Pow!

POW! 38

‘If Shen Yaoyao doesn't die, I will. If she does, I'll live.’ So sobbed the film star Huang Feiyun last night as she sat on a sofa in front of Lan Laoda. ‘I can't help myself. I love you. I'll pretend I'm dead if she lives but I'll choose life if she dies. The child is your flesh and blood, so you have to marry me.’ ‘How much do you want?’ Lan asked callously. ‘Is that what you think I came to you for—money, you bastard?’ she fumed. ‘Why else would you try to palm off someone else's child on me? You of all people should remember that I haven't so much as touched you since you got married. Unless I'm mistaken, your esteemed daughter was born three years after that, and I've never heard of a gestation period that long.’ ‘I knew you'd say that,’ said Huang Feiyun, ‘but you've forgotten that your sperm samples were deposited in the Celebrity Sperm Bank.’ Lan Laoda lit a cigar with his pistol-shaped cigarette lighter and looked up at the ceiling. ‘You're right,’ he said. ‘I was tricked into making that deposit because they said I had extraordinary genes. Did you put them up to that? You've gone to great lengths, haven't you? But if that's how things stand, you can send the boy over. I'll hire the best tutor and the best nanny to educate him and take care of him and make him into a statesman, and you can concentrate on being the virtuous wife of a businessman.’ Huang Feiyun was unyielding: ‘No,’ she said. ‘Why not? Why is it so important for you to marry me?’ Tears in her eyes, she said, ‘I know it makes no sense. I know you're a big-time gangster, a monster who works both sides of the road, criminal and law-abiding, and that marrying you is like signing my death warrant. But that's what I want. I think of it every minute of every day, I'm under your spell.’ Lan Laoda laughed: ‘I was married once and she suffered because of it. Why would you want to suffer too? Listen to me when I say I'm not a man—I'm a horse, a stud horse, and stud horses belong to all the mares in a herd. After a stud horse has serviced a mare, he's done with her and she must go away. As I say, I'm not a man, and you shouldn't consider yourself a woman. And if you're a mare, then you wouldn't entertain the absurd idea of marrying me.’ Huang Feiyun pounded her chest and said in a voice choked with anguish: ‘I'm a mare, I am, a mare who dreams night after night of coupling with a stud horse that empties her out.’ Crying, she ripped open her bodice and her now ruined, expensive dress fell to the floor. She then tore off her bra and her panties. Completely naked, she began running round the living room shouting: ‘I'm a mare…I'm a mare…’ I am startled awake by an uproar outside the temple gate, though Huang Feiyun's hysterical shouts continue to echo in my ears. When I sneak a peek at the Wise Monk, the look of agony in his face has been replaced by one of serenity. Before I can continue with my tale, there is a racket outside. When I look up I see a large truck parked by the side of the road, piled high with sawed planks and thick logs. A gang of men begin heaving the lumber on which they were sitting to the ground, where a boy is nearly crushed by one of the cascading logs. ‘Hey,’ he shouts, ‘what are you doing?’ ‘Get out of the way, boy,’ a squat worker in a wicker hard hat shouts back, ‘or there'll be no one to weep over your corpse.’ ‘I want to know what you're doing,’ the boy demands. ‘Run home and tell your mother that there'll be an opera here tonight,’ the man says. ‘Oh, so you're going to build a stage! Which opera?’ he asks, barely able to control his delight. A long plank cuts loose and slides off the truck. ‘Get out of the way, boy!’ a man on the truck shrieks. ‘I can't, not till you tell me which opera.’ ‘OK, all righty, it's From Meat Boy to Meat God. Now, will you get out of the way!’ ‘Sure,’ he says, ‘now that you've told me.’ ‘What a strange little prick, one of them says as a log rolls to the ground. The boy hops out of the way but the log rolls after him, as if it has him in its sights and then finally comes to a stop at the little temple gate. The fresh, clean smell of tree sap brings news of the virgin forest and, as I breathe in the clean fragrance of pine, I am reminded of the rebirth platform at United Meatpacking Plant all those years ago. As usual it stirs up painful memories. That was where my poor father went to smoke, to meditate and to be lonely. It's where he began spending most of every day, effectively putting affairs of the plant out of his mind.

One night a month before Lao Lan's wife died, my father and mother had a conversation, one up high, the other down low.

