Brothers

by Yu Hua

  "Nonsense," Baldy Li corrected him. "I don't want five bowls of plain noodles. I want one bowl of house-special noodles and one bowl of plain noodles."

  The cripple asked Baldy Li, "Didn't you burp empty air for three straight months?"

  Baldy Li, his bald head shining, said, "Even if I had burped empty air for three fucking years, I still wouldn't be able to eat five bowls of noodles in one sitting. The most I can eat is two; and if I am only going to have two bowls, naturally one will be house-special noodles."

  The cripple understood, and in a loud voice told the waitress at the counter, "One plain and one special—two bowls altogether."

  Baldy Li was very pleased with the cripple's summation of his order and complimented him, "Well put!"

  Then he sat down at a round table with his fourteen loyal minions. The two cripples sat on either side of him, to show their status, and the three idiots and five deaf men took the remaining seats. They all looked around at the restaurants decorations and then at the passersby outside. The four blind men sitting across from Baldy Li were the calmest of all, merely holding their canes and grinning.

  The waiter brought over the two bowls of noodles, but when he saw fifteen people sitting around the table, he didn't know where to place them. Baldy Li waved at him, saying, "Both are for me."

  The two steaming bowls of noodles were placed in front of Baldy Li, who then pointed at them with his chopsticks and asked with a smile, "Which will I eat first? The advantage of starting with the house special is that I would eat the best one first, but then I wouldn't be able to appreciate the plain one. This strategy would be one of seeking quick profits. On the other hand, if I start with the plain one followed by the house special, I would be able to appreciate the flavor of each, and furthermore they would get increasingly flavorful through the meal. This latter strategy is one of long-range ambition."

  Baldy Li hadn't even finished his speech when he heard his fourteen loyal minions all swallow eagerly. He could see the idiots drooling and realized that if he didn't stop talking, they were likely to pounce on his noodles, so he said loudly, "I'll fucking eat the house special one first!"

  Protecting the bowl of plain noodles with his left hand, Baldy Li grabbed his chopsticks with his right. He then buried his face in the bowl of house-special noodles, sucking and slurping with great satisfaction. He finished the entire bowl in one gulp, and only then did he lift his head and wipe the grease from his lips and the sweat from his brow. Hearing his loyal minions all still swallowing eagerly, he promised them, "In the future, when I have money, I'll treat you to bowls of house-special noodles every day."

  The fourteen loyal minions stared at Baldy Li's bowls intently, watching as he drank down every last drop of broth. Eventually, he stood up and said emotionally to his minions, "With heaven above me, the earth below, and all of you in between, I, Baldy Li, swear to heaven, earth, and to all of you: I have decided to return and continue being your Factory Director Li!"

  The fourteen loyal minions stared in surprise. The four blind men were the first to respond, and began to applaud. The two cripples immediately joined them, followed by the five deaf men, although they actually had no idea what Baldy Li had just said. The three idiots, still drooling everywhere, were the last to join in. The applause continued for a full five minutes, during which time Baldy Li stood there with his head raised and his chest out, smiling happily. Then, surrounded by his loyal minions, he left the restaurant and headed straight for Tao Qing's Civil Affairs Bureau. Retaining the configuration they had when they had set off, they marched through the streets of Liu. Baldy Li rubbed his belly and burped loudly, walking contentedly next to the crippled factory director. The cripple heard Baldy Li's burp and asked with a laugh, "This time it wasn't an empty burp?"

  "Not at all!" Baldy Li replied emphatically, and his tongue curled in his mouth, tasting his most recent burp. He told the crippled factory director, "It is flavored—a three-flavored, house-special burp."

  Baldy Li burped the entire way there. When they were about to arrive, the taste of the burps in Baldy Li's mouth began to change. Curling up his tongue several times, he told the cripple disappointedly, "Damn it—the house-special noodles that I ate first have now disappeared."

  "So soon?" the cripple asked in surprise. He turned around and looked at Baldy Li. "Are you still burping?"

  "Now they are plain burps!" Baldy wiped his mouth and added, "I am beginning to digest the plain noodles I ate last."

