Rickshaw Boy: A Novel (13 page)

Xiangzi was not heedless of the wretched condition of the old, frail rickshaw men whose clothes were so tattered a light wind blew through them and a strong one tore them to shreds. Their feet were wrapped in rags. They waited, shivering in the cold, at rickshaw stands, wanting to be first to shout “Rickshaw!” when a prospective fare approached. Running warmed them up and soaked their tattered clothes in sweat, which froze as soon as they stopped. Strong winds nearly stopped them in their tracks. When the wind came from above, they ducked their heads down into their chests; wind gusting up from below nearly knocked them off their feet. They dared not raise their hands in a headwind, to keep from turning into kites, and when the wind was at their backs, they lost control of both their rickshaws and themselves. They tried every trick they knew, used every ounce of energy they possessed, to pull their rickshaws to their destination, nearly killing themselves for a few coins. After each trip, their faces were coated with dust mixed with sweat, through which poked three frozen red circles—two eyes and a mouth. Few people were out on the streets during the short, cold days of winter, and a day of running might not bring in enough for one good meal. And yet the older men had wives and children at home, while the younger ones had parents and siblings. For these men, winters were sheer torture, and they were no more than a breath away from becoming ghosts, without the leisure and comfort that spirits enjoyed. No ghost ever had to work so hard for so little. Dying on the street like a dog was their greatest hope for peace and comfort. Those who froze to death, it was said, died with smiles on their faces!

How could Xiangzi not see this? But he had no time to worry about them. Their transgressions were the same as his, but since he was still young and strong, he could endure the hardships, unfazed by the wind and the cold. He had a clean room to go home to at night and a proper set of clothes for daytime, which was why he did not see them as peers. He suffered, as did they, but to radically different degrees. For now, he suffered less than they, and he could leave this life behind him in later years, confident that in his old age he would not be reduced to pulling a decrepit rickshaw in constant fear of starving or freezing to death. His present advantages guaranteed his future victory. Chauffeurs who waited in their cars in front of restaurants or private residences would not be caught dead chatting with rickshaw men, for that would be beneath their dignity. That attitude differed little from Xiangzi’s attitude toward the old, the sick, and the crippled pullers. While they all existed in hell, they were on different levels. The importance of standing together never occurred to them, as each went his own way, blinded by his hopes and struggles. They all believed that they could single-handedly be set for life with a family and a job, and so they groped their way through the darkness. Xiangzi, who had no thoughts and no time for anyone else, was preoccupied with his own money and his success.

Signs of the approaching New Year’s holiday gradually appeared on the streets; on sunny, windless days, even though the air was bracing and cold, the colors were impossible to miss: there were New Year’s posters, paper lanterns, red and white candles, silk flowers for the hair, and a variety of sweets, all pleasing to the eye, though somewhat unsettling. Everyone looked forward to a few happy days over the holiday, but they had their concerns as well, some big, some small. Xiangzi’s eyes brightened when he saw the roadside displays, with the expectation that the Caos would be sending gifts to friends and family, and each trip would end with twenty or thirty cents for him, to supplement the year-end bonus of two yuan. Even if the tips were small, as long as they trickled in, they added up to a sizable amount. His gourd bank would not let him down! At night, when he had nothing to do, he stared at the new friend that knew how to swallow money but not give it up. “Eat more,” he urged it quietly, “eat as much as you can, old friend. When you’ve eaten your fill, I’ll be satisfied!”

The end of the year neared, and before he knew it, it was the eighth day of the twelfth month. Happiness and worries forced people to plan and make arrangements. There were still twenty-four hours in a day, but there was a difference, in that the days permitted no slacking off, for there was always something to do in preparation for the celebration. It was as if time had developed a consciousness and emotions, forcing people to think and to busy themselves at its pace. Xiangzi was one of the happy ones. The flurry of activity, the shouts of vendors, the anticipation of year-end tips and pocket change, the time off, and dreams of good food had him as giddy and hopeful as a little boy. He decided to spend eighty or ninety cents on a gift for Fourth Master Liu. It would have to be small, but the sentiment is what counted. It would serve as an apology for staying away for so long, owing to his busy schedule at the residence; it would also give him an excuse to ask for the thirty yuan the old man was holding for him. Retrieving what was his was worth the expenditure of something less than one yuan. Having made up his mind, he shook his gourd bank and tried to imagine what it would sound like after he added another thirty yuan. With that back in his hands, his worries would be over.

One evening, as he was about to shake his treasure container, he heard Gao Ma call out, “Xiangzi, there’s a woman at the door asking for you. I ran into her on my way home, and she asked about you.” When Xiangzi came out of his room, she added in a whisper, “She looks like a big black pagoda! Real scary!”

