Chronicle of a Blood Merchant Page 8

  The waiter took his order and was turning to go when Xu Sanguan realized that something was missing. He signaled for the waiter to stay where he was. The waiter stood waiting by his side, wiping the already immaculate table with a washcloth. “What else would you like?”

  Xu Sanguan, hand still poised in midair, thought for a moment but couldn’t remember what it was. Finally, he said to the waiter, “I’ll let you know when I remember.”

  The waiter nodded his assent.

  Just as he moved away across the room, Xu Sanguan remembered the phrase for which he had been searching and shouted across the restaurant, “I remember now!”

  The waiter immediately walked back toward his table. “So what is it?”

  Xu Sanguan slapped the tabletop for emphasis. “Warm up that wine for me!”

  AS SOON AS Xu Sanguan came with the money, Blacksmith Fang sent for three of the six men and one of the carts he had used the day before and returned their things. Blacksmith Fang said, “Actually, all your things fit on just one cart. Yesterday I brought one cart and three men too many for the job.”

  One of the three men pulled the cart through the street, while the other two stood to the sides propping up the pile of furniture and household items on top. They soon arrived at Xu Sanguan’s door.

  “Xu Sanguan, if you had just given us the money yesterday, we wouldn’t have had to haul all this stuff back and forth,” they said.

  “But things never work out that way,” Xu Sanguan replied as he unloaded one of the stools. “Necessity is the mother of invention. It’s only when you’re at the end of your tether that you finally figure out how to solve a problem. If I wasn’t at the end of my tether, I might have figured out a way to get out of this mess, but I wouldn’t have known whether I could actually go through with it. If the people at the hospital hadn’t told you they were going to stop giving your son his medicine, you would never have come here to confiscate my things, right? What do you think, Blacksmith Fang?”

  Before Blacksmith Fang even began to nod his agreement, Xu Sanguan suddenly let out a yelp: “I’m done for!”

  Startled, the blacksmith and his men looked on as Xu Sanguan repeatedly slapped the sides of his own head. They watched in silence, unsure as to whether Xu Sanguan actually intended to do himself bodily harm.

  Then Xu Sanguan gazed mournfully over toward Blacksmith Fang. “I forgot to drink water.” Xu Sanguan had only just remembered that he hadn’t drunk any water before he went to sell blood. “I forgot to drink water.”

  “Water?” Blacksmith Fang and his men were mystified. “What water?”

  “Any water would do.”

  Xu Sanguan picked up the stool he had just unloaded, set it down by the wall, and sat down. He lifted up his arm, flexed his muscles so that the veins began to protrude, rolled down his sleeve, and gazed at the reddish puncture mark on the skin underneath.

  “I sold two bowls. But those two bowls were thick enough for three. If only I hadn’t forgotten to drink water. It just seems like nothing’s going right for me these days.”

  Blacksmith Fang and his men asked, “Two bowls of what?”

  XU YULAN was at her father’s place, sitting in the rattan chair where he usually took his afternoon nap, wiping the tears from her face. Her father sat across from her, and his eyes were red around the rims from crying. Xu Yulan told him about how Blacksmith Fang and his men had come to take their things. She provided her father with an inventory of what they had taken, ticking off each item with her fingers.

  Then she added a list of what remained. When she was finished, she added, “It took them two hours to take away ten years of hard work. They even took those two silk robes, the ones you gave me for my wedding dowry. I’d never even used them.”

  Just as she was ticking off her household on her fingers, Blacksmith Fang and his men were busy putting each item back into its original place. By the time she got home, the job was finished. She stood at the door gazing wide-eyed into the house. Her ten years of hard work were once again laid out neatly inside the room. Her eyes shifted back and forth from the table to the trunks and over to the stools. She looked everything over, then went to look for the man with whom she’d worked together for those ten years to make a home. Xu Sanguan was sitting by the table inside the house.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Xu Yulan asked Xu Sanguan, “So who did you borrow the money from?”

  As she spoke, Xu Yulan reached out her hand and pressed her fingers to the tip of Xu Sanguan’s nose, rocking it back and forth until it started to ache. Xu Sanguan pulled her hand away, but she simply replaced it with the other hand.

