Rickshaw Boy: A Novel

by She Lao

  “Don’t worry,” she said, “I rented it to Ding Si.”

  “Oh!” That worried him. What if Ding Si damaged his rickshaw? But since he was sick in bed, they’d have to rent it out. They couldn’t let it stand idle. He did some silent calculations: on a normal day he could bring in fifty or sixty cents by pulling the rickshaw himself, barely enough for two people for rent, fuel, rice, oil, and tea—clothing was extra—if they watched their money carefully, something Huniu was not doing. Now, with only ten cents coming in each day from the rental, they had to make up the lost amount from their savings, not counting the cost of medicine. What if his illness dragged on? No wonder Er Qiangzi turned to drink and his down-and-out friends committed all kinds of outrages. Pulling a rickshaw was a dead-end trade. No matter how hard you worked or tried to better yourself, you cannot marry, get sick, or make a false move. “Hah!” he muttered as he thought back to his first rickshaw and the money he’d put aside. Who had he offended? It had been taken from him for no good reason, though he had neither married nor fallen ill. Good or bad, it made no difference, death claimed you in the end, whether you saw it coming or not. This thought turned his melancholy to despair. To hell with it! Why not just lie here, why try to get up in the first place? So he lay there, his mind a blank. But not for long. He felt he had to get up and do the only thing he knew how to do. It might be a dead-end, but his heart was still beating, and he would keep his hopes alive until they laid him in his coffin. For the moment he was still too weak to stand. He turned to Huniu.

  “I knew that rickshaw was bad luck,” he said pitifully.

  “You’re supposed to be getting better, not talking nonsense, you and your rickshaw!”

  Xiangzi said nothing. She was right. Ever since the very first day he had believed that a rickshaw was everything. If only…

  Once he was on the mend, he got out of bed and looked in the mirror. He hardly recognized the man looking back at him. Scruffy beard, sunken temples and cheeks, a pair of hollowed eyes, even wrinkles spidering his scar! The room was stuffy, but he didn’t dare go out in the yard, partly because his legs were still rubbery but also because he didn’t want to be seen. Everyone in the compound, like the men at the rickshaw stands in East and West City, knew that Xiangzi was one of the hardiest men around, not the sickly creature he’d become. No, he couldn’t go outside; but the room was sweltering. How he wished he could eat himself back to health and go back out with his rickshaw. But the ravages of illness came and went at will.

  After being laid up for a month, Xiangzi took his rickshaw out, mindless of whether he was completely recovered or not. He pulled his hat down low so no one would recognize him when he ran more slowly than before. The words Xiangzi and speed were inseparable, and he knew that people would laugh at him if he made a show of loping along.

  Though his body had not yet healed, he took on as many fares as he could to make up for what the illness had cost him; his sickness returned in a matter of days. And this time his troubles were compounded by dysentery. He slapped himself in frustration, but that accomplished nothing. His stomach was caved in; his bowels were loose. By the time his dysentery was under control, his legs were so weak he could hardly get up from a squat, let alone run. So he took another month off, though he knew that Huniu’s money was quickly running out.

  On the fifteenth of August, Xiangzi was determined to take his rickshaw out again. He vowed that if his illness returned, he’d end it all in the river.

  Fuzi had visited him often during his first illness. For someone who could never best Huniu in an argument and who had such a gloomy outlook on life, Xiangzi enjoyed his occasional chats with Fuzi. That did not sit well with Huniu. Fuzi was her friend when Xiangzi was out, but with him at home, she was—according to Huniu—a shameless harlot. And so, after demanding that Fuzi return the money she’d lent her, she sent her away: “Don’t come back here anymore!”

