Life and Death are Wearing Me Out (73 page)

Pang Kangmei walked hand in hand with Pang Fenghuang with the group of dignitaries, behind the direct descendants. She was but three months away from being tried for a double offense. Her term of office had ended, but she had not yet been reassigned, which was a sure sign that trouble was brewing for her. Why, then, had she chosen to participate in a funeral that would later become a major expose by the news media? Now, I was a dog who had experienced many of life’s vicissitudes, but this was too complicated a problem for me to figure out. Nonetheless, I think the answer lay not in anything involving Kangmei herself, but must have been tied to Pang Fenghuang, a charming but rebellious girl who was, after all your mother’s granddaughter.

“Mother, your unfilial son has come too late . . .” After I shouted my line, all of Mo Yan’s instructions disappeared without a trace, as did my awareness that I was acting the part of Blue Face in a TV series. I had a hallucination — no, it wasn’t a hallucination, it was a real-life feeling that the person lying in the coffin in funeral clothes with a sheet of yellow paper covering her face was, in fact, my mother. Images of the last time I’d seen her, six years earlier, flashed before my eyes, and one side of my face swelled up and felt hot. There’d been a ringing in my ears after my father had slapped me with the sole of his shoe. What my eyes took in here — my mother’s white hair; her face, awash in murky tears; her sunken, toothless mouth; her age-spotted, veiny, nearly useless hands; her prickly-ash cane, which lay on the floor; her anguished cry as she tried to protect me — all this appeared before me, and tears gushed from my eyes. Mother, I’ve come too late. Mother, how did you manage to get through the days with an unfilial son who was cursed and spat on for what he did? And yet your son’s filial feelings toward you have never wavered. Now I’ve brought Chunmiao to see you, Mother, so please accept her as your daughter-in-law. . . .

Your mother’s grave was located at the southern end of Lan Lian’s notorious plot of land. Ximen Jinlong was not daring enough to open the tomb in which Ximen Nao and Ximen Bai were buried together, and that served to save a bit of face for his adoptive father and mother-in-law. Instead he built a splendid tomb to the left of his biological parents’ tomb. The stone doors seemed to open onto a deep, dark passage. The tomb was surrounded by an impenetrable wall of excited bystanders. I looked at the donkey’s grave, and at the ox’s grave, and the pig’s grave, and at a dog’s grave, and I looked at the ground, trampled into a rock-hard surface. A succession of thoughts crowded my mind. I could smell the sizzling spray of urine on Ximen Nao and Ximen Bai’s markers from years back, and my heart was struck by apocalyptic feelings of doom. I walked slowly over to the pig’s burial site and sprayed it. Then I lay down beside it, and as my eyes swelled with tears, I reflected: descendants of the Ximen family and those associated closely with it, I hope you will be able to discern my wishes and bury the dog-body of this incarnation in the spot I have chosen.

I nearly swooned from crying. I could hear someone shouting behind me, but could not tell what they were saying. Oh, Mother, let me see you one more time. ... I reached over and removed the paper covering Mother’s face; a woman who looked nothing like my mother sat up and said with extraordinary seriousness: Son, the PLA always treats its prisoners humanely, so please turn in your weapons and surrender to them! I sat down hard, my mind a blank, as the people standing around the bier swarmed up and pinned me to the ground. Cold hands reached down and pulled a pair of pistols from my waistband.

Just as your mother’s coffin was being placed in the tomb, a man in a heavy padded coat stepped out from the surrounding crowd. He staggered a bit and reeked of alcohol. As he trotted unsteadily ahead, he peeled off his padded coat and flung it behind him; it hit the ground like a dead lamb. Using both hands and feet, he climbed up onto your mother’s tomb, where he started tipping to one side and seemed in danger of slipping off altogether. But he didn’t. He stood up. Hong Taiyue! It was Hong Taiyue! He was standing, steadily now, on top of your mother’s tomb, dressed in rags: a brownish yellow army uniform, with a red detonating cap hanging from his belt. He raised a hand high in the air and shouted:

“Comrades, proletarian brothers, foot soldiers for Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Mao Zedong, the time to declare war on the descendant of the landlord class, the enemy of the worldwide proletarian movement, and a despoiler of the earth, Ximen Jinlong, has arrived!”

