Ge Fulai

Ge Fulai worked as a day laborer in the provincial capital, hauling bricks, mixing mortar, carrying cement wherever hands were needed. In his pocket he kept a red-covered Certificate of Voluntary Blood Donation, its cover frayed, its pages dense with official stamps. He had given blood more than a dozen times. The first was on the old county square, beside a white van, when a girl in a white coat smiled and said, Uncle, give a little; later your family will get blood for free — it is a benefit the state grants you. He believed her. He believed the state's word.

He treasured that red book more than his identity card. Whenever the white van came, he rolled up his sleeve. Tube after tube his blood was drawn; he sat under the tarp sipping sugar water, thinking himself a man who had done his part for the city.

The trouble came one spring. His daughter Xiaoman, a middle-schooler in the township, grew paler by the day and one afternoon collapsed mid-step. At the provincial hospital they found a disease of the blood: she would need transfusion after transfusion, a brief rally, then another. Ge Fulai slapped the red book on the doctor's desk: I gave blood a dozen times back home, the stamps are here — surely the child's blood should be free?

The doctor leafed through it and said, This certificate is from another county; the waiver must be processed at the local blood center, you pay here first and claim it back later with receipts. Besides, you donated whole blood; the child receives component blood — whether it counts as equal is a matter of policy. Ge Fulai understood little, but he caught one phrase: pay first.

And pay he did, installment by installment. Each transfusion — tests, bed, blood fee — ran into several thousand. He emptied his wages, then borrowed. The state would reimburse him, he told himself, so he paid ahead. He took leave, pocketed the red book, and went home to the county blood center.

Behind the counter a bespectacled clerk turned the pages a long while and said, The book is genuine. But reimbursement needs the hospital's invoices, itemized lists, and diagnosis, plus proof of your relationship to the child, the household register, and her birth certificate. Your wife never donated, so the free quota covers only the donor, spouse, parents, and children — Xiaoman qualifies as a child, but the materials must be complete. He added, The free amount equals your donated volume; anything beyond is still on you; component blood is converted by formula and may not match.

Ge Fulai was lost. The household register sat in a cabinet at home — that was easy. The birth certificate, though, had long vanished: Xiaoman was born at home, never entered in any proper book. The clerk said, Then get a relationship certificate from the village committee, and a stamp from the police station.

So he ran between his village and the capital. The village seal was easy — the headman said, Fulai, you gave blood, that is an honor, I will certify it. At the police station they wanted the original archive and said certificates could not be issued lightly these days, there must be the midwife's record from back then. He doubled back to the township clinic, which had long been merged, its files gone to who knew where. Round and round he went, while Xiaoman waited for blood on a hospital bed and Ge Fulai ate cold buns in the bus.

The money, in the end, was paid up front. Xiaoman received a few transfusions; her life was saved, yet she turned the yellow of a paper figure. Ge Fulai had advanced more than forty thousand and borrowed from every relation. He returned to the blood center and slapped a bag of invoices on the desk. The clerk checked them one by one and finally approved nineteen hundred, saying, After conversion of the component blood, your donated volume covers only this much; the rest is yours, and the invoices stay on file.

Ge Fulai held the thin wad of notes and suddenly remembered the white van on the square, its loudspeaker crying that voluntary blood donation was an honor, young people lining up to roll their sleeves. He had stood in that line; his blood had been taken for nothing, and the state's word had come to nothing too. He looked down at the frayed red book, its cover printed with a line: voluntary blood donation benefits the nation and the people. He said nothing more, tucked the book back into his chest, and turned toward the worksite.

The next day the white van parked again on the capital's square, and on fair days the loudspeaker sounded as before, crying honor line upon line. Ge Fulai walked past shouldering cement, the needle marks under his sleeve long since healed. No one has asked him for that book, and no one has told him where the blood he gave has gone.