Chapter 62
Two Sides of a Coin
Early morning. Two people still stood in line outside the hospital settlement window.
Meng Shoucheng was already outside the ward curtain, a pale yellow payment slip pinched in his hand. Eren hadn't opened his mouth. Shoucheng held the slip out.
Eren spread the paper flat. It wasn't thick. The corners had a crease where Shoucheng had held it. 450 Crystone sat at the top. Underneath: bed, medicine, a few other items. None of them looked like much on its own. Added up, they sat on his chest like a stone.
Eren didn't go in. From behind the curtain came Meng Xiangyang's voice, very light, like he'd been awake a little while. Shoucheng heard it and drew Eren farther down the corridor.
Eren finished the slip and looked up. "How's the compensation? Foreman say anything?"
Meng Shoucheng shook his head. "Nothing since last time."
Eren was quiet a moment.
Shoucheng opened the slip again and looked it over, voice low. "I ask every time I go to the yard. Company still hasn't answered."
When he finished he went to the nurses' station and stopped a nurse carrying a tray of medicine.
"Can he be discharged early?" he asked. "Or can we cut back on the medicine some?"
The nurse looked at him. She'd heard this too many times.
"The wound's just starting to stabilize. He still runs a fever at night. You take him out now, one knock and it can go bad," she said. "Medicine, you ask the doctor. That's not mine to say."
She drew the tray in closer. "I'm not trying to scare you. Give it a few more days."
Eren said, "Got it."
The nurse went into the ward. The curtain lifted and fell, and a little of the medicine smell came out with it.
Eren folded the slip and put it back in Shoucheng's hand.
"I'll think about the money too. You stay on the compensation. Don't wear yourself out over it."
Shoucheng's throat moved. He nodded.
Eren glanced at the curtain again and dropped his voice. "No need for him to know about the money."
Shoucheng gave a bitter smile. "I know."
The sun had been down a long time before Lila made it over from the plant. She still had the gray cloth outer shirt on, Crystone powder on the cuffs. She looked at Shoucheng first and asked right off, "Foreman come by?"
Meng Shoucheng shook his head. "No."
"Didn't they say it was in process?" Lila kept her voice down and still couldn't hold the heat in it. "It's been days. He's lying in there. Bills keep coming. Not even a word?"
Shoucheng dropped his head, caught by the question too.
Lila glanced toward the ward curtain. "We can't keep waiting like this. If it comes to it I'll go to the company with you."
Shoucheng waved her off. "I've got night shift at the yard. I'll ask again."
He tugged at the collar of his gray-green work clothes. The rusty-red trim looked darker under the lamp.
That was when Lila saw the dark under his eyes. "You're still going tonight?"
Shoucheng nodded, voice dull. "They're short. I don't go back, it looks bad with the foreman."
"And he's still pushing you?" Lila held the heat down. "What kind of people do that?"
Shoucheng waved again. "Don't pick a fight with them."
Then he went through the ward one item at a time for her.
Lila listened a while and cut him off. "That's enough, Shoucheng. Go on."
He lifted the curtain and looked in. Meng Xiangyang was half awake. He heard the movement, and his mouth moved.
"Brother Shoucheng, you go," he said, very light. "I'm fine here."
Shoucheng's nostrils flared. "I'll come after night shift."
"Don't run so hard." Xiangyang still wanted to smile. "You look sicker than I do."
Shoucheng muttered, "Quit the jokes," and when he turned back out his eyes were already red. He didn't let anyone look long. He grabbed the old outer coat and headed for the stairs. At the corner he looked back once at the ward curtain, then went down.
Lila sat outside the door, fished from her pocket the few Crystone coins Eren had left at the house, and set them in her palm. Her brow drew tight at once.
When she got back to the ward, Meng Xiangyang had pushed himself up a little against the hard pad. The brace held him stiff. His color was better than the last two days.
He saw Lila come in and smiled first.
"Brother Shoucheng gone?"
"Gone." Lila poured the water and held it to his mouth. "He stayed any longer, your foreman was going to blow."
Xiangyang drank twice, then waited a breath. "You all don't have to keep running over here either."
Lila's hands stopped.
He looked at the Crystone powder on her cuffs, voice much lighter than usual. "You just got off, right? Brother Eren keeps asking off too. Nova's home by himself. You go on like this, I don't rest easy."
"You just take care of yourself," Lila said. "The rest isn't yours to worry about."
Xiangyang shook his head. "I'm not worrying. I just don't want one cripple dragging all of you under."
Lila set the bowl back by the bed.
"Anyone calls you a cripple, I hit them first," she said. "Finish the medicine."