  At that point Tao Qing was in the process of chairing a meeting and was reading an official document aloud, like a monk intoning scriptures. When he heard the commotion outside, he looked out the window and saw the courtyard packed with handicapped workers from the Good Works Factory. Tao put down the document he was holding and, frowning, walked out of the conference room and toward the grinning Baldy Li. Baldy Li burped up some more plain noodles and then warmly grasped Tao Qing's hand, announcing, "Bureau Director Tao, I have returned!"

  Tao Qing looked at Baldy Li's swollen face and perfunctorily shook his braised-pork-like hand, asking solemnly, "Who has returned?"

  "I have." Baldy Li pointed to himself. "I have returned to be factory director!"

  As soon as Baldy Li said this, the four blind men started applauding, followed by the three idiots and then the five deaf men. Only the two cripples didn't applaud; they had lifted their hands to applaud as well, but when they noticed Tao Qing's expression, they put them down and didn't dare continue.

  With a stern face, Tao ordered, "Don't applaud."

  The four blind men's applause immediately died down, but the three idiots were enjoying themselves so much that they didn't notice what Tao Qing had said. Seeing the blind men suddenly hesitate, two of the deaf men stopped applauding while the other three continued. Sensing that all was not well, Baldy Li turned around and raised and lowered his arms as if he were conducting a symphony, and immediately the applause stopped. Pleased, he turned to Tao Qing and said, "They have stopped applauding."

  Tao Qing nodded solemnly and told Baldy Li that it had been very wrong of him to walk away from his position, and as a result the Civil Affairs Bureau had fired him. Therefore, it was not possible for him to return to his job at the factory. Looking at the fourteen handicapped factory workers all standing in an orderly fashion in the courtyard, he added, "Although the Good Works Factory is a—"

  Tao Qing stopped himself and didn't utter the word handicapped. Instead he merely said, "The Good Works Factory is a government work unit and is not your home. It is not up to you to decide when you want to come and go."

  "Well put," said Baldy Li, nodding. He then added, "The Good Works Factory is a government work unit and is not my home. However, I regard the factory as my home, and that is why I have returned!"

  "That won't be possible," Tao Qing retorted. "You have not shown respect for our organizations or leaders—"

  Tao hadn't yet finished speaking when one of the blind men laughed and said, "Director Li left without saying anything—that showed a lack of respect for leaders. However, Bureau Director Tao s inability to understand our needs demonstrates a lack of respect for the masses."

  Baldy Li chuckled when he heard this, but noticing that Tao Qing was furious, he stopped. Tao was about to start cursing but swallowed his anger when he looked at the handicapped workers. He wanted the cripples to take everyone away, but they were hiding at the back of the crowd. Tao Qing realized he couldn't count on them, so instead he told Baldy Li, "Take everyone away."

  Baldy Li immediately instructed the handicapped workers, "Let's go!"

  He and his fourteen loyal minions left the courtyard of the Civil Affairs Bureau as Baldy Li explained that it was not yet the end of the workday and therefore everyone should go back to the factory. Seeing his loyal minions obediently walking away, he suddenly felt bad. He consoled them by proclaiming loudly, "My words are like flowing water and, once out, cannot be gathered back. You can be assured that I will definitely
return to serve as your factory director."

  When the four blind men heard Baldy Li's promise, they stopped, held their canes between their legs, and started applauding. The two cripples, three idiots, and five deaf men stopped and applauded as well. Baldy Li watched them turn around as if they were about to walk back toward him once again and thought, These folks are even more sentimental than Song Gang. He quickly waved at them and strode away without looking back.