‘Come down from there,’ Mother said.

Father tossed down a glowing cigarette butt. ‘Sorry, no.’

‘Then stay up there till you breathe your last if you dare to.’

‘I will.’

‘You're a chicken-shit bastard if you don't come down.’

‘I won't.’

Even though Lao Lan put a lid on the situation, news of Father's vow to never come off the platform leaked out and spread through the plant. Mother walked about in a daze, snapping out of it only to smash the odd dinner plate and then sit at her mirror and weep. Jiaojiao and I weren't particularly upset by this turn of events; truth be known—I must shamefully confess, Wise Monk—we even found it all terribly funny, even something to be proud about because my old man was once again displaying his unique temperament.

He swore he wouldn't come off the platform but he said nothing about fasting. Three times a day Jiaojiao and I took him food. It was a special treat the first time we climbed up but soon it became just another chore. Father would greet our arrival without any display of emotion. We'd have liked nothing more than to sit and eat with him but he always courteously insisted that we go back down. Reluctantly, we did as he asked so his food wouldn't get cold; on our way down we made sure we took back the utensils from his previous meal. The plate and bowl would be clean enough not to need a wash. He must have licked them clean, and I often imagined that sight. He had so much time on his hands up there that licking a bowl clean was sort of a job for him.

He had to relieve himself, of course, so Jiaojiao and I took up two plastic pails, which meant that, in addition to delivering his food, we also had to dispose of his waste. After watching us apprehensively as we carried the waste pails down, he suggested that we haul up his food basket and lower the pails with a rope to spare us the trouble of climbing up and down.

Lao Lan just laughed when I told him about this conversation. ‘This is your family business,’ he said when he'd finished laughing. ‘Go talk it over with your mother.’

Mother would have none of it, and it seemed that by then she was resigned to her husband living on the platform. She went to work every day. She stopped smashing plates and frequently engaged in friendly chats with Lao Lan.

‘Xiaotong,’ she'd say, ‘don't forget his cigarettes when you take his food.’

The truth is, despite Mother's opposition, a rope would have been the easiest thing in the world. We didn't do it because we didn't want to. Climbing the platform three times a day to visit our exceptional father was a special treat for Jiaojiao and me.

When we delivered his breakfast one morning three weeks before Lao Lan's wife died, he sighed and said: ‘Children, your dieh's wasted his life.’

‘No, you haven't, Dieh,’ I replied. ‘You've stuck it out here seven days already, and that's quite a feat. People are starting to call you a sage in the making, waiting to be immortalized up here on the platform.’

He shook his head and managed a bitter smile. We brought him good food every day, and the fact that his bowl was always licked clean was proof that there was nothing wrong with his appetite. But in seven days he'd lost weight. His beard had grown, long and as prickly as a hedgehog, his eyes were bloodshot, sleep filling their the corners, and he smelt foul, really foul. Just the sight of him reduced me to tears, and I blamed myself for not taking better care of him.

‘Dieh,’ I said, ‘we'll bring you a razor and a basin to wash in.’

‘Dieh,’ Jiaojiao added, ‘we'll bring you a blanket and a pillow.’

He sat there, leaning up against a pole and staring into the wilderness. ‘Xiaotong,’ he said full of sorrow, ‘Jiaojiao, you two go down there, light a fire and immolate your dieh.’

‘Dieh,’ we cried out together, ‘stop that! What would life be like for us if you weren't around? You have to stick it out, Dieh. Not giving up will be your victory.’

We laid down the food basket and picked up the plastic pails, ready to climb down, when Father stood up, rubbed his face with those big hands of his, and said, ‘I'll do it.’

He took one of the pails, swung it back and forth a couple of times and then chucked it over the wall.

He then picked up the second pail and did the same thing.

Shocked by his outburst, I had a sudden feeling of impending disaster. I rushed over wrapped my arms round his leg. ‘Don't do it, Dieh, don't jump,’ I pleaded tearfully, ‘you'll die!’

Jiaojiao rushed up and, crying, wrapped her arms round his other leg. ‘Don't do it, Dieh, you'll die!’ she echoed.

Father stroked our heads and looked at the sky. When he finally looked down again, there were tears in his eyes.

‘Why would you think such a thing, children? Why would I want to jump? Your dieh doesn't have the guts.’

So he followed us down the platform and headed for the office. Strange looks followed us as we made our way through the plant.