Xiangzi’s face turned red as a blazing fire. He knew this meant trouble.

CHAPTER NINE

X
iangzi was barely able to step across the threshold. In a daze, he stood just inside the doorway, where he caught a glimpse of Miss Liu, framed in the light of a street lamp. Apparently, she had just powdered her face, which had a gray-green cast, like a black dew-covered leaf. He had to turn his eyes away.

Huniu wore a puzzling expression. Her eyes revealed a bit of longing for him, but her mouth was twisted into a smirk and the wrinkles on her nose hinted at contempt and anxiety. Her arched brows and outlandishly powdered face gave her a seductive yet domineering appearance. Her lips twitched when she saw Xiangzi come out, and her face betrayed a range of emotions, none seeming to fit her mood. With a gulp, she managed to get her confused feelings and emotions under control. Taking up the social mannerisms she’d learned from her father, a mixture of displeasure and mirth, she displayed her insouciance at seeing Xiangzi with a lighthearted tease:

“Well, aren’t you something! Throwing a meaty bun at a dog ensures it’ll never return.” There was a shrill quality to her voice, much the same tone she used when bickering with one of the rickshaw men. All traces of levity disappeared from her face with this comment, replaced by a sheepish, sordid look. She bit her lip.

“Don’t shout!” Xiangzi was able to blurt this out only by concentrating his strength in his lips. Not loud, but forceful.

“I’m not afraid of you!” Huniu hissed with a contemptuous grin, though she did lower her voice a little. “No wonder you’ve been avoiding me, now that you’ve got a little bitch of your own! I’ve always known you were no good. You act like a big, dumb oaf, like a Tartar sucking on a pipe. But you’re smarter than you look.” The volume had increased again.

“I said don’t shout!” Xiangzi was afraid that Gao Ma might be listening on the other side of the door. “Stop shouting, and come with me!” He walked out to the street.

“I’ll go anywhere, I’m not afraid, and I’ll shout if I want!” Despite her protests, she followed him.

They crossed the street and walked to a path on the eastern side of the park, stopping at the red wall, where Xiangzi—always the country boy—crouched down. “What do you want from me?”

“Me? Hah, I’ll tell you what.” She stood with her left hand on her hip, her belly protruding slightly. She looked down at him and thought for a moment, as if she wanted to show him some kindness, a bit of pity. “Xiangzi, I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

Much of his anger dissolved at the gentle sound of his name. He looked up at her. There was still nothing endearing about her appearance, but that “Xiangzi” echoed through his heart, tender and intimate, as if he’d heard it before somewhere, recalling ties of affection that could neither be denied nor severed. He kept his voice low and a bit gentler than a moment before. “What is it?”

“Xiangzi,” she said as she bent closer. “It’s happened.”

“What’s happened?”

“This.” She pointed to her belly. “So what do we do?”

With a stunned gasp, Xiangzi grasped what she was saying, and thousands of thoughts that had never before occurred to him flooded his head, so many, so urgent, so chaotic that his mind went blank, like movie film that snaps in two. The street was quiet, the moon hidden behind patchy gray clouds, as mild gusts of wind rustled dead branches and dry leaves on the ground; off in the distance a cat screeched. As his mind went from confused to empty, Xiangzi did not hear the sound; head in hands, he stared down at the ground until it seemed to move. No thoughts came to mind, nor did he hope for any; he felt himself shrinking, just not enough to disappear. His entire being, it seemed, was tied up with this painful development. For him, there was nothing else. Now he felt the cold, and his lips quivered.

“Don’t just squat there, say something! Stand up!” The cold seemed to affect her as well. She needed to move around.

Stiffly he got to his feet and walked with her, heading north, still unable to come up with anything to say. He was numb from head to toe, like a man emerging from a deep freeze.

“Don’t you have any ideas?” She gazed at him, tenderness in her eyes.

There was nothing he could say. “The old man’s birthday is the twenty-seventh. He’ll expect you to be there.”

“Too busy, end of the year.” Even in his confusion, Xiangzi hadn’t forgotten his own affairs.

“You’re the type that has to be forced to do something. Trying to talk to you is a waste of time.” Her voice was rising again, the cold air giving it a crisper edge, and causing Xiangzi considerable embarrassment. “Well, I’m fearless. So what do you plan to do? If you won’t listen to me, I won’t waste my breath. Come up with something, or I’ll stand outside your room and curse you for three straight days and nights! And I’ll find you no matter where you go! I don’t care who I’m dealing with.”

“Stop shouting, won’t you?” Xiangzi moved away from her.

“Shouting bothers you, does it? Well, you should have thought about that at the time. You had your fun, and now you want to dump everything on me. Well, pull back your you-know-what and see who you think you’re talking to!”