  Over the next several days, Baldy Li paid visits to the county's party secretary, the director of the county's Organization Bureau, as well as various other county officials—fifteen people in all—and earnestly declared his determination to return as director of the Good Works Factory. The party secretary and the county Organization Bureau director had him thrown out without even giving him a chance to finish. Then Baldy Li adopted a different tack: He latched on to the thirteen other officials and pathetically went on and on. When they heard him, they all immediately doused his hopes with an abrupt "No way," saying that the nation has its own structure, and once people leave, they can't be permitted to return. What fucking structure? Baldy Li asked himself. These bastards from the county government all drink congratulatory drinks but refuse to drink forfeit shots. He grew increasingly angry and vowed to make them all drink forfeit shots; therefore, he decided to stage a sit-in. Each morning Baldy Li planted himself in the entranceway to the county government building and remained there until everyone got off work at the end of the day, whereupon he would walk home with the county government officials.

  While Baldy Li was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the entranceway, he had the expression of a solitary guard heroically trying to prevent thousands of enemies from getting through. At first none of the townspeople could figure out what he was up to, so he explained, "I am staging a sit-in."

  Everyone laughed and said that he, sitting there impressively, didn't look as if he were staging a sit-in but, rather, as if he were a knight-errant in a martial arts movie, trying to avenge some wrong. Some of the townspeople suggested that he should look pitiful for his sit-in, so it would be better if he were to break an arm or a leg. If he were able to secure the sympathy of both party and people, he would surely be permitted to resume his position as the Good Works Factory director. When Baldy Li heard their suggestions, he shook his head and said, "It wouldn't be of any use."

  He gestured at the county government building behind him and said that he had already whipped out his most pathos-ridden speech for the fifteen—one more than the fourteen handicapped workers at the Good Works Factory, mind you—bastards working inside those offices. He had scraped and begged, he had flattered and repented, and in the end it didn't count for squat. So there was nothing left for him to do but to hold his sit-down strike, and he would continue sitting here until the end of time if that was what it took. When the crowds heard his bold proclamation, they shouted their support and asked him what it would take for him to end his sit-in. He held up two fingers and said that there were only two options: "One, that I be allowed to return as the director of the Good Works Factory, or two, I die sitting here."

  Baldy Li, still in his tattered clothing, didn't have anything to eat or drink, and therefore he would pick up whatever odds and ends he could find, including canned goods, bottles of mineral water, newspapers, and cardboard boxes, which he then piled up in the entrance-way The government employees on their way to work knew that Baldy Li collected scrap, so they all brought him their old newspapers, boxes, et cetera Baldy Li then made the space next to the entranceway into a recycling center. Therefore, whenever he saw someone walking by with a newspaper, he would call out and ask if he could have it when they were done. Similarly, when people walked by with drinks, he would ask for their empty bottles. Sometimes he would see people wearing old clothes and would suggest, "It is really quite a loss of face for someone of your position to be wearing such tattered clothing. How about if you take it off and give it to me?"

  Baldy Li had wanted to return to the Good Works Factory but didn't succeed and instead went into the scrap business. The townspeople started calling him Scrap Collector Li. At first he collected scrap in order to feed himself, never imagining that this would make him famous; he was soon known far and wide as the Scrap King of Liu, equaling his childhood reputation as Liu's King of Butts. Whenever the townspeople had something to throw out, they would ask him to come retrieve it. While he was still staging his sit-in, about which he was exceedingly conscientious, he would tell them that he couldn't go retrieve it at that moment, but he would commit their address to memory, and he'd promise, "I'll come for it when I get off work."

  CHAPTER 45

  LIN HONG was completely immersed in her happiness. Her handsome husband would take her to the knitting factory every morning on his shiny and fashionable Eternity bicycle. Walking into the factory, she would repeatedly turn and see Song Gang standing next to his bicycle waving at her. When she walked out each evening, he would be waiting there for her, smiling broadly. Lin Hong didn't know that he was helping Baldy Li behind her back, and by the time she discovered it, this had been going on for a month.

  The first time Lin Hong noticed that the money and grain coupons were missing from Song Gangs pocket, she smiled and, without saying anything, replaced them with another twenty cents and two more grain coupons. Standing nearby, Song Gang also didn't say anything, though her heartfelt smile made him feel very uneasy.