‘What are you looking at?’ I demanded. ‘I dare any of you to try climbing that platform. My father spent seven days up there, so keep those stinking mouths shut till you've spent eight.’

They slunk away under my withering attack.

‘You're the best, Dieh,’ I said proudly.

Not a word from my ashen-faced father. He followed us into his office, where Lao Lan and Mother met his arrival with seeming indifference. It was as if we'd just come from one of the workshops or the toilet and not off the rebirth platform.

‘Good news, Lao Luo,’ Lao Lan said. ‘The Riches for All supermarket finally paid up what they owed us. We'll keep our distance from unscrupulous concerns like that from now on.’

‘Lao Lan,’ Father said glumly, ‘I quit. I don't want to be plant manager any longer.’

‘Why?’ Lao Lan was surprised. ‘Why do you want to quit?’

Father sat on the stool, his head hung low. ‘I've failed,’ he said after a long moment.

‘You're too old to be pouting like a child,’ Lao Lan said. ‘Was it something I said or did?’

‘Don't pay any attention to him, Lao Lan,’ Mother said contemptuously. ‘He's his own worst enemy.’

On the verge of losing his temper, Father merely shook his head and kept quiet.

Lao Lan flipped open a colour edition of a newspaper. ‘Take a look at that, Lao Luo,’ he said softly. ‘My third uncle has given up his wealth, left all those women who've been in love with him, shaved his head and become a monk at the Yunmen Temple.’

Father merely glanced at the newspaper.

‘My third uncle is a man of great, if strange, substance,’ Lao Lan continued emotionally. ‘I used to think I understood him, but now I realize I'm too vulgar to comprehend a man of his calibre. I tell you, Lao Luo, life's too short to be caught up with things like women and wealth, fame and status. You're born without them and you'll leave them behind when you die. My third uncle has seen the light.’

‘You will, too, very soon,’ Mother said sarcastically.

‘My father was up on the platform for seven days,’ Jiaojiao said, ‘and he saw the light.’

Lao Lan and Mother turned to her in surprise. ‘Xiaotong,’ Mother said after a moment, ‘take your sister outside and let the grown-ups talk. You don't know what this is about.’

‘I do,’ insisted Jiaojiao.

‘Go outside!’ Father barked angrily, banging the table with his fist.

His hair was a tangled mess, his face coated with grime, he stank, and he was in a foul mood. Seven days of meditating on a tall platform will do that to a man. I took Jiaojiao's hand and fled outside.

Are you still listening, Wise Monk?

Lao Lan's wife's bier was placed in the family living room. A heavy-looking purple cinerary urn rested on a black square table and a framed black-and-white photograph of the deceased hung on the wall behind it. The head in the photograph was larger than it had been in life but what caught my attention was the trace of a wry smile at the corners of the mouth, reminding me of how nice she'd been to Jiaojiao and me when we ate at their house. How had they made it so large? I wondered. The small-town newspaper reporter who'd hired on with us was taking pictures inside and outside the house with a snap-on lens. He bent for some shots and knelt for some others. I could tell how hard he was working by the sweat stains on his white T-shirt, with the newspaper's name across the chest; it was actually sticking to his back. He'd gained so much weight since he'd joined the team that the skin on his face was taut, thanks to the added flesh underneath. His cheeks had taken on the appearance of rubber balls. I went up to him while he was putting in a new roll of film. ‘Hey, Skinny Horse,’ I said under my breath, ‘how did they make that photo on the wall so big?’

‘It's called an enlargement,’ he explained patiently. ‘If you like, I could make a picture of you as big as a camel.’

‘But I don't have a picture.’

He raised his camera, pointed it at my face, and—click. ‘Now you do. You'll have an enlargement in a couple of days, Director Luo.’

Jiaojiao ran up.

‘I want one too,’ she bawled.

He aimed his camera at her. Click.

‘Got it.’

‘I want one of the two of us,’ she said.

He aimed his camera. Click. ‘Got it.’

