Rickshaw Boy: A Novel (17 page)

“Not so fast,” Detective Sun said with a sneer.

Now Xiangzi was really confused.

“Xiangzi, my young comrade, you are a fool. You don’t expect a detective to just let you go, do you?”

“But…” Xiangzi was speechless.

“Don’t act dumb.” Detective Sun’s eyes bored into him. “You must have some savings. Let’s see what you’ve got to buy your life with. You make more a month than I do—and me, with a family to feed and clothe. I need to supplement my regular pay. I’m giving it to you straight. Do you really think I can just let you go? Friendship is one thing. If we weren’t friends, I wouldn’t be doing this for you. But business is business, and if I didn’t get something for my troubles, my family would have to subsist on the wind. People who get along like us don’t need to waste words—am I right or aren’t I?”

“How much?” Xiangzi sat on the edge of the bed.

“Whatever you have. There’s no fixed number.”

“I’ll take my chances with prison, then.”

“So you say, but you’ll regret it.” Sun stuck his hand into his padded coat. “See this. I can take you in right now, and if you resist arrest, I’ll shoot. And if I take you in, money will be the least of your problems. They’ll strip you and take the clothes off your back. You’re a smart boy. Figure it out for yourself.”

“If you’ve got time to squeeze me, why not squeeze Mr. Cao?” Xiangzi’s voice broke.

“He’s the main criminal, and I’ll get a small reward for bringing him in. It’ll also be my fault if I fail. But you, you, my young friend, letting you go will be like passing gas, and killing you would be like squashing a bedbug. Give me the money and you can be on your way. Refuse, and I’ll see you next at Tianqiao. Don’t make trouble for yourself—be a big boy and cough it up. Besides, I won’t be able to keep all of what little I get from you. My comrades will lay a claim to some of it, and I might wind up with less than anybody. If you think it’s too high a price for your life, my hands are tied. How much do you have?”

Xiangzi got to his feet, his brain about to leap out of his head. He clenched his fists.

“Use those and you’re done for. There’s a whole gang of us, you know. Now, come on, let’s see the money! I’m helping you save face, so now’s the time to do the right thing.” Detective Sun flashed Xiangzi a sinister look.

“What have I ever done to you?” Nearly in tears, Xiangzi sat back down.

“Nothing. You just wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time. You’re either born lucky or you’re not, and people like us are at the bottom of the heap. There isn’t a thing you can say or do about that.” Detective Sun shook his head, as if deeply moved. “All right, let’s just say I’ve wronged you, and let it go at that.”

Xiangzi thought hard for a moment and came up with nothing. His hand shook as he took his gourd bank out from under the covers.

“Let’s see it,” Sun said with a smile. He took it from Xiangzi and flung it against the wall.

Xiangzi’s heart broke when he saw the money strewn across the floor.

“That’s all?”

Xiangzi said nothing. He was shaking.

“Oh, hell, I’m not out to drain you dry. A friend’s a friend, after all. But I want you to know how lucky you are to be buying your life with this pittance.”

By now shaking uncontrollably, Xiangzi began rolling up his bedding.

“Don’t touch that!”

“But it’s cold out there.” Flames seemed to leap from Xiangzi’s eyes.

“I said don’t touch that, and I mean it. Now get out of here!” Xiangzi swallowed hard and bit his lip as he pushed open the door and walked out.

An inch or more of snow had fallen while he was inside. He started walking, head down. The ground was pristine and white, all except for the dark footprints he left in the snow.

CHAPTER TWELVE

X
iangzi was looking for a place to sit down and think about what had just happened. Even if he only wound up crying, at least he’d know what he was crying about. The changes had come too fast for him. With snow everywhere, there was no place to sit. All the teahouses were boarded up, since it was past ten, but even if they’d been open, he wouldn’t have gone in. What he needed was a quiet, out-of-the-way spot, since he knew that the tears could start flowing at any minute.

With no place to sit, he decided to keep walking, slowly. But where should he go? A silvery world offered him no place to sit and nowhere to walk to. The only break in the white expanse came from hungry birds and a solitary man who was sighing in despair.

Where to go? This was the first order of business. A small inn? Out of the question. The way he was dressed, he could be robbed during the night, not to mention all those frightful bedbugs. How about a larger inn? Too expensive. All he had on him were those five yuan, the sum total of his wealth. A bathhouse? But they locked up at midnight, with no overnight accommodations. There was nowhere.