  Lin Hong didn't realize that Baldy Li made off every day with Song Gang's money and grain coupons. Every day without fail she would refill Song Gang's pockets. At first she was delighted that he seemed to be taking better care of himself and had finally recognized that, when he was hungry, he should buy himself something to eat. Gradually, however, she began to find it strange that he had gone from not being willing to spend anything at all to always spending everything he had with him, never even coming back with any change. She figured that, no matter what he was buying himself to eat, at least there should be some change left over. She looked at him suspiciously, but he avoided her gaze. Finally she asked him directly, "What do you eat every day?"

  Song Gang opened his mouth, but no words came out. Lin Hong asked him again, but he merely shook his head and said that he hadn't eaten anything. She stared in astonishment, but he again avoided her gaze then reluctantly confessed, "I give it all to Baldy Li."

  Lin Hong stood speechless in the middle of the room. Only then did she remember that Baldy Li had become a beggar, because up to that point she had completely forgotten about his existence. In her world there was only Song Gang; now that bastard Baldy Li had once again shoved his way in. When Lin Hong estimated that, over the course of the past month, Baldy Li had taken about six yuan from them, she couldn't help crying. Repeating "Six yuan" over and over to herself, she noted that, if they economized, that would have been enough for the two of them to live for an entire month.

  Song Gang bowed his head and sat down on the edge of the bed, unable to bring himself to look at her. It wasn't until she burst into tears and asked him how he could have done something like this that he finally raised his head, looked her in the eye, and said, "He is my brother."

  "But he isn't even your biological brother," Lin Hong responded. "And even if he were, he should still support himself."

  "He is my brother," Song Gang repeated. "Eventually he will be able to support himself, but before our mother died, she asked me to look after him—"

  "Don't bring up that stepmother of yours," Lin Hong interrupted.

  Song Gang was hurt by Lin Hong's remark and shouted back, "She was my mother!"

  Lin Hong stared at Song Gang in astonishment—this being the first time since their marriage that Song Gang had raised his voice to her. She shook her head silently. Realizing that Song Gang had yelled at her after she said "stepmother," she knew that she had misspoken. She didn't dare say another word, and the room fell silent.

  Song Gang sat with his head bowed, a blizzard of memories
swirling back to him. It was as if he and Baldy Li had forged a path through a blizzard, a path that had gradually extended to the present day but had then suddenly disappeared. He was lost in thought and at a loss as to what to do. It was as if the white snow blanketed all possible paths. It wasn't until he caught sight of Lin Hong's feet as she stood there in the middle of the room that he finally came to his senses. He noticed that her shoes and pants were both threadbare and knew that her shirt was old, too. When he thought of how she economized every day, he became distraught and felt that it had been truly wrong of him to give Baldy Li money behind her back.

  After a long time passed, Lin Hong realized that Song Gang had no intention of speaking. Feeling herself getting angry again, she snapped, "Say something."

  Song Gang lifted his head and earnestly said, "I was wrong."

  Her heart immediately softened. She looked at Song Gang's earnest eyes and couldn't help but sigh. Then she started trying to console him, saying that six yuan was not very much money that they could pretend it had been simply stolen. She suggested that sometimes an unexpected loss might help avert a future adversity. Lin Hong insisted, however, that Song Gang have nothing more to do with Baldy Li. She took another twenty cents and two grain coupons from her purse and placed them in Song Gangs pocket. He was moved by her gesture but said, "I don't need any more money."

  "You do need it." Lin Hong looked at him. "But you should definitely spend it on yourself."

  After they went to bed that evening, they engaged in their usual pillow talk. Song Gang tenderly embraced Lin Hong, and Lin Hong, with a sweet smile, basked in his inexhaustible love for her. Even after she fell asleep, a smile remained on her face.

  When he got off work the next day, Song Gang rode his bike to the knitting factory to pick Lin Hong up. When Baldy Li, who was still staging his sit-in, spotted him, he immediately jumped up and called out. Song Gangs heart skipped a beat when he heard Baldy Li. He brought the bike to a halt and stood there, and as he heard Baldy Li walking over, Song Gang was afraid he would ask him again for money. Baldy Li did, in fact, extend his hand and say shamelessly, "Song Gang, I haven't eaten or drunk anything all day."