Chronicle of a Blood Merchant (19 page)

Xu Sanguan took him to the hospital without any further delay. The doctor said Erle had a bad flu and that his bronchial passages were also infected. Fortunately, his lungs were still clear, and there was nothing wrong that a few shots of streptomycin couldn’t fix.

Xu Sanguan called Sanle to his side and said, “I’m leaving Erle in your hands. Stay home from work for a few days and look after him. Make sure he gets enough rest and enough to eat. I know you can’t cook, and I won’t have any time to cook for you either, because I have to find a way to collect enough money for Yile. You’ll just have to get your meals from the canteen at the factory. Here’s ten
yuan.
Take it.”

Then Xu Sanguan went once again to pay a visit to Blood Chief Li. When Blood Chief Li saw Xu Sanguan walk into the room, he smiled. “You’re here to sell blood
again
?”

Xu Sanguan nodded. “My son Yile has hepatitis, and they had to send him to the hospital in Shanghai. My son Erle is sick in bed at home too. I’m desperate this time.”

“Don’t even bother talking to me”—Blood Chief Li waved him away—“because I’m not listening.”

Xu Sanguan stood before him on the verge of tears.

Blood Chief Li continued, “Are you trying to kill yourself, selling blood at this pace? You’ve been here almost every month, no? If you’re really so tired of living, you’d do better to find yourself a nice quiet spot where there’s a tree to hang yourself from.”

Xu Sanguan said, “Look, I’m begging you. Help me out for Genlong’s sake.”

“Damn!” Blood Chief Li exclaimed. “When Genlong was still alive, you asked me to do it on Genlong’s account. I’m still supposed to help you on his account now that he’s dead and gone?”

Xu Sanguan replied, “Genlong hasn’t been gone for very long. I’ll bet his corpse isn’t even cold yet. Can’t you do it out of respect for him?”

Blood Chief Li chuckled despite himself. “You really have no shame, do you? Thickest skin I ever saw. So out of respect for your thick skin, I’m going to give you a little suggestion. Even if
I
won’t let you sell any blood, you can always go somewhere else. Try another hospital.
They
won’t know that you’ve just sold blood somewhere else. They’ll be happy to take your blood. Get it?” Blood Chief Li saw Xu Sanguan nodding his head. “That way, you can sell as much blood as you want. And you can sell your life away along with it, for all I care.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Xu Sanguan put the ailing Erle to bed at home, told Sanle to look after him, slung a blue floral-print cloth bundle across his back, stuffed two
yuan
and thirty
fen
into his front pocket, and set off for the ferry pier.

He was on his way to Shanghai, but before he got there, he would pass through Lin’s Pier, North Marsh, Westbank, Hundred-Mile, Tongyuan, Pine Grove, Big Bridge, Anchang Gate, Jing’an, Huang’s Inn, Tiger’s Head Bridge, Three Ring Cave, Seven-Mile Fort, Yellow Bay, Willow Village, Changning, and New Village. And of these places, only Lin’s Pier, Hundred-Mile, Pine Grove, Huang’s Inn, Seven-Mile Fort, and Changning were county seats. He would go ashore in all six of these towns to sell blood. He would sell his blood all the way to Shanghai.

Around noon that day Xu Sanguan arrived at Lin’s Pier. He walked along the little river that cut through town, between buildings and houses that clustered above the banks with their foundations spilling into the water below. Xu Sanguan unfastened the buttons of his cotton-padded jacket, letting the wintry sunlight shine onto his chest. His time-bronzed skin flushed a deep red in the cold wind. When he saw a set of stone-hewn steps leading down to the water, he went and sat by the river’s edge. A jumble of boats were moored on either side of the river; the steps where he sat offered the only unobstructed access to the stream along the embankment. There must have been a heavy snowfall in Lin’s Pier not long before, for Xu Sanguan saw that the cracks in between the stone steps were filled with veins of unmelted snow that glittered in the sun. Looking across the water at the windows of the houses, Xu Sanguan could tell that the people of Lin’s Pier were eating lunch, because steam had fogged their windows opaque.

He took a bowl out from his bundle, skimmed it below the water’s surface, and drew a bowlful. The water from around Lin’s Pier looked a little greenish in the bowl. He took a sip. The bone-piercingly cold water rolled down into his gut, and his body shivered. He wiped his mouth with his hand, then arched his neck to the sky and drank all of the water in a single gulp, clasping himself with his arms to steady the violent shivers that began almost as soon as he had finished. After a little while he felt his stomach slowly regain its usual temperature, so he skimmed another bowlful of water, drank it, and once again steadied himself against a fit of trembling.

The people of Lin’s Pier, sitting by their windows eating steaming bowls of lunch, noticed Xu Sanguan. They opened their windows and stuck their heads outside to gaze at this almost fifty-year-old man sitting at the bottom step of the stone pier, drinking bowl after bowl after bowl of wintry cold river water and shivering violently with each gulp.

And so they said to him, “Who are you? Where are you from?” “I’ve never seen anyone so thirsty in my life.” “Why are you drinking from the river? It’s winter, you’ll get sick that way.” “Come on up here, come up to my house, I’ll give you something to drink. We have boiled water, and we have tea leaves. We’ll make you a pot of tea.”

