Yu Hua - Chronicle of a Blood Merchant

Xu Sanguan was over sixty years old. His son Yile had been allowed to return to town eight years earlier. Erle had followed him back home two years later. Now Yile worked at the food-processing plant, and Erle was a buyer at the department store next to the rice shop. Within a few years Yile, Erle, and Sanle had all gotten married, had children, and moved to their own houses. And these days their three sons brought their wives and kids back to the family home to see them only on Saturdays.

Now that Xu Sanguan was no longer responsible for the children, and the money that he and Xu Yulan earned was for their use alone, they rarely lacked for cash. There were no longer any patches on their clothes. Their life was like Xu Sanguan’s health, which, as he often told people he happened to run into on the street, “is very good.”

Which is why when he walked down the street, Xu Sanguan’s face was awash in smiles and the wrinkles that covered his face rippled like river water. The sun shone on his face, etching the ripples in light and shadow. That was how he looked as he walked with a smile out of the house and strolled past the snack shop where Xu Yulan made fried dough for breakfast every morning, past the department store where Erle worked, past the movie house that had once been a theater, past the elementary school, past the hospital, past Five Star Bridge, past the clock shop, past the butcher’s shop, past Heavenrest Temple, past a newly opened boutique, past two trucks parked next to each other, and past the Victory Restaurant.

But just as he passed the Victory Restaurant, he smelled the aroma of fried pork livers escaping from the open window above the kitchen along with a gust of oily cooking smoke. He had walked past the restaurant, yet the smell stopped him in his tracks, and he stood stock-still, nostrils flaring and mouth widened in an effort to better savor the aroma.

And so it was that Xu Sanguan began to crave a plate of fried pork livers accompanied by a couple of shots of yellow rice wine. His craving grew more and more intense, and he began to feel another craving. He began to feel like selling some blood. He remembered when he had sat at the table by the window with Ah Fang and Genlong, remembered when he had sat in a restaurant with Laixi and Laishun in Huang’s Inn, fingers drumming on the tabletop, calling loudly to the waiters: a plate of fried pork livers, two shots of yellow rice wine, and warm that wine up for me.

Xu Sanguan stood by the door of the Victory Restaurant for nearly five minutes before making up his mind to go to the hospital to sell blood. He turned to leave. It had been fifteen years since he sold blood. Today he would sell blood once again, but this time he was going to sell blood just for himself. This would be the very first time he had sold blood for himself. He thought that in the past he had always eaten fried pork livers and drunk yellow rice wine because he had sold blood. Today it would be the other way around. Today he would sell blood so that he could eat fried pork livers and drink yellow rice wine. He walked past the two trucks, walked past the new boutique, walked past the Heavenrest Temple, past the butcher’s shop, past the clock shop, past Five Star Bridge, and finally came to the hospital.

The man who sat behind the desk in the blood donation room was no longer Blood Chief Li, but a young man who looked as if he were not yet thirty years old. When the young blood chief looked up he saw that the man who walked into the office had white hair and was missing three of his four front teeth.

When he heard that this same old man had come to sell blood, he waved his hand dismissively. “You want to sell blood? An old man like you? Who needs your blood?”

Xu Sanguan said, “I may be old, but my health is very good. So what if my hair is gray and I’ve lost a few teeth? My eyes are fine, I have a lucky mole on my forehead, and my ears are as good as they ever were. I can even hear what people whisper to each other in the street from inside my house.”

The young blood chief said, “I don’t care about your eyes, ears, or anything else, for that matter. Do me a favor. Turn around and march yourself right out of here.”

Xu Sanguan said, “Old Blood Chief Li never said things like that.”

The young blood chief said, “My name isn’t Li. My name is Shen. And Blood Chief Shen can say whatever he pleases.”

Xu Sanguan said, “When Blood Chief Li was still here, I came here all the time to sell blood.”

The young blood chief said, “But Blood Chief Li is dead now.”

Xu Sanguan said, “I know he’s dead. He died three years ago. I stood by the gates of Heavenrest Temple and watched them carry his body to the crematorium.”

The young blood chief said, “Get out of here! I’m not going to buy your blood. You’re just too old. There’s more dead blood than living in your veins. No one could possibly want any of your blood. The only person who might be able to use your blood is the lacquer man.” The young blood chief chuckled. “You want to know why the lacquer man could use your blood? Because just before they lacquer a piece of furniture, they prime the wood with a coat of pig’s blood.” The young blood chief burst into laughter. “Understand now? The only thing your blood is good for is furniture. So turn left on your way out of the hospital, and it won’t be long before you come to the lacquer shop under the Five Star Bridge. The boss is named Wang. He’s famous for his lacquer. Why don’t you try selling some of your blood to him? He just might be buying.”

Xu Sanguan listened in silence, then shook his head. “I’ll forget what you’ve just said to me and let it go at that. But you should know that if my three sons had been here to hear all of that, they would have broken your jaw.”

With these words, he turned to leave. He walked out of the hospital and into the street. It was noon and the streets were full of people who had just left work for lunch. Wave after wave of young workers rolled by on their bicycles, while flocks of children with book bags slung over their shoulders flew down the sidewalk. Xu Sanguan also moved down the sidewalk, but his heart was brimming with grief and resentment. Stung to the core by what the young blood chief had said, he moved down the sidewalk, lost in thought. He was an old man now, his blood was more dead than alive, no one would want his blood anymore, and it was good only for lacquer. This was the first time in forty years he had not been allowed to sell his blood. And in those forty years, he had overcome every family calamity by selling his blood. Now that no one wanted his blood, what would he do if some calamity were once again to befall his family?

Xu Sanguan began to cry. He walked with his shirt open, letting the wind blow onto his chest and across his face, allowing the big, cloudy tears to fall from his eyes, roll slowly down his cheeks, run into his neck, and slide onto his chest. He lifted his hand to wipe his face, and the tears rolled onto his hand, across his palm, and slid down the back of his hand. His tears kept sliding down as his feet moved across the sidewalk. He held his head high, straightened his back, and his legs stepped forward with energy and spirit. His arms swung back and forth without the slightest hesitation. But his face was suffused with sadness. Rivulets of tears crisscrossed like rain streaming across a windowpane, or the hairline cracks crawling up the sides of a fragile antique bowl, or the dense profusion of branches reaching out from an old tree, irrigation canals spreading across the fields, a network of streets extending across a town. Tears wove a net across his face.

He wept in silence as he walked down the street, moving past the elementary school, past the movie theater, past the department store, past the shop where Xu Yulan fried breakfast crullers, past his own front door. He kept right on walking, walking past one street and then another, until he passed by the Victory Restaurant. And he kept on walking even then, past the clothing store, past Heavenrest Temple, past the butcher’s shop, past Five Star Bridge, until he came to the entrance to the hospital. Still he continued to walk, past the elementary school, past the movie theater, until he had circled the streets of the town once, then twice, and people on the streets began to stop and take notice of this man weeping silently as he walked through the streets of the town.