Yu Hua - Chronicle of a Blood Merchant

Erle kept on shouting until the sky had gone completely dark and Yile had been swallowed up by the encroaching color of night. And yet Yile refused to get up and open the door. Erle began to feel frightened. He wondered if something was wrong with his brother. He wondered if Yile had poisoned himself with pesticides. He decided to kick open the door. Smashing his foot twice against the lock, the door gave way. Then he ran to the bed and touched Yile’s face. Yile’s face was so hot that it scared him half to death. He thought to himself, Yile must be running a fever of 104 degrees, at the very least.

When Yile spoke, his voice was terribly weak. “I’m sick.”

Erle swept the quilt aside and took Yile into his arms. “I’m taking you home. We can take the night ferry home.”

Erle, struck by the realization that Yile was seriously ill, decided that any further delay might be dangerous. He immediately slung Yile over his back, went out the door, and began to jog toward the ferry pier. The closest ferry pier was nearly three miles away from Yile’s production brigade. Erle carried Yile on his back through the snow and the wind for more than an hour before they reached the pier. The pier was sunk in darkness, and Erle could only just make out the little open shelter near the pier by the weak gleam of the moonlight reflecting on the snow. The road curved around to the left of the shelter, and a long flight of stone steps led down to the river on the right.

They reached the pier. The shelter had been built to shield ferry passengers from the rain, the snow, and the heat of summer. Erle carried Yile over to the shelter and laid him out on a concrete bench that was exposed on all sides to the elements. Then he noticed that Yile’s hair and his back were completely coated with snow. He brushed the snow off Yile’s back with one hand, then wiped the snow from the top of his head. Yile’s hair was soaked, and the moisture had trickled down his neck as well. His entire body trembled as he told Erle, “I’m cold.”

Erle, on the other hand, was so hot from the journey to the pier that sweat ran down his back. It was not until Yile spoke that he realized that the snow was swirling into the shelter from all sides, windblown. He took off his padded jacket and wrapped it around his brother. Yile continued to tremble. Erle asked him, “When will the ferry come?”

He could barely hear what Yile said in reply. Erle bent his ear next to Yile’s mouth before he was able to understand. “Ten o’clock.”

Erle thought to himself, It couldn’t be much later than seven now. If we stay out here in the open for another three hours, Yile will freeze to death. He shifted Yile to the ground instead of the bench so that not quite as much snow and wind would reach him.

“You sit right here. I’m going to run back and get your quilt.”

Erle sprinted toward Yile’s production brigade, running as if his life depended on it, not daring to delay a single second. But because he was sprinting through snow, he tumbled repeatedly to the ground. Waves of pain coursed through his right arm and his buttocks as he continued to run. When he finally reached Yile’s place, he stood for a moment to catch his breath, picked up the quilt, and then began to sprint back to the pier.

By the time he regained the shelter, Yile seemed to be nowhere in sight. Erle, shocked, shouted, “Yile! Yile!” Suddenly he caught sight of something dark and indistinct lying on the ground in front of him. It was Yile lying in the snow. The padded jacket had slid to one side, and only a corner of the cloth still covered Yile’s chest. Erle called to his brother as he reached down and took him into his arms. Yile did not respond. Erle, on the verge of panic, stroked his face. Yile’s face was as cold as his hand.

Erle screamed, “Yile, Yile, are you dead?”

He saw Yile’s head move and, reassured that he was not yet dead, broke into a smile. “Goddamnit,” he said, “you really scared me that time.” Then he told him, “I went to get your quilt. You won’t be as cold that way.”

Erle spread the quilt across the ground, then rolled his brother inside it. Then he wrapped the padded jacket around the quilt. He sat down on the concrete floor of the shelter and took this bundle, with Yile inside it, into his arms. Finally, he leaned his back against the concrete bench so that Yile could lean against his chest.

“Yile, are you still cold?”

Then Erle sensed his own exhaustion. He nestled his head against the concrete bench, feeling that his arms, which were still wrapped tightly around Yile, might fall to his sides any minute. And a moment later they did. Yile felt like a stone pressing against him. He let his hands dangle by his sides for a moment to rest, then propped himself up on the concrete so as to distribute the burden away from the rest of his body.

Erle’s shirt was moist with sweat, and after a short while the sweat went icy cold. The northwest wind whistled down his neck, and his whole body began to shiver. Drops of water began to tumble from his head onto his body, and when he reached up to pat his hair, he realized that the snow on his hair was melting. Patting his clothes, he realized that the snow that had accumulated there was melting as well. His icy sweat was seeping out from underneath his clothes, and the snow melt was soaking into them. It was not long before he was drenched through to his skin.

The night ferry did not arrive until well after ten o’clock. Erle carried Yile on his back onto the boat, which was nearly empty. He walked back to the stern. The engine was directly by the stern, behind some wooden planks. Erle set Yile down in a chair that he leaned against the planks, which were pleasantly warm from the heat emitted by the engine.

The boat arrived in town just before dawn. It was snowing there too, and the streets were coated with a thick layer of icy flakes. Erle hoisted Yile onto his back once more. Because Yile was still wrapped in the heavy cotton quilt, the two boys together were nearly as big as a three-wheeled bicycle cart. The footprints Erle left in the snow wobbled through the streets, sometimes deep and sometimes shallow, their uneven imprints glittering coldly under the electric street lamps.

WHEN ERL E ARRIVED home with Yile on his back, Xu Sanguan and Xu Yulan were fast asleep. They heard the front door being banged open from the outside and, emerging from the bedroom to see what was happening, watched as an enormous mountain of snow tumbled through the door and into the house.

Yile was taken to the hospital immediately. By the time the sun rose, the doctor informed them that Yile had contracted a form of hepatitis and that his condition was extremely serious. There was nothing more that they could do for him in town. The only recourse was to send him, as soon as was humanly possible, to the big hospital in Shanghai. Any delay, he added, might be life-threatening.

Before the doctor had even finished speaking, Xu Yulan began to cry. She sat in a chair outside the ward, tugging Xu Sanguan’s sleeve and weeping.

“If he’s this sick now, he must have already been sick the last time he was home. We shouldn’t have made him leave. But we didn’t know he was sick. If we had known, we could have taken care of him, and things would never have gotten so serious. Now they have to send him to Shanghai, and if he doesn’t go, there’s no guaranteeing that he’ll survive. How much is it going to cost to send him to Shanghai? We don’t even have enough money for an ambulance. Xu Sanguan, what are we going to do?”

Xu Sanguan said, “Don’t cry. No matter how much you cry, it’s not going to make Yile any better. If we don’t have the money, we’ll just have to find another way. We can borrow. We can borrow a little from everyone we know. We can always find enough money that way.”