  “You’ve paid Blacksmith Fang back,” she continued, “but now we’re in debt to someone else. That’s just taking bricks from the east wall to repair the west wall. What are you going to do about the holes in the east wall? Who’s going to lend you more money to pay back the debt?”

  Xu Sanguan rolled up his sleeve to show her the puncture mark on his arm. “See that? See the red spot? The spot where it looks like I got bitten by a fly? That’s from the thickest needle they’ve got at the hospital.” Then Xu Sanguan rolled his sleeve back down. “I sold blood! I sold my own blood to pay back He Xiaoyong’s debt. I sold my own blood so I could keep on being a cuckold.”

  When Xu Yulan understood what he was saying, she erupted, “Aiya! You sold your blood and didn’t even ask me about it first? Why didn’t you say something? We’re through, we’re finished. This family is ruined! What will people think if they find out that someone in the family’s been selling blood? They’ll say that Xu Sanguan’s been selling blood, Xu Sanguan’s all washed up, Xu Sanguan’s gone and sold his own blood.”

  Xu Sanguan said, “Can you be a little quieter? If you didn’t shout like that, no one would ever know.”

  Xu Yulan continued every bit as loudly as before. “My dad used to tell me when I was little that your blood is passed down from your ancestors. You can sell fried dough, sell a house, sell off your land, but you can never ever sell your blood. Better to sell your body than sell your blood! At least your body belongs to you. But selling your blood is like selling your ancestors. Xu Sanguan, you’ve sold your ancestors!”

  Xu Sanguan said, “Keep quiet. What are you trying to say anyway?”

  A tear rolled down Xu Yulan’s face. “I would never have imagined you’d sell your blood. You can sell anything you like, as long as it isn’t blood. Sell the bed, sell the house, sell whatever you like. But why did you have to go and sell your blood?”

  Xu Sanguan said, “Keep quiet. Why did I sell my blood? I sold my blood so I could keep on playing the cuckold.”

  Xu Yulan sobbed. “I heard what you just said. I know what you mean. I know you’re mocking me. I know deep down you really hate me. Why else would you say something like that?” She weepingly made her way to the door.

  Xu Sanguan growled from behind her, “Come back here, you bitch. You’re going to the doorstep again. You’re gonna start screaming and yelling and making a scene again.”

  But instead of sitting down on the doorstep, Xu Yulan walked right past the threshold, turned, and made her way down the lane and onto the street. She walked all the way down to the end of the street, veered down another lane, and arrived at He Xiaoyong’s doorstep.

  Standing in front of He Xiaoyong’s open front door, she patted down her clothes, combed out her hair with her fingers, and raised her voice loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear.

  “You’re all neighbors of He Xiaoyong. All of you know He Xiaoyong. You all know that he’s a rotten, black-hearted son of a bitch. You all know that he won’t take in his only son. You all know that because I sinned in my past life, He Xiaoyong screwed me over in this one. You’ve heard the story already, so I don’t have to tell it to you again today. I came today to tell you about something else. What you don’t know and what I just found out today is that I must have burned a lot of incense in my past life too. That’s why I got to marry
Xu Sanguan. What you don’t know is just how good a man Xu Sanguan really is. I could talk for days on end about how good Xu Sanguan is, but I won’t. What I will tell you is that Xu Sanguan sold his own blood. He did it for Yile, for our family. He went to the hospital today to sell his own blood. Think about it. You can die from selling blood. And even if you don’t die, you’ll still get dizzy, your vision will blur, and you’ll feel weak from head to toe. But Xu Sanguan didn’t care about all of that. He risked his life for me, for Yile, for our whole family.”

  He Xiaoyong’s skinny wife appeared at the door and sneered, “If Xu Sanguan’s so great, how come you want to steal my man?”

  When Xu Yulan saw He Xiaoyong’s woman, she sneered, “Now here’s a woman who must have done a lot of bad things in her last life. She’s being paid back for it in this life, let me tell you, and the punishment is that she can’t bear any sons, only daughters. Once her daughters are grown up, they’ll belong to other people’s families, and her own family line will be broken.”

