Yu Hua - Chronicle of a Blood Merchant

Xu Yulan said, “I can’t lift one hundred pounds of rice by myself.”

Xu Sanguan said, “Then get fifty.”

“I can’t handle fifty pounds either.”

“Try twenty-five.”

XU YULAN said, “Xu Sanguan, I’m going to wash the sheets. Will you help me move the trunk? I can’t move it by myself.”

Xu Sanguan said, “Nothing doing. I’m sitting back in my chair and enjoying myself.”

XU YULAN said, “Xu Sanguan, time to eat.”

Xu Sanguan replied, “Bring me my bowl. I’ll sit in my chair and eat.”

XU YULAN asked, “Xu Sanguan, are you done enjoying yourself yet? I can’t keep my eyes open much longer, so when you’re finished enjoying yourself, get your ass out of that chair and come to bed.”

Xu Sanguan said, “I’ll be right there.”

One good thing about working at the silk factory was that Xu Sanguan was given a new pair of white work gloves every month. When the women on the factory floor saw them, they would always ask with envy in their voices, “Xu Sanguan, how many more years until you decide to switch to a new pair of gloves?”

Xu Sanguan lifted up his hands to show them his tattered old gloves. When he waved his hands, loose threads swung back and forth like so many pendulums from the places where they’d already worn through. “I’ve worn this pair for three years now.”

They said, “You call those things gloves? We can see your fingers sticking out from all the way across the factory floor.”

Xu Sanguan said, “They’re new the first year, and old for the next two years. After two years I’ll mend them. That way I’ll be able to use this pair for at least three more years.”

They said, “Xu Sanguan, if you wear the same pair of gloves for six years and the factory gives you a new pair every month, what does that get you? Six years of gloves comes to seventy-two pairs. What are you going to do with the seventy-one pairs that you don’t wear? What’s the point of hoarding that many gloves? Why don’t you give some of them to us? We only get a new pair every six months.”

Xu Sanguan carefully folded his new gloves, placed them in his pocket, and smilingly made his way home. When he arrived, he took the gloves from his pocket and presented them to Xu Yulan. Xu Yulan took them and immediately walked over to the window, lifting the gloves to the light to see if they were sewn of coarse or fine cotton thread.

“Aiya!”

Her exclamations always scared Xu Sanguan into thinking she had discovered that this month’s gloves were moth-eaten.

“They’re the good kind.”

There were two days every month when Xu Yulan would stick out her hands and say to Xu Sanguan as he got home from work, “Hand it over.” The first day was payday and the other was when the factory distributed new gloves.

Xu Yulan stored the gloves at the bottom of the trunk. When she saved up four pairs of gloves, she could use them to make a sweater for Sanle. With six pairs she could make one for Erle. Once she had eight or nine, she could sew a sweater for Yile.

But it would take more than twenty pairs to make Xu Sanguan a new sweater, which gave her pause. She would often say to Xu Sanguan, “Your arms are getting bigger, there’s more meat around your waist, and you’re putting a little weight on your stomach. Now even twenty pairs of gloves won’t be enough.”

Xu Sanguan said, “Then why don’t you just make something for yourself?”

Xu Yulan said, “I’ll wait and see.”

Xu Yulan didn’t sew anything for herself until she had collected seventeen or eighteen pairs of the finer quality gloves. And Xu Sanguan only brought home three or four pairs of the fine cotton gloves every year. After nine years of marriage she decided to use seven years of gloves to make herself a good sweater.

Xu Yulan finished sewing the sweater just as spring came and the weather began to warm. She washed her hair by the well, sat on the doorstep holding the as-yet-unbroken mirror in her hand, and issued directions to Xu Sanguan as he stood behind her, trimming her hair. When he was finished, she sat in the sun to dry her hair. Then she smeared a thick layer of Snowflower cream across her face and, redolent with its fragrance, donned her newly crocheted sweater. Finally, she pulled her only silk scarf from out of the trunk, tied it around her neck, and stepped out the door.

Before she took another step, she turned and addressed Xu Sanguan. “You sift and wash the rice, okay? You’re cooking. I’m on vacation today. No housework for me today. I’m going out for a walk now.”

Xu Sanguan said, “What? You had your ‘vacation’ just last week! How come you’re on vacation again today?”

“I’m not having my period. Can’t you see I’m wearing my new sweater?”

She wore the sweater for two years. She washed it five times and mended it once, using the fine thread of one pair of the better quality gloves to make a patch. Xu Yulan wanted Xu Sanguan to bring more of the better gloves home from the factory, because that way “I can have a new sweater.”

Whenever Xu Yulan was deciding whether to use up another glove, she would stick her head out the window to see if the stars were shining. When she saw the moon shining brightly in the night sky and the stars shimmering next to it, she knew the sun would be bright the next day and she could go ahead and unravel a glove.

Unraveling a glove was a job for two people. First, she needed to find the ends of the thread. Once she had pulled them out, it was merely a question of continuing to unravel the thread while at the same time spooling the cotton around two outstretched arms in order to pull it taut. The thread from the just-unraveled gloves was usually too crooked for sewing, so she would have to soak it in water for two or three hours. After removing the thread from the water, she would suspend it from a bamboo pole to dry in the sun, letting the weight of the water pull the cotton threads straight.

Xu Yulan was about to unravel a glove. In need of two outstretched arms, she called, “Yile, Yile!”

Yile ran into the house from outside. “Did you call me, Mom?”

Xu Yulan said, “Yile, help me unravel this glove.”

Yile shook his head. “I don’t want to.”

When he had gone, Xu Yulan called, “Erle, Erle!”

When Erle came home and saw that she wanted him to help her unravel a glove, he sat happily down on the stool and immediately stuck out his arms so that she could spool the thread around them.

Sanle came over to join them, standing next to Erle and sticking out his arms in imitation of his big brother. When Xu Yulan saw him trying to usurp his big brother’s role, she said, “Sanle, get out of here. Your hands are covered with snot.”

Whenever Xu Yulan and Erle sat together, they would always talk for what seemed like forever. She was a thirty-year-old woman, and he an eight-year-old boy, but their conversations sounded either like the gossip exchanged by a pair of thirty-year-old women, or the banter of two eight-year-old boys. They would talk at every opportunity — as they ate, before they went to sleep, as they walked together down the street — and their conversations became more and more animated as they continued.

Xu Yulan might say, “I saw the Zhangs’ daughter the other day. The Zhangs who live on the south side. That girl’s getting prettier and prettier.”

Erle said, “Do you mean the Zhang girl whose braids come down to her rear end?”

Xu Yulan said, “That’s the one. She’s the girl who gave you a handful of watermelon seeds that time. Don’t you think she’s getting better looking all the time?”

Erle said, “I heard some people calling her Big Boobs Zhang.”