Rickshaw Boy: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

intransigent as, say, mules, he might well have focused his attention on them. But they were so obedient they began to get on his nerves, and as his mind wandered, he was not even sure they were still behind him, and that gave him a scare. He was ready to believe that the hulking beasts had somehow gone off in a different direction in the darkness without his knowing it, like a melting ice block pulled behind him.
    At some point along the way he sat down. If he were to die yet retain memory after death, he would be unable to recall how he’d come to be sitting on the ground, or why. He sat there for five minutes—or maybe it was an hour, he didn’t know. Neither did he know if he’d sat down and fallen asleep or if he’d fallen asleep and then sat down. Probably the latter, since by then he was so exhausted he could have slept standing up.
    He woke up abruptly, not the normal return to wakefulness but with a start, as if transported to another world. It was still pitch-dark. He heard a rooster crow, clear as a bell, almost as if something had pierced his brain. He was wide awake. The camels, what about the camels? That was his first and only thought. The rope was still in his hand; the camels were there beside him. What a relief! He did not feel like getting up. He was sore all over, too sore to stand. But he didn’t dare go back to sleep. He had to think, think hard, come up with something. And it was at this moment that he recalled his rickshaw. “What right?” he shouted.
    It was an empty shout that served no purpose. He stood up and felt one of the camels. How many were there? He didn’t know. He went from one to the next—three, he counted. Not too many, too few. He concentrated on them. Unsure of what to do with three camels, he had a vague thought that his future was tied to them.
    “Why not sell them and use the money to buy a new rickshaw?” He nearly jumped in the air. But he didn’t, probably because he was embarrassed that he hadn’t thought of something so natural, so easy to accomplish, before this. In the end, happiness won out over shame. He knew what he was going to do. Hadn’t he heard a rooster crow only a few minutes before? Well, even when they do that at two in the morning, daybreak cannot be far off. And where there were roosters, there had to be a village. Maybe Northern Xin’an. The people there raised camels, so he mustn’t waste any time. If he reached the village before sunup, he could dispose of his camels, go immediately into the city, and buy a rickshaw. With war raging all around, they must be selling them cheap. That thought crowded out all others. Selling his camels would be easy.
    Xiangzi’s spirits rose. His soreness was gone. If he could have exchanged his camels for a hundred acres of farmland or a string of pearls, he would not have been nearly as happy. Standing up straight, he got his camels up off the ground and started walking. He had no idea what a camel sold for these days, but he’d heard that in the past, before trains came to town, a camel was worth three dabao, or fifty ounces of silver. They’re strong and they eat less than mules. Three dabao was probably out of the question, but he had hopes of getting eighty or a hundred yuan, enough to buy a rickshaw.
    The sky was turning light, starting up ahead of him, which meant he was heading east. Even if he was on the wrong road, he’d still be heading east. The mountains were to the west, the city to the east. He knew that much. The darkness was retreating all around, and though no colors were visible, the fields and distant trees were coming into view in the haze. The stars were vanishing, as the sky filled with a layer of gray that resembled clouds but could have been mist—still fairly dark, but rising higher and higher. Finally he mustered the courage to look up. The smell of grass grew stronger and he heard bird songs. Now that he could distinguish shapes, his ears, his eyes, his mouth, and his nose were