  He Xiaoyong’s woman strode out from the door and slapped her thighs for emphasis as she railed at her nemesis, “And here’s a woman who’s so shameless that she’ll even boast about stealing someone else’s seed!”

  Xu Yulan countered, “Of course I do! Any woman who’s had three sons in a row has a right to brag!”

  He Xiaoyong’s woman shouted, “Three sons by two different dads! Do you want to brag about that too?”

  “Whether your daughters really have the same dad remains to be seen.”

  “Only someone like you! Only a slut like you could have had so many men.”

  “So you’re not a slut? You know what’s inside your pants? A department store, that’s what! Anybody can go inside!”

  “If I’ve got a department store in my pants, you have a public toilet!”

  SOMEONE CAME to Xu Sanguan and said, “Xu Sanguan, quick! Go bring your woman home. She’s arguing with He Xiaoyong’s woman, and the more they argue, the raunchier it gets. You better go quick, or you’ll have no face left at all by the time they’re through.”

  Another person rushed in the door. “Xu Sanguan! Your woman’s fighting with He Xiaoyong’s woman. They’re pulling each other’s hair and spitting and even biting.”

  The last person to come through the door was Blacksmith Fang. Blacksmith Fang said, “Xu Sanguan, I was just walking by He Xiaoyong’s place. There’s a big crowd there, thirty people at the very least, and they’re all laughing at your woman. Your woman and He Xiaoyong’s woman are screaming and cursing and fighting, and believe me it’s not pretty. Everyone’s laughing and enjoying the show, and I even heard some of them saying that Xu Sanguan’s been selling blood just so he can keep getting cuckolded.”

  Xu Sanguan said, “Do I care? Let her do what she wants.”

  As he spoke, he sat down on the stool by the table, then glanced up toward Blacksmith Fang standing at the threshold.

  “She’s like a broken pot that’s not afraid of shattering, and I’m a dead pig who no longer minds that the water’s coming to a boil.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Xu Sanguan was thinking of Lin Fenfang. Lin Fenfang, whose braids had once reached to her waist, had married a man who wore glasses, given birth to a boy and a girl, and proceeded to get fat. She grew fatter and fatter with each passing year, and in the end she cut her braids and wore her hair in a bob that was level with her ears.

  Xu Sanguan had watched as her neck got shorter and shorter, seen her shoulders thicken, looked on as the contours of her waistline softened and swelled, observed her fingers grow stubby with excess flesh. Yet he still held all the best silk cocoons in reserve for her even now.

  These days Lin Fenfang was usually to be seen walking through town carrying a shopping basket. Sometimes it was full of oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar. Sometimes it was loaded with fresh vegetables. Sometimes you might see a chunk of fatty pork or a pair of dead carp sticking out from amid the vegetables. When her basket was full of dirty clothes, she would head over to the riverbank, a little wooden stool dangling from one hand because she had grown too heavy to squat, and if she squatted by the riverbank her legs would eventually start to tremble under her weight. She would sit on the stool by the river, remove her shoes and socks, roll up her pants legs, and finally bring her plump feet to rest in the water. Only then would she take the clothes out from the basket and begin to do her wash.

  When Lin Fenfang walked down the street with her basket, her body swayed with each step because of her weight, and even the slowest pedestrians were always able to pass her by. She always walked cheerfully behind the rest, and everybody else knew that she was Lin Fenfang from the silk factory, the fattest woman in town, the woman who would gain weight even if she only ate rice, who could put on pounds just by drinking water.

  Xu Yulan usually saw Lin Fenfang when she went to buy vegetables in the morning. She would see her carrying her basket and moving from stall to stall, bargaining with each of the vendors, then slowly bending down and carefully sorting through the produce to select the best greens, cabbage, celery, or whatever else. Xu Yulan sometimes said to Yile, Erle, or Sanle, “You know Lin Fenfang at the silk factory? She uses fabric for two just for one new dress for herself.”

