Rickshaw Boy: A Novel

by She Lao

  In Xiangzi’s eyes, the concubine was simply a woman who provided him with small change, not someone he admired. She was prettier than Fuzi, and she smelled wonderful, with all the perfume and powder she used. How could Fuzi compare with someone who dressed in silks and satins? But despite her beauty and delicate makeup, there was something about her that reminded him of Huniu. It wasn’t her clothes or her looks; no, it had more to do with her attitude and her behavior, though Xiangzi had trouble putting it into words. He just felt that she and Huniu were—it was the only expression he could think of—the same sort of goods. She was young, no more than twenty-two or -three, but she had the airs of an older woman, not those of a recent bride. Like Huniu, it seemed, she’d never known a time of girlish modesty or gentleness. Her hair was permed, she wore high-heeled shoes, and her clinging dresses showed off her figure to great effect. Even Xiangzi could see that, stylish though she was, she lacked the grace of most married women. But she didn’t appear to have been a prostitute, and Xiangzi could not figure her out. She intimidated him, the way Huniu had, but since she was younger and prettier than Huniu, it was, if anything, worse. She personified all the harsh feminine qualities and malice he’d ever experienced, and he averted his eyes when she was around.

  His fear of her increased the longer he worked there. Mr. Xia hardly ever spent any money when Xiangzi was around, though sometimes he bought drugs in a pharmacy. Xiangzi had no idea what the drugs were, but they made them a happy couple whenever he brought some home, and Mr. Xia normally a man who could hardly draw a full breath, would be full of energy. That would last two or three days, until Mr. Xia reverted to his sickly old self, even a bit more bent at the waist, like a fish bought at the market that would thrash around in a pail of water for a while before giving up the fight. Whenever Xiangzi saw Mr. Xia looking like death warmed over, he knew it was time to visit the pharmacy again. He did not like Mr. Xia but could not help feeling sorry for the scrawny monkey each time they headed for the pharmacy. Then when they returned home, drugs in hand, Xiangzi would think of Huniu and be miserable for some strange reason. He didn’t want to think bad thoughts about the deceased, but when he looked at himself and then at Mr. Xia, his resentment of her returned. He was not as strong as he’d once been, and for that Huniu had been largely responsible.

  He considered quitting, but to do so over something so trivial did not make sense. As he puffed on a Yellow Lion, he muttered to himself, “Worrying about other people is a waste of time.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  When chrysanthemums came on the market, Mrs. Xia bought four pots, one of which the maidservant, Yang Ma, broke, for which she suffered a severe tongue-lashing. Having come from the countryside, Yang Ma saw nothing special in flowers and houseplants. But through her own carelessness, she had broken something belonging to her employer, however inconsequential, and took the abuse without a sound. At first. But when Mrs. Xia went on relentlessly, calling her a country bumpkin and a useless savage, she could not keep her temper in check and out it came. Now, when country folk get worked up, self-control goes out the window; Yang Ma responded to Mrs. Xia with the vilest curses. Hopping mad, Mrs. Xia told Yang Ma to roll up her bedding and clear out.

  Xiangzi stood by without intervening in the blowup. His tongue never served him well in such situations, especially when the argument involved two women. And when he heard Yang Ma call Mrs. Xia a cheap whore, a stinking cunt ridden and fingered by a thousand men, he knew she could not possibly hold on to her job, and that he’d likely be fired too, since Mrs. Xia would not want a servant around who knew about her background. After Yang Ma left, Xiangzi waited to hear that he was dismissed. He figured it would happen as soon as a new maidservant was hired, and that did not bother him in the least. Experience had taught him that jobs came and went, and there was no need to get worked up over it.

  But after Yang Ma left, Mrs. Xia treated Xiangzi with surprising courtesy. With no maid in the house, she had to go into the kitchen to do the cooking, so she sent Xiangzi to the market. When he returned, she told him what to peel and what to wash while she chopped the meat and boiled the rice, talking to him the whole time. She was wearing a pink chemise over a pair of dark trousers and white satin embroidered slippers. Xiangzi did his work clumsily, head down to avoid the temptation to look at her. He breathed in her perfume, which seemed to be telling him he must look like a bee that is drawn to a flower.