Xu Sanguan looked up at them and smiled. “I don’t want to bother you, thanks. You’re nice folks, and I wouldn’t want to trouble you. I have to drink a lot of water, so it’ll be less trouble to drink from the river.”

They replied, “We have plenty of water, you can drink all you want. If one pot isn’t enough for you, then you can have two pots or even three for that matter.”

Xu Sanguan stood, bowl in hand and faced the window through which the invitation had been issued. “I don’t want to use up all your tea. Give me a little salt. I’ve already had four bowls of water, but the water’s too cold, and I can hardly drink any more. Give me a little salt, and then I’ll feel like drinking some more water.”

They found this request somewhat odd. “What do you need salt for? If you can’t drink any more, then you won’t be thirsty anymore anyway.”

“I’m not thirsty. I’m not drinking because of thirst.”

Some of them laughed. One of them said, “If you’re not thirsty, why are you drinking so much water? And why drink cold water from the river? If you drink that much river water, you’ll get a stomachache for sure.”

Xu Sanguan looked up at them. “You seem like nice folks, so I’ll tell you. I’m drinking so much water so that I can sell my blood.”

“Selling blood?” they asked. “Why do you have to drink water to sell blood?”

“The more you drink, the more blood there’ll be. If you drink enough water, you can sell two bowls of blood.”

As he spoke, Xu Sanguan tapped the rim of his bowl and laughed, his wrinkled face folding into a smile.

“But why do you want to sell your blood?”

Xu Sanguan replied, “Yile’s sick. I mean, he’s seriously ill. It’s hepatitis. They’ve already taken him to a big hospital in Shanghai—”

“Who’s Yile?” someone interrupted.

“My son,” Xu Sanguan said. “He’s seriously ill, and only the big hospital in Shanghai can save him. I don’t have any money, so I have to sell my blood. If I can sell blood all the way to Shanghai, I might be able to make enough to pay the medical bill by the time I get there.”

At this point Xu Sanguan began to cry. He smiled wordlessly as tears rolled down his face. Xu Sanguan’s speech had left them speechless, and they could only gaze back at him. Finally, Xu Sanguan lifted his arm toward them. “You seem like kind-hearted folks. Do you think you could give me some salt?”

They all nodded. After a little while one of them brought him some salt wrapped in a piece of paper, while someone else gave him three pots full of hot tea. Xu Sanguan, looking toward the salt and the hot tea, said, “So much salt. I can’t use all of it. Tell you the truth, what with the tea, I don’t think I’ll need any salt after all.”

They said, “If you can’t use the salt now, take it with you, and you can use it next time you sell blood. Have some tea now before it gets cold.”

Xu Sanguan nodded, put the packet of salt in his pocket, sat back down on the stone steps, skimmed half a bowl of river water, picked up one of the teapots they had proffered, and poured it into the bowl. Then he drank this concoction in one gulp and wiped his mouth.

“That tea really tastes good.” Xu Sanguan drank three more bowls of tea.

They exclaimed, “You really know how to drink!”

Xu Sanguan smiled bashfully. “I’m really just forcing it down.” He glanced at the three teapots on the steps. “I have to leave now, but I don’t know who these teapots belong to. Who should I give them back to?”

They said, “You go on. We’ll collect them ourselves.”

Xu Sanguan nodded and looked around at the people in the windows and the people standing next to him on the steps, and he bowed in their direction. “You’ve all been so good to me, and I have nothing to give you in return, except my respects.”

Soon afterward, Xu Sanguan arrived at the Lin’s Pier County Hospital. In the blood donation room at the end of the clinic corridor sat a man about the same age as Blood Chief Li. He sat beside a desk, one arm draped across the tabletop, staring across the hall into a bathroom without a door.

When Xu Sanguan saw that his white coat was every bit as filthy as Blood Chief Li’s, he said, “You must be the blood chief around here. Your white coat’s all black in front and around the sleeves. The front’s like that because you’re always sitting in front of a desk, and the sleeves are dirty because you rest your arms on top of the desk. You’re just like our Blood Chief Li. And the back of your coat’s black too, because you sit on a stool all day long.”

Xu Sanguan sold his blood at the Lin’s Pier County Hospital, then ate a plate of fried pork livers and drank two shots of yellow rice wine at the restaurant in town. Then he began to walk through the streets of Lin’s Pier. The cold winter wind chilled his face, slipped down his collar, and down his neck. He began to feel the chill. Wrapped in the cotton-padded jacket, he felt his body suddenly go cold. He knew it was because he had sold his blood, because he had sold all the warmth in his body. He felt the wind slide down his chest and to his belly, and his stomach muscles contracted from the cold. He grasped hold of his collar, pulling it forward so that it would wrap around his neck. He looked as if he were pulling his body down the road with his collar.

Bright sunlight played across the road that ran through Lin’s Pier. Xu Sanguan’s shivering body moved through the sun’s rays. He walked past one street and came to another, where he caught sight of a few young men leaning against an old sunlight-bathed wall, squinting as they absorbed the warmth, hands stuffed snugly inside their sleeves. They were talking among themselves, shouting, laughing. Xu Sanguan stood for a moment in front of them, then moved into their midst, standing against the wall and squinting his eyes against the bright sun.