The lack of a place to go drove home the severity of his predicament. After all his years in the city, he owned only the clothes on his back and five yuan. Even his bedding was gone. His thoughts turned to tomorrow. What would he do then? Pull a rickshaw? That would still leave him with no place to stay, homeless and his savings gone. Become a peddler? Not with a measly five yuan as capital. And, of course, he’d have to buy a carrying pole. He’d never make enough to survive. A rickshaw man could at least earn thirty or forty cents a day, while vending required capital, with no guarantee he’d make enough for three meals a day. He could always spend his capital and start pulling a rickshaw when it was gone, but that was like taking off your pants to fart, a waste of five yuan. That was his last hope, and he mustn’t lightly let go of any of it. Take a job as a servant? He wouldn’t know how. Wait on people? He couldn’t do it. Do laundry? Cook? He couldn’t do that, either. He didn’t know how to do anything. He was useless, big, rough, and stupid!

His wandering took him to Zhonghai Lake. He stood on the bridge, where all he could see anywhere was a blanket of snow, and only then did it occur to him that the snowfall hadn’t stopped. He reached up to feel his knitted cap—it was wet. The bridge was deserted; even the duty policeman was nowhere to be seen. Street lamps appeared to be blinking amid the onslaught of snow. He looked around at all the snow, his mind a blank.

Xiangzi stayed on the bridge a long time, feeling that the world had died: no sound, nothing stirred. The gray snowflakes took this opportunity to speed up their disorderly fall to earth and submerge the land before anyone was aware of it. Alone in this hushed moment, he heard his conscience whisper:
Never mind yourself,
it said.
You have to go back and take care of the Cao family. Mrs. Cao and Gao Ma are all alone, without a man in the house.
That five yuan he was holding on to—hadn’t Mr. Cao given it to him? Without wasting another minute, he turned and headed back as fast as he could.

There were footprints in the snow outside the gate, and fresh tire tracks on the road. Could Mrs. Cao have left already? Why hadn’t that Sun fellow arrested them?

He was afraid to open the gate, in case someone was waiting inside to nab him. He looked around and saw no one. His heart was racing.
Go ahead, give it a try. You’ve got no home to go back to, anyway, so what if they arrest you!
He gave the gate a cautious push; it swung open, and he took a few tentative steps along the base of the wall. There was a light in his room—
his
room! He felt like crying. He walked up and listened at the window. Someone coughed inside. It was Gao Ma! He opened the door.

“Who’s there? Oh, it’s you, Xiangzi. You frightened me to death!” Gao Ma sat on the bed, pressing her hands to her chest to calm herself. “What happened to you?”

Xiangzi had no answer. As if he were seeing Gao Ma again for the first time in years, a sensation of pervasive warmth filled his heart.

“I said, what happened to you?” Gao Ma was nearly in tears.

“When you didn’t come, the master telephoned to tell us we were to go to the Zuos’ and said that you were on your way. When you got here, I opened the gate for you, didn’t I? But there was someone with you, a stranger. So I turned and went back inside to help the mistress pack. You never came into the house, leaving the mistress and me to grope around in the dark. The young master was sound asleep and had to be taken out of his warm bed. When we were all packed and had the scrolls from the study, there was still no sign of you. Where were you? Tell me that. We were ready to go, so I came looking for you. You were nowhere in sight. The mistress was so angry—mostly because she was anxious—she was shaking. It was up to me to call for a taxi, but the ‘empty city bluff,’ keeping people out by leaving the door open, wasn’t going to work, so I said, ‘You go ahead. I’ll keep an eye on the place and come along after Xiangzi gets back. But if he doesn’t, well, that’s my bad luck.’ What do you have to say for yourself? Tell me what happened to you.”

No reply from Xiangzi. “Say something! Don’t just stand there.”

“You can go now.” Finally, Xiangzi managed to speak. “Go on.”

“Will you look after the house?” Gao Ma calmed down a bit.

“When you see the master, tell him that the detective nabbed me, but then…but then, he didn’t after all.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Gao Ma nearly laughed out loud.

“Listen to me.” Xiangzi was running out of patience. “Tell the master to leave now. The detective said he was going to be arrested. Mr. Zuo’s house is not safe, so he must leave right away. I’ll jump over the wall and spend the night at the Wangs’. I’ll lock and bolt the front gate. Tomorrow I’ll go look for work. I’ve let the master down.”

“I’m really confused now,” Gao Ma said with a sigh. “But I’ll go. The young master must be half frozen, so I’d better go see how he is. I’ll tell the master that Xiangzi said he has to leave right away. Tonight Xiangzi will bolt the gate and sleep at the Wangs’ house. Tomorrow he’ll go job hunting. Is that right?”

Xiangzi, feeling immense shame, nodded.

