Rickshaw Boy: A Novel

by She Lao

  Among the men, Xiangzi and Er Qiangzi were the exceptions. Xiangzi hated the idea of walking into the compound and shuddered at the thought of entering his own room. The unending talk in the compound always put him out of sorts, and he longed for a quiet place to be by himself. At home it seemed to him that Huniu was truly living up to her name. He nearly choked on the heat, the oppressive atmosphere, and the tigress who lived there the moment he walked inside. Before Huniu had someone to keep her company, he had been forced to come home early to avoid an argument. But now that she had loosened her grip on him, he could, and did, stay out late.

  As for Er Qiangzi, who stayed away most of the time, his daughter’s trade shamed him too much to show his face in the compound. But since he was incapable of supporting his children, he could not stop her from doing what she did. Best for him to stay away. The phrase “out of sight, out of mind” said it best. Some of the time he deeply resented his daughter; if she had been a man, she would not have made such a spectacle of herself. Why, as a female, had she been born into this family? Other times he took pity on a daughter who was forced to sell her body in order to feed her brothers. But resentment or fondness, what difference did it make? When he was drunk and broke, he neither hated nor pitied her, but came to her for money. At such times he saw her as a wage earner, and as her father, he had the right to claim some of her earnings. He also had to keep up appearances, and since everyone else looked down on her, he must do the same. Cursing and verbally abusing her as he pressed her for money would show everyone that he—Er Qiangzi—knew how shameless his daughter was.

  So he yelled at her, and she bore it. Huniu, on the other hand, sent him away with curses, but only after he’d gotten what he came for—more money to drink away. If he’d ever seen this with a clear head, he’d probably have drowned or hanged himself.

  The sun scorched the earth on the fifteenth of June as soon as it rose in the morning. A suffocating gray vapor, neither cloud nor mist, hung low in the sky. Not a breath of wind anywhere. The sight of the reddish-gray sky convinced Xiangzi that he ought to take the night shift, going out to pull his rickshaw after four in the afternoon. If business was slow, he could stay out all night. Working at night was more bearable than suffering through the day.

  But Huniu wanted him out early so he wouldn’t be around if Fuzi had a client. “You might think it’s better inside, but by noon the walls will be too hot to touch,” she said.

  Without a word, he drank a ladleful of water and went out. Willow trees lining the street drooped as if sick, dusty leaves curling at the tips, branches hanging limp. The parched roadway gave off a white glare while dust swirled above the dirt paths and merged with the gray vapor to form a cruel veil of sand that seared people’s faces. No place escaped the dry, blistering heat or oppressive air that turned the ancient city into a blazing kiln. People could hardly breathe; dogs sprawled on the ground, pink tongues lolling from their mouths; mules and horses flared their nostrils; peddlers’ voices were stilled; road surfaces cracked. Even brass signs above shop doors seemed to be melting. Except for the unnerving clanging of a hammer in the blacksmith shop, the streets were deathly quiet. Even knowing they wouldn’t eat if they weren’t out running, men who pulled rickshaws could not muster the energy to take on fares. Some parked their rickshaws in the shade, raised the rain hoods, and dozed, while others escaped the heat in teahouses or came out without their rickshaws to see if there was any reason to work that day. Those who picked up passengers, including the best-looking and youngest among them, preferred walking to running hard, even if they lost a bit of face in the process. Every drinking well was a lifesaver; they never passed one by, even if they’d only run a few steps, and if they missed one, they drank greedily from troughs set out for mules and horses. Then there were those who walked along until heatstroke or a case of cholera sent them pitching to the ground, from which they never rose again.

  Xiangzi, too, was intimidated by the heat, which seemed to wrap itself around him after he’d taken only a few steps with his empty rickshaw. Even the backs of his hands were sweating. But that did not stop him from responding to a potential fare—maybe running would stir up a slight breeze. But when he started off, he realized that no one should be out working in such crippling heat. The air was too hot to breathe and his lips burned as he ran. He wasn’t thirsty, but the sight of water made him want to drink. Yet as soon as he stopped, the searing heat blistered the skin on his hands and back. His clothes stuck to his body by the time he’d managed to get where he was going, so he tried fanning himself with a rush fan, but all that did was assault his face with hot wind. He’d drunk water every chance he had, and still he went to a teahouse, where he drank two cups of hot tea, which made him feel a little better. The tea went in, the sweat oozed out, as if his body were an empty chamber that could not retain a drop of water. He was afraid to even move.

