by Yu Hua
Her tone also went up a register. “So what? What’s the big deal about me coming home late? Every day you get back later than I do—do I complain?”
“Do I finish work before you do? Is my factory closer to home than yours?”
“I fell down,” said Li Xiulan.
She flung the fish back in the sink and stamped into the living room. “I fell off the bus,” she said, “and it was ages before I could stand up again. I had to sit there on the side of the road for thirty or forty minutes. I practically froze to death.”
Shi Zhikang set down the cleaver he’d been using to slice the meat and walked over to her: “You fell? So did I—someone tugged my collar.”
He didn’t finish the story, for now she had rolled up her trouser leg and he could see there was a bruise as big as an egg on her knee. He bent down to touch it. “How did it happen?”
“When I was getting off the bus, there were too many people behind me. They pushed so hard I lost my balance.”
Just then their son arrived home, dressed in a red down jacket. Seeing his mother had suffered a fall, he bent down like his father had done. “Did you trip?” he asked with concern. Then he took off his jacket. “You should be taking a calcium supplement,” he went on. “It’s not only babies who need calcium, older people need it too. Every day your bones lose calcium, and that makes you prone to injury … If I got pushed off a bus, there’s no way I would end up with such a large bruise.”
Their son turned on the television and plumped himself down on the sofa. He put on the earphones of his Walkman and began to listen to some music.
“Are you watching TV?” Shi Zhikang asked. “Or listening to the radio?”
His son looked at him, but almost immediately turned away again, not having understood the question. “Have you washed your hands?” his mother asked.
He swiveled his head and removed an earphone from one of his ears. “What did you say?”
“Go and wash your hands,” Li Xiulan said. “There’s flu going around now and it’s easy to pick up germs on the bus. Go wash your hands, and be sure to use soap.”
“I don’t need to wash my hands.” Their son replaced the earphone. “I took a cab.”
SHI ZHIKANG COULDN’T GET TO SLEEP that night. For five months now, his wife had been bringing home only a little over a hundred yuan. He was in a better position—four hundred yuan—but still their combined monthly income was less than six hundred. The cost of rice had now risen to one yuan thirty a pound, and pork was twelve yuan a pound—even chili peppers were three yuan a pound. They still gave their son three hundred yuan a month for living expenses all the same, leaving a bit over two hundred for themselves. But this hadn’t stopped their son from taking a taxi when he came home on Saturday.
Li Xiulan had not fallen asleep either. She noticed her husband was tossing and turning. “You can’t sleep?”
“No.”
She turned to face him. “How much do you think our son paid to come home in a taxi?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never taken a taxi.” He paused. “I guess it would have cost at least thirty yuan.”
“Thirty yuan?” she moaned.
“We sweated blood for this money,” he sighed.
They said nothing more. Before long he fell asleep, and soon she was asleep too.
The next morning, their son again put on his earphones and watched TV as he listened to music. Shi Zhikang and Li Xiulan decided to have a good talk with him, so she sat down by his side, while her husband brought a chair over and sat in front of them. “Your mother and I would like to have a chat with you,” Shi Zhikang said.
“What about?” Because of the earphones, their son spoke loudly.
“Family matters.”
“Go on.” He was practically shouting.
Shi Zhikang leaned over and removed his right earphone. “These past few months, we’ve had a few problems. We didn’t want to tell you, for fear of distracting you from your studies …”
“What’s happened?” Their son removed the other earphone.
“Nothing much,” Shi Zhikang said. “Beginning this month, there’ll be no more night shift in our factory, and of the three hundred in the workforce, half will be laid off. As far as I’m concerned, it’s no big deal—I have skills, the factory still needs me … It’s more what’s happening with your mom. Currently she is just bringing home a bit over one hundred yuan a month. She’s due to retire in four years, and if she was to take early retirement, she could get three hundred yuan a month, and that would carry on for three years …”
“You get paid more if you take early retirement?”
They nodded. “In that case, why don’t you retire?” their son asked.
“Your mother and I are thinking that too,” Shi Zhikang said.
“Yeah, retire.” Saying this, their son prepared to put his earphones back on. Shi Zhikang threw his wife a glance. “Son,” she said, “our family finances aren’t what they used to be, and in the future they may be in even poorer shape …”
Their son already had one earphone in place. “What was that?” he asked.
“Your mom was saying that the family finances aren’t what they used to be,” Shi Zhikang said.
“Never mind about that.” Their son waved his hand. “State finances aren’t what they used to be either.”
His parents exchanged glances. “Tell me this,” said Shi Zhikang. “Why did you come home in a taxi yesterday?”
Their son looked at them, perplexed. “Why didn’t you take a bus?” Shi Zhikang persisted.
“The bus is too crowded.”
“Too crowded?”
Shi Zhikang pointed at Li Xiulan. “Your mom and I cram ourselves onto buses every day of the week. How can a young guy like you be afraid of crowded buses?”
“It’s not the pushing that’s the problem, it’s the smell.” Their son frowned. “I really hate smelling other people’s body odor. In buses, everybody’s jostling you, forcing you to smell their stink. It’s so packed and stuffy, even perfume smells bad. Plus, there are people letting off farts as well …
“I feel like throwing up every time I get on a bus,” he concluded.