This made me so happy I wanted to keep chatting with him, but he was off taking more pictures. A man walked in through Lao Lan's open front door, wearing a wrinkled grey suit, a white shirt with a filthy collar, and a pink bolo tie made of fake pearls. One trouser leg was rolled up, revealing a purple sock and an orange, mud-coated leather shoe. We called him ‘Big Four’—big mouth, big eyes, big nose and big teeth. Actually, his ears were big enough for him to have been called ‘Big Five’. On his belt he wore a beeper, something we called an electric cricket at the time. Lao Lan was one of the few people within a hundred square li who owned a cellphone—the size of a brick, it was carried by Huang Biao and, although seldom used, it was quite a status symbol. While not in the same category as a cellphone, a beeper conferred status too. Big Four, the township head's brother-in-law, was also the best-known contractor of construction labour in the area. He won contracts for virtually every township project, whether a public road or a public toilet. Given to swaggering round most people, he didn't dare try that with Lao Lan or with Mother. Tucking his briefcase under his arm, he went up to my mother, nodded and bowed.

‘Director Yang…’

My mother had been promoted to serve as Huachang Corporation's office manager and assistant to the general manager, as well as chief accountant for United Meatpacking. She had on a full-length black dress with a white paper flower pinned to the breast and a pearl necklace. Shunning make-up, she wore a solemn expression and a piercing glare, like the sharp edges of a Chinese written character, like a sober eulogy, like a stately pine tree.

‘What are you doing here?’ Mother demanded. ‘Why aren't you out supervising the tomb construction?’

‘I've got gravediggers there now.’

‘You should be supervising them.’

‘I have been,’ Big Four said. ‘I wouldn't dare be careless on a job for Boss Lan. But…’

‘But what?’

He took out a notepad from his pocket: ‘Director, the gravediggers are almost finished and next comes the coffin chamber. For that we'll need three tonnes of lime, five thousand bricks, two tonnes of cement, five of sand, two cubic metres of lumber, and other odds and ends…can you advance some money for that?’

‘Don't you think you've bled us enough?’ Mother was not happy. ‘Building a tomb can't cost that much, yet you come asking for money. Use your own and get reimbursed when the job is finished.’

‘Where am I supposed to get the money?’ Big Four whined. ‘I get paid for the project in my left hand and then pass it on to the workers with my right. I'm a middleman, with nothing left over for me. Without some money now, we're looking at work delays.’

‘I can't believe I'm even talking to you,’ Mother said as she headed over to the eastern wing, with Big Four hard on her heels.

Father was sitting stony-faced behind a table on which lay a rice-paper accounts book. A brass ink box with a writing brush on top of it sat to the side. He accepted memorial gifts from a steady stream of people—cash or packets of yellow worship paper, a hundred sheets for some, two hundred for others—and entered them into his account book, while the Inspection Station's assistant head, Xiao Han, manning a squat table behind him, stamped the paper with the mark of an ancient copper coin, thus turning the paper into spirit money that could then be burnt for the deceased. Some people brought packets of actual spirit money issued by the ‘Bank of the Underworld’ and displaying the imagined likeness of King Yama, in denominations no smaller than a hundred million RMB. Picking up a billion-yuan note, Xiao Han said with a sigh: ‘Won't bills this big cause inflation down there?’

An old man named Ma Kui, who'd brought a hundred RMB in cash and two packets of worship paper, shook his head. ‘That stuff's almost useless. Only imprinted worship paper counts as money in the underworld.’

‘How do you know that?’ asked Xiao Han. ‘Have you been down there to check it out?’

‘My wife came to me in a dream and said that's considered fake money down there.’ He kicked piles of it on the floor. ‘You need to tell Lao Lan to throw it away. If she takes fake money with her, she'll be arrested as a counterfeiter.’

‘There are police down there?’ Xiao Han asked.

‘Of course there are. They've got everything we've got up here,’ Ma Kui replied confidently.

‘We've got a United Meatpacking Plant and we've got you—how about those?’

‘Don't get smart with me, young fellow. Go see for yourself if you don't believe me.’

‘Going down is the easy part. How do I get back? You'd like to see me dead, you old fart!’

Mother walked in and nodded to Ma Kui. ‘Where are you going, Inspector Han? Are you looking for a promotion?’ Mother picked up the phone before he could respond and dialled a number. ‘Is this the Finance Department? Xiao Qi, This is Yang Yuzhen. Big Four's on his way to see you. Give him five thousand RMB, and don't forget to get a receipt with his thumbprint.’

‘Make it ten thousand, Director Yang,’ Big Four said brazenly. ‘Five won't do it.’