  Knowing how dangerous a woman can be, Xiangzi also knew that they aren’t all bad. One Huniu was all it would take any man to both fear and cling to women. With Mrs. Xia, who was superior to Huniu, that prospect was intensified. He sneaked a look at her. Though she was as much to be feared as Huniu, she was in many ways more desirable than his wife had ever been.

  If this had been two years earlier, Xiangzi would not have had the nerve to look, but that bit of social convention no longer concerned him. In the first place, he had been seduced once and his self-control had suffered from that seduction. Second, he had gradually come to fit into the “rickshaw man” groove of behavior. What the average rickshaw man considered proper he did, too. Since hard work and self-restraint had brought him only failure, he had to concede that the other men’s behavior and attitude had been right, and he was determined to be a “rickshaw man,” whether he felt like it or not. You travel with the crowd or not at all. Now, any poor man knows that getting away with something is a good thing, so why had he passed up all those opportunities to do exactly that? He’d looked at her. So what! She was just a cheap woman, and if she was willing, he could not refuse her. It might have been difficult to believe that she could lower herself for him. But who could say? He would not make the first move and didn’t know what he’d do if she dropped a hint or two. But she had already opened the door a crack, which was the only reason he could think of for her sending Yang Ma on her way and not hiring another maid right away. Just so he could help out in the kitchen? Then why the perfume? Xiangzi entertained no illusions, but deep in his heart a choice was forming and hope was sprouting anew. He seemed caught up in a wonderful yet unreal dream; knowing it was only a dream, he was nonetheless set on seeing it through to the end. A life force inside compelled him to admit that he was not a good person; hidden in this admission was the source of great pleasure—and maybe great troubles. Who knew? Who cared?

  A ray of hope stoked his courage, and that little bit of courage created heat that ignited his heart. There was nothing cheap or demeaning here. Neither he nor she could be considered low-class. Carnal desire is common to all.

  But then a note of fear reawakened his judgment, and that judgment put out the fire in his heart. He was tempted to get out of there as fast as he could, for there could only be trouble here; by taking this road he would make a fool of himself.

  Hope one moment, fear the next, as if he were suffering from the alternating chills and fever of malaria. He felt worse now than he had when Huniu had entrapped him in his innocence. Then he’d been like a bee that falls into a spider web on its first venture out of the hive. Now he knew the virtues of caution and the risks of boldness. For some strange reason he wanted to take this to its logical conclusion, yet he was fearful of falling into the trap.

  He did not look down on this concubine, this unlicensed prostitute, this beauty, who was everything and nothing. If he wanted to defend this view, the person to be looked down on was that hateful scrawny monkey, Mr. Xia, who deserved retribution for being such a disgusting human being. With a husband like him, she could not be faulted for anything. And with an employer like him, he—Xiangzi—could do as he pleased. His courage returned.

  But she showed no sign of being aware that he had looked her way. When lunch was ready, she ate in the kitchen, alone. And when she finished, she called out to Xiangzi, “Come and eat. When you’re finished, you can do the dishes. This afternoon, when you go to pick up Mr. Xia, swing by the market to buy groceries for dinner. That will save you a trip. Tomorrow’s Sunday, so my husband will
be home, and I can go out and hire a new maid. Know anyone? A good maid is hard to find. But eat your lunch before it gets cold.”

  She’d spoken so easily and naturally. Her pink chemise—in Xiangzi’s eyes—suddenly did not seem so outrageous. Disappointment set in and then chagrin, as he realized that he really was a bad person, not a man with clear aspirations. Somehow he managed to finish off two bowls of rice, overcome by feelings of dejection. He went straight to his room after washing the dishes and chain-smoked Yellow Lions.

