Rickshaw Boy: A Novel (6 page)
Red streaks appeared in the gray sky, casting shadows over the ground and the distant trees; little by little the reds and grays merged, turning some of the sky a washed-out purple and some of it bright red, but mostly the purplish gray of grapes. A few moments later, gold borders framed the red, creating rays of sunlight that were all the colors of the rainbow. Then, as if a switch had been thrown, things came into view. The morning colors turned dark red, in vivid contrast to the blue sky. The red began breaking up, releasing golden sunbeams—layers of color intersecting with the sun’s rays. Gorgeous spiderlike webs formed in the southeastern corner of the sky, as fields, trees, and wild grass turned from dark green to the color of jade. The trunks of ancient trees were dyed a golden red, sunlight glistened off the wings of passing birds, and everything seemed to be smiling. Xiangzi felt like shouting at the layers of red and gold, for he did not recall seeing the sun even once after being seized by the soldiers; he had spent the days grumbling and cursing inwardly, head hung low. He’d had no thoughts of the sun and the moon; the sky had disappeared from his life. Now he was walking freely, feeling more hopeful with each step. The sun painted the dew on grass and leaves with a coat of gold and had not only brightened his hair and brows but had warmed his heart as well. All his troubles, all the dangers and suffering, were forgotten. His shabby appearance did not matter, for he had not been cast out from the sun’s light and heat. He was once again living in a bright, warm world, and was so happy he could shout.
He looked down at his threadbare clothes, then at the molting camels behind him, and he laughed. How uncanny, he was thinking, that four such sorry individuals had actually managed to get away safely and walk into the sun. It made no difference who was right and who was wrong, as far as he was concerned, since it was all written in the heavens. With a sense of relief, he walked with slow assurance; with the heavens as his protector, he had nothing to fear. Where were his feet taking him? Men and women were out working in the fields, but he did not care to ask them. Just keep walking. Even the possibility that he’d be unable to sell his camels right away did not concern him. He’d worry about that after he reached Beiping, a city he desperately wanted to see again. No mother and father were waiting for him in a place where nothing belonged to him. But it was his home, all of it, and he’d know what to do when he arrived. He saw a village off in the distance, a fairly large one, with a row of tall, green willows standing guard, bending low over the squat rooftops from which kitchen smoke curled upward. He heard the barking of dogs—music to his ears. He headed for the village, not expecting any sort of windfall but to show that he feared nothing. The villagers posed no threat, since everyone was bathed in the glorious, peaceful rays of the sun. He’d like a drink of water, if that was possible. But if not, so be it. A little water meant nothing to someone who had come out of the mountains alive.
Barking dogs announced his approach; he ignored them. But the eyes of the village women and children made him uncomfortable. He must have looked like a very strange camel herder. Why else would they be gawking at him that way? He was deeply embarrassed. To the soldiers he’d been less than human, and to the people here in the village he was a freak. He didn’t know what to do. Size and strength had always been a source of self-esteem and pride for him, but recently he had become a victim of injustice and privation through no fault of his own. As he looked over the roof of one of the houses, he saw the sun, with its promise, but now it didn’t seem so lovely.
Worried that the camels could slip and fall in the foul-smelling puddles of toxic water mixed with pig and horse urine on a street that ran through the village, Xiangzi felt like resting. He spotted a relatively lavish house to the north of the street with a tiled building behind it. The gate and gatehouse were missing; only a slat door remained. Xiangzi knew what that was: a tiled building—a rich man; a slat door and no gate—a camel dealer! All right, this was the place to take a rest and see if there might be a chance to say good-bye to his camels.
“
Seh! Seh! Seh!
” Xiangzi commanded the camels to kneel. It was the only camel command he knew, and he proudly put it to use. Now the villagers would see that he knew what he was doing. The camels knelt and he coolly went over and sat beneath a young willow. People were watching him, and he was watching them. That, he knew, was the only way to lessen their suspicions.
He had been sitting there awhile when an old man came out. Wearing a blue jacket, open in front, he had a face that glowed, and one look told Xiangzi that this was one of the village’s wealthy men. He made a quick decision.
“Have you got some water, old-timer? I could use a glass.”
“Ah!” The old man rubbed caked mud from his chest and gave Xiangzi a long look. Then he eyed the three camels. “I’ve got water. Where are you from?”