“Go ahead, tell me, I’m listening.” Her outburst made Xiangzi, who had been suffering from the cold, suddenly feel hot all over, the heat prickling his skin as it oozed from his frozen pores. His scalp itched terribly.

“That’s better. Don’t make things hard on yourself.” Her lips parted, revealing her canines.

“You don’t have to feel bad,” she said. “I really care for you. You need to keep in mind what’s good for you. I tell you, getting pigheaded with me won’t do you any good.”

“Don’t…” Xiangzi wanted to say, “Don’t slap me, then try to rub the hurt away,” but he couldn’t recall the whole saying. He knew his share of Beiping wisecracks, but the words often got stuck in his throat. He understood them all right; he just wasn’t good at using them.

“Don’t what?”

“You first.”

“I’ve got an idea.” She stopped and looked him in the eye.

“You see, if you send a matchmaker to talk to the old man, he’ll say no. He rents out rickshaws, you pull them, and that wouldn’t be a good match for his daughter. But that doesn’t bother me. I like you, and that’s what counts. To hell with all the rest! No matchmaker will get past the old man, because any mention of the word
marriage
will get him thinking about his rickshaws. Even someone above you would be out of luck. So it’s up to me, since I chose you. We boarded the train before we bought a ticket. Neither of us can deny what’s inside me, but we can’t march into the old man’s yard and tell him. He’s getting more pigheaded all the time, and he might react to our announcement by taking a young wife and driving me out. The old fellow’s in great shape for a man in his seventies, and if has a new wife, he could easily father two or three children, believe it or not.”

“Let’s talk while we walk,” Xiangzi said, concerned that the policeman on duty had walked by them twice.

“Nobody can keep us from talking right where we are.” She followed Xiangzi’s gaze toward the policeman. “You’re not pulling a rickshaw, so there’s nothing to be afraid of. He can’t bite someone’s balls off just because he feels like it. Not on your life! He can mind his own business. Now here’s what I think. On the twenty-seventh, his birthday, you kowtow to him, then do the same on New Year’s, and that’ll put him in a good mood. When he’s happy, he likes to drink, so I’ll have some liquor ready, and once he’s good and drunk, you strike while the iron’s hot, asking him to be your foster father. After that, I’ll gradually let him know that I’m indisposed. He’ll ask what’s wrong, and I’ll remind him of Xu Zhe, who was brought as a prisoner to Cao Cao’s camp, and not say another word. He’ll really start to worry then, so I’ll drop the name Qiao Er—the assistant manager of the undertaker shop east of town—who died recently with no heirs or family and was buried in the potter’s field outside Dongzhi Gate. How’s the old man going to find out if that’s true? This’ll put him in a bind, and we can drop a hint that giving me to you would be a good idea. What’s the difference between a foster son and a son-in-law? I’ll say. That way we’ll get what we want without causing a scandal. What do you think?”

Xiangzi said nothing.

Having said her piece, Huniu walked off to the north, head down and looking pleased with herself, as she gave Xiangzi time to think over what she’d said. The wind rose up about them and blew the clouds away from the moon. They’d reached the northern end of the street, where the waters of the Imperial Moat had frozen solid—skirting the red walls of the Forbidden City, silent, gray, flat, and hard. No sounds emerged from inside the wall. The exquisite watch towers, the gold and green memorial archways, the vermillion city gates, and the pavilion at Jingshan Park were silent, as if listening to a sound they might never hear again. The wind blew, like a mournful sigh, snaking through the palace towers and halls, as if wanting to relate tales of days past. Huniu headed west, followed by Xiangzi, to the arched bridge to Beihai. The bridge was practically deserted. Dull moonlight shone down, cold and desolate, on expanses of ice on both sides. Dim outlines of distant pavilions cast dark shadows, as silent as if immobilized in a frozen lake, with only their yellow roof tiles glimmering faintly. Trees rustled slightly, further blurring the moonlight. A white pagoda reaching into the hazy clouds cast a desolate chill on everything, causing the three lakes to reveal the northern bleakness, despite their intricate carvings. As he was crossing the bridge, Xiangzi shivered from the icy expanse below and refused to go any farther. Normally, when he was pulling his rickshaw across the bridge, he concentrated on his feet, afraid of a misstep, as if the sights around him did not exist. Now he was free to look, but the scenery frightened him. The cold, gray ice, the rustling trees, and the deathly pale pagoda were so forlorn they seemed poised to shout hysterically or dance madly. Even the white stones of the bridge at his feet seemed abnormally bleak and so white that even the street lamps were subdued and dreary. He did not want to move, he did not want to look, and he definitely did not want to be with her. Why not just jump headfirst, crash through the ice, and sink to the bottom to freeze in the water like a dead fish!