Rickshaw Boy: A Novel (24 page)
Despite what she’d said, she was in no hurry to go see Fourth Master Liu. They had always had their share of arguments, but things were different now, and the storm clouds would not disperse with a simple apology. She was no longer considered a member of the Liu family, since a married daughter’s relationship with her parents is never as close as before. If she went straight to him, and he turned her away, denying her claims to an inheritance, there’d be nothing she could do about it. Even if an outsider tried to smooth things over between them, in the end, all the mediator could do was advise her to go home—her new home.
Xiangzi went out with his rickshaw, while Huniu stayed home to pace the floor. Each time she decided to go see the old man, she could not make the effort to dress up for him. What a dilemma! For her own comfort and enjoyment, she had to go, but that would mean a loss of face. If the old man had cooled down and she could get Xiangzi to return to Harmony Shed, there would be a job for him that did not entail pulling a rickshaw; eventually, the two of them would take over the business. That thought brightened her mood. But if the old man refused, it would be more than just a loss of face; she’d end up being the wife of a rickshaw man for the rest of her life. Her? Not on your life! That would make her no different from the women who lived in their compound, and that thought immediately darkened her mood. She was beginning to regret marrying Xiangzi. For all his ambition, if her father refused to give in, he’d spend the rest of his life pulling a rickshaw. At this point, she was ready to call it quits and go home by herself; she couldn’t give up everything she’d had for him. But on second thought, she was enjoying hard-to-describe happiness with Xiangzi. As she sat vacantly on the edge of the brick bed, wondering what the future held, she reflected upon the joys of married life. She couldn’t put her finger on them, sensing only that they meant something to her. She was like a large red flower blooming in the pleasant warmth of the sun. No, she liked Xiangzi too much to give him up, ever, even if that meant begging on the street while he went out with his rickshaw. Look at those other women in the compound—if they could put up with that life, so could she. To hell with it, she wouldn’t go back to the Liu home after all.
Not once since leaving Harmony Shed had Xiangzi ventured back to Xi’an Gate Road. Over the past couple of days he had confined his work to South City; there were too many Harmony Shed rickshaws in West City, and meeting up with any of them would be painfully awkward. But on this day, after turning in his rickshaw, he purposely walked past the yard’s gate for no other reason than to take a look. With Huniu’s vow still ringing in his ears, he wanted to see if he had the guts to go in if she was eventually able to talk the old man around. First he needed to know what it felt like to walk down this street again. With his hat pulled down low, he kept his distance to avoid running into anyone he knew. From where he stood, he could see the light above the doorway, a sight that saddened him for some reason. His thoughts carried him back to his first days in the yard and to his seduction by Huniu, as well as to the night of the old man’s birthday celebration. The scenes floated in front of his eyes, as clear as on the days they’d occurred. Other scenes, equally clear but shorter, were intermingled in the tableau: the Western Hills, camels, the Cao residence, the spy…strung together in all their fearful clarity. And yet, he felt lost, as if he were looking at these images without understanding that he was in their midst. When he realized his involvement with them, confusion set in, as the scenes began to swirl around helter-skelter in his mind, until they were just a blur. Why, he wondered, had he suffered all those indignities? The amount of time the events occupied seemed quite long and yet amazingly short, and he lost track of his age. He was, he felt, much, much older than when he’d first arrived at Harmony Shed. Back then, he had been filled with hope. And now? Nothing but a gut of worries. He didn’t know why that was, but the pictures in his head did not lie.
Harmony Shed was just up ahead. He stopped across the street and stared woodenly at the bright light in the doorway. Suddenly something caught his eye: the golden characters above the door were different. Though illiterate, he knew what the first character in the word for harmony looked like: it was two lines that met near the top
, not crossing and not a triangle. But that simple yet strange symbol had been replaced by another, even stranger one
, and why was that? He looked at the rooms to the east and the west—two rooms he’d never forget. Both were dark.
He stood there until his patience ran out and he started for home, head held low, thinking as he walked, Could the place have shut down? He’d have to ask around, but no need to say anything to his wife, not yet. When he walked in the door, Huniu was dispelling her boredom by nibbling on melon seeds.
“Late again!” She did not look happy. “I tell you, I don’t know what I’ll do if this keeps up. You’re out all day long, and I can’t leave the house for a minute. With all these paupers in the compound, I’d be sure to lose things. From morning to night, I’ve got no one to talk to, and I can’t stand it any longer. I’m not made of wood, you know. You have to think of something because this has to stop.”
Xiangzi held his tongue. “Say something. Why must you always try to make me mad? Do you have a mouth or don’t you? Well, do you?” The words were coming faster and sharper, like a string of firecrackers.
Again, Xiangzi said nothing. “How’s this?” Clearly on edge, she wasn’t sure how to deal with him. With a look somewhere between tears and laughter, she had to fight to keep from exploding. “We’ll buy a couple of rickshaws, and you can stay home and live off the rent. How’s that?”
“Two rickshaws won’t bring in more than thirty cents a day,” Xiangzi said with slow deliberation. “We can’t live on that. But we’d do all right if we rented one and I took the other one out.” The mere mention of buying rickshaws drove all other thoughts out of his mind.
