Brothers (67 page)

Baldy Li demolished the old Liu Town and built a new one. In just five years he expanded the roads and alleys and built countless new buildings, after which the townspeople stopped finding dirt on their collars and the amount of oxygen in their lungs again exceeded the dust. They still complained, however, saying that even though their old houses might have been old and decrepit, at least they had gotten them from the government. Although the new houses were big and new, it was nevertheless necessary to buy them from Baldy Li. There is a saying that
rabbits will spare the grass growing next to their burrow.
But Baldy Li was really rotten to the core and had chomped down on every last blade of grass around his home, given that all of his profit was extracted directly from his fellow townspeople. The people of Liu also complained that todays money had depreciated, that one thousand yuan today wasn't worth as much as one hundred yuan used to be. The town elders complained that now that the streets had been broadened, they were full of cars and bicycles, and the sound of horns could be
heard from morning to evening. In the past, though it was true that the streets were indeed cramped and narrow, two people could nevertheless stand on either side and chat all day long without growing tired. Now, however, the streets were so broad that if two people stood on opposite sides, they wouldn't be able to hear each other, and even if they stood next to each other, they had to shout to make themselves heard over the din. There used to be only a single department store and one clothing store; but now there were at least seven or eight supermarkets, and clothing stores had begun to sprout up like mushrooms after a shower, to the point that both sides of the street were now lined with displays of garish garb for men and women.

The townspeople of Liu watched in astonishment as Baldy Li became as rich as a ten-thousand-ton oil tanker. If you ate at the most extravagant restaurant in Liu, it would be owned by Baldy Li; if you bathed at the ritziest bathhouse, it would be owned by Baldy Li; and if you went shopping at the largest shopping center, it also would be owned by Baldy Li. The ties everyone wore around their necks, the socks they wore on their feet, their undershirts and underwear, their leather jacket and leather shoes, sweaters and coats, as well as their Western suits—they were all international name brands whose China-based factories were run by Baldy Li. Baldy Li designed the houses that everyone lived in and supplied the fruits and vegetables they ate. He even bought up the crematorium and cemetery, so that the town s dead had to be handed over to him. He provided those of us in Liu Town with everything, from what we ate to what we wore, from where we lived to what we used, and from birth to death. No one knew for certain how many businesses he owned or how much he earned. He once patted his chest and boasted that the entire fucking county government was run on the fucking taxes he paid. Someone observed obsequiously that Baldy Li was responsible for virtually the entire county's GDP. When Baldy Li heard this he was very satisfied, nodding in agreement. "I am indeed the entire fucking GDP."

Yanker Yu and Popsicle Wang got filthy rich along with him. Popsicle Wang spent every day strolling down Main Street, now that he no longer had to earn a living. But he would complain anxiously that he didn't know how to spend money since he was meant to be poor. Now he had so much money he couldn't count it all, much less spend it. After Yanker Yu struck it rich, he disappeared without a trace, spending all his time off traveling and sightseeing. He covered the entire
country in five years and now was traveling the world as part of a tour group. As for the fourteen handicapped workers at the Good Works Factory, in the blink of an eye they became fourteen senior researchers, and from that point on they enjoyed their high prestige and lived in comfort. Everyone agreed that they had turned into fourteen dandies.

It was during this period that the metal factory went bankrupt, and as a result Writer Liu and Song Gang became unemployed. Writer Liu ran a gamut of emotions, never having expected that the world would change so quickly or that the scrap-collecting Baldy Li would become the town s multimillionaire while he himself would lose his job and end up with nowhere to go. When Liu ran into Song Gang in the street, they commiserated with each other. Liu patted Song Gangs shoulder, then suddenly thought of something, saying, "No matter what, you are still Baldy Li's brother…"

Writer Liu cursed Baldy Li passionately, asking how there could be someone like him who, after striking it rich, began looking after everyone yet completely ignored his own brother. Not only Yanker Yu and Popsicle Wang but also the fourteen handicapped workers from the Good Works Factory had become the towns nouveaux riches, while Baldy Li's own brother was so poor that he didn't have enough to eat. Baldy Li seemed to have paid no attention and pretended he didn't know what had become of Song Gang. Writer Liu seized on this issue to suggest, "Your relationship to Baldy Li reminds me of that famous line by Du Fu:
Within the vermilion gates everything reeks of wine and meat, while in the street lie frozen bones.
"

"I haven't starved to death," Song Gang replied coldly, "and Baldy Li doesn't reek of wine and meat."

