Happy Dreams by Jia Pingwa

Author:Jia Pingwa [Pingwa, Jia]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781611097429
Publisher: Amazon Crossing
Published: 2017-09-30T22:00:00+00:00

35.

It was getting hotter by the day, too hot to wear a jacket. I left my shirt buttons undone. If Wufu only moved a muscle, he was covered in sweat. He went bare-chested and rolled his pants up to his knees. I covered up with a red T-shirt I’d bought because I had no biceps to speak of, and you could count my ribs when I breathed. One evening when we got back from Prosper Street, we passed a restaurant with bits of wood piled up outside, left over from a reno job. We bundled some up to use for fuel, and then Wufu found an old digital watch amongst the stuff. He fiddled and fiddled with it but couldn’t make it work, so he gave it to me. “You’ll look grand in that,” he said. “With your T-shirt and that watch, no city man will dare tell you it’s not working.”

I put the watch on. And seeing as I was so grand, I wasn’t going to walk along pushing a bike with a bundle of firewood on the back either. “If a city man’s walking along with a country boy, you don’t ask the city man to push the bike.”

“Fine, fine,” Wufu said, and took the bike.

When we got to the turnoff for Fishpond Village, we saw someone going into the phone bar, where the public phones were. From behind, it looked like Eight, but how was that possible? He wouldn’t be smartly dressed in a fully-lined tracksuit top, would he? We gave it no more thought and headed for Leftover House.

Almond was in the yard, washing a plastic garbage can lid in the sink. The garbage can had some soured vegetable water fermenting in it, with a layer of white bubbles floating on top. She’d just skimmed off a layer of scum. “Oh, you’re back,” she said. “It’s hotter than hell today. Do you want some?” Wufu drank a ladleful. I unloaded some of the firewood for her and left some at Eight’s door too. “It’s very sour,” she said. “Help yourself to a scoop, if you want to put some in your noodles.”

“OK,” I said. “Is Eight back?”

“He came back a long time ago. He was cursing and swearing that there weren’t enough people to harvest the grain back home on his patch. He might have gone to call his missus.”

Wufu looked really worried, but I glared at him and he said, “I’m not calling. If my missus’s tired out, I can’t help that. She should act like I’m dead and gone!”

“Well, you haven’t gone home because you’re earning money here,” said Almond. “If you’ve got a heart, send her some money tomorrow.” She immediately added, “Eight doesn’t send money home. He buys himself fancy clothes instead. Not that any fancy clothes are going to look good on him!”

Wufu and I exchanged looks. So it was Eight we’d seen in the doorway of the phone bar. “Where would he get the money to buy clothes like that? Do you think he stole it?” said Wufu.

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