-sized hailstones. Icy raindrops pelting open pores laid the people low with fever for at least a day or two. There was no medicine money for sick children; rain that made the corn and sorghum grow also had the power to carry away the sons and daughters of the poor. It was worse when the grownups got sick. Poets sing the beauty of pearl-drenched lotuses and double rainbows, but for the poor, when the head of the household took to a sickbed, the family went hungry. A rainstorm added to the number of prostitutes and thieves and increased the prison populations; better for the children of the sick to turn to these vices than starve. The rains fell on rich and poor alike, they fell on the beautiful and the ugly, but there was no fairness in their effect.
Xiangzi fell ill, but in that compound, he was not the only one.
X
iangzi lay in a daze for two days and nights. In the grip of panic, Huniu went to the Temple of the Matriarch to pray for a magic cure, which consisted of a bit of incense ash and a handful of medicinal herbs. It seemed to work, since he opened his eyes as soon as she poured the mixture down his throat. But almost immediately he closed his eyes and began muttering incoherently. That convinced Huniu that it was time to call a doctor, who inserted a pair of acupuncture needles and prepared a dose of Chinese medicine. This time Xiangzi awoke. “Is it still raining?” he asked, wide-eyed.
A second batch of medicine was prepared, but he refused to take it, in part because of the cost but also because he was ashamed to have been laid low by a summer storm. To prove he had no need for the bitter medicine, he insisted on getting out of bed and dressed. But he’d barely sat up when it felt as if a huge rock were crushing down on his head; his neck went limp, he saw stars, and he fell backward. This time he drank down the medicine without an argument.
Altogether, he was bedridden for ten days—days of anxious torment. Every once in a while he buried his face in his pillow and sobbed silently. Knowing he could not earn a thing in bed, he was forced to let Huniu pay all the bills. But when her money ran out, his rickshaw would be the sole means of support, and he could not make enough to cover her extravagant spending and her habit of snacking, especially with a child on the way. His imagination ran wild while he was confined to bed, and the more he brooded, the harder it was to cure what ailed him.
After the worst had passed, he asked Huniu, “What about the rickshaw?”
“Don’t worry,” she said, “I rented it to Ding Si.”
“Oh!” That worried him. What if Ding Si damaged his rickshaw? But since he was sick in bed, they’d have to rent it out. They couldn’t let it stand idle. He did some silent calculations: on a normal day he could bring in fifty or sixty cents by pulling the rickshaw himself, barely enough for two people for rent, fuel, rice, oil, and tea—clothing was extra—if they watched their money carefully, something Huniu was not doing. Now, with only ten cents coming in each day from the rental, they had to make up the lost amount from their savings, not counting the cost of medicine. What if his illness dragged on? No wonder Er Qiangzi turned to drink and his down-and-out friends committed all kinds of outrages. Pulling a rickshaw was a dead-end trade. No matter how hard you worked or tried to better yourself, you cannot marry, get sick, or make a false move. “Hah!” he muttered as he thought back to his first rickshaw and the money he’d put aside. Who had he offended? It had been taken from him for no good reason, though he had neither married nor fallen ill. Good or bad, it made no difference, death claimed you in the end, whether you saw it coming or not. This thought turned his melancholy to despair. To hell with it! Why not just lie here, why try to get up in the first place? So he lay there, his mind a blank. But not for long. He felt he had to get up and do the only thing he knew how to do. It might be a dead-end, but his heart was still beating, and he would keep his hopes alive until they laid him in his coffin. For the moment he was still too weak to stand. He turned to Huniu.
“I knew that rickshaw was bad luck,” he said pitifully.
“You’re supposed to be getting better, not talking nonsense, you and your rickshaw!”
Xiangzi said nothing. She was right. Ever since the very first day he had believed that a rickshaw was everything. If only…
Once he was on the mend, he got out of bed and looked in the mirror. He hardly recognized the man looking back at him. Scruffy beard, sunken temples and cheeks, a pair of hollowed eyes, even wrinkles spidering his scar! The room was stuffy, but he didn’t dare go out in the yard, partly because his legs were still rubbery but also because he didn’t want to be seen. Everyone in the compound, like the men at the rickshaw stands in East and West City, knew that Xiangzi was one of the hardiest men around, not the sickly creature he’d become. No, he couldn’t go outside; but the room was sweltering. How he wished he could eat himself back to health and go back out with his rickshaw. But the ravages of illness came and went at will.
After being laid up for a month, Xiangzi took his rickshaw out, mindless of whether he was completely recovered or not. He pulled his hat down low so no one would recognize him when he ran more slowly than before. The words
Xiangzi
and
speed
were inseparable, and he knew that people would laugh at him if he made a show of loping along.
Though his body had not yet healed, he took on as many fares as he could to make up for what the illness had cost him; his sickness returned in a matter of days. And this time his troubles were compounded by dysentery. He slapped himself in frustration, but that accomplished nothing. His stomach was caved in; his bowels were loose. By the time his dysentery was under control, his legs were so weak he could hardly get up from a squat, let alone run. So he took another month off, though he knew that Huniu’s money was quickly running out.
On the fifteenth of August, Xiangzi was determined to take his rickshaw out again. He vowed that if his illness returned, he’d end it all in the river.
Fuzi had visited him often during his first illness. For someone who could never best Huniu in an argument and who had such a gloomy outlook on life, Xiangzi enjoyed his occasional chats with Fuzi. That did not sit well with Huniu. Fuzi was her friend when Xiangzi was out, but with him at home, she was—according to Huniu—a shameless harlot. And so, after demanding that Fuzi return the money she’d lent her, she sent her away: “Don’t come back here anymore!”
So Fuzi lost a place to entertain her clients. Her own room was so shabby—her bed mat still hung over the crumbled wall—she had no choice but to go to register at the escort service. But the service, which specialized in schoolgirls and girls from good families, rebuffed her. With good connections and steep prices, they had no use for such common goods. Now what? She considered going to one of the brothels, since she had no capital and no ability to work for herself, but there she’d have to turn over her earnings and lose her freedom. Then who would look after her brothers? Death was the easy way out of this living hell, and that did not frighten her, but now was not the time—she was determined to do something nobler and more courageous than die. There was plenty of time for that after she’d seen to it that her brothers could survive on their own. Death would come sooner or later, but she wanted her death to be the salvation of two young lives. After thinking things through, she saw only one path open to her: to sell herself cheaply, since no one who came through her door would be willing to pay a high price. All right, then, anyone was welcome, as long as he paid. She could stop worrying about nice clothes or cosmetics, for no one who paid so little could expect much in the way of appearances. All they cared about was the little bit of pleasure their money bought; her youth alone made it a bargain.