Rickshaw Boy: A Novel

by She Lao

  “Fine.” Again Fourth Master Liu nodded.

  Eventually, Xiangzi did find a monthly hire, and he moved out. He was told that any time he went back to picking up rides, he was welcome at Harmony Shed.

  Bedding down in Harmony Shed without renting one of Fourth Master Liu’s rickshaws was, in the eyes of other rickshaw men, a rare occurrence, so some guessed that he must be related to the old man. But even more of them assumed that the old man had his eye on Xiangzi as a possible groom for Huniu and a replacement son for him. While this assumption was clearly informed by a measure of envy, if one day it turned out to be true, then when Fourth Master Liu died, Harmony Shed would pass on to Xiangzi. For the moment, however, this was just idle gossip and not something anyone dared to bring up in Xiangzi’s presence. What they didn’t know was that Fourth Master had other reasons for treating Xiangzi differently. He saw him as being capable of sticking to the old ways in new surroundings. If he were to join the army, he wouldn’t start acting stupid just so he could bully people when he put on the feared uniform. He kept busy when he was in the yard, and once he stopped sweating, he looked for something to do: cleaning rickshaws, pumping up the tires, airing out the rain hoods, oiling the moving parts…no one had to ask him to do these things, he did them on his own and was happy to do so; it was his favorite form of entertainment. Twenty or so men bunked in Harmony Shed, and when they brought their rickshaws in, they either sat around shooting the breeze or slept. All but Xiangzi, the only one who was never idle. At first, the others thought he was sucking up to Fourth Master Liu. But it took only a few days for them to realize that that was the furthest thing from his mind. He was sincere, he was artless, and he had nothing to say to anyone. Old Man Liu never uttered a word of praise or ever gave him a special look. But he had things worked out in his head. He was well aware that Xiangzi was a good worker, which is why he was willing to let him stay there even when he wasn’t renting one of Liu’s rickshaws. With Xiangzi around, the yard and gate were always swept clean, to give but one example. And Huniu was fond of this foolish big fellow. Xiangzi always stopped to listen to what she had to say, and he never quarreled with her. The other men, plagued by suffering, often talked back to her. She was not afraid of these men, and she usually ignored them, saving whatever she wanted to say for Xiangzi. So when he found a monthly hire, Fourth Master and his daughter felt as if they’d lost a friend. Then the next time he returned, even when Fourth Master was yelling at one of the men, he didn’t seem so angry—almost kindly.

  Xiangzi walked into Harmony Shed clutching his two boxes of matches. Night had not yet fallen, and Fourth Master and his daughter were having dinner. Huniu put down her chopsticks the minute she saw him.

  “Xiangzi!” she shouted. “Did you get taken off by a wolf? Or maybe you went gold prospecting in Africa!”

  “Hmm” was all Xiangzi said.

  Fourth Master ran his eyes over Xiangzi but said nothing. Still wearing his new straw hat, Xiangzi sat down across from them. “Join us if you haven’t eaten,” Huniu said, as if welcoming a close friend.

  Xiangzi did not budge, but a warm, hard-to-describe feeling flooded over him. Harmony Shed had always been home to him. He’d have a series of monthly hires, and then he’d be out on the street again for a while. And all that time he had a place to stay, right here in Harmony Shed, and someone to talk to. After barely escaping with his life, he was back among friends, people who invited him to join them at the table, and he’d have been forgiven for thinking that this was all a cruel trick. But, no, he was nearly in tears.

  “I had two bowls of bean curd a while ago,” he said politely.

  “Where have you been?” Fourth Master Liu asked, his eyes still fixed on Xiangzi. “Where’s your rickshaw?”

  “Rickshaw?” Xiangzi spat in anguish.

  “Come eat first,” Huniu said as she pulled him up to the table, like an affectionate elder sister.

  “We won’t poison you, and two bowls of bean curd hardly make a meal.”

  Instead of picking up a bowl, Xiangzi took out his money. “Fourth Master,” he said, “would you hold this for me? Thirty yuan.” He returned the small change to his pocket.

  “Where’d you get it?” Fourth Master’s eyebrows formed the question.