The crowd was stunned. For a moment everything stood still before some of the people turned and ran, others hit the ground, flat on their bellies, and some simply didn’t know what to do. Pang Kangmei pulled her daughter around behind her, looking frantic, but quickly regained her composure. She took several steps forward and said, looking unusually harsh, “Hong Taiyue, I am Pang Kangmei, secretary of the Gaomi County Communist Party Committee, and I order you to stop this idiotic behavior at once!”

“Pang Kangmei, don’t put on those stinking airs with me! Communist Party secretary, like hell! You and Ximen Jinlong are links in the same chain, in cahoots with one another in your attempt to bring capitalism back to Northeast Gaomi Township, turning a red township into a black one. You are traitors to the proletariat, enemies of the people!”

Ximen Jinlong stood up and pushed his funeral cap back on his head; it fell to the ground. As if trying to calm an angry bull, he slowly approached the tomb.

“Don’t come any closer!” Hong Taiyue shouted as he reached for the detonator fuse.

“Uncle, good uncle,” Jinlong said with a kindly smile. “You nurtured me like a son. I remember every lesson you gave me. Our society has developed along with the changing times, and everything I’ve done has befitted those changes. Tell me the truth, Uncle, over the past decade have the people’s lives gotten better or haven’t they?. . .”

“I don’t want to hear any more fine words from you!”

“Come down, Uncle,” Jinlong said. “If you say I’ve made a mess of things, I’ll resign and let someone more capable take over. Or, if you prefer, you can be the one holding the Ximen Village official seal.”

While this exchange between Jinlong and Hong Taiyue was playing out, the policemen who had driven Pang Kangmei and others to the funeral were crawling toward the tomb. Just as they jumped to their feet, Hong Taiyue leaped off of the tomb and wrapped his arms around Jinlong.

A muffled explosion sent smoke and the stench of blood flying into the air.

After what seemed like an eternity, the stunned crowd quickly converged on the spot and pulled the two mangled bodies apart. Jinlong had been killed instantly, but Hong was still breathing, and no one knew what to do with the mortally wounded old man. They just stood there gawping at him. His face was waxen.

“This is,” he stammered in a soft, barely audible voice as blood oozed from his mouth, “the last battle . . . unite for tomorrow. . . Internationale . . . has to . . .”

Blood spurted from his mouth, a foot-high red fountain, and splattered on the ground around him. His eyes lit up, like burning chicken feathers, once, twice, and then darkened, the fires extinguished for all time.

I was carrying an old floor-model electric fan given to us by a colleague at the newspaper who had been promoted and was moving into new quarters. Chunmiao was carrying an old microwave oven, also a gift from that colleague. We’d just alighted from a crowded bus and were sweating profusely. It was hot and we were tired, but delighted to have these new — to us — items without having to spend a cent. It was a three-
li
walk from the bus stop to where we lived, but we weren’t willing to part with our limited funds to hire a pedicab, so we hoofed it, stopping frequently to rest.

Dusk was deepening when we reached our kennel-like apartment, where our fat landlady was cursing at two other tenants for using tap water to cool the street in front of the building. Those two young tenants, our next-door neighbors, were gleefully throwing curses right back at her. A tall, thin man was standing in our doorway, the blue birthmark that covered half his face looking bronzed in the twilight. I set the fan down on the ground, hard, as I was racked by a chill throughout my body.

“What is it?” Chunmiao asked.

“It’s Kaifang,” I said. “Maybe you should make yourself scarce.” “What for? It’s time to deal with the situation.” We made ourselves as presentable as possible and, trying hard to look relaxed, walked up to my son carrying our new possessions.

He was quite thin, but taller than me, and slightly stooped. Despite the heat, he was wearing a black long-sleeved shirt-jacket, black trousers, and a pair of sneakers of an indefinable color. His body gave off a sour smell; his clothes were sweat-stained. His luggage consisted solely of a transparent plastic bag. Saddened by the sight of a son who looked so much older than his years, I was on the verge of tears. I ran up to him, but the off-putting look on his face kept me from embracing him. I let my arms drop heavily to my sides.

“Kaifang . . .”

He looked me over without a trace of warmth, disgusted even by the tears that were now washing my face. He frowned, imprinting creases on his forehead above a nearly unbroken line of eyebrows, like his mother’s. He sneered.

“Not bad, you two, making it to a place like this.”

I was too tongue-tied to say anything.

Chunmiao opened the door and carried in our fan and microwave. Turning on the twenty-five-watt overhead light, she said:

“Since you’re here, Kaifang, you’d better come in. We can talk in here.”