The day Song Gang lost his job was like any other. That evening he rode his Eternity bicycle over to the knitting factory to pick up Lin Hong, as he had done every day, rain or shine, for more than a decade. By this point, the other women at the knitting factory had their own bicycles, all foreign brands, and many of them rode mopeds. In fact, the stores in Liu Town no longer sold Eternity bicycles. Although Lin Hong and Song Gang didn't live extravagantly, they did have a color television, a refrigerator, and a washing machine; to buy a new bicycle, therefore, would not have been a big deal for them. Lin Hong recognized that their bicycle was old and outdated, but she held off buying a new one precisely because for more than ten years Song Gang had
used that Eternity bicycle to take her to and from work. While her other female workmates all rode their brand-new bicycles or mopeds, Lin Hong still hopped onto the backseat of the Eternity bicycle, hugging Song Gangs waist and smiling contentedly. Now her happiness lay not in having her own special bicycle but, rather, in the decade-long faithfulness her man and his bicycle had shown her.

Having just lost his job, Song Gang stood with his bicycle outside the knitting factory in the evening light, staring through the iron gate at the workers inside. The bell rang, marking the end of the workday, and when the gate swung open, several hundred bicycles, motorized bicycles, and mopeds poured out as if competing in a race, their bells and horns all sounding at once. After this wave of vehicles passed, Song Gang spotted Lin Hong walking down the empty road, looking like a piece of coral the tide had left behind on the beach.

The news that the metal factory had gone bankrupt quickly swept through the town. When Lin Hong heard it that afternoon, her heart sank. She wasn't concerned that Song Gang would become unemployed but, rather, worried about how he would take it. When she walked out the factory gate and over to his side, she looked up at her husbands bitter smile. His mouth twitched, and he started to tell Lin Hong that he had lost his job. Lin Hong, however, didn't let him continue, but rushed to say, "I already know."

Lin Hong saw a small leaf in his hair that she figured he got while passing under a tree on his way to pick her up. She reached out to brush it away, smiled, and said, "Let's go home."

Song Gang nodded, then turned and climbed back onto his bicycle as Lin Hong sat sidesaddle behind him. Song Gang rode his creaky old-fashioned Eternity bicycle through the streets of Liu, with Lin Hong hugging him from behind and pressing her face into his back. He felt that she was holding him tighter than usual and that her face was pressed into his back more tenderly than before. He smiled.

When they got home, Lin Hong went into the kitchen to cook dinner, and Song Gang turned his bicycle over and propped it up in front of the door. Taking out his tools, he first removed the wheels, then the pedals and the middle triangular frame. After taking the entire bicycle apart, Song Gang arranged the pieces neatly on the ground and, sitting on a stool, took a rag and started to carefully clean each one of them. Night fell and the lights came on, and after Lin Hong finished cooking dinner, she walked over to call Song Gang to come eat. Song Gang,
however, shook his head and said he wasn't hungry, telling her to go ahead and eat first.

Ling Hong brought over a bowl of food and a chair and also sat down in the doorway, watching Song Gang as she ate. The sight of Song Gang expertly wiping down the bicycle pieces was quite familiar to her; she couldn't remember how many times she had remarked that he took care of his bicycle as he would his own child. Now she said it again, and Song Gang laughed. When he had put back together a piece he had wiped clean, he told Lin Hong that the next day he was going to go look for work, but he didn't know what he would be able to find. In particular, he didn't know when he would have to be at work in the morning and when he would get off in the afternoon, and therefore he might not be able to continue taking her to work and picking her up. Then he stood up, straightened his stiff back, and told her, "From now on, you should ride your own bike home."

Lin Hong nodded and said, "Okay."

