Yu Hua - Brothers

After Baldy Li left, Blacksmith Tongs shop served as the partners’ regular meeting place, and as soon as night fell Zhang, Guan, Yu, and Wang congregated there. Mama Sus snack shop was way over at the bus depot, so she was always the last to arrive, usually not until the moon was high in the night sky. The six of them would sit together laughing, praising Baldy Li profusely and recounting his successes at the Good Works Factory. The stories became increasingly exaggerated, and the partners’ expectations for their new business also grew exponentially. Blacksmith Tong observed that the business world was currently dominated by Cantonese, and regardless of whether one was Cantonese, it was still necessary to speak the dialect. He added, "I'm sure that by the time Baldy Li returns, he will be speaking with a strong Cantonese accent, like a Hong Kong businessman."

Then they heard Tailor Zhang's work report. In order to train the thirty country girls, Zhang had temporarily closed his tailor shop. He said that the girls had all brought their own bedding, and fortunately it was now March and the warehouse was quite big, so they could bunk down on the floor. They slept in three rows, like female soldiers. Tailor Zhang said that, of the thirty girls, some were clever and others were slow. The clever ones could master the sewing techniques in only three days, while the slower ones needed from ten days to two weeks. Blacksmith Tong said that ten to fifteen days was much too slow, because Baldy Li would be bringing them a lot of business in less than a week. What would they do if, when the time came, they were not able to handle things?

Tong, Zhang, Guan, Yu, Wang, and Su discussed matters, and meanwhile one week after another passed with no news from Baldy Li. Gradually the partners grew more reserved in their comments and began to reaccess the situation. Popsicle Wang was the first to speculate, "Could Baldy Li have run away?"

"That's crazy," Tailor Zhang immediately retorted. "When he departed, he left me all of his money. What would he run away with?"

Blacksmith Tong nodded and said, "In business, some things proceed quickly and others take more time."

"That's right," Yanker Yu added. "Sometimes I can extract ten teeth in a single day, while other times I might go several days without extracting a single tooth."

"Sharpening scissors is the same way," Little Scissors Guan said. "Sometimes I am unbelievably busy, and other times I have so much time on my hands I could die of boredom."

Two more weeks went by, yet there still wasn't any news from Baldy Li. The six partners continued meeting every evening in the blacksmith's shop, though now the last one to arrive was no longer Mama Su but Tailor Zhang. Every afternoon he would go to the post office, full of hope, and ask if Baldy Li had sent any telegrams from Shanghai. The clerk in charge of receiving telegrams would always see Tailor Zhang poking his head in with an ingratiating smile on his face half an hour before he was scheduled to get off work. The clerk would wave, and before he even had a chance to say a word, Tailor Zhang's face would immediately grow dark as he realized that there was no telegram. By the time the clerk had opened his mouth, Zhang would already be halfway out the door. A depressed Tailor Zhang would still linger outside the post office as one by one the workers got off work, and would ask the person locking up to please send any telegram arriving that night from Baldy Li to Blacksmith Tongs shop. Zhang would then hurry home, catatonically eat his dinner, and gloomily proceed to Tongs shop.

The six partners would then sit gazing at the stars and waiting for Baldy Li's telegram to arrive. They continued waiting like this for a month and five days. The partners had been left like a pitch-black night sky, without a single star or a glimmer of moonlight — completely in the dark and with no idea of what to do next. They sat in the blacksmith shop watching each other. At first they were very talkative, but eventually they simply sat there silently, each thinking about his own affairs. Little Guan couldn't help but complain. "Shanghai seems to have swallowed Baldy Li up like a dog swallowing a meat bun, eh?"

At their last gathering, when Popsicle Wang had wondered out loud whether Baldy Li had run off, his speculation had roused the ire of the others. But this time everyone seemed to be in accord with Little Guan's complaints. Yanker Yu was the first to agree with Little Guan: "That's right. After I extract a tooth, regardless of whether it is good or bad, it always bleeds. Baldy Li went to Shanghai, and regardless of whether he found any business there or not, at the very least we should have had some news by now."

"As I said from the very beginning," Popsicle Wang added, "is it not possible that Baldy Li simply ran away?"

"It just doesn't make sense for him to have run away," Tailor Zhang said, sighing. "But I really can't explain how it is that there has been absolutely no news from him."

Mama Su suddenly thought of another possibility and speculated nervously, "What if he had an accident?"

"What sort of accident?" Little Guan asked.

Mama Su looked at her five partners, hesitated a moment, and said, "I don't know whether I should say it out loud or not."

"Say it!" Yanker Yu said anxiously. "What is it that you shouldn't say?"

Mama Su stammered, "Shanghai is a big place, packed with cars. Perhaps Baldy Li was run over? Maybe he is stuck in the hospital?"

The other partners abruptly fell silent and became quite concerned by Mama Sus scenario, realizing that they couldn't rule out the possibility that Baldy Li might have been run over by a car. They all prayed for him to be protected by the gods and not be run over; or, even if he were hit by a car, that it be just a scrape, and please not to let him be severely injured, and especially not to let him be hit so hard that he'd become permanently crippled, idiotic, blind, or deaf.

Finally Tailor Zhang spoke up. He reported that this months rent had been paid, and the thirty country girls had been given their wages. Combined with the money spent on the thirty sewing machines, there was only four thousand yuan left over. Tailor Zhang summed up anxiously, "This money represents our own sweat and blood."

Zhang's comment made everyone's heart tremble. Mama Su also became very nervous, but when she remembered that she had not yet added her money to the pot, she felt a little better. Everyone then looked to Blacksmith Tong — the chairman of the Private Entrepreneurs’ Business Association, and also the largest investor in their venture — and waited for him to suggest what their next step should be. Tong hadn't said a word all evening, but with everyone looking to him, he had no choice. He sighed and said, "Let's wait a few more days."

A telegram from Baldy Li finally arrived two days later. He didn't send the telegram to Tailor Zhang but, rather, to Mama Su. The telegram consisted of only two sentences, stating that Baldy Li had decided that Mama Sus Meat Bun Brand bras didn't sound very sophisticated, and therefore he wanted to change them to Dim Sum Brand bras.

With Baldy Li's telegram in hand, Mama Su jogged the entire way to Blacksmith Tongs shop. The shop, which had been quiet for a long time, suddenly erupted in excitement. The partners immediately recovered their initial optimism and began excitedly discussing their new prospects. They speculated that it must have taken Baldy Li so long to write them because he had found so much business in Shanghai that he couldn't even find the time to write. They alternated between complimenting and cursing Baldy Li, between saying that he was a complete asshole and insisting that he was intentionally scaring them to death.

Then Popsicle Wang noticed a problem with the telegram, and his flushed face went pale. Waving the telegram around, he said, "This doesn't say anything about business."