  That afternoon, as he was bringing Mr. Xia home, he was struck by intense feelings of disgust for the scrawny monkey and would have liked nothing more than to get up some speed, then let go of the shafts and send the man crashing to the ground. Only now did he understand what had happened once when he was working for a wealthy family. The master had caught his third concubine having dubious relations with his son, who had then thought seriously about poisoning the old man. Back then, Xiangzi had thought that the young master was too young to know what he was doing; now, however, Xiangzi understood that the old man really did deserve to die, though he personally had no desire to commit murder. To him, Mr. Xia was repugnant and loathsome, yet he had no way of making him pay for these ugly qualities. All he could do was jerk the shafts up and down to make it an uncomfortable ride for the scrawny monkey, who never said a word, which made Xiangzi feel that he himself had gotten the worst of it. Never before had he done anything like that, and though he had his reasons for doing it this time, that was no excuse. Feelings of regret instilled in him a sense of detachment. Why make things hard on myself? No matter how I look at it, I’m a rickshaw man. I need to do my job and not think about anything else.

  That calmed him. He put the incident out of his mind, and on those occasions when he was reminded of it, he found it ludicrous.

  Mrs. Xia went out the next day to hire a maid and returned later in the day with a trial maid in tow. Xiangzi knew what he could expect, and the whole affair left a bad taste in his mouth.

  After lunch on Monday, Mrs. Xia sent the trial maid packing, complaining that she wasn’t clean enough. Then she sent Xiangzi out to buy a pound of chestnuts.

  When he returned with the still-hot chestnuts, he stood outside her door and said he was back.

  “Bring them in,” she said.

  She was sitting at her vanity powdering her face when Xiangzi walked in. Still wearing the pink chemise, she had changed into a pair of light green pants. She turned to face Xiangzi when she saw him in the mirror, and smiled. He saw Huniu in that smile, a young and beautiful Huniu, and stood there stiffly. His courage, his hopes, his fears, and his caution, all gone, leaving only a heated breath that supported his body—it could swell up, it could shrink. This breath dictated whether he went forward or retreated; he had no will of his own.

  The next evening he returned to the rickshaw shed with his bedding.

  What Xiangzi had once considered the most fearful and shameful of things he now shared openly and jokingly with his friends: he could not urinate.

  His friends eagerly gave advice on which drugs to use and which doctor to go to, none of them seeing anything shameful about his predicament. With plenty of sympathetic advice, a bit of embarrassment, and considerable pride, they related their own experiences with the problem. Several of the younger men had paid to get the disease; some of the slighter older men had picked it up free of charge. Some of those with monthly hires spoke of experiences that differed in degree but were similar in nature, while others, who had no firsthand experience, related tales of their employers that were worth telling. Xiangzi’s sickness caused them to open their hearts to him and treat him as one of their own. Forgetting his shame, but taking no pride in what had happened to him, he took his sickness in stride, treating it as if he’d caught a cold or suffered a bit of heatstroke. Regret set in when there was pain, but once that passed, memories of the pleasure returned. He was not going to get excited over this, for he had lived long enough to know how little life was worth, and getting excited over such matters never accomplished a thing.

  The little bit of medicine and prescriptions cost over ten yuan but did not get to the root of his problem, since he quit taking the medicine as soon as he was a little better. On overcast days or during seasonal changes, when his joints began to ache, he would take a few more doses or tough it out, not caring one way or the other. Life was already unimaginably bitter, so why worry about his health? That was just the way things were. If even a fly can enjoy life in a privy, a grown man like him ought to be able to do at least as well.

  After the illness had passed, Xiangzi was a changed man. He was still as tall as before, but his fighting spirit had died. He let his shoulders sag and kept a cigarette dangling from his drooping lips. He often stuck an unlit butt behind his ear, not because it was a convenient place to keep it but to make him look tough. He still wasn’t much of a talker, but when he did speak, he larded his speech with street slang, caring only about the effect, not his lack of fluency. As his will deserted him, his appearance and attitude grew sloppy.

