The news that the metal factory had gone bankrupt quickly swept through the town. When Lin Hong heard it that afternoon, her heart sank. She wasn't concerned that Song Gang would become unemployed but, rather, worried about how he would take it. When she walked out the factory gate and over to his side, she looked up at her husbands bitter smile. His mouth twitched, and he started to tell Lin Hong that he had lost his job. Lin Hong, however, didn't let him continue, but rushed to say, "I already know."
Lin Hong saw a small leaf in his hair that she figured he got while passing under a tree on his way to pick her up. She reached out to brush it away, smiled, and said, "Let's go home."
Song Gang nodded, then turned and climbed back onto his bicycle as Lin Hong sat sidesaddle behind him. Song Gang rode his creaky old-fashioned Eternity bicycle through the streets of Liu, with Lin Hong hugging him from behind and pressing her face into his back. He felt that she was holding him tighter than usual and that her face was pressed into his back more tenderly than before. He smiled.
When they got home, Lin Hong went into the kitchen to cook dinner, and Song Gang turned his bicycle over and propped it up in front of the door. Taking out his tools, he first removed the wheels, then the pedals and the middle triangular frame. After taking the entire bicycle apart, Song Gang arranged the pieces neatly on the ground and, sitting on a stool, took a rag and started to carefully clean each one of them. Night fell and the lights came on, and after Lin Hong finished cooking dinner, she walked over to call Song Gang to come eat. Song Gang, however, shook his head and said he wasn't hungry, telling her to go ahead and eat first.
Ling Hong brought over a bowl of food and a chair and also sat down in the doorway, watching Song Gang as she ate. The sight of Song Gang expertly wiping down the bicycle pieces was quite familiar to her; she couldn't remember how many times she had remarked that he took care of his bicycle as he would his own child. Now she said it again, and Song Gang laughed. When he had put back together a piece he had wiped clean, he told Lin Hong that the next day he was going to go look for work, but he didn't know what he would be able to find. In particular, he didn't know when he would have to be at work in the morning and when he would get off in the afternoon, and therefore he might not be able to continue taking her to work and picking her up. Then he stood up, straightened his stiff back, and told her, "From now on, you should ride your own bike home."
Lin Hong nodded and said, "Okay."
Song Gang carefully reassembled the bicycle, oiled the bearings, wiped his hands with a rag, and took a few turns in front of the house. No longer hearing the creaking sound, he hopped off in satisfaction and lowered the seat. Then he pushed the bicycle over to Lin Hong and asked her to climb on and give it a try. She had finished eating but was holding the bowl of food she had prepared for Song Gang. After he took the bowl from her, she accepted the bicycle. He then sat down where Lin Hong had just been sitting and ate his dinner while watching her climb onto his bicycle under the light of the streetlamps. Lin Hong rode three loops while Song Gang watched, and she announced that it felt fine, that this ten-year-old Eternity bicycle felt just like new. Song Gang, however, noticed a problem and set his bowl and chopsticks down on the stool. After she got down from the bicycle, he lowered the seat even more, then asked her to climb on and try again. Seeing that she was now able to rest both of her feet on the ground at the same time, he nodded with satisfaction and urged her, "When you brake, keep both feet on the ground. That way you won't fall."
CHAPTER 54
MEANWHILE, Song Gang and Lin Hong s house was torn down, and they moved to the first floor of a new building across the street. Mama Su also had to move her snack shop to the building across from Lin Hongs house. Poet Zhao's house was torn down as well, forcing him to move to the second floor of Song Gang and Lin Hongs building. Poet Zhao deliberately positioned his bed directly over theirs, and in the dead of night he would lie there, hoping to hear sounds of their lovemaking. Unable to hear anything, he placed his ear directly against the concrete floor but still couldn't hear anything and wondered how in the world there could be such a deathly silent matrimonial bed. Song Gang and Lin Hong had been married for many years, but they still hadn't had any children. He felt that the problem surely lay with Song Gang and speculated that he must be impotent. He secretly told Writer Liu his theory, adding, "When they go to bed together at night, they are like two guns equipped with silencers."
After Song Gang lost his job, he found a new job as a dockworker down at the wharf, carrying parcels from the ships to the warehouse and vice versa. He was paid by the piece, and therefore the more parcels he moved, the more he was paid. He rushed frantically with the large parcels up and down the hundred-yard path from the wharf to the warehouse — and while everyone else would just carry one, he would always carry two at once. Every day the elders who sat chatting on the side of the road would hear him wheezing like an accordion as he ran back and forth. His clothes completely drenched in sweat, he looked as if he had just climbed out of the river. Even his sneakers were soaked with sweat, making swishing sounds as he hauled the parcels back and forth. The elders would shake their heads and say, "That Song Gang values money more than life itself."
Song Gang's workmates would each make three or four round-trips, then sit on the riverbank steps to rest. There they would drink some water, smoke, and chat for half an hour before finally going back to work. Song Gang, however, would never sit on the steps to rest. Instead, he would make seven or eight trips, until — his face pale and his lips trembling, feeling that he was about to collapse — he would place the last parcel on the ship. Walking down the plank back to shore, he'd see his workmates on the steps waving at him but, feeling he didn't even have the strength to cover the remaining ten yards, he'd fall to the ground as soon as he got off the plank. Therefore, his break would consist of sprawling there, with grass wedged under his collar and river water flowing past his arm, his eyes closed tightly, his chest rising and falling rapidly, and his heart pounding like a fist against his chest cavity.
By resting on the ground like this, Song Gang could recover his strength faster. Every time he lay down, his workmates sitting on the stone steps would laugh at him, calling him a crazy fool. Song Gang was so exhausted he couldn't hear what they were saying. Feeling that the ground was spinning, he'd clench his eyes until he could discern the sunlight through his closed lids and his breathing slowed back down to normal. At that point, having rested for less than ten minutes, he'd hear his workmates calling out his name. He'd slowly climb back up and see them waving to him, holding their water glasses out to him and offering him a cigarette. He'd smile and wave, then walk over to the water faucet on the dock to fill his belly, whereupon he'd take two more parcels and begin rushing back and forth again.
Working on the docks, Song Gang earned twice as much as his fellow workers and four times as much as he had made under the metal factory's iron-rice-bowl system. The first time he gave Lin Hong his salary, she jumped with surprise, astounded that he could have earned so much as a dockworker. Counting it, she said, "You are earning more in a month than you used to earn in four months at the factory."
Song Gang grinned and said, "Actually, losing one's job isn't so bad after all."