by Yu Hua
Just as Xu Sanguan finished speaking, the brothers’ snores began to resonate through the cabin. Their legs once more crossed atop his own. They made his back hurt and his waist ache, but he was warm because of the heat of their young bodies. And so he lay there as the wind whistled outside the little cabin, sweeping whorls of dust down from the deck, through the hatch that led to the cabin, and onto his face and shoulders. He could see a few pale stars through the hatch, and though he could not see the moon, he saw the way the moonlight frosted the night sky. He lay for a while looking at the sky, then closed his eyes, listening to the sound of the water beating against the hull, so close that it seemed to be slapping against his own ears.
Five days later they arrived in Seven-Mile Fort. The silk factory at Seven-Mile Fort was about a mile outside of town, so they made straight for the hospital. When they arrived at the front door of the hospital, Xu Sanguan called them back. “Don’t go in yet. Now that we know where the hospital is, we should go to the river.” He added, “Laixi, you haven’t drunk any water yet.”
Laixi said, “I shouldn’t drink anything this time. If I’m going to give you some blood, then I can’t drink any water.”
Xu Sanguan slapped his own head. “As soon as I saw a hospital, all I could think about was drinking water. I almost forgot that this time you’re selling the blood to me—” Xu Sanguan stopped short. “Laixi, I still think you should really drink a little bit of water. They say you should never take advantage of your brother.”
Laishun said, “You aren’t taking advantage of anyone.”
Laixi said, “I’m not going to drink any water. If you were in my place, I’m sure you wouldn’t drink any either.”
Xu Sanguan was forced to agree. If he had been in Laixi’s place, he wouldn’t drink any water either. “If I can’t convince you to the contrary, all I can do is let you do what you think best.”
The three men proceeded to the blood donation room inside the hospital. When the blood chief at Seven-Mile Fort Hospital heard them out, he pointed his finger toward Laixi and said, “So you’re selling your blood to me.” He pointed in Xu Sanguan’s direction. “And then you want me to sell it back to him?”
When he saw them nod, he burst into laughter and pointed at his own chair. “I’ve sat in this chair for thirteen years now. I’ve seen thousands of people come to sell their blood. But this is the first time I’ve ever had someone ask to buy and sell blood at the same time.”
Laixi said, “Maybe this is a good omen. Maybe it means you’ll be in luck this year.”
“That’s right,” Xu Sanguan added. “Nothing like this has ever happened anywhere else either. Laixi and I aren’t even from the same town, but we happened to meet on the road. And it just so happens that he wants to sell blood and I want to buy some. It’s one in a million that we ran into each other, and now we’ve been lucky enough to run into you. Maybe the good luck is catching.”
The blood chief of Seven-Mile Fort unwittingly nodded his head. “Certainly is a real coincidence. Who knows? You might be right. Maybe I’ll get lucky too.” Then he shook his head, “Then again, it’s hard to say. Maybe this year will be disastrous. They say that coming across something strange is sometimes inauspicious. You must have heard the old saying. If a bunch of frogs crosses the street in front of you, or it starts to rain bugs, or if your chicken crows at dawn instead of the rooster, it’s sure to be a bad year.”
Xu Sanguan and the brothers discussed these matters with the blood chief of Seven-Mile Fort for well over an hour before he finally consented to Laixi selling his blood to Xu Sanguan. When they finished the transaction, the three men emerged from the hospital gate, and Xu Sanguan said, “Laixi, we’ll take you to a restaurant to eat a plate of fried pork livers and two shots of yellow rice wine.”
Laixi shook his head. “I only sold one bowl of blood today. I can do without eating the pork livers, and I can do without the wine.”
Xu Sanguan said, “Laixi, you can’t be stingy with blood money. You sold blood, not sweat. If it was sweat, you could drink a bowl or two of water to make up for what you lost. But to restore your blood, you need to have the fried pork livers. Eat. Listen to me. I’ve been through all this before.”
Laixi said, “It’s really not a problem. Didn’t you say selling blood is just like sleeping with a woman? If people had to eat fried pork livers every time they did it, where would that leave you?”