  Xiangzi related his experience with the soldiers as he ate. “You young fool,” Fourth Master said, shaking his head. “If you’d brought those camels into town and sold them to a slaughterhouse, you could have gotten ten or fifteen a head. In the winter, when they’re done molting, they’d have brought in sixty yuan!”

  Xiangzi already had qualms, and this news only made him feel worse. But on second thought, selling three living, breathing creatures to face the knife didn’t seem right. He and the camels had escaped together, and they all deserved to live. He said nothing, his heart at peace.

  While Huniu was clearing the table, Fourth Master looked up, as if mulling something over. He smiled, revealing those two fangs, which were getting harder with age. “What a simpleton you are. You say you fell ill at Haidian. Then why didn’t you take the Yellow Village road straight back here?”

  “I went the long way around the Western Hills to avoid running into trouble. If the villagers thought I was a deserter, they’d have come after me.”

  Fourth Master smiled and rolled his eyes. He’d been afraid that Xiangzi was lying about where he’d gotten the thirty yuan, and he wouldn’t have been able to hold it for him if it had been stolen. As a young man, if it was illegal, he’d done it. Now he declared he was on the straight and narrow, and that required caution, something he had gotten good at. There had only been that one hole in Xiangzi’s tale of woe, but his explanation made it possible for the old man to breathe easy.

  “What do you plan to do with this?” he asked, pointing to the money.

  “You tell me.”

  “Want to buy another rickshaw?” Once again, the fangs appeared, which seemed to mean “You plan to use your own rickshaw but live here for free, is that it?”

  “There isn’t enough. I’m only interested in buying a new one.” Xiangzi was too occupied with his own thoughts to notice Fourth Master Liu’s fangs.

  “Want a loan? Ten percent interest. For others I charge twenty percent.”

  Xiangzi shook his head. “Better to pay me ten percent than borrow from a loan shark.”

  “I say no to both,” Xiangzi said, almost spellbound. “I’ll save up, little by little, until I’ve got enough to pay cash.”

  The old man looked at Xiangzi as if he were a written character he’d never seen before. No matter how unpleasant things might be, he could not get angry. After a moment, he picked up the money. “Thirty? You’re sure that’s all?”

  “That’s all!” Xiangzi stood up. “Time to turn in. Here’s a box of matches.” He laid a box on the table, stood there vacantly for a moment, and then added, “Don’t tell anyone about the camels.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  As promised, Old Man Liu told no one of Xiangzi’s experiences, but the camel story quickly spread from Haidian into the city. In the past, people had found little fault with Xiangzi, except that he was stubbornly antisocial and a bit difficult to deal with. But “Camel Xiangzi” was a different matter. Though he continued to work quietly and stayed clear of people, they began to see him in a different light. Some said he’d found a gold watch, others that he’d come into possession of three hundred yuan, and one person, who considered himself to be the only one in the know, nodded confidently and said that Xiangzi had brought thirty camels back from the Western Hills. The stories differed, but the conclusions did not: through shady dealings Xiangzi had struck it rich, and anyone who came in to easy money, whether he was on good terms with people or not, was worthy of respect. Selling one’s muscle is a hard way to make a living, so who could be blamed for dreaming of ill-gotten riches, no matter how long the odds? No wonder such people were seen as favored by fate. And so, sullen and standoffish Xiangzi was transformed into a m
an of distinction who had every right to be taciturn and was worthy of being fawned over.

  “Come on, Xiangzi, tell us how you got rich!” It was a refrain he heard every day. He remained tight-lipped. If they pressed him, the scar on his face turned red and he said, “Rich? Then where the hell is my rickshaw!”

  And that was the truth. Where was his rickshaw? That got them thinking. But commiserating with people is never as easy as congratulating them. And so they forgot all about Xiangzi’s rickshaw, focusing instead on his good fortune. For a few days, that is, until they saw him pulling a rickshaw again instead of taking up a new trade or buying a house or some land, and their attitude cooled off. Now, when someone mentioned Camel Xiangzi, no one bothered to ask why he was called camel, of all animals. They just accepted it.