  So Fuzi lost a place to entertain her clients. Her own room was so shabby—her bed mat still hung over the crumbled wall—she had no choice but to go to register at the escort service. But the service, which specialized in schoolgirls and girls from good families, rebuffed her. With good connections and steep prices, they had no use for such common goods. Now what? She considered going to one of the brothels, since she had no capital and no ability to work for herself, but there she’d have to turn over her earnings and lose her freedom. Then who would look after her brothers? Death was the easy way out of this living hell, and that did not frighten her, but now was not the time—she was determined to do something nobler and more courageous than die. There was plenty of time for that after she’d seen to it that her brothers could survive on their own. Death would come sooner or later, but she wanted her death to be the salvation of two young lives. After thinking things through, she saw only one path open to her: to sell herself cheaply, since no one who came through her door would be willing to pay a high price. All right, then, anyone was welcome, as long as he paid. She could stop worrying about nice clothes or cosmetics, for no one who paid so little could expect much in the way of appearances. All they cared about was the little bit of pleasure their money bought; her youth alone made it a bargain.

  By then, Huniu, big with child, was having trouble getting around and was afraid of losing the baby if she went shopping. With Xiangzi out all day and Fuzi no longer willing to come by, she was as lonely as a caged dog. That loneliness increased her bitterness, for she believed that Fuzi was selling herself so cheaply to spite her, and that was unendurable. So she began sitting in the outer room with the door open, waiting. When she saw men approach Fuzi’s room, in a loud, abusive voice she said things that made the men uncomfortable and embarrassed Fuzi. She took malicious pleasure in the decline of Fuzi’s business.

  Fuzi knew that at this rate, the other residents of the compound would gradually align themselves with Huniu to drive her out. She was afraid, but dared not get angry. People who have fallen as low as she know that anger and tears serve no practical purpose. So, brothers in tow, she went to Huniu and knelt at her feet. She said nothing; the look on her face said it all. If this act did not save the situation, she was prepared to die, but would take someone with her. The noblest sacrifice of all is to endure humiliation, and the noblest endurance of humiliation is in preparing to resist.

  This put Huniu, who was caught off guard, in a bind. She could not fight the girl, not in her condition, and since a physical response was out of the question, she squirmed out of the awkward situation by telling Fuzi that it had all been in fun. Imagine Fuzi taking it so seriously! That did the trick; they were friends again, with Huniu back to supporting the younger woman in her calling.

  Since he again began taking out his rickshaw soon after the Moon Festival, caution had become Xiangzi’s new watchword. One illness on top of another had taught him that he was not made of steel. He still hoped to make as much money as possible, but the setbacks had taught him an important lesson: a man alone is the embodiment of weakness. Any man worthy of the name must grit his teeth to survive, but even then he might wind up spitting blood. No longer bothered by dysentery, Xiangzi still suffered occasional stomach pains. Sometimes, when he was loping along and wanted to test his legs with a bit of speed, his stomach would twist into knots, forcing him to slow down, even stop, lower his head, and bear the contractions in his gut as best he could. He didn’t do badly when he was on his own, but when he was part of a group and pulled up abruptly like that, the others wondered what was happening, and he was mortified. If he became a laughingstock in his twenties, what would he be like in his thirties and forties? The thought made him shudder.

  A monthly hire would have put less strain on his body, since there would be rest breaks between trips. He could run fast and then take a long break, which was easier than picking up fares all day. But Huniu was not going to let go of him, that was a certainty; marriage had cost him his freedom, and the woman he’d married was a shrew. What rotten luck!

  Si
x months passed, from autumn to winter, with Xiangzi somehow getting by half the time and struggling the rest, avoiding careless mistakes without slacking off, in the grip of dejection but determined to dig in and keep fighting. Dig in. No longer could he blithely take things as they came. He still earned more than most rickshaw men, passing up no fares except when his stomach acted up. He refused to employ the tricks some men used; he never demanded exorbitant fares, switched fares midway, or waited for customers that paid well. It was tiring work, but it made for a steady income. And by avoiding all forms of deception he stayed clear of danger.

  And yet he never earned enough to put a little aside. He took the money in with his left hand and paid it out with his right, just about breaking even each day. Saving a bit was out of the question. He knew how to economize, but Huniu knew only how to spend. Her confinement was due early in the second month of the new year, and when she began to show, at the beginning of winter, she thrust her belly out as a sign of her importance. A glance at her bulging abdomen was all she needed to stay in and let Fuzi do the cooking; the leftovers were fed to her brothers, which was an added expense. And, of course, Huniu snacked between meals, increasing the girth around her middle. She felt she mustn’t deny herself the treats she deserved; besides spending her own money on little tidbits, she had Xiangzi bring something home every day. Whatever he earned, she spent; she pegged her demands on his fluctuating earnings, and there was nothing he could say. Her money had gotten them through when he was laid up, and now it was his turn to spend on her. Holding back even a bit drove her straight to her sickbed. “Carrying a child is a nine-month illness, something you’ll never understand.” That was the truth.