Xu Sanguan shook his head. “Selling blood isn’t the same thing as doing it with a woman.”
Laishun said, “It’s the same thing.”
Xu Sanguan said, “What do you know about it?”
Laishun said, “That’s what you told us.”
Xu Sanguan said, “I may have said that, but it wasn’t true.”
Laixi said, “I’m fine now. My legs feel a little rubbery, as if I walked a really long way, but that’s all. If I rest for a little while, they won’t feel rubbery anymore.”
Xu Sanguan said, “Listen to me. You still have to eat the fried pork livers.”
As they spoke, they came to the spot by the riverside where the barge was moored. Laishun jumped on deck, and Laixi, after untying the rope from a wooden post, also hopped aboard.
Laixi, standing on the deck, said to Xu Sanguan, “We have to deliver the cocoons to the factory now, so we can’t take you any farther down river. We live in the Eighth Production Team just outside of Tongyuan. If you’re ever in Tongyuan, come stay with us. We’re friends now.”
As Xu Sanguan stood on the bank watching them push off into the current, he said, “Laishun, take good care of Laixi. Don’t you believe him when he says he’s just fine. He’s running on empty. Don’t let him exhaust himself. Tire yourself out a little instead. Don’t let him push the barge. And if you get tired and can’t row anymore, just stop and rest by the side of the river. Don’t let him switch places with you.”
“I hear you,” Laishun said.
The barge had already moved out toward the middle of the river when Xu Sanguan addressed Laixi. “Laixi, if you really refuse to eat some pork livers, then make sure you get a good night’s sleep. You know the saying: if you can’t get enough to eat, there’s nothing to do but sleep. Sleep helps you recover your strength.”
The brothers rowed away, waving toward him as they moved farther and farther into the distance. Xu Sanguan waved until he could no longer see the boat, then turned to climb the steep stone steps of the embankment back to the street.
That same afternoon Xu Sanguan left Seven-Mile Fort on a ferry to Changning, where he sold four hundred milliliters of blood. He did not ride the boat after Changning because there was a bus from Changning to Shanghai, and although it was much more expensive than the ferry, he wanted to reach Yile as quickly as possible and to see Xu Yulan. He counted the time on his fingers. Fifteen days had gone by since Xu Yulan had departed with Yile for Shanghai, yet he had no way of knowing whether Yile’s illness had taken a turn for the better or worse. He boarded a bus, and as soon as it began to move, his heart began to pound wildly in his chest.
Xu Sanguan left Changning in the morning and arrived in Shanghai the same afternoon. By the time he found the hospital where Yile was being treated, it was already dusk. He walked into the room where Yile had been staying and saw that there were six hospital beds, five of which were occupied by other patients. One of the beds was empty.
He asked, “Where can I find Xu Yile?”
They pointed toward the empty bed and said, “Right there.”
A huge roaring sound filled his head. Suddenly, he remembered Genlong. The morning Genlong had died, he had sprinted back to the hospital, but Genlong’s bed had been empty, and they had told him that Genlong was dead. Maybe Yile is dead too, he thought to himself. He stood transfixed, then began to sob. His sobs were as loud as screams, and his hands repeatedly swept streams of tears away from his face and onto the hospital bed.
A shout rang out behind him. “Xu Sanguan, you’re finally here!
”
Xu Sanguan stopped crying and turned to see Xu Yulan helping Yile back into the hospital room. His tears gave way to laughter, and he said to himself, Yile isn’t dead. I thought Yile was dead.
Xu Yulan said, “What the hell are you crying about? Yile’s feeling much better now.”
Yile really did look much better. He could even walk by himself now. When he had settled back into his bed, he looked up at Xu Sanguan, smiled, and called his name: “Dad.”
Xu Sanguan rubbed Yile’s shoulders. “Yile, you’re so much better now. Your color is much better. You don’t look so pale and gray anymore, and your voice is louder, and you seem to be in good spirits, but your shoulders are still much too skinny. Yile, just now I came in and saw your bed was empty, and I thought you were dead.” As he spoke, tears once more streamed from his eyes.