“What good will that do? You still won’t be home.”
“How’s this, then?” Talk of rickshaws got Xiangzi thinking.
“We’ll rent one for a whole day. I’ll take the second one out for half a day and rent it out the second half. If I take the early shift, I’ll be home by three in the afternoon, and if I take the night shift, I’ll go out at three and be home that night. That’ll work.”
Huniu nodded. “I’ll think about it. If I can’t come up with a better plan, we’ll do it your way.”
Xiangzi could not have been happier. If this worked out, he’d be back to pulling his own rickshaw, even though it would be a gift from his wife. But he’d work hard and save up until he could buy one himself. All of a sudden, he was beginning to see a good side of his wife, and he smiled. It was an innocent, heartfelt smile that seemed to erase all his pain and suffering and create a brand-new world, as easily as changing clothes. He was thrilled.
L
ittle by little, Xiangzi pieced together what had happened at Harmony Shed: Fourth Master Liu had sold off some of his rickshaws and turned the remainder over to an established yard in West City. Xiangzi guessed that the old man had reached the age where he felt he could no longer run the business without his daughter around to help, and had decided to sell it off and enjoy life with his earnings. What he was unable to learn was where the old man had gone.
Xiangzi wasn’t sure if he should be happy or unhappy. Viewed from the perspective of his ambitions and resolve, the news that Fourth Master had abandoned his daughter meant that her plan had fallen through and now he could earn his keep by pulling a rickshaw—he was free to be his own man. Still it was a pity that Fourth Master had liquidated the business and left him and Huniu out in the cold.
But that is how things stood, so why let it bother him? Truth is, it mattered little. His strength belonged to him alone, was how he figured it, and by working hard, food would not be a problem. So he broke the news to Huniu, simply and without a show of emotion.
To her, it mattered a great deal, for her future suddenly became painfully clear—her life was effectively over! Consigned to being the wife of a rickshaw man from now on, she would never leave this paupers’ compound. The possibility that her father might remarry one day had crossed her mind in the past but not that he would leave without a word. Had he remarried, she could have fought for her share of his property, and might even have struck a deal with her stepmother to gain some advantage. The possibilities were endless, as long as the old man held on to his rickshaw business. But what he’d done—converting his holdings into cash—and how he’d done it—sneaking off with the money—caught her unprepared. The idea behind her quarrel with him had been a quick reconciliation, since they both knew that Harmony Shed could not operate successfully without her. The flaw in her plan was exposed when he unexpectedly sold off the business.
Spring was in the air. Buds on the trees were turning red. But there were no trees or flowers in their compound to herald spring’s arrival. First the winds poked holes in the icy ground, released fetid odors from the stinking earth, and blew rubbish and litter over to the bases of walls, where they swirled in little eddies. For the residents, each season brought its share of troubles. Only now did old folks venture outside to soak up a bit of warmth; only now did the young women wipe off a bit of the soot from their noses and expose skin turned red from the cold; only now did mothers take a chance on sending their children out into the yard to play; and only now did those children run around trying to fly kites made of scraps of paper without fear of chapping their grubby hands. But the public kitchens stopped giving out gruel, shopkeepers no longer sold on credit, and charitable people retied their purse strings, all handing the suffering masses over to the sun and the breezes of spring. With the wheat still young and green, and grain stores nearly depleted, prices soared. And as the days lengthened, old-timers could not turn in early to trick their empty stomachs with dreams. So the arrival of spring actually made life harder for people who lived in the compound. Lice that had survived the winter were especially savage; they crawled out of the padded clothes worn by the very old and the very young to get a taste of spring.
Huniu’s heart was chilled as she watched the ice melt in the compound and saw the tattered clothing, smelled the motley mixture of warm odors, and listened to the sighing of old people and the howls of children. People stayed indoors during the winter as the filth was sealed up in the ice. Now it began to emerge and things returned to their original form; earth peeled from bricks in crumbling walls that seemed ready to fall to the ground on the first rainy day. Pitiful little paupers’ flowers that brought color to the compound only succeeded in making it uglier than in the winter. Ugh! She now faced the reality that this is where she would live out her life. What little money she had would not last forever, and Xiangzi was only a rickshaw man.
After telling him to stay home and watch the place, she went to see her aunt at Nanyuan—Southern Park—to find out what happened to the old man. Fourth Master had indeed been by, her aunt said, around the twelfth day of the new year, both to thank her and to tell her he planned to go to Tianjin or Shanghai to relax and enjoy himself. He’d spent his whole life in Beiping, to his shame as a so-called man of the world. It was time to see the sights while there was still breath in his body. Besides, he’d said, he couldn’t bear to stay in the city after the way his daughter had disgraced him. That was all the aunt could tell her. Maybe, she added, he really is off somewhere, or maybe it was all talk and he’s lying low somewhere, who knows?
When she returned home, Huniu threw herself down on the bed and sobbed. This time it was not an act—she wept until her eyes were red and puffy.
After drying her tears, she said to Xiangzi, “All right, be pigheaded and have it your way! I placed my bet on a losing number. As they say, marry a rooster and spend your life as a hen. There’s nothing more I can say. Here’s a hundred yuan, go buy a rickshaw and start pulling it.”