Song Gang carefully reassembled the bicycle, oiled the bearings, wiped his hands with a rag, and took a few turns in front of the house. No longer hearing the creaking sound, he hopped off in satisfaction and lowered the seat. Then he pushed the bicycle over to Lin Hong and asked her to climb on and give it a try. She had finished eating but was holding the bowl of food she had prepared for Song Gang. After he took the bowl from her, she accepted the bicycle. He then sat down where Lin Hong had just been sitting and ate his dinner while watching her climb onto his bicycle under the light of the streetlamps. Lin Hong rode three loops while Song Gang watched, and she announced that it felt fine, that this ten-year-old Eternity bicycle felt just like new. Song Gang, however, noticed a problem and set his bowl and chopsticks down on the stool. After she got down from the bicycle, he lowered the seat even more, then asked her to climb on and try again. Seeing that she was now able to rest both of her feet on the ground at the same time, he nodded with satisfaction and urged her, "When you brake, keep both feet on the ground. That way you won't fall."

CHAPTER 54

M
EANWHILE,
Song Gang and Lin Hong s house was torn down, and they moved to the first floor of a new building across the street. Mama Su also had to move her snack shop to the building across from Lin Hongs house. Poet Zhao's house was torn down as well, forcing him to move to the second floor of Song Gang and Lin Hongs building. Poet Zhao deliberately positioned his bed directly over theirs, and in the dead of night he would lie there, hoping to hear sounds of their lovemaking. Unable to hear anything, he placed his ear directly against the concrete floor but still couldn't hear anything and wondered how in the world there could be such a deathly silent matrimonial bed. Song Gang and Lin Hong had been married for many years, but they still hadn't had any children. He felt that the problem surely lay with Song Gang and speculated that he must be impotent. He secretly told Writer Liu his theory, adding, "When they go to bed together at night, they are like two guns equipped with silencers."

After Song Gang lost his job, he found a new job as a dockworker down at the wharf, carrying parcels from the ships to the warehouse and vice versa. He was paid by the piece, and therefore the more parcels he moved, the more he was paid. He rushed frantically with the large parcels up and down the hundred-yard path from the wharf to the warehouse—and while everyone else would just carry one, he would always carry two at once. Every day the elders who sat chatting on the side of the road would hear him wheezing like an accordion as he ran back and forth. His clothes completely drenched in sweat, he looked as if he had just climbed out of the river. Even his sneakers were soaked with sweat, making swishing sounds as he hauled the parcels back and forth. The elders would shake their heads and say, "That Song Gang values money more than life itself."

Song Gang's workmates would each make three or four round-trips, then sit on the riverbank steps to rest. There they would drink some water, smoke, and chat for half an hour before finally going back to work. Song Gang, however, would never sit on the steps to rest. Instead, he would make seven or eight trips, until—his face pale and
his lips trembling, feeling that he was about to collapse—he would place the last parcel on the ship. Walking down the plank back to shore, he'd see his workmates on the steps waving at him but, feeling he didn't even have the strength to cover the remaining ten yards, he'd fall to the ground as soon as he got off the plank. Therefore, his break would consist of sprawling there, with grass wedged under his collar and river water flowing past his arm, his eyes closed tightly, his chest rising and falling rapidly, and his heart pounding like a fist against his chest cavity.

By resting on the ground like this, Song Gang could recover his strength faster. Every time he lay down, his workmates sitting on the stone steps would laugh at him, calling him a crazy fool. Song Gang was so exhausted he couldn't hear what they were saying. Feeling that the ground was spinning, he'd clench his eyes until he could discern the sunlight through his closed lids and his breathing slowed back down to normal. At that point, having rested for less than ten minutes, he'd hear his workmates calling out his name. He'd slowly climb back up and see them waving to him, holding their water glasses out to him and offering him a cigarette. He'd smile and wave, then walk over to the water faucet on the dock to fill his belly, whereupon he'd take two more parcels and begin rushing back and forth again.

Working on the docks, Song Gang earned twice as much as his fellow workers and four times as much as he had made under the metal factory's iron-rice-bowl system. The first time he gave Lin Hong his salary, she jumped with surprise, astounded that he could have earned so much as a dockworker. Counting it, she said, "You are earning more in a month than you used to earn in four months at the factory."