“Out west.” Xiangzi couldn’t give a name because he wasn’t sure.
“Aren’t there soldiers out that way?” The old man was staring at Xiangzi’s army pants.
“They grabbed me. I just got away.”
“I see. No problem getting the camels through the western pass?”
“The soldiers went into the mountains. The roads are safe.”
“Uh-huh.” The old man nodded slowly. “Wait here, I’ll get you some water.”
Xiangzi followed him into the yard, where he spotted four camels.
“Why don’t I leave these three with you, sir? You can put together a camel train.”
“Hah! A train? Thirty years ago I owned three trains. Things have changed. Who can afford to feed camels these days?”
The old man stopped to stare at his four camels. “I was thinking about getting all the neighborhood camels together and letting them go out beyond the pass to graze,” he said after a moment. “But I didn’t dare, since there’s fighting in the east and in the west. I hate keeping them penned up here. Just look at all the flies. It’ll be even hotter soon, and that will bring the mosquitoes. I can’t stand watching these fine animals suffer, I tell you!”
“So why don’t I leave my three with you? That way you can take a train out to graze? Animals need to be on the move, and if you keep them here all summer, the flies and mosquitoes will eat them alive!” Xiangzi was nearly pleading.
“Who has the money to buy them? These are bad times to raise camels.”
“I’ll leave them with you and you can give me what you think is fair. That way I can say good-bye to them and go into the city to make a living.”
The old man sized Xiangzi up. He didn’t seem like a bandit or anything. Then he turned to look at the three camels out beyond the gate. Apparently, he liked what he saw, though he knew no good could come of buying them. But a book lover can be counted on to buy a book, and a horse fancier cannot pass up a stud for sale. A trader who’s owned three camel trains is no different. Besides, Xiangzi had said he’d sell them cheaply, and whenever a connoisseur sees a bargain, he tends to forget whether or not he should be buying the thing in the first place.
“If I were a rich man, young fellow, I’d be happy to take them off your hands.” It was an honest statement.
“You can have them for whatever you think is fair,” Xiangzi said with such sincerity the old man seemed slightly embarrassed.
“I mean it, young fellow, if this were thirty years ago, they’d be worth three dabao. But times have changed, there’s fighting everywhere, and I…maybe you’d better try your luck somewhere else.”
“Just give me what you can!” Xiangzi did not know what else to say. He knew the old man was telling the truth, and he had no interest in running around the country trying to sell his camels. What if no one wanted them? That would mean even more trouble.
“Look, I’m embarrassed to say it, but I could manage twenty or thirty yuan, and even that’s not easy for me. I tell you, these times, I’ve got no choice.”
Xiangzi’s heart fell. Twenty or thirty yuan? That wasn’t nearly enough to buy a rickshaw. But he couldn’t let this business slow him down, and what were the chances he’d meet up with another trader like this? “Just give me what you can, sir.”
“What do you do for a living, young fellow? Obviously, you’re not in the camel business.”
Xiangzi told him. “So, you risked your life to save these animals!” The old man’s sympathy was conspicuous. He was also relieved, assured that the animals were not stolen. Actually, they probably had been at some point, but the soldiers presented a second layer of ownership. During wartime, normal practices fly out the window.
“How about this, young man—I’ll give you thirty-five yuan. I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t getting them cheap, but I’d also be a liar if I said I could give you even one yuan more. I’m over sixty. I don’t know what else I can say.”
Xiangzi, who had always been tightfisted, did not know what to do. But after his days with those soldiers, to suddenly hear the old man speak to him with obvious sincerity and sympathy, he knew he mustn’t haggle. Not to mention the fact that thirty-five yuan in his hand meant more than ten thousand in his dreams, even though it wasn’t much to risk your life for. Three living, breathing camels could not possibly be worth only thirty-five yuan! But what choice did he have?
“They’re yours, old-timer. Just one request. Give me a jacket and something to eat.”
“Deal!”
Xiangzi drank his fill of cold water, accepted the thirty-five bright one-yuan coins and two big cornmeal cakes, and headed off to the city in a tattered white jacket that barely covered his chest.
X
iangzi was laid up for three days in a little inn in Haidian, chilled one minute and feverish the next. He was in a fog, his mind a blank; purple blisters had erupted on his gums. All he wanted was water; he had no appetite. Three days without food had dissipated the heat in his body, leaving him as weak as a piece of soft candy. Sometime during those three days he must have dreamed about his three camels and muttered aloud, for when he was conscious again he had gained a nickname: Camel Xiangzi.