After Gao Ma left, he bolted the gate and went into his room. The shattered bank was still on the floor. He picked up one of the large shards and looked at it before throwing it back down. The bedding had not been moved.
Strange! How come? Is it possible that Detective Sun isn’t a detective after all? No, that can’t be. If Mr. Cao hadn’t smelled danger, he wouldn’t have abandoned his family to escape with his life. I don’t understand, I just don’t understand.
Without being aware of it, he sat back down on the bed but immediately jumped up in alarm.
I can’t stay here! What if Sun comes back?
Thoughts were racing through his head.
I’ve let Mr. Cao down, but having Gao Ma tell him to get away makes me feel a little better.
In all good conscience, Xiangzi had done nothing to bring injury to anyone but himself. “My money’s gone and I can no longer help Mr. Cao,” he muttered under his breath as he gathered up his bedding.

After shouldering his bedroll and dousing the lamp, he went out the back door, then laid his bedroll on the ground and boosted himself up to look over the wall and call out softly, “Old Cheng, Old Cheng!” There was no reply from the Wangs’ rickshaw man, so Xiangzi decided to climb over and look for him. He tossed his bedroll over; it landed without a sound on the snowy ground. After picking it up, he walked quietly to Old Cheng’s room. There wasn’t another sound in the compound, which meant that everyone was asleep, and he couldn’t help thinking that being a thief didn’t seem all that risky. Emboldened by that thought, he increased his pace. The hard-packed snow crunched beneath his feet. Outside Old Cheng’s room he coughed. “Who’s out there?” Old Cheng apparently hadn’t been in bed long.

“It’s me, Xiangzi. Open the door.” Xiangzi said this with no trace of panic or urgency. The sound of Old Cheng’s reply was like the comforting voice of an old friend.

Old Cheng lit a lamp and opened the door, a well-worn fur-lined jacket over his shoulders. “What is it, Xiangzi? It’s the middle of the night.”

Xiangzi stepped inside, dropped his bedroll onto the floor, and sat on it without a word.

In his thirties, Old Cheng had prominent muscles—even on his face—that were rock-solid. He and Xiangzi were not close, though they exchanged pleasantries from time to time. On days when Mrs. Wang and Mrs. Cao went shopping together, Xiangzi and Old Cheng went to a teahouse to rest while they waited. Xiangzi did not particularly admire Old Cheng, who ran fast but careened along and did a poor job of controlling the shafts. There was nothing wrong with him personally, but that flaw kept Xiangzi from respecting him.

On this night, however, Old Cheng was everything Xiangzi could want in a friend. He sat there, not knowing what to say but filled with gratitude and affection. Not long before, he had been standing on the Zhonghai Bridge, and now he was sitting in a friend’s room. The abrupt change in circumstances erased all that had been in his mind and replaced it with warmth.

Old Cheng went back to bed and pointed to his leather jacket. “There are cigarettes in the pocket. You’re welcome to them. They’re Estates.” Rickshaw men had taken to Country Estate cigarettes as soon as they’d come on the market.

Though he didn’t smoke, Xiangzi knew that it would be unfriendly to refuse, so he took one and began to smoke.

“So,” Old Cheng remarked. “Did you quit?”

“No.” Xiangzi stayed seated on his bedroll. “There’s been trouble. The family’s left and I don’t dare stay there alone.”

“What kind of trouble?” Old Cheng sat up.

“I’m not sure, but it’s so bad even Gao Ma left.”

“You’ve left the place empty?”

“I locked the gate.”

“Oh.” Old Cheng mulled this over for a moment. “I’ll go tell Mr. Wang. What do you say?” He threw his jacket over his shoulders.

“Hold off till tomorrow. I wouldn’t know what to tell him.” Being questioned by Mr. Wang worried Xiangzi.

What Xiangzi did not know was this: Mr. Cao gave lectures at a local university, where someone named Ruan Ming was enrolled as a student. Teacher and student had formed a cordial relationship, and Ruan Ming often visited him in his office. Mr. Cao was a socialist, but Ruan Ming entertained a far more radical ideology, though one well within the bounds of their friendship. Age and status, however, did create an occasional clash. As a teacher, Mr. Cao placed professional responsibilities above personal concerns, insisting that his students take their lessons seriously and not use a budding friendship as an excuse to slack off. In Ruan Ming’s view, given the chaotic state of the world, young people with lofty ideals ought to be involved in revolutionary activities and not worry about schoolwork, at least for the moment. His relationship with Mr. Cao was based in part on their shared interests, but also on Ruan Ming’s hope that the older man’s affection for him would ensure his promotion to the next year no matter how bad his test scores were. People like him often betray a shameless side during chaotic times; history is rife with justifiable examples.