Yu Hua - Brothers

Everyone stared slack-jawed with astonishment. After a while, someone remembered Baldy Li's foreign watch and asked ingratiatingly, "What did you do with that Greenwich Mean Time foreign watch?"

"I gave it away," Baldy Li said. "I gave it to the infatuated idiot who used to work for me."

Wearing his new Beijing-time watch, Baldy Li continued to exert himself. He obtained some bamboo poles and reeds and began erecting a thatched shed right there in front of the government building. Thirteen of his former Good Works Factory workers (the exception being the infatuated idiot) came over to help. The four blind men stood in a row and passed the reeds to one another. The two idiots were responsible for supporting the bamboo poles, while the two cripples, who both had strong hands, were responsible for binding the bamboo together. The five deaf men, meanwhile, provided the hard manual labor; three of them stayed on the ground and used some of the reeds to construct a wall, and the two others climbed up and used the rest of the reeds for the roof. All the while Baldy Li barked directions, as if he were overseeing a construction site. Shouting and hollering and bathed in sweat, they all worked tirelessly for three straight days, until finally the thatched shed was complete. Only then did Baldy Li remember the infatuated idiot and ask the crippled factory director about him. The cripple replied that the idiot had never been late going to or from work but that ever since he started wearing the foreign watch, he hadn't been seen again at the factory. He then asked Baldy Li, "Do you think he's become confused by the Greenwich Mean Time?"

"Definitely." Baldy Li laughed. "That's what they call jet lag."

The lot of them brought over the table and chairs from Baldy Li's house, as well sheets, clothes, toiletries, coal, oil, a stove, dishes, chopsticks, glasses, and many other things. Baldy Li proudly moved into his shed and pitched camp right there outside the government building gate. Not long afterward, the people of Liu noticed that workers from the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications had connected a telephone line to the shed — the first private telephone in Liu Town. The crowds discussed this tirelessly, exclaiming, "Who could have imagined this day!" Baldy Li's phone rang continuously from dawn to dusk and late into the night. The county government workers remarked that Baldy Li's phone rang more often than that of the county governor.

In the process of setting up his scrap business, Baldy Li stopped simply collecting everyone's unwanted scraps and instead started purchasing them. The pile of scrap outside the government building grew into a huge mountain, and his shed was also full of it. According to Baldy Li, the scraps inside the hut were of the highest quality. People walking by would often see him sitting happily in the middle of these high-quality scraps, looking as if he were sitting amid a pile of jewels. They also saw trucks come by every week to cart away the sorted scrap. Baldy Li stood in front of his shed and watched the trucks drive away, licking his fingers as he counted his wad of bills.

Baldy Li was still shabbily dressed, but he had now switched to a bigger wallet; even so the amount of cash inside made it bulge out as if it were pumped full of air. In his breast pocket he carried a little notebook; in the front he recorded his scrap-business transactions, while in the back he recorded the debts he had incurred in the attempt to set up his clothing business.

His five former business partners had resigned themselves to their bad fortune and given up hope of having their loans repaid. They never imagined that after Baldy Li started earning money through his scrap business, he would come back and repay them.

One afternoon Popsicle Wang walked past Baldy Li's shed, and Baldy Li, wearing only a pair of shorts and naked from the waist up, rushed out of his shed and excitedly called out to him. Wang, his ice chest still on his back, turned around slowly and saw Baldy Li waving at him, saying, "Come, come over here."

Popsicle Wang stood there without moving, uncertain what Baldy Li wanted from him. When Baldy Li said he wanted to return his money, Wang thought that he had misunderstood and even turned around to see if Baldy Li was speaking to someone else. Baldy Li pointed impatiently at him and said, "I'm talking to you, about the debt that I owe you."

Popsicle Wang walked over, hardly able to believe his ears, and sat down with Baldy Li inside the shed, in the middle of a huge pile of scrap. Baldy Li flipped through his little notebook, calculating the original loan and the accrued interest. Meanwhile, Popsicle Wang curiously looked around at Baldy Li's shed, seeing that it had everything one might need to eat and drink, as well as an electric fan blowing directly on Baldy Li. Wang said enviously, "You even have an electric fan!"

Baldy Li grunted in response and reached over to press the swivel button. The fan now swiveled to include Popsicle Wang, who exclaimed, "What a cool breeze…"

Baldy Li calculated Popsicle Wangs loan and interest and said with embarrassment, "I don't have much money at the moment, and therefore I'll have to repay you in installments. I'll pay you a portion every month, and within a year I will have paid it all back."

Baldy Li opened his wallet, took out some money, and counted it carefully. He returned the majority of the bills to his wallet and stuffed the remainder into Wang's hand. Popsicle Wang's hand trembled as he accepted the money, and his lips trembled as he registered his surprise. He said that he never thought Baldy Li would have recorded the loan and claimed that he himself had forgotten about it. As he spoke Wang's eyes grew red, and he said that never in his wildest dreams did he imagine he would ever recover his five hundred yuan. Then, referring to the interest, he added, "And now I find that the money has even given birth to a new son."

Popsicle Wang carefully placed the money in his pocket, then leaned over to remove a popsicle from his ice chest. Explaining that he didn't have anything else to give, he handed Baldy Li the popsicle. Baldy Li, however, shook his head and said, "I won't take a single needle or thread from the masses."

Popsicle Wang responded that this wasn't a needle and thread from the masses but, rather, simply a token of his appreciation. Baldy Li responded that, then, he should definitely not eat it, given that it was a token of appreciation. He asked Wang to put the popsicle away, adding, "Could you instead please do something for me? Please notify Blacksmith Tong, Tailor Zhang, Little Scissors Guan, and Yanker Yu that I will begin repaying my debt to each of them as well."

That evening, Tong, Zhang, Guan, and Yu, as well as Popsicle Wang himself, dropped by Baldy Li's shed to pay him a visit. They stood in front of the shed and called out affectionately, "Director Li, Director Li …"

Baldy Li walked over, shirtless, and waved at them, saying, "I'm not Director Li anymore. Now, I'm Scraps Li."

The former partners burst out laughing. Blacksmith Tong glanced at the others, and they glanced back, and he realized that it was again incumbent on him to speak first. Therefore, still chuckling, he said, "I hear that you plan to return our money?"

"Its not a question of returning your money but of repaying my debt," Baldy Li corrected him.

"Isn't that the same thing?" Blacksmith Tong continued, nodding vigorously. "I also hear something about there being interest?"

"Of course there will be interest," Baldy Li said. "I am like a People s Bank, and you are my depositors."

The five of them nodded in agreement. Baldy Li then turned and looked at his shed, remarking that it was too small to accommodate six people and therefore they would have to settle their accounts outside. Baldy Li plopped down on the ground and opened his little notebook, muttering to himself as he made the requisite calculations. His shorts were dirtier than a rag. Four of the former partners hesitated, not certain whether they were expected to sit down with him. Each had made a point of bathing and putting on clean clothes before coming to visit. Therefore, they all watched Blacksmith Tong to see what he would do. Tong decided that, for the sake of money, he was not only willing to sit on the ground but would even sit in cow dung if necessary. After Blacksmith Tong plopped himself down, the other four quickly followed suit. Then, with all six of them sitting in a circle, Baldy Li made calculations and gave each of them money. Blacksmith Tong then apologized solemnly to Baldy Li on their collective behalf, saying that they shouldn't have tried to press the money out of him so hard that he was left with a swollen face and a black eye. Baldy Li listened attentively and then pedantically corrected him: "My swollen face and black eye were not the result of your pressing me for money but, rather, were the result of your beating me."