Yu Hua - Brothers

Song Gang chuckled, and his workmates urged him to go home. He shook his head and said he would just rest on the steps for a while. In the two months he had been working the docks, this was the first time he had ever sat on the steps where the other workers rested. The steps were covered with cigarette butts, and a dozen or so white porcelain cups were arranged in a row. Each worker had written his name on his cup in red marker. Song Gang laughed, deciding that the next day he would bring his own cup, and it too would be porcelain. In the ware-house there was a bucket of red paint, and all he would need to do would be to insert a stick into the paint; he too could write his name on his cup.

Song Gang sat for more than an hour next to the rushing river, watching his workmates huffing and puffing as they hauled parcels back and forth. Finally he couldn't resist standing up, experimentally moving his waist a little, and finding that it was not as painful as before. Feeling that he was okay, he stepped onto the plank and walked into the ships hold. Remembering how he had injured himself, Song Gang hesitated a moment and then decided to pick up only one parcel rather than two. He had just brought the parcel up to his shoulder and energetically straightened his waist when suddenly he let out a cry of pain and immediately collapsed in such a way that the large bundle pinned down his head and shoulders.

Several of Song Gangs workmates removed the bundle and helped pull him up. A searing pain made him cry out in agony, and his body doubled up into a fetal position. Two workmates carefully helped lift him onto the back of a third worker, who then carried him down off the plank as Song Gang continued crying out in pain. Realizing that his injury was very serious indeed, the workers pulled up a cart, and when they placed him on it, he screamed in agony like a pig being slaughtered. As they pulled the cart along the cobblestone streets of Liu, he continued writhing in agony, and every time the cart hit a bump he would moan in anguish. Song Gang knew that his workmates were taking him to the hospital, but when they entered the main road, he cried, "I don't want to go to the hospital. I want to go home."

His workmates looked at each other, then proceeded to pull the cart up to his door. That afternoon, Song Gang, lying in excruciating pain on the pullcart, ran into Baldy Li, riding in his red sedan. Song Gang spotted his younger brother, but Baldy Li didn't notice him. Baldy Li sat with his arm around a seductive, out-of-town woman, laughing happily. When the sedan drove in front of the pullcart, Song Gang opened his mouth, but no sound came out. In the end, he merely called out silently, "Baldy Li."

LIN HONG was just about to get off work when she heard about Song Gangs injury and immediately rushed home on her bike, pale with anxiety. After frantically opening the front door, she saw Song Gang curled up on the bed in the dark, staring at her silently. She closed the door, walked over and sat on the bed, and tenderly stroked his face. He looked at her and said with embarrassment, "I sprained my back."

Lin Hong began to cry as she hugged him, asking softly, "What did the doctor say?"

When Lin Hong moved Song Gangs body, he squeezed his eyes in agony. This time he didn't cry out but, rather, waited for the pain to subside. Then he opened his eyes and said, "I didn't go to the hospital."

"Why not?" Lin Hong asked anxiously.

"I just sprained my back," Song Gang said. "I'll rest for a few days, and then I'll be fine."

Lin Hong shook her head and said, "That won't do. You must go to the hospital."

Song Gang smiled sadly. "I can't move now. I'll go in a few days."

Song Gang lay in bed for half a month before he was finally able to get up and walk around, though he still wasn't able to straighten his back. Hunched over at the waist and with Lin Hong's help, he hobbled to the hospital, where they applied four hot cups and five medicated plasters to his back, costing him more than ten yuan. It occurred to him that, at this rate, the money he had earned through two months of backbreaking labor at the docks wouldn't be enough to cover his medical fees. Therefore, he didn't return to the hospital, telling himself that a sprain is like a cold, and it will cure it itself even if you don't treat it.

After resting at home for two months, Song Gang was finally able to straighten his back, and again he went to look for work. Those days, he would support his waist with his hand all day, hobbling along through the streets and alleys of Liu, looking everywhere for work, but who would want to hire someone with a bad back? He would leave home every morning full of hope but return each evening with a sad smile, and Lin Hong would know from his expression that he had not had any success. She struggled to cheer herself up and reassured him that if they economized a bit, they could both live comfortably on her salary. At night when they climbed under the covers, Lin Hong gently caressed his waist, saying that as long as she was around, he didn't need to worry about the future. Song Gang exclaimed, "I've let you down."

At that point, Lin Hong was forcing herself to be optimistic. Actually, business at the knitting factory had not been very good for several years, and now they were starting to lay people off. That chain-smoking Director Liu had always had designs on her and had called her into his office several times. Closing the door, he would tell her quietly that her name had twice appeared on the list of workers to be laid off, but each time he had removed it. After telling her this, he would stare expectantly at her ample breasts. Director Liu, in his fifties, had been a chain-smoker for the past forty years, and as a result his teeth were completely stained black, as were his lips. When he leered at Lin Hong with his lecherous expression, his two drooping eye bags looked like two tumors.

Lin Hong sat facing him on pins and needles. She understood perfectly well what he was suggesting. He repulsed her, and even from across the table his entire body reeked of cigarette smoke. But she remembered that Song Gang was injured and had already lost his job, meaning that she couldn't afford to lose hers as well. Therefore she had no alternative but to sit there with a smile on her face, hoping fervently that someone would walk through the door and permit her to escape.

Director Liu waved a pen at her, saying this was the pen with which he had scratched her name from the list. Seeing her smile without answering, he leaned forward and whispered, "Won't you even say ‘thank you'?"

Lin Hong smiled and said, "Thank you."

Director Liu then went further and said, "How are you going to thank me?"

Lin Hong continued smiling and said, "Thank you."

Director Liu tapped the table with his pen, listing the names of several other factory workers and describing how, in order to avoid being laid off, they had each voluntarily slept with him. Lin Hong still smiled. Director Liu looked at her lecherously and asked again, "How do you plan to thank me?"

"Thank you."

"How about this." He put down the fountain pen, stood up, and walked around the table. "Let me hug you as I would a sister."

Seeing him come around the table, Lin Hong immediately headed for the door. On her way out she smiled and said, "I'm not your sister."

As she was leaving his office she heard Director Liu cursing. Still smiling, she returned to her workshop. However, when she got out of work and rode her Eternity bicycle home, she remembered the lecherous way in which the director had stared at her and his broad hints, and she felt a wave of humiliation sweep over her.

Several times Lin Hong considered telling Song Gang about what had happened, but each time she saw his exhausted appearance and his forlorn smile, she found that she couldn't bring herself to mention it. It seemed to her that telling him about her humiliation now would merely add salt to his wounds. One day followed another, however, and Song Gang still hadn't managed to find work. Lin Hong suddenly remembered Baldy Li, who was becoming wealthier than ever and now employed more than a thousand workers. One night, after a brief hesitation, she suggested, "Why don't you go see Baldy Li?"