“Throwing up?” Li Xiulan was shocked. “Son, are you ill?”
“No, of course not.”
She looked at Shi Zhikang. “Could it be stomach trouble?”
Her husband nodded. “Have you got a bellyache?” he asked.
“There’s nothing wrong with me.” Their son was getting impatient.
“What’s your appetite like these days?” Li Xiulan asked.
“I don’t have any stomach trouble!” their son yelled.
“Are you sleeping all right?” Shi Zhikang asked. He turned to Li Xiulan: “If you don’t get enough sleep, it’ll make you feel nauseous.”
Their son stretched out all ten fingers: “I sleep ten hours a day.”
Li Xiulan was still anxious. “Son, you’d better go to the hospital for a checkup.”
“I told you, there’s nothing wrong with me.” Their son jumped to his feet. “This is all about me having taken a taxi for once, isn’t it?” he cried. “Well, I won’t be taking any more taxis …”
“Son, we’re not bothered about the taxi fare,” said Shi Zhikang. “We’re thinking of you. You’ll be starting a job soon, and when you rely on your own salary you’ll understand that money doesn’t come easily and you have to budget accordingly …”
“That’s right.” Li Xiulan went on. “We never said you couldn’t take a taxi.”
“In the future there’s no way I’ll be taking taxis.” Their son sat back down on the sofa. “In the future I will drive my own car,” he explained. He put the earphones over his ears. “My classmates take taxis all the time.”
“His classmates take taxis all the time,” Li Xiulan repeated, looking at her husband. Seeing him nod, she went on. “If other people’s sons can take taxis, why shouldn’t ours?”
“I never said he
couldn’t,” said Shi Zhikang.
Their son was maybe now listening to one of his favorite songs, for he was rocking his head back and forth and mouthing some lyrics. They looked at each other and smiled as they studied his contented air. Maybe the future would bring more and more difficulties, but this did not distress them unduly, for they could see their son was now his own man.
THE SKIPPING-AND-STEPPING GAME
In a street-corner vending kiosk that sells groceries and fruit, a tired and sagging face spends year after year in the company of cookies, instant noodles, candies, tobacco, and cans of soda, like an old calendar stuck on the wall. A body and limbs are attached to this face, along with the name Lin Deshun.
Lin Deshun sat in a wheelchair, looking through the tiny window in front of him at the street outside. A young couple was standing on the sidewalk opposite, with a little boy between them who looked to be about six or seven. The boy was wearing a thick down jacket and a red hat, and a scarf just as red was tied around his neck. Although it was now the season of spring balm and flower blossoms, the boy was dressed for winter’s cold.
They were outside a hospital, and stood together quietly amid the commotion of people going in and out. The father, hands in his pockets, gazed intently toward the entrance, and his wife, her right hand holding the boy’s left hand, watched with equal concentration. It was only the boy whose eyes were turned in the direction of the street. With his mother clasping his hand, he had to twist himself around to look, but his eyes dwelled avidly on the scene before him. His head was continually on the move and often he would raise his free hand to point something out to them. It was clear there was no end of things he wanted to tell his parents, but they just stood there like statues.
After a little while, the parents led the boy a few steps closer to the entrance and Lin Deshun saw that a rather plump nurse was approaching them. They came to a stop and began to talk, but the boy maintained his sideways stance, his eyes glued to the street.
The nurse finished speaking and went back into the hospital. The boy’s parents turned around and, taking the boy by the hand, cautiously crossed the street and arrived outside Lin Deshun’s kiosk. The father released his grip on his son’s hand, walked up to the window, and took a look inside. Lin Deshun saw a face covered with stubble, a pair of eyes swollen from lack of sleep, and the grubby collar of a white shirt. “Can I help you?” he asked.
The man looked at the tangerines on display right in front of him. “Give me a tangerine,” he said.
“One tangerine?” Lin Deshun thought he had misheard.
The father reached out a hand and took a tangerine. “How much?”
Lin Deshun thought for a moment. “Let’s say twenty fen.”
When the man’s hand laid twenty fen on the counter, Lin Deshun noticed several threads from his sweater protruding from his sleeve.
After buying the tangerine, the father turned around to find that mother and son were holding hands and playing a game on the sidewalk. The boy was trying to step on his mother’s foot and she kept skipping out of the way. “You can’t get me, you can’t get me …,” she would call.
“I’m going to get you, I’m going to get you …,” the boy cried.
The father stood to one side, tangerine in hand, watching their boisterous game, until finally the son stepped on his mother’s foot and gave a triumphant cry: “I got you!”
That was when the father said, “Come and have some tangerine.”
Lin Deshun now got a clear view of the boy’s face. When he raised his head to take the fruit, Lin Deshun saw a pair of luminous dark eyes, but the boy’s face was frighteningly pale—even his lips were practically as white as chalk. Now the family was just as quiet as they had been when standing on the other side of the street. The boy peeled the tangerine and began to eat it as he walked away, parents on either side.