Xu Yulan gave him a little push. “What are you crying about this time, Xu Sanguan?”
Xu Sanguan wiped his tears away. “Just now I was crying because I thought Yile was dead. Now I’m crying because I know he’s alive.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Xu Sanguan walked down the street. His hair was white, and he had lost seven teeth, but his eyes were still good and he could see things just as clearly as he always had. And he knew his ears were still good because he could hear things that were happening very far away.
Xu Sanguan was over sixty years old. His son Yile had been allowed to return to town eight years earlier. Erle had followed him back home two years later. Now Yile worked at the food-processing plant, and Erle was a buyer at the department store next to the rice shop. Within a few years Yile, Erle, and Sanle had all gotten married, had children, and moved to their own houses. And these days their three sons brought their wives and kids back to the family home to see them only on Saturdays.
Now that Xu Sanguan was no longer responsible for the children, and the money that he and Xu Yulan earned was for their use alone, they rarely lacked for cash. There were no longer any patches on their clothes. Their life was like Xu Sanguan’s health, which, as he often told people he happened to run into on the street, “is very good.”
Which is why when he walked down the street, Xu Sanguan’s face was awash in smiles and the wrinkles that covered his face rippled like river water. The sun shone on his face, etching the ripples in light and shadow. That was how he looked as he walked with a smile out of the house and strolled past the snack shop where Xu Yulan made fried dough for breakfast every morning, past the department store where Erle worked, past the movie house that had once been a theater, past the elementary school, past the hospital, past Five Star Bridge, past the clock shop, past the butcher’s shop, past Heavenrest Temple, past a newly opened boutique, past two trucks parked next to each other, and past the Victory Restaurant.
But just as he passed the Victory Restaurant, he smelled the aroma of fried pork livers escaping from the open window above the kitchen along with a gust of oily cooking smoke. He had walked past the restaurant, yet the smell stopped him in his tracks, and he stood stock-still, nostrils flaring and mouth widened in an effort to better savor the aroma.
And so it was that Xu Sanguan began to crave a plate of fried pork livers accompanied by a couple of shots of yellow rice wine. His craving grew more and more intense, and he began to feel another craving. He began to feel like selling some blood. He remembered when he had sat at the table by the window with Ah Fang and Genlong, remembered when he had sat in a restaurant with Laixi and Laishun in Huang’s Inn, fingers drumming on the tabletop, calling loudly to the waiters: a plate of fried pork livers, two shots of yellow rice wine, and warm that wine up for me.
Xu Sanguan stood by the door of the Victory Restaurant for nearly five minutes before making up his mind to go to the hospital to sell blood. He turned to leave. It had been fifteen years since he sold blood. Today he would sell blood once again, but this time he was going to sell blood just for himself. This would be the very first time he had sold blood for himself. He thought that in the past he had always eaten fried pork livers and drunk yellow rice wine because he had sold blood. Today it would be the other way around. Today he would sell blood so that he could eat fried pork livers and drink yellow rice wine. He walked past the two trucks, walked past the new boutique, walked past the Heavenrest Temple, past the butcher’s shop, past the clock shop, past Five Star Bridge, and finally came to the hospital.
The man who sat behind the desk in the blood donation room was no longer Blood Chief Li, but a young man who looked as if he were not yet thirty years old. When the young blood chief looked up he saw that the man who walked into the office had white hair and was missing three of his four front teeth.
When he heard that this same old man had come to sell blood, he waved his hand dismissively. “You want to sell blood? An old man like you? Who needs your blood?”
Xu Sanguan said, “I may be old, but my health is very good. So what if my hair is gray and I’ve lost a few teeth? My eyes are fine, I have a lucky mole on my forehead, and my ears are as good as they ever were. I can even hear what people whisper to each other in the street from inside my house.”
The young blood chief said, “I don’t care about your eyes, ears, or anything else, for that matter. Do me a favor. Turn around and march yourself right out of here.”
Xu Sanguan said, “Old Blood Chief Li never said things like that.”