‘Don't get greedy, Big Four,’ Mother said sharply.

‘That's not it.’ He took out his notebook. ‘Five thousand isn't nearly enough. See here. Three thousand for bricks, two thousand for lime, five thousand for lumber…’

‘Five thousand, and that's it,’ Mother cut him off.

Big Four sat down in the doorway. ‘In that case, we'll have to stop work…’

‘King Yama would tremble if he ran into the likes of you,’ Mother said as she picked up the phone again. ‘Give him eight thousand,’ she said.

‘You're an iron abacus, Director Yang. Make it an even number. After all, it's not your money.’

‘I can't authorize ten thousand precisely because it isn't my money.’

‘Lao Lan knew what he was doing when he hired you.’

‘Get out!’ Mother spat at him. ‘Just the sight of you gives me a headache!’

Big Four stood up and bowed to Mother. ‘There's no one better than Director Yang, not my mother and not my father.’

‘You can substitute the word “money” for Director Yang! You're an expert at cutting corners on roads and buildings. If you do that on this tomb, Big Four, you'll live to regret it.’

‘Don't give it another thought, Director,’ Big Four said snidely. ‘I'll spend less and work harder, even if the money runs out. I'll build you a tomb that's impervious to an atom bomb.’

‘You can't find ivory in a dog's mouth.’ Mother said, losing her temper. ‘You don't have the money in hand yet,’ she added as she reached for the phone. ‘Let's see which is faster, your legs or my fingers on the dial.’

‘Damn this stinking mouth of mine!’ Big Four said as he made a show of slapping himself. ‘Director Yang, Elder Sister Lan, oh, no, I mean Elder Sister Luo, my dear Elder Sister. I was just trying to soft-soap you. I'm too coarse to say the right thing…’

‘Get out!’ Mother grabbed a handful of spirit money and threw it at him.

The paper fluttered in the air.

Big Four made a face at the others in the room, turned and scooted for the doorway, where, in his rush, he collided with the wife of Huang Biao. ‘You're not fighting to wear the parental mourning cap, are you, Big Four?’ she blurted out, her face red with anger. ‘Don't worry, there's one waiting for you.’

‘I'm sorry, Elder Sister Lan, no, I mean Elder Sister Huang. I can't control this mouth of mine,’ he said, rubbing his head. Then he stuck his face up next to her and said softly, ‘I haven't bruised your breasts, have I?’

‘You can go to hell, Big Four!’ she said as she kicked him in the shin and fanned the air in front of her face. ‘Have you been eating shit—is that why you stink so bad?’

‘For someone like me,’ Big Four replied, feigning humility, ‘the only shit I could find would turn out to be cold.’

She tried to kick him again, but he moved away in time and slunk out through the doorway.

Everyone in the room was still speechless at Big Four's antics and could now only stare blankly at the new arrival. She was wearing a short blue cotton jacket with a floral pattern, a high collar and buttons down the side over cotton warm-ups that scraped the floor. Black embroidered shoes popped in and out of view. Though she had the look of a rich family's nanny, there was also a bit of the modern schoolgirl about her. She wore her oiled hair in a loose bun; dark eyebrows rested atop a pair of limpid eyes over a button nose and fleshy lips. A dimple formed in her left cheek when she smiled. Her breasts jiggled like a couple of little rabbits. I've spoken of her before—she worked for Lao Lan, taking care of his wife and daughter. After I signed on as a workshop director at United, I stopped taking my meals there, so it had been quite a while since I'd seen her, and my impression this time was that she'd somehow become a loose woman. Why? Because just looking at her made my pecker stand up, no matter how hard I wished it back down. To be honest, loose women have always disgusted me, but that had no effect on my desire to keep looking at her, which in turn led to feelings of guilt. I should have looked away. But she was like a magnet for my eyeballs; and when she saw me staring at her she flashed me a smile that reeked of sex.

‘Director Yang,’ she said, ‘Boss Lan is asking for you.’

Mother glanced at Father with the strangest expression.

Father kept his head down and continued making entries in the book.

So Mother followed the shifting buttocks of Huang Biao's wife out the door. Damn her, she made my face itch. She ought to be shot.

Xiao Han, whose eyes had been glued on those buttocks, said emotionally: ‘A man of substance can't find a decent mate, a warty toad winds up with a flower of a woman.’