  And yet, he wasn’t so bad when compared to other rickshaw men. When he was alone, he thought back to what he’d been like before and longed to stop the downhill slide he was on. He knew he could be better, and while that might not do him any good in the end, there was nothing noble in self-destruction. At such times, thoughts of buying another rickshaw crept in. He had already spent ten or more of his thirty yuan on his illness, a waste of money. But with twenty yuan he wasn’t nearly as hopeless as the penniless men whose poverty had them firing a gun with an empty chamber. With that thought, he felt like throwing away the half-smoked pack of Yellow Lions and giving up smoking and drinking altogether. He’d tighten his belt and go back to saving money. Saving money meant buying a rickshaw, and that led him to guilty feelings about Fuzi. After leaving the compound, he hadn’t been back to see her, not once. And during all that time, he’d not only failed to better himself but had even contracted a shameful disease!

  But when he was with his friends, he continued to smoke and, when he had the chance, drink with them, putting Fuzi out of his mind. He was never one to take the lead in what they did, but he didn’t shy away from joining them, either. Having a good time with his friends was the only way he could put the hard day’s work and the bellyful of grievances behind him, for a while, at least. That momentary pleasure banished his lofty ideals, which were replaced by a desire to have a bit of fun and then sleep like the dead. Who wouldn’t prefer that to a meaningless, painful, hopeless way to live? Only the poisons of tobacco, liquor, and women have the power to dull life’s toxic cankers. Fight poison with poison. Everyone knew that it would one day eat into the heart, but who could come up with a better way out?

  A lack of will to do better only increased Xiangzi’s self-pity. Once proudly fearless, he now sought only comfort and ease. He stopped taking his rickshaw out on stormy days and took off two or three days at the first sign of soreness. Self-pity made him stingy, unwilling to lend out a cent of his savings, keeping it for a rainy day. It was all right to treat his friends to a cigarette or a drink, but he kept his savings to himself, since he was in greater need of coddling and pity than anyone. The more time he had on his hands, the lazier he grew, and the only way to lessen his boredom was to entertain himself with amusements or to treat himself to some good food. When it occurred to him that he was wasting time and money, he consoled himself with his latest mantra, culled from personal experience: “I tried to make something of myself, and what did it get me?” No one could dispute the logic or offer a reasonable explanation, so what was to keep him from sinking lower and lower?

  Laziness can make a person hot-tempered, and Xiangzi mastered the technique of belligerence. No longer did he meekly knuckle under to his passengers or to the police or, for that matter, to anyone. He had never been treated fairly as a hardworking rickshaw man. Finally appreciating the value of his sweat, the less he shed, the better. No one had better tr
y to take advantage of him. He’d park his rickshaw anywhere he pleased, whether it was legal or not, and if a policeman tried to get him to leave, he was quick to argue and slow to move. When it was clear he’d have to move on, the argument grew heated and vile. If the policeman argued back, well, why not let his fists do the talking? He knew his strength would not fail him, and after beating up the other man, a few days in the lockup was nothing to worry about. Fighting made him confidently aware of both his strength and his ability, and displaying his might on another man’s body made it seem as if the sun shone especially bright, just for him. Never in the past had he entertained the thought of saving up his strength to do well in a fight. But that’s what it had come to, and what pleasure he derived from it. That struck him as quite comical.

  Xiangzi refused to be intimidated, not just by the policemen he encountered but also by automobiles that drove up and down the Beiping streets. He never made way for cars that roared toward him, sending dust flying, no matter how threateningly they honked their horns or how their occupants cursed and screamed. Only when they slowed down to avoid a collision did he move out of the way to avoid choking on the dust. The same held true when they came up from behind, for he knew they would never deliberately run into him. Why in the world, then, would he move to the side and eat their dust? The traffic police were concerned only about clearing the way for automobiles so they could raise as much dust as possible, but Xiangzi, who was not a policeman, had no interest in letting them roar by. He was, in the eyes of the police, a hard nut to crack, someone to be provoked at their peril. Sloth is the natural result of unrewarded hard work among the poor, reason enough for them to be prickly.