  Huniu got more demanding as New Year’s approached. Since her movements were restricted, Fuzi was sent out to buy things for her. However much she hated being stuck in the house, she pampered herself too much to go outside. She was bored to tears, and her only recourse was to treat herself to the things she liked, though she insisted they were for Xiangzi, not for her. “Why don’t you try some,” she said, “after working so hard? You haven’t completely recovered, and it’s already the end of the year. If you don’t eat, you’ll wind up skinnier than a bedbug.” Xiangzi did not argue with her—he didn’t know how—so she prepared whatever it was and ate two or three large bowlfuls. Then, when she was finished, she’d sit there, bloated and complaining that it was a problem with her pregnancy.

  After New Year’s, Huniu kept Xiangzi from going out at night, afraid that the baby might come when he was away. Only now was she reminded of her true age, though she would not reveal it. She stopped saying, “I’m just a tiny bit older than you” to Xiangzi, which had always annoyed him. Life is perpetuated by the birth of sons and daughters, and he was secretly pleased, despite the knowledge that a child was one thing he did not need. Yet even the hardest-hearted man will, if he closes his eyes and reflects, be moved by that simple, magical word Dad, when it refers to him, whatever else he might think. Xiangzi, a rough, clumsy man, could see nothing in himself to be proud of. But that wonderful word made him feel respectable; it did not matter that he had nothing, since a child of his own gave value to his life. Then he considered Huniu, who was no longer just “one” person, and vowed to do what he could for her, wait on her as best he could. Disagreeable though she was, in this situation she deserved credit. And yet he’d run out of patience with her mercurial temper. She would change her mind on a whim and make absurd demands on Xiangzi, who had to go out to make a day’s wages and then rest in the evenings. Even if she spent his earnings foolishly, he needed a good night’s sleep so he could go out the next day and do it all over again. But she not only kept him home in the evenings, she made it impossible for him to get a decent night’s sleep, and he was helpless to change matters. He plodded woozily through each day, like it or not, by turns happy, anxious, and dejected. There were times when he was ashamed of his happiness, times when he was comforted by his anxiety, and times when he was happy to be dejected. His emotions were a jumble, and as a simple man, he lost the ability to figure out which way was up. Once he even took a passenger past his destination after forgetting the address he’d been told.

  Around the time of the Lantern Festival in the middle of the first lunar month, Huniu, having reached the point where she could hold out no longer, sent Xiangzi for a midwife, who saw that it was not time and explained to her the signs of imminent labor. Huniu held on for two more days before raising another row, demanding that the midwife return. Still too soon. By then she was screaming tearfully that she wanted to die, that she was in unbearable agony. Xiangzi, feeling helpless, could only indulge her by not taking his rickshaw out.

  By the end of the month, even he could tell that the time had come. Huniu no longer looked human. When the midwife arrived this time, she hinted to Xiangzi that owing to the mother’s age and the facts that this would be her first child, that she had been sedentary for so long, that the fetus was especially large, and that she had eaten far too much greasy, fatty food, it was likely to be a difficult birth. Those factors eliminated any hope that things would go smoothly. She had not seen a doctor, who would have helped her correct the position of the fetus, and the midwife lacked the skill to do that. But she knew enough to say, “I’m afraid we might be in for a tough time.”

  In the compound it had become customary to talk about the birth of a child and the death of a mother in the same breath. But the danger for Huniu was greater than for the other women, who remained active up till the day the babies came, and who kept the size of the fetus down by eating less. Their babies came easily; the danger they faced came from a lack of care after childbirth. It was the opposite for Huniu, whose advantages in life would prove to be her downfall.