  Xiangzi, on the other hand, could not forget what had happened to him. He was burning to buy a new rickshaw, but the greater his impatience, the more he thought about his first rickshaw. He pushed himself, working hard with no complaint, but not even that erased the memory of what had happened, thoughts that nearly suffocated him. He couldn’t help wondering what good it did to try so hard. The world didn’t treat you any fairer just because you tried hard. Not a world in which his rickshaw had been taken from him! Even if he managed to get another one right away, who was to say the same thing wouldn’t happen again? It was a nightmare that destroyed his faith in the future. He often watched enviously as the other men drank and smoked and visited whorehouses. If trying hard was a waste of time, why not enjoy life for a change? They had it right. Though he wasn’t quite ready to go to a whorehouse, he could at least have a drink or two and relax. Alcohol and tobacco suddenly held a strong attraction; neither cost much, and both brought a bit of comfort, an incentive to struggle on and help a man forget past suffering.

  And yet he could not bring himself to try either one. Every cent he saved brought him that much closer to his goal of buying a new rickshaw. Not buying one was unthinkable, even if it was taken from him the day after he got it. It was his ideal, his aspiration, almost his religion. He had no reason to live if he could not pull his own rickshaw. He did not aspire to become an official, or get rich, or start up a business. His talent was in pulling a rickshaw, and his unwavering hope was to buy one of his own; not to do so would have been a disgrace. Day and night, this was the thought that occupied him and the reason he counted his money so carefully. The day he forgot this would be the day he forgot himself, and he’d then be little more than a beast that knew how to pull a rickshaw, lacking all traces of humanity. Even the finest rickshaw, if it was a rental, he pulled half-heartedly, as unnaturally as if he were carrying a rock on his back. He didn’t slack off just because it was a rental; he always cleaned it up after bringing it in for the day, and took pains to keep from damaging it. But he did this to be prudent, not because he enjoyed it. Yes, taking care of his own rickshaw brought the same satisfaction as counting his own money. He still neither smoked nor drank, and would not even treat himself to a cup of good tea. In teahouses, reputable rickshaw men like him, after burning up the streets awhile, would spend ten cents for a bag of tea and two lumps of sugar to revitalize themselves and cool off. When Xiangzi ran until sweat dripped from his ears and his chest felt the strain, that’s what he’d have liked to do, not out of habit or to put on airs but because it was what he needed. Yet after a moment’s thought, he’d settle for a one-cent bag of tea dross. There were times when he felt like cursing for being so hard on himself, but what was a rickshaw man set on putting a bit of money aside each month to do? No, he’d endure whatever it took to buy a rickshaw. After that, who could say? Owning a rickshaw made everything worthwhile.

  He was miserly with his money and tenacious about making more of it. He took monthly hires when he could and spent all day picking up fares on the street the rest of the time, going out early and returning late, and only then if he’d earned his daily quota, regardless of the hour or the state of his legs. Some days he stayed out well into the night. Until then, he’d refused to steal other pullers’ fares, especially the old, the frail, and disabled veterans. Given his strength and superior rickshaw, they would not have stood a chance in a fight for business now. He was no longer so scrupulous. Money, every single coin, was all that mattered, not how much the effort cost him or who he had to fight for it. He was single-minded in reaching his goal, like a ravenous wild animal. As soon as someone was in the seat behind him, Xiangzi ran; he never felt better than when he was running, firm in his belief that stopping was an impediment to his goal of buying his own rickshaw. But his reputation suffered. On many occasions, when he stole a fare, a volley of curses would follow him. He never responded, merely lowered his head and ran as fast as he could. “If I didn’t need to buy a rickshaw,” he said to himself, “I’d never shame myself like that.” It was an unspoken apology. At rickshaw stands or in teahouses, when he noticed the disapproving glares, he wanted to explain himself. But since they all gave him the cold shoulder, compounded by the fact that he never drank or gambled or played chess or simply passed the time with them, he forced the words back down and kept them inside. Embarrassment gradually turned to resentment and suppressed rage. When they glared at him, he glared back. When he thought about how they had looked up to him after his escape from the mountains, their change in attitude rankled. Alone with his pot of tea in a teahouse or counting his earnings at a rickshaw stand, he swallowed his anger. Not one to look for a fight, he would not back down from one, either. That was also true for most of the other men, but they thought twice before mixing it up with Xiangzi, since they were no match for him, one-on-one, and ganging up would be a disgrace. Forcing himself to keep his anger in check—the only way he knew how to deal with the situation—he would endure it the best he could until he had his own rickshaw. Once he was free of the need to come up with a day’s rental, he could be generous and stop offending other pullers by stealing their fares. That was the way to look at it, he thought to himself as he eyed the other men, as if to say, “Wait and see.”