Lin Deshun knew they must have come to register their child as an in-patient, but today no bed was available, so now they were going back home.
Lin Deshun saw them again the following morning, standing outside the hospital just like the day before. What was different was that this time only the father was gazing in the direction of the hospital, while mother and son, hand in hand, were happily playing their skipping-and-stepping game. From his side of the street, Lin Deshun could hear them calling:
“You can’t get me, you can’t get me …”
“I’m going to get you, I’m going to get you …”
Their cries were full of delight, as if they were on a park lawn, not by the hospital gate. The boy’s voice rang clear, instantly recognizable amid the entrance hubbub and the clamor of vehicles in the street.
“I’m going to get you, I’m going to get you …”
Then there emerged the same plump nurse as the day before, and the skipping-and-stepping game came to an end. Parents and son followed the nurse into the hospital.
It was another morning, about a week later, that Lin Deshun saw the young couple emerge from the hospital. They were walking slowly; the husband had his arm around his wife, and her head rested on his shoulder. Slowly, quietly, they crossed the street and came toward Lin Deshun’s kiosk, then stopped. The husband disengaged his arm and walked over. He placed his unshaven face close up to the window and looked inside. “Do you want a tangerine?” Lin Deshun asked.
“Give me a bun,” the man said.
Lin Deshun gave him a bun, and after taking the money from him inquired: “Is the boy all right?”
The man had turned to leave, but on hearing this he swiveled round and looked at Lin Deshun. “The boy?”
His eyes rested on Lin Deshun’s face for a moment. “He died,” he said in a low voice.
He rejoined his wife and gave her the bun: “Have some of this.”
His wife’s head was bowed, as though she were looking at her feet. Her loose hair concealed her face, and she shook her head. “I don’t want it.”
“Have a little, at least,” her husband persisted.
“I don’t want it.” She shook her head again. “You have it.”
After a moment of hesitation, he clumsily bit off a mouthful of bun. He extended his arm toward his wife, and she compliantly laid her head on his shoulder. He put his arm around her, and slowly and quietly the two of them walked off in a westerly direction.
Lin Deshun could no longer see them, for the merchandise blocked his view, so he went on looking across the street at the entrance to the hospital. He noticed the sky had darkened, and looking up he knew it was about to rain. He didn’t like rain. On an evening many years ago, when it was pelting down, he had rushed up the stairs to close the windows, clutching his overcoat; halfway up he suddenly lost his footing, and from then on he was paralyzed. Now he sits in a wheelchair.
WHY DO I HAVE TO GET MARRIED?
When I decided to visit those friends of mine, I was with my mother, arranging things in the kitchen of the new apartment, and my father was calling me again and again from his study, wanting me to help him organize his huge pile of musty books. I’m their only son. The kitchen needed me, the study needed me, both my parents needed me, but there was just one of me. “Better get a cleaver and chop me into two,” I said.
“Take this box of kitchenware we don’t use and put it up there out of the way,” my mother said.
“Come and help me move this bookcase,” my father called from the study.
“Better get a cleaver and chop me into two,” I kept on repeating, while I put the box of kitchenware away for my mother and helped my father shift the bookcase. After repositioning the furniture, I became Father’s property. He grabbed me by the arm, wanting me to take books that he’d sorted out and set them down row by row on the bookcase. My mother called to me from the kitchen, wanting me to bring down the box of unused kitchenware that I had just put away, because she was unable to find a spoon that she needed and she wondered whether it could be in the box. Just at this moment my father handed me another pile of books.
“Better get a cleaver and chop me into two,” I said.
It was then I realized neither of them was listening to what I was saying. I had made this remark several times, but I was the only person who seemed to have heard it. I made up my mind to leave, for I felt I just could not keep muddling through like this. A week had passed since we’d moved from our original home to this new apartment, and every day I was spending all my time getting things organized, and the whole place was full of the smell of paint and the dust was getting up my nose. I am just twenty-four, but here I was, busy the whole week through like someone in middle age. I can’t be parted too long from the youthful life, so I took up a position halfway between the kitchen and the study and announced to my parents, “I can’t help you any further. I have to go out and attend to some business.”
They heard this all right. My father came to the door of the study. “What business?” he asked.
“Something important, of course.”
For the moment I was unable to find a compelling justification for leaving, so I could only make this evasive response. My father stepped out of his study and persisted with his question. “What’s so important?”
I waved my hand and persisted with my vague excuse. “Whatever it is, it’s important.”
At this point my mother chipped in. “Are you trying to get out of things?”
“He’s trying to get out of it,” she told my father. “He’s always been like this. After dinner he wants to go to the bathroom, and it’ll be two hours before he comes out. Why? To avoid doing the dishes.”
“This time it has nothing to do with going to the bathroom,” I said.
My father smiled. “Tell me, what is it you have to do? Who are you going to see?”
At that moment I really didn’t know how to respond. Fortunately, my mother did something silly. She forgot what she had just been saying. “Who else could it be?” she blurted out. “Apart from those guys Shen Tianxiang, Wang Fei, Chen Liqing, and Lin Meng, who else could he be going to see?”