Xu Sanguan saw them turn to look at him, so he said, “It’s warm here, and there’s not so much wind.”

They nodded and watched him huddle against the wall, hands still tightly clasped around his collar. They whispered, “Look at his hands.” “He’s holding his collar so tight it looks like someone’s trying to strangle him.” “Or like he’s being throttled with a rope. What do you think?”

Xu Sanguan, overhearing this comment, smiled in their direction. “It’s just that I’m afraid the wind will come in through my collar.” He released one side of the collar and pointed toward his neck with his free hand. “This is like a window in a house. You wouldn’t leave a window open during the winter, would you? If you left the windows open, everybody inside would freeze to death.”

They erupted into laughter at this explanation. Then someone said, “Well, I’ve never seen anyone as afraid of the cold as you. And we all heard your teeth chattering even though you’re wearing such a thick coat. Look at us. None of us are wearing a padded coat, and our collars are all open.”

Xu Sanguan said, “Just a minute ago my collar was open too. Just a minute ago I drank eight bowls of water from the river.”

They said, “You think you might be running a fever?”

Xu Sanguan replied, “I don’t have a fever.”

They said, “Oh no? Then why are you talking nonsense?”

Xu Sanguan said, “I’m not talking nonsense.”

They said, “You’re definitely running a fever. You’re feeling unusually cold, right?”

Xu Sanguan nodded. “That’s right.”

“Then you’re feverish,” they said. “People feel cold when they’re running a fever. Feel your forehead. I’ll bet it’s really hot.”

Xu Sanguan smiled as he looked back toward them. “I’m not running a fever, I’m just cold, that’s all. It’s because I just sold—”

They interrupted, “If you’re feeling cold, it’s got to be because you have a high fever. Feel your forehead.”

Xu Sanguan smiled but didn’t lift his arm to feel his forehead.

They continued to urge, “Go ahead, feel your forehead. You’ll know right away if you have a fever or not. It’s not like it’s such a big chore. Just lift up your arm.”

Xu Sanguan lifted his hand to his forehead as they looked on.

“It’s hot, isn’t it?”

Xu Sanguan shook his head, “I don’t know. I really can’t tell because my forehead’s the same temperature as my hand.”

“I’ll try then.” One of them walked over and placed his hand on Xu Sanguan’s forehead. He turned to the others and said, “His forehead’s really cold.”

Someone else said, “You just took your hand out of your pocket, it’s probably too warm to tell. Try putting your own forehead next to his instead.” So he pressed his own forehead against Xu Sanguan’s, waited for a moment, turned back toward them, and slowly rubbed his hand across his own forehead. “Maybe I’m the one running a fever. My forehead’s a lot warmer than his.” Then he added, “You try.”

One after another they walked over and pressed their foreheads against Xu Sanguan’s forehead, until they were compelled to agree with what he had said in the first place. “You’re right. You’re not running a fever. We’re the ones who’re running fevers.”

They stood around him in a circle, laughing. When they were finished laughing, someone started to whistle. Then a few more of them started to whistle, and they moved away together, whistling. Xu Sanguan watched them go until he couldn’t see them anymore and the sound of their whistling faded to silence. Then he laughed quietly to himself as he sat down on a rock at the base of the wall, his body surrounded by the sunlight. He felt a little warmer than he had a moment before. His hands had started to go numb from the cold, so he released his collar and stuck his fingers into his pockets.

XU SANGUAN took a river ferry to North Marsh, and from North Marsh he went on to Westbank, where he took another boat to Hundred-Mile. It had been three days since he had left home, and three days since he had sold blood at Lin’s Pier. Now he planned to go to the hospital at Hundred-Mile and sell blood. In Hundred-Mile he walked down the street that ran along the river. The street was lined with muddy piles of melting snow, and when the wind blew into his face, his skin felt as dry and taut as the preserved fish hanging from the eaves of the houses along the way. He held his drinking bowl in one hand and the little packet of salt inside the wide sleeves of his padded jacket. He ate the salt crystals as he walked, and whenever his mouth began to pucker from the saltiness, he would climb down the stone steps to the river, skim the surface, and drink a couple of bowls of icy water. Then he continued down the road, eating fresh pinches of salt as he went.

That afternoon, just after he emerged into the street from selling blood at the Hundred-Mile hospital, and just before he managed to cross over to a restaurant on the opposite side of the street to eat a plate of fried pork livers and drink two shots of yellow rice wine, he discovered that he could no longer walk. His limbs shook like bare tree branches in a violent wind, whipping back and forth until it seemed that they would snap, and he clasped onto his body with his hands in an effort to stop the trembling. Then his legs buckled underneath him, and he tumbled to the pavement.

Someone on the street walked toward him to ask what was wrong, but Xu Sanguan was shivering so violently that the man couldn’t make out what he had said in reply. Someone else suggested that they take him to the hospital: “Lucky for him it’s just a few steps away.” Another man hoisted him up on his back and began to carry him toward the hospital door.