Chronicle of a Blood Merchant by Yu Hua, Andrew F. Jones Read Free Book Online Page A

marriage she decided to use seven years of gloves to make herself a good sweater.
    Xu Yulan finished sewing the sweater just as spring came and the weather began to warm. She washed her hair by the well, sat on the doorstep holding the as-yet-unbroken mirror in her hand, and issued directions to Xu Sanguan as he stood behind her, trimming her hair. When he was finished, she sat in the sun to dry her hair. Then she smeared a thick layer of Snowflower cream across her face and, redolent with its fragrance, donned her newly crocheted sweater. Finally, she pulled her only silk scarf from out of the trunk, tied it around her neck, and stepped out the door.
    Before she took another step, she turned and addressed Xu Sanguan. “You sift and wash the rice, okay? You’re cooking. I’m on vacation today. No housework for me today. I’m going out for a walk now.”
    Xu Sanguan said, “What? You had your ‘vacation’ just last week! How come you’re on vacation again today?”
    “I’m not having my period. Can’t you see I’m wearing my new sweater?”
    She wore the sweater for two years. She washed it five times and mended it once, using the fine thread of one pair of the better quality gloves to make a patch. Xu Yulan wanted Xu Sanguan to bring more of the better gloves home from the factory, because that way “I can have a new sweater.”
    Whenever Xu Yulan was deciding whether to use up another glove, she would stick her head out the window to see if the stars were shining. When she saw the moon shining brightly in the night sky and the stars shimmering next to it, she knew the sun would be bright the next day and she could go ahead and unravel a glove.
    Unraveling a glove was a job for two people. First, she needed to find the ends of the thread. Once she had pulled them out, it was merely a question of continuing to unravel the thread while at the same time spooling the cotton around two outstretched arms in order to pull it taut. The thread from the just-unraveled gloves was usually too crooked for sewing, so she would have to soak it in water for two or three hours. After removing the thread from the water, she would suspend it from a bamboo pole to dry in the sun, letting the weight of the water pull the cotton threads straight.
    Xu Yulan was about to unravel a glove. In need of two outstretched arms, she called, “Yile, Yile!”
    Yile ran into the house from outside. “Did you call me, Mom?”
    Xu Yulan said, “Yile, help me unravel this glove.”
    Yile shook his head. “I don’t want to.”
    When he had gone, Xu Yulan called, “Erle, Erle!”
    When Erle came home and saw that she wanted him to help her unravel a glove, he sat happily down on the stool and immediately stuck out his arms so that she could spool the thread around them.
    Sanle came over to join them, standing next to Erle and sticking out his arms in imitation of his big brother. When Xu Yulan saw him trying to usurp his big brother’s role, she said, “Sanle, get out of here. Your hands are covered with snot.”
    Whenever Xu Yulan and Erle sat together, they would always talk for what seemed like forever. She was a thirty-year-old woman, and he an eight-year-old boy, but their conversations sounded either like the gossip exchanged by a pair of thirty-year-old women, or the banter of two eight-year-old boys. They would talk at every opportunity—as they ate, before they went to sleep, as they walked together down the street—and their conversations became more and more animated as they continued.
    Xu Yulan might say, “I saw the Zhangs’ daughter the other day. The Zhangs who live on the south side. That girl’s getting prettier and prettier.”
    Erle said, “Do you mean the Zhang girl whose braids come down to her rear end?”
    Xu Yulan said, “That’s the one. She’s the girl who gave you a handful of watermelon seeds that time. Don’t you think she’s getting better looking all the time?”
    Erle said, “I heard some people