The young blood chief said, “My name isn’t Li. My name is Shen. And Blood Chief Shen can say whatever he pleases.”
Xu Sanguan said, “When Blood Chief Li was still here, I came here all the time to sell blood.”
The young blood chief said, “But Blood Chief Li is dead now.”
Xu Sanguan said, “I know he’s dead. He died three years ago. I stood by the gates of Heavenrest Temple and watched them carry his body to the crematorium.”
The young blood chief said, “Get out of here! I’m not going to buy your blood. You’re just too old. There’s more dead blood than living in your veins. No one could possibly want any of your blood. The only person who might be able to use your blood is the lacquer man.” The young blood chief chuckled. “You want to know why the lacquer man could use your blood? Because just before they lacquer a piece of furniture, they prime the wood with a coat of pig’s blood.” The young blood chief burst into laughter. “Understand now? The only thing your blood is good for is furniture. So turn left on your way out of the hospital, and it won’t be long before you come to the lacquer shop under the Five Star Bridge. The boss is named Wang. He’s famous for his lacquer. Why don’t you try selling some of your blood to him? He just might be buying.”
Xu Sanguan listened in silence, then shook his head. “I’ll forget what you’ve just said to me and let it go at that. But you should know that if my three sons had been here to hear all of that, they would have broken your jaw.”
With these words, he turned to leave. He walked out of the hospital and into the street. It was noon and the streets were full of people who had just left work for lunch. Wave after wave of young workers rolled by on their bicycles, while flocks of children with book bags slung over their shoulders flew down the sidewalk. Xu Sanguan also moved down the sidewalk, but his heart was brimming with grief and resentment. Stung to the core by what the young blood chief had said, he moved down the sidewalk, lost in thought. He was an old man now, his blood was more dead than alive, no one would want his blood anymore, and it was good only for lacquer. This was the first time in forty years he had not been allowed to sell his blood. And in those forty years, he had overcome every family calamity by selling his blood. Now that no one wanted his blood, what would he do if some calamity were once again to befall his family?
Xu Sanguan began to cry. He walked with his shirt open, letting the wind blow onto his chest and across his face, allowing the big, cloudy tears to fall from his eyes, roll slowly down his cheeks, run into his neck, and slide onto his chest. He lifted his hand to wipe his face, and the tears rolled onto h
is hand, across his palm, and slid down the back of his hand. His tears kept sliding down as his feet moved across the sidewalk. He held his head high, straightened his back, and his legs stepped forward with energy and spirit. His arms swung back and forth without the slightest hesitation. But his face was suffused with sadness. Rivulets of tears crisscrossed like rain streaming across a windowpane, or the hairline cracks crawling up the sides of a fragile antique bowl, or the dense profusion of branches reaching out from an old tree, irrigation canals spreading across the fields, a network of streets extending across a town. Tears wove a net across his face.
He wept in silence as he walked down the street, moving past the elementary school, past the movie theater, past the department store, past the shop where Xu Yulan fried breakfast crullers, past his own front door. He kept right on walking, walking past one street and then another, until he passed by the Victory Restaurant. And he kept on walking even then, past the clothing store, past Heavenrest Temple, past the butcher’s shop, past Five Star Bridge, until he came to the entrance to the hospital. Still he continued to walk, past the elementary school, past the movie theater, until he had circled the streets of the town once, then twice, and people on the streets began to stop and take notice of this man weeping silently as he walked through the streets of the town.
People who knew him called out as he walked past, “Xu Sanguan, Xu Sanguan, Xu Sanguan, Xu Sanguan, Xu Sanguan, why are you crying? Why won’t you say anything? Why won’t you listen to us? Why are you walking in circles? What’s the matter with you?”
Someone said to Yile, “Xu Yile, quick! Look! Your dad’s crying and walking through the streets.”
Someone said to Erle, “Xu Erle, there’s an old man crying in the street. Lots of people are gathering around to watch. You’d better have a look. Isn’t that your dad?”
Someone said to Sanle, “Xu Sanle, your dad’s crying on the street. He’s crying so hard it looks like someone must have died.”