Xiangyang finally let out a scrap of a laugh, then sucked a breath at the pain. Lila caught the bowl at once so he wouldn't move again.
A nurse came through on rounds, left a few instructions, and went. After those few words Xiangyang was soon drowsy again. Lila waited until he was out, then slipped out of the ward.
The corridor had already gone dark. Fewer people in the hospital than in the day.
Lila stood outside the curtain, about to go for water, when someone at the stair called her.
"Miss Lila?"
The courtesy was pitched just so. She turned. A man stood by the stairs—gray short coat, thin leather folder under one arm, hair combed neat. She knew the face.
The real-estate agent. He'd been by their place before, asked how they were settling in, said if anything small needed a fix they could come to him.
This time he didn't smile as warm, and he didn't mention the house.
"I was passing the door. Heard a friend of yours was hurt," he said. "Mr. Mansour caught a little of it too. He asked me to come see if there's anything we can do."
Lila's fingers tightened on the pot handle.
She didn't ask how he knew. Last time he'd had her job down. Knowing there was an injured man in the hospital this time wasn't strange either.
The agent glanced at the ward curtain and didn't look in too far.
"I know a few people who work the hospital," he said. "Beds, medicine—we can find a way to smooth that. Mr. Mansour's always willing to help a tenant in a hard spot. Friends like you especially."
"Thank you for the thought," Lila said. "We're all right for now. No need to trouble you."
He looked like he'd expected the no, and still kept the words soft. "Don't take it wrong. We're not here to talk paperwork. Someone's hurt—another familiar face never hurts."
Lila shook her head, still polite. "I appreciate it. If we really need it, we'll come ask."
He tucked the thin folder back into the crook of his arm. Still decent.
"Understood," he said. "I won't disturb the patient. If you change your mind later, you can always find me."
He gave her a slight nod and went downstairs. The footsteps were soon swallowed by the noise below.
Lila was still standing there. The pot handle had left a mark in her palm. She eased her grip then.
In the ward Meng Xiangyang slept light, a low catch of breath now and then. At the other end of the corridor the clerk at the settlement window worked an abacus, the beads snapping. Lila suddenly felt there wasn't a quiet place in the building. Breath, beads, footsteps, trouble and kindness—all jammed in together.
The next day Eren finished what he had at the mine and didn't go straight to the hospital.
A few wagons stood outside the shed, a ring of dry mud on the wheels. Men had just come down off the wagons. Some had their vests off, hung on the posts. Some crouched at the water bucket washing their faces. Eren got the handover done, then checked the rough wood table Red Tea usually sat at.
He stopped a crewman he knew by sight.
"Captain in?"
The man was shoving his goggles into a cloth bag. He shook his head. "Not in town. Left the day before yesterday."
"Where'd he go?"
"Something up north. Heard a stretch of mine road needed a rush repair. Captain took men." The man looked at Eren. "You need him for something?"
Eren paused. "When's he back, roughly?"
"Don't know. Three to five days at least. Longer, hard to say."
Eren nodded. "Got it."
He stood by the shed a while longer, eyes running a row of familiar faces. Men he'd ridden escort with, sat night watch with.
He went over anyway, and asked them one by one.
The first man heard him out and felt for his own pouch.
"Your friend's thing. I heard," the man said. "We just fixed the house this month. Kid's still sick." He fished out a few Crystone coins, counted them, put two back. The rest he shoved into Eren's hand. "That's all I can do. Don't call it nothing."
The second didn't even lift his eyes. "Eren, I haven't even got next month's rent together."
The third hesitated a long while before he said, "Look. You've been asking off these last few days. Nobody knows how that goes from here. I lend, you can't pay it back, we both feel it next time we see each other. You know?"
It didn't sound good. It was still the truth.
Eren didn't argue. He asked them one by one and heard them out. A few lent him small change and didn't make him write a note. A few patted his shoulder, said they'd ask around later, and didn't unclip their pouches.
Eren thanked them, put the few dozen he'd borrowed into his bag, and tied the mouth tight.
He'd meant to ask the supervisor about an extra shift. From the hospital to the mine and back again had already torn a man in two. Another shift—he couldn't hold that, no matter how he cut it.
He took the little path behind the mine sheds toward town.
Not many people used it. It cut around a stretch of old wall and saved a little distance. The light was already going. A few gray Crystone lamps still burned at the mine mouth in the distance, the light blurred in the dust.
At the lane corner someone stepped out of the wall's shadow and stood at the roadside.
Eren's feet stopped.
The man didn't walk into the light, and he didn't come closer right away. He only turned his body a little, like he'd known Eren would come this way.