‘Huang Biao is just a front man,’ said Ma Kui, who was chain-smoking free cigarettes. ‘Who knows who's the real husband!’

‘Who are you talking about?’ Jiaojiao asked.

Father banged his writing brush on the table, spilling ink in the box.

‘What's wrong, Dieh?’ Jiaojiao said.

‘Shut up!’ he barked.

‘Luo Tong,’ Ma Kui said with a shake of his head, ‘why erupt like that?’

‘F*ck off,’ Xiao Han retorted. ‘Do you plan to smoke those free cigarettes till you've got your hundred-RMB's worth?’

Ma Kui plucked two more cigarettes out of the tin, lit one with the smouldering butt of another and tucked the other behind his ear. Then he stood up and walked to the door. ‘If you want to know,’ he said on his way out, ‘Boss Lan and I are related, since his third uncle's daughter-in-law is the niece of my son-in-law's third uncle.’

‘Xiaotong,’ Father said, ‘go home, and take Jiaojiao with you. I don't want you getting mixed up in all this.’

‘No,’ Jiaojiao said. ‘It's too much fun here.’

‘I said take her home, Xiaotong!’ he insisted.

The look on his face, the sternest I'd seen since his return, scared me enough to make me grab my sister's hand and take her home. But she dug in her heels and grumbled, her body swaying as she resisted my efforts. Father was about to slap her when Mother walked in. He dropped his hand.

‘Lao Luo,’ Mother said gravely, ‘Boss Lan wants us to let Xiaotong take the role of the dutiful son. He can join Tiangua to keep a vigil at the bier and smash the clay pot used to burn the spirit money.’

A look of desolation spread across Father's face. He lit a cigarette and puffed on it so intensely that a smoky cloud blurred his features and increased the look of desolation. ‘Did you agree?’ he said at last.

‘I don't see any problem,’ Mother said, slightly embarrassed. ‘Huang Biao's wife says that when he and Jiaojiao were taking their meals there, her mistress said she'd like him as a surrogate son. Lao Lan says that having a son had been her lifelong wish and this would fulfil that wish.’ Mother looked my way. ‘Xiaotong, do you know if that's something Aunty said?’

‘I'm not sure…’

‘How about you, Jiaojiao? Did Aunty ever say she'd like your brother to be her surrogate son?’

‘Yes, she did,’ Jiaojiao confirmed.

Father reached over and rapped Jiaojiao on the head. ‘You can't stop sticking your nose into things! You've been spoilt rotten.’

Jiaojiao burst into tears, and those tears made up my mind.

‘Yes, she did say that, and I told her I'd be happy to. And not just Aunty but Uncle Lan said the same thing, in the presence of Bureau Chief Qin, no less.’

‘It's no big deal,’ Mother said indignantly, ‘certainly not worth blowing up over. It could give the deceased a bit of consolation.’

‘Does the deceased know that?’ Father said icily.

‘What do you think?’ Mother said, looking glum. ‘A person's heart lives on after death.’

‘Please stop spouting nonsense!’ Father railed.

‘What do you mean, nonsense?’

‘I'm not going to argue with you.’ Father lowered his voice. ‘He's your son, have him do what you want.’

Xiao Han, who had been crouching nearby, stood up.

‘Don't be so stubborn, Manager Luo. Since Director Yang's already told Boss Lan it's all right, and Director Xiaotong has no objections, why not let them have their way? Besides, it's just play-acting. Xiaotong could play the role of dutiful son ten thousand times, but he'd still be your son and no one could take that away from you. In fact, most people would fight for an opportunity like this.’

Father kept his head down and said nothing.

‘That's just what he's like—bullheaded,’ Mother said. ‘He'll pick a fight with me over just about anything, and I'm stuck. That's the story of my life.’

‘You'll leave one of these days,’ Father said unemotionally.

‘That's ridiculous,’ Mother said unkindly and then turned to me. ‘Xiaotong, go see Huang Biao's wife and get her to help you change. I don't want you goofing off when the reporters show up. Aunty Lan treated you like a son, so repay her by acting like one.’

‘I want to go change too,’ Jiaojiao whined.

‘Jiaojiao!’ Father growled as he glared at her.

Jiaojiao's mouth trembled as though she were about to burst out crying. The unyielding look on Father's face put a stop to that, although a few tears seeped from her eyes.