Yu Hua - Chronicle of a Blood Merchant

Genlong paused and lifted a hand to his forehead. “Why am I feeling so dizzy?”

“You’re right.” Xu Sanguan eyes widened. “How come I never thought of that?”

He watched as Genlong bent forward and rested his forehead against the tabletop. “Genlong, are you all right?”

“I’m fine. It’s just that I feel a little dizzy.”

Xu Sanguan’s thoughts turned once again to his own problems. He sighed. “If I had only thought of that earlier. Now I suppose it’s just too late.”

He saw Genlong shut his eyes. “But even if I had thought of having them sent there, it might not have done any good. We couldn’t very well tell the authorities where we wanted them assigned.”

When he realized that Genlong hadn’t responded, he leaned over and gave him a prod. When his motion still didn’t produce any response, he called his name: “Genlong, Genlong.”

When Genlong still didn’t move, Xu Sanguan started to feel frightened. He looked around to see that the restaurant was packed with other people. The noise of talking and eating was deafening, and cigarette smoke and cooking steam cast a gray pall over the room. Waiters were squeezing through the crowd, carrying platters of food. Xu Sanguan prodded Genlong once more, and when there wasn’t any response, he shouted to the waiters, “Come help! I think Genlong’s dead.”

The restaurant went suddenly quiet. The waiters hastily squeezed their way over to the table. One of them shook Genlong by the shoulders, while the other rubbed his face. The waiter rubbing his face said, “He’s not dead. His face is still warm.”

Another waiter appeared, lifted Genlong’s face from the table, and told the assembled onlookers, “Looks to me like he’s almost dead.”

Xu Sanguan asked, “What do we do now?”

Someone said, “Take him to the hospital.”

After they had taken him to the hospital, the doctor said he had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. When they asked him what a cerebral hemorrhage was, the doctor told them that one of the blood vessels in his head had burst. Another doctor standing to one side added, “Wasn’t just one blood vessel, from the looks of it.”

Xu Sanguan sat on a chair in the hospital corridor for three hours and did not stand up until Genlong’s woman Guihua arrived. He hadn’t seen Guihua for more than twenty years, and the Guihua standing in front of him bore no resemblance at all to the young woman he remembered. This Guihua looked as strong as a man. It was already late autumn, but Guihua had come to town in bare feet, with her pants legs rolled up around her knees. And since she had come directly to the hospital when she heard the news, without stopping to wash up at home, her feet were coated with mud from the fields. Her eyes were red and swollen. Xu Sanguan thought to himself that she must have been crying the whole way into town.

After Genlong’s woman arrived, Xu Sanguan left the hospital and went home. As he walked home, a feeling of emptiness washed over him. His body felt terribly heavy, as if he were carrying a hundred-pound sack of rice, and his legs trembled with every step forward. The doctor said Genlong had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, but Xu Sanguan knew better. Genlong had gotten sick because he had sold too much blood. Xu Sanguan told himself, The doctor must not have known that Genlong had just sold some blood. Otherwise he wouldn’t have said that it was a cerebral hemorrhage.

As soon as Xu Sanguan arrived home, Xu Yulan screamed, “Where have you been? You had me worried to death! Erle’s brigade chief is coming over for dinner, and you just disappear! Did you sell blood?”

Xu Sanguan nodded. “I sold blood. But Genlong’s dying.”

Xu Yulan stuck out her hand. “Where’s the money?”

Xu Sanguan gave her the money. She hastily counted the notes, and only when she was finished did she register what Xu Sanguan had just said. “Who did you say is dying?”

“Genlong.” Xu Sanguan sat down on a stool. “The man who went to sell blood with me. The Genlong from my grandpa’s village.”

Xu Yulan didn’t know who Genlong was and didn’t know why he was about to die. She slipped the money into her inside pocket, and before Xu Sanguan could finish his sentence, she bounded out of the door to the market to buy meat, fish, cigarettes, and liquor.

Xu Sanguan, left alone in the house, sat for a while in his chair, but he soon felt so fatigued that he lay down in bed. He thought to himself, If I’m feeling so tired from just sitting in my chair, maybe I’m about to die too. Just as the thought crossed his mind, he felt his chest constrict. After a moment or two of this suffocating feeling, he felt dizzy. He remembered that Genlong’s illness had begun with a spell of dizziness. Genlong had put his head down on the table, and when he had called to him, he didn’t answer.

Xu Sanguan was still lying in bed when Xu Yulan came back from the store. When she saw that he was in bed, she said, “You stay where you are. You’re still weak from selling blood. Just stay put, and I’ll take care of everything. You can rest until the brigade chief shows up.”

Erle’s brigade chief arrived around dusk. He was greeted by a table heavily laden with food.

“So much food! Why, the table’s almost overflowing. You’re really much too polite. And such fine liquor as well!”

When he caught sight of Xu Sanguan, he continued, “You look thin. You look thinner than when I saw you this afternoon.”

Xu Sanguan’s heart sank with these words, but he forced himself to smile. “Yes, I’ve lost weight. Have a seat, chief.”

“I’ve seen people lose weight over the course of six months or a year. But this is the first time I’ve ever seen someone lose so much weight in one day.” The brigade chief sat down at the table. When he noticed that there was a new carton of cigarettes on the table, he cried out in spite of himself, “And you bought a whole carton of cigarettes? I couldn’t possibly smoke so much in one night!”

Xu Yulan said, “Brigade chief, this carton of cigarettes is for you. You can take whatever you don’t finish home with you.”

Erle’s brigade chief nodded cheerfully and just as cheerfully picked up the bottle of spirits and twisted open the cap with his right hand. He filled his own cup with liquor and was about to pour some for Xu Sanguan when Xu Sanguan hastily lifted his cup from the table. “I don’t drink.”

Erle’s brigade chief said, “That may be so, but you’re going to drink with me tonight. I don’t like to drink alone. It’s no fun that way.”

Xu Yulan said, “Xu Sanguan, you better have a drink or two with the brigade chief.”

Xu Sanguan had no choice but to pass the cup over to Erle’s brigade chief, who filled it to the brim, handed it back to him, and declared, “Now then! Bottoms up!”

Xu Sanguan said, “I’ll just have a sip.”

“That won’t do,” the brigade chief said. “You’ve got to down it all in one gulp. This is a test of our friendship. Friends drink when they’re together. Acquaintances merely sip.”

Xu Sanguan drank the whole cup in one gulp. His body immediately began to feel warm, just as if someone had struck a match in his belly, and he felt his strength beginning to seep back into his body, and with it a sense of relaxation. He picked up a piece of meat with his chopsticks and put it in his mouth.

Xu Yulan said to Erle’s brigade chief, “Brigade chief, every time Erle comes home, he tells us what a good man you are, how kind, how easy you are to get along with, and how well you look after him.”

Xu Sanguan, thinking of the bitterness with which Erle cursed his brigade chief whenever he came home, picked up where Xu Yulan left off. “He tells us that everyone really appreciates how well you take care of them.”