  After sitting there awhile, he grew restless. He didn’t dare go back outside, but he had nothing to do, and he felt as if the weather was spiting him. No, he thought, I won’t admit defeat. This was not his first day out, and certainly not his first summer day, and he refused to waste a whole working day. But his legs did not feel up to the task and he was listless, like one who is sweating after a hot bath that has failed to invigorate. So he sat a while longer, but since even that made him sweat, he might just as well go out and give it another try.

  He realized his mistake the moment he stepped outside. The gray vapor had dissipated, lessening the oppressive feeling, but the sun was beating down so savagely that no one dared look up. The sky, the rooftops, the walls, even the ground, were dazzlingly white, tinged with red. Wherever you looked, up or down, the world was like a fiery mirror on which every ray of sunlight seemed focused, turning everything it touched into flame. In that engulfing whiteness, every color hurt the eye, every sound grated on the ear, and every smell carried with it a stench from the steamy ground. The streets, all but deserted, appeared wider than before, an expanse devoid of cool air, and so white it made him shudder in fear. Xiangzi didn’t know what to do as he plodded along in a daze, head down, pulling his rickshaw behind him, heading nowhere and reeking of sticky sweat that covered his body. Before long, his shoes and socks stuck to the soles of his feet, as if he’d stepped in mud; it felt terrible. When he spotted a well, he drank; though he wasn’t thirsty, he savored the refreshing coolness of the water as it slid down his throat into his stomach. His pores contracted and he shivered, an enormously pleasant feeling. He belched several times, nearly bringing the water back up.

  After walking awhile, he sat to rest, too lazy to look for fares, all the way to noon. Not particularly hungry, he thought about getting something to eat anyway, except the sight of food sickened him. His water-filled stomach made an occasional gurgling sound, like the sloshing of water in a mule’s stomach.

  Xiangzi, who had always feared winter more than summer, never imagined that summer could be so unbearable. This was not his first summer in the city, but it was easily the hottest in memory. But had the weather changed or had he? Suddenly, his mind cleared and his heart seemed to chill. His body, it was his body that had weakened. Fear gripped him, but there was nothing he could do. He could not drive Huniu away, and one day he would be just like Er Qiangzi or that tall fellow he’d met that day or Little Ma’s granddad. He was doomed.

  He caught another fare at one o’clock that afternoon, the hottest time of the hottest day of the year, but he was determined to take the customer where he wanted to go, the searing sun be damned! If he managed to pull this off, he’d know he was still fit. But if he couldn’t, all he could say was he’d be better off crumpling to the burning ground and dying.

  He’d taken only a few steps when he felt a bit of cool air, like the breeze that seeps in through the door of a hot, stuffy room. It must be an illusion, he thought. But then he saw the branches of roadside willows rustle as people swarmed into the street from the shops, covering their heads with rush fans and
looking all around. “A breeze! A real breeze!” they shouted, jumping up and down. The willows had become angels bearing heavenly tidings. “The willows are swaying! Bring us more cool winds, old man in the sky!”

  It was still miserably hot, but people were breathing more easily. The cool wind—what little there was of it—brought them hope. After the wind gusts, the sun beat down less fiercely than before. The sky, now bright, now a bit darker, looked as if a cloud of flying sand were floating by. Then the winds increased, bringing joyful news to the dormant willow branches, which waved in the air and seemed to grow longer. A strong draft darkened the sky and filled it with stirred-up dust. When that began to settle, dark clouds appeared in the northern sky. Xiangzi, who was no longer sweating, looked to the north and stopped the rickshaw to put up the rain hood. He knew that summer rains came quickly and waited for no one.

  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.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Xiangzi
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?”