  But back to Xiangzi. He ought not to have pushed himself so hard. He’d barely returned to the city when he began pulling a rickshaw again, before giving his body a chance to fully recover. Never one to bow down to adversity, he tired easily. Even then, he refused to rest, convinced that the way to overcome soreness and sluggishness was to run more and sweat more. Knowing the pitfalls of starving himself, he nonetheless refused to eat good, nutritious food. He could see he was thinner than before, but he was still bigger and taller than the other men and was reassured that his muscles were still hard. He believed he could put up with more hardships than they, and it never occurred to him that his size and the hard work he forced upon himself required more nourishment. Huniu often said to him, “If you keep this up, don’t blame others when you start spitting up blood!”

  He knew she meant well, but because things were going badly and he was not taking care of his body, he was irritable. With a scowl, he grumbled, “If I don’t keep at it, when will I be able to buy my rickshaw?”

  Anyone else who scowled at Huniu like that would never hear the end of it—but not Xiangzi, on whom she doted and whom she treated with unwavering courtesy. She merely curled her lip and said:

  “Buying a rickshaw takes time, even for someone who thinks he’s made of steel. What you need is a good rest.” She saw he wasn’t listening. “All right,” she said, “do it your way, but don’t blame me if you drop dead along the way.”

  Fourth Master Liu wasn’t pleased with Xiangzi, either; going out early and returning late after driving himself to the point of exhaustion was bad for the rickshaw. Rental agreements were good for the entire day, with no restrictions on when rickshaws were taken out or brought back in. But if every puller worked as hard as Xiangzi, the rickshaws would be worn out six months before their time. Even the sturdiest vehicle could not stand such punishing treatment. And that was not all the old man lost. Neglecting everything but hauling fares meant that Xi
angzi had no time to clean rickshaws and help out with other chores. No wonder Liu was unhappy. But he kept it to himself, since all-day rentals were the rule in the trade, and doing odd jobs in the yard was an act of friendship, not an obligation. It would have been unseemly for a man of Liu’s reputation to complain to Xiangzi, so all he could do was cast disapproving looks out of the corner of his eye and keep his lips clamped shut. At times he felt like throwing Xiangzi out, but he didn’t dare, because of his daughter. While he did not see Xiangzi as a prospective son-in-law, he avoided anything that might upset Huniu, who seemed to have her eye on the impetuous young man. He had only one daughter, a woman with no marriage prospects, and chasing away her friend would have been unwise. There was no denying that she was a big help in the yard, and he selfishly was in no hurry for her to get married; maybe his guilty feelings made him a little afraid of her. All his life, he had feared neither heaven nor earth, only to arrive at old age afraid of his own daughter! He was able to rationalize the embarrassment by attributing his fear of her as proof that he was not totally heartless, and that on his deathbed he would not have to suffer retribution for his misdeeds. Acknowledging a fear of his daughter justified not driving Xiangzi away. That was not to say he would brook any nonsense from her in regard to marrying the man. Absolutely not. He could see that this had crossed her mind, but Xiangzi had so far not taken advantage of that to improve his situation.

  All Liu had to do was be watchful—no sense upsetting his daughter.

  Xiangzi was oblivious to Fourth Master’s watchful eye, for he had no time to worry about such things. If he decided to leave Harmony Shed, it would not be personal; a monthly hire was the only thing that could lure him away. He’d grown tired of picking up passengers on the street, partly because the other men hated him for stealing their fares and partly because his income varied so widely from day to day—more today, less tomorrow—making it impossible to predict when he’d have enough to buy his rickshaw. For him, a steady income was the best, even if he could make a little more picking up stray fares. That way he’d know exactly how much he could put away each month, which brought hope and peace of mind. He was a man who liked things neat and tidy.