“I have nothing to say to you,” he said with a quick glance inside, “and I’m not going inside your house!”

“No matter what, Kaifang, I’m still your father,” I said. “You’ve come a long way, and Aunt Chunmiao and I would like to take you to dinner.”

“You two go, I’ll stay here,” Chunmiao said. “Treat him to something good.”

“I’m not going to eat anything you give me,” he said as he swung the bag in his hand. “I brought my own food.”

“Kaifang . . .” More tears. “Can’t you give your father a little face?”

“Okay, that’s enough,” he said with obvious repulsion. “Don’t think I hate you two, because I don’t, not a bit. It was my mother’s idea to come looking for you, not mine.”

“She . . . how is she?” I said hesitantly.

“She has cancer.” His voice was low. There was silence for a moment before he continued. “She doesn’t have long to live, and would like to see you both. She says she has many things she wants to say to you.”

“How could she have cancer?” said Chunmiao, now crying openly.

My son looked at Chunmiao and just shook his head noncom-mittally.

“Well, I’ve delivered the message,” he said. “Whether you go back or not is up to you.”

He turned and walked off.

“Kaifang ...” I grabbed his arm. “We can go together. We’ll leave tomorrow.”

He wrested his arm from my grip.

“I’m not traveling with you. I have a return ticket for tonight.”

“Then we’ll go with you.”

“I said I’m not traveling with you.”

“Then we’ll walk you to the station,” Chunmiao said.

“No,” my son said with steely determination. “There’s no need.”

After your wife learned she had cancer, she insisted on going back to Ximen Village. Your son, who hadn’t graduated from high school, was bent on quitting school and becoming a policeman. His application was accepted by your old friend Du Luwen, once the Lüdian Township Party secretary, and now county police commissioner, either as a result of your relationship or of your son’s excellent qualifications. He was assigned to the criminal division.

Following the death of your mother, your father moved back into the southern end of the little room in the western addition, where he resumed the solitary, eccentric lifestyle of his independent farming days. No one ever saw him out in the compound during the day, nor did they often see smoke from his chimney, though he prepared his own meals. He wouldn’t eat the food Huzhu or Baofeng brought to him, preferring to let it go bad on the counter by the stove or on his table. Late at night he’d get down off his sleeping platform, the
kang,
and come back to life. He’d boil a pot of water on the stove and make some soupy rice, which he’d eat before it was fully cooked. Either that or he’d simply eat raw, crunchy grain and wash it down with cold water. Then he’d be right back on the
kang.

When your wife returned to the village, she moved into the northern end of the western addition, previously occupied by your mother. Her twin sister, Huzhu, took care of her. Sick as she was, I never heard a single moan from her. She just lay quietly in bed, eyes closed as she tried to get some sleep, or open as she stared at the ceiling. Huzhu and Baofeng tried all sorts of home remedies, such as cooking a toad in soupy rice or preparing pig’s lung with a special grass or snakeskin with stir-fried eggs or gecko in liquor. She refused to try any of these remedies. Her room was separated by your father’s only by a thin wall of sorghum stalks and mud, so they could hear each other’s coughs and sighs; but they never exchanged a word.

In your father’s room there were a vat of raw wheat, another of mung beans, and two strings of corn ears hanging from the rafters. After Dog Two died, I found myself with nothing to do and no mood to try anything new, so I either slept the day away in my kennel or wandered through the compound. After the death of Jinlong, Ximen Huan hung out with a bad crowd in town, returning infrequently, and only to get money from his mother. After Pang Kangmei was arrested, Jinlong’s company was taken over by county officials, as was the Ximen Village Party secretary position. By then his company existed on paper only, and all the millions in bank loans were gone. He left nothing for Huzhu or Ximen Huan. So after her son used up all of Huzhu’s personal savings, he stopped showing up altogether.

Huzhu was living in the main house; every time I entered the house she was seated at her square table, cutting paper figures. Everything she made — plants and flowers, insects and fish, birds and beasts — was remarkably lifelike. She mounted the figures between sheets of white paper and, when she’d finished a hundred of them, took them into town to sell next to shops that carried all sorts of mementos; from that she maintained a simple life. I occasionally saw her comb her hair, standing on a bench to let it fall all the way to the floor. Watching the way she had to bend her neck to run the comb through it made me very sad.