  Xiangzi, Fuzi, and the midwife attended her for three days, during which she called upon all the deities she could think of and made countless vows. All wasted. Finally, her voice nearly gone, she could only call out softly, “Mother!” There was nothing the midwife could do, nothing anyone could do, so Huniu told Xiangzi to go to Desheng Gate and fetch Granny Chen, an old medium who spoke through a Toad Spirit. Granny Chen demanded five yuan to come, so Huniu took out her last seven or eight yuan and handed them to him. “Go ahead, Xiangzi, and be quick about it. Never mind the money. When I’m better, I’ll be a good wife to you. Now go!”

  Granny Chen arrived in the company of her acolyte, a jaundiced forty-year-old man, when it was time to light the lamps. In her fifties, she was dressed in a blue silk jacket, wore a red pomegranate flower in her hair, and was draped in gold-plated jewelry. The first thing the hawk-eyed woman did after walking in the door was wash her hands; then she lit some incense, kowtowed, and sat in front of the incense stand staring intensely at the burning tips. Suddenly, without warning, her body quaked with violent spasms, her head drooped, her eyes snapped shut, and she remained motionless for what seemed like a long time. They could have truly heard a pin drop in the room. Even Huniu clenched her teeth to keep from making a sound. Granny Chen’s head rose slowly before nodding to the people in the room as her acolyte grabbed Xiangzi to get him to kowtow. Now, Xiangzi could not say if he believed in spirits, but what harm could a kowtow do? So he began, unsure of how many times he banged his head on the floor. When he stood up, he looked expectantly at the piercing eyes and the glowing incense tips and smelled the fragrant smoke, vaguely hoping that something good would come of all this. His palms were sweaty as he stood there in a bit of a daze.

  The Toad Spirit spoke in an ancient, shaky voice, “No, no, it doesn’t matter, draw a charm to hasten, hasten, hasten the delivery!”

  The acolyte quickly handed a sheet of thin yellow paper to the spirit, who grabbed a handful of incense sticks, wetted the paper with spit, and began to draw.

  When she finished, she muttered something about a previous life, wherein Huniu had incurred a debt to her child, who was making her suffer. Poor, bewildered Xiangzi understood little of what she said, but he was afraid.r />
  Granny Chen yawned grandly, shut her eyes for a moment, and then snapped them open, as if waking from a dream. She seemed pleased when the acolyte told her what the Toad Spirit had said. “The Toad Spirit must be happy today, for it has spoken. She told Xiangzi to make Huniu swallow the magic charm, along with a pill she handed him.

  Granny Chen then eagerly waited to see what effect her charm produced. Meanwhile, Xiangzi was expected to feed her, a task he entrusted to Fuzi, who went out and bought some sesame cakes fresh from the oven and a jellied pig’s elbow. Granny Chen grumbled over the lack of wine to wash it all down.

  Huniu had swallowed the charm, but even after the medium and her acolyte had finished eating, she writhed in agony on the bed. That went on for another hour, until her eyes rolled up into her head. Undaunted, Granny Chen calmly told Xiangzi to light another stick of incense and kneel in front of it. By then, his faith in Granny Chen had pretty much vanished, but since he had spent five yuan on her, he might as well give it a try, since he certainly couldn’t attack her physically. Besides, what if it actually worked?

  Kneeling before the stick of incense, his back straight, Xiangzi had no idea who he was praying to, but he concentrated on being devout. As he watched the flickering flame, he talked himself into seeing something shadowy in the red glow, and he began to pray. The incense burned lower, gray streaks spreading across the red tip; his head drooped and he rested his hands on the floor as a hazy sense of weariness overcame him, after three days with hardly any sleep. When his head pitched forward, he awoke with a start. The incense stick had burned all the way down. Without knowing if this was the time he should stand up or not, he braced his hands on the floor and got slowly to his feet on legs that were slightly numb.

  Granny Chen and her acolyte had stolen away as he slept. With no time for enmity, Xiangzi rushed over to check on Huniu, aware that he could expect the worst. She had deteriorated to the point of being unable to speak. The midwife told him to rush her to the hospital, that there was nothing more she could do.