Xiangzi had been his name, his only name, the day he entered the city. Now that Camel had been tacked onto it, no one cared what his family name might have been. He himself didn’t care whether he had a family name or not. But he was bothered by the fact that not only had he traded three living animals for that little bit of money, but he now had a not altogether welcomed nickname.
Once he struggled to his feet, Xiangzi felt like going outside to look around. His legs, unfortunately, were not up to the challenge. He barely made it to the door before they came out from under him and he landed on the floor, where he sat in a daze for a long time, his forehead beaded in a clammy sweat. He put up with this the best he could until he managed to open his eyes. His stomach rumbled. Now he was hungry. Moving slowly, he got to his feet and went outside to find a wonton peddler. He ordered a bowl of wontons, which he ate sitting on the ground. The first slurp of soup nearly sickened him, but he held it in his mouth until he could force it down. He had no desire for more, but when the second mouthful slipped down into his stomach a moment later, he belched, proving he was going to make it.
Now that he had some food in his stomach, he took stock of himself. He was thin as a rail and his pants were unimaginably filthy. He did not feel like moving, but he had to get back to the clean, neat person he’d been before. He refused to enter the city looking like death warmed over. But cleaning up meant spending money: a shave and new clothes, including shoes and socks, would not be free. He should not have to spend any of his thirty-five yuan, already much less than what a new rickshaw would cost, but he felt sorry for himself. Despite the fact that he’d only been held by the soldiers for a short time, all that had happened seemed like a bad dream, one that had aged him, as if he’d grown years older in a matter of days. Those big hands and feet were his, no doubt about that, but they seemed like objects he’d found somewhere—he could not have felt worse. He tried not to think about the grievances he’d suffered and the dangers he’d faced in recent days, but the memories persisted; it was like knowing the sky is dark on an overcast day without looking up. He was too fond of his body to make it suffer more than it already had. Though he knew that he was still very weak, he stood up. He did not want to wait any longer than was necessary to pull himself together. All he needed to be strong again, he felt, was to have his head shaved and put on some new clothes.
To get to that point, all it cost was two-twenty: one yuan for a coarse pair of pants and a jacket, eighty cents for a pair of black cloth shoes, fifteen cents for some coarse cotton socks, plus twenty-five cents for a straw hat. He got two boxes of matches for his cast-off clothes.
Clutching his matches, he headed off toward Xizhi Gate, but he hadn’t gotten far when his body began to fail him again. He gritted his teeth. No riding for him. How could someone from the countryside consider a couple of miles too far to walk, especially a man who has pulled a rickshaw? More to the point, it would have been laughable for someone as strong as Xiangzi to be felled by a minor illness. If he pitched to the ground and could not get back up, he’d crawl into the city if necessary. Xiangzi would not give up. His survival depended on his making it into the city today. The one thing he believed in was his body, and no sickness was going to keep him down.
He staggered along and had barely left Haidian when he began to see stars, and had to lean against a willow tree to steady himself and wait for the world to stop spinning. Not for a minute, however, did he sit down. Slowly the world stopped spinning, and Xiangzi’s heart returned from some distant spot to the middle of his chest. After wiping the sweat from his forehead, he started walking again. Now that his head was freshly shaved and he had on new clothes and shoes, he was feeling better about himself. So his legs had to do their bit—keep walking! He didn’t stop again until he had reached Guanxiang, where he saw bustling crowds of people and horses, where his ears were bombarded with a cacophony of noises and his nose was struck by a dry stench. As he stepped on the spongy dirt road, he felt like getting down on his hands and knees to kiss the ground, the stinking, lovable ground that supplied him with a living. Having no parents, no brothers or sisters, no family at all, Xiangzi had but one friend: this ancient city. It had given him everything, and he’d rather starve here than thrive in the countryside. There were sights to be seen here and sounds to be heard; all around him there was light and there was noise. If he worked hard, there was money to be made, lots of it, more food than he could ever eat, and more clothing than he could wear in a lifetime. A beggar in the city might dine on meaty broths, while in the countryside maize cakes were the best a person could hope for. When he reached the western bank of the Gaoliang Bridge, Xiangzi sat down and shed hot tears.