  Lin Fenfang knew all about Xu Yulan too. She knew that she was Xu Sanguan’s woman, that she had given him three sons, but that after having given birth three times, she hadn’t put on any weight at all, except perhaps a little bit around the stomach. When she talked with the vegetable sellers, her voice was loud and commanding, and she knew how to use it to press them for bargains. When she bought produce, she didn’t squeeze in with everybody else and pick out her vegetables one at a time. Instead, she would put all the vegetables in her own basket and then throw the ones she didn’t want back onto the pile. She never selected her produce along with everybody else; she let everyone else go through her leavings. Lin Fenfang often stood next to her. When she knelt down and her clothes pulled flush to her body, she could see that her waist hadn’t thickened at all over the years. Her hands flew nimbly back and forth from the basket to the produce, while her eyes appeared to be gazing at something in the distance.

  Lin Fenfang said to Xu Sanguan, “I know who your woman is. She’s called Xu Yulan. She’s the Fried Dough Queen of Nantang Street. She’s given you three sons, but she’s still as pretty as a young girl. Not like me, always putting on weight. Your woman’s pretty and smart, and she moves quickly. When she goes shopping—well, I’ve never seen such a bossy woman.”

  Xu Sanguan said to Lin Fenfang, “She’s no good. As soon as she gets mad about anything, she sits on the doorstep and cries and carries on, and it’s because of her that I’ve been a cuckold for nine years.”

  Lin Fenfang burst into laughter.

  Xu Sanguan looked toward her and continued, “Now when I think about it, I feel really terrible. If I had married you instead of her back then, then I wouldn’t have been a cuckold. Lin Fenfang, I think you’re better than Xu Yulan in every way. Even your name sounds nicer, and it looks pretty when you write it down. When you talk, it’s always nice and soft. Xu Yulan’s yelling and shouting all day long, and she snores at night too. When you get home after work, you shut the door and keep your business to yourself. All these years I’ve never once heard anything bad about your man, but Xu Yulan, well, if three days go by and she hasn’t gone out to the doorstep to cry and carry on, she starts to feel uncomfortable, just like she hadn’t taken a shit for a week. But the worst of it is that I’ve been a cuckold for nine years, and I didn’t even know it. And if Yile hadn’t started to look like that fucking He Xiaoyong, I would have been in the dark my whole goddamn life.”

  When Lin Fenfang saw that Xu Sanguan had broken into a sweat, she shifted the fan in her hand in his direction. “Your Xu Yulan is prettier than I am.”

  “She isn’t even as pretty as you,” Xu Sanguan said. “You used to be prettier than her.”

  “I used to be good
looking, but now I’m fat. Now I can’t compare to Xu Yulan.”

  Xu Sanguan suddenly asked, “If I had asked you to marry me back then, would you have agreed?”

  Lin Fenfang looked over at Xu Sanguan and giggled. “I can’t remember anymore.”

  Xu Sanguan asked, “What do you mean, you can’t remember?”

  Lin Fenfang said, “I really can’t remember. It’s been ten years now.”

  THIS CONVERSATION took place as Lin Fenfang lay on her bed and Xu Sanguan sat on a chair at the foot of the bed. Her bespectacled husband looked down on them from a picture frame on the wall. Lin Fenfang had broken her right leg slipping on the stone steps that led down to the riverbank. She had just put her freshly washed clothes into her basket and stepped up onto the steps when her left foot alighted on a watermelon rind. Before she could even call out, she had tumbled over and broken her right leg.

  When Xu Sanguan pushed his cart onto the factory floor that day and noticed that Lin Fenfang wasn’t there, he stood for a moment next to her spinning machine, then continued on his way around the workshop. After he had made small talk for a few moments with one of the other spinning girls, and she still hadn’t shown up, he thought she must have gone to the bathroom.

  “You think Lin Fenfang fell into the privy or something? How come she’s been gone for so long?”

  The other girls said, “How could Lin Fenfang fall into the privy? She’s too fat. Her backside would never fit. One of us maybe, but not her.”

  Xu Sanguan asked, “Then where did she go?”

  They replied, “Didn’t you notice that her spinning machine’s been turned off? She fell and broke her leg. She’s at home with a cast. She slipped on a watermelon rind with her left foot, but somehow her right leg broke instead. That’s what she told us. We all went to visit her already. Why don’t you go too?”