Pow!

POW! 39



Dusk has just settled in and work on the opera stage is done; the four workmen are carrying the freshly painted Meat God to one side of the tall stage. Its face comes alive in the moist rays of the setting July sun; its feet are nailed to a wooden base to keep it from tipping over. My heart tightens with every thud as they pound in those long, thick nails and my feet twitch in pain. I didn't realize I'd fainted till I came to. The wet stains on the front of my pants are proof, as is the taste of blood from a bitten tongue and the pain in the pinched spot between my nose and mouth. A young woman, a medical-school badge pinned to her blouse, straightens up and says to a male student with dyed blond hair: ‘Probably an epileptic seizure.’ He leans over and asks: ‘Is there a family history of epilepsy?’ Confused, I shake my head, which is pretty much empty. ‘How is he supposed to understand that kind of question?’ she says as she glares at him. ‘Has anyone in your family ever had a seizure?’ I think really hard but I'm so weak I can hardly lift my arms. A seizure? Well, Fan Zhaoxia's father frequently passed out on the street, foaming at the mouth and suffering from violent spasms, and I heard people say those were seizures. But no one in my family had them, not even when my mother was furious with my father or me. I shake my head and struggle to prop myself into a seated position with arms as weak as limp noodles. ‘It could have been a symptomatic seizure caused by emotional trauma,’ the woman says to the man. ‘What kind of traumatic experience can someone with a simple intellectual life have?’ He is not convinced. F*ck you! I fume inwardly. What do you know about my so-called simple intellectual life? My life is complex as hell. The woman raises her voice. ‘Avoid heights, don't go in the water, do not drive a car or a motorbike and no riding horses’ I understand every word but I doubt that the look on my face shows it. ‘Let's go, Tiangua’ the man says. ‘The opera is about to begin’ Tiangua? My heart lurches as an avalanche of memories thuds into my head. Is it even remotely possible that the slim-waisted, long-legged university student with shoulder-length hair, finely formed features and kind heart is Lao Lan's daughter, the girl with the dull, colourless hair, Tiangua? She has developed into quite a young woman. There's really no telling what a girl will look like when she grows up. Tiangua! It could have been me calling out or it could have been the crumbling Horse God. I hope it was me, because they say that if the Horse God calls out to a pretty girl and she makes the mistake of responding—she'll have a hard time escaping from a debilitating fate. This time she turns to see who called her name. I mean absolutely nothing to her, so she can't possibly have expected to see the swaggering Luo Xiaotong of her childhood, not in the current state, a barely conscious beggar—I'm not a beggar but I'm sure that's what she and her boyfriend think—lying on the floor of a broken-down temple recovering from some kind of seizure. She stands there, her belly up against the face of the Wise Monk, who doesn't flinch. She doesn't seem to think anything of it as she leans forward, reaches out and strokes the Horse Spirit's neck. ‘Have you read the Wutong story in Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio?’ she asks her friend without turning to look at him. ‘No,’ he says with evident embarrassment. ‘We only studied our textbooks so we could get into college. The competition was brutal, since the required test scores were so incredibly high.’ ‘What do you know about the Wutong?’ she turns to asks him, a mischievous grin on her face. ‘Nothing.’ ‘That's what I thought’ ‘So what is it?’ he asks. ‘No wonder the writer Pu Songling said “After Wan's success with weapons, the area of Wu had no trouble with the remnants of the Wutong spirit,’” she teases. ‘Huh?’ is all he can manage. She smiles. ‘Forget it. But look here. She holds out her mud-stained hand. See? The Horse Sprit is sweating.’ He takes her hand and leads her out of the temple. She turns to look back, reluctant to leave, and though she is looking at the idol, she's talking to me when she says: ‘You should go to a hospital. You're not about to die but you do need some medical attention.’ My nose begins to ache, in part out of gratitude and in part over the vicissitudes of life. More and more people have joined the crowd outside, including the very old and the very young, bringing with them stools to sit on, assembling from both sides of the road and the cultivated fields behind the temple. What I find strange is that there isn't a single vehicle on the usually busy road, a departure that can only be explained if the police have cordoned it off. I wonder why they haven't erected the stage in the open field across the way instead of on the cramped temple grounds. Nothing is the way it should be, nothing makes sense. I look up and there's Lao Lan, his arm in a sling and a gauze bandage covering his left eye, looking like a defeated soldier, walking up to the temple from the cornfield behind us, escorted by Huang Biao. The girl they'd named Jiaojiao runs happily ahead of them, holding a fresh ear of corn she's just picked. Her mother, Fan Zhaoxia, cautions her: ‘Slow down, honey, you could trip and fall.’ A middle-aged man in an undershirt, holding a folding fan and smiling broadly, runs up to greet the new arrivals: ‘Boss Lan, how good of you to come.’ A man next to Lao Lan makes the introductions: ‘This is Troupe Leader Jiang of the Qingdao Opera Troupe. He's a true artist.’ ‘You can see why I can't shake your hand, Lao Lan says. My apologies’ ‘There's no need for you to apologize, General Manager. The troupe survives on your support’ ‘We help each other,’ Lao Lan replies. ‘Tell your actors to put on a good show to thank the Meat God and the Wutong Spirit. I offended the gods by firing a gun in front of the temple and got what I deserved’. ‘Don't you worry, General Manager, we'll sing our hearts out.’ Electricians with tool bags over their shoulders climb ladders to instal stage lighting, and watching them go up and down reminds me of the brothers who did electrical work back in Slaughterhouse Village years before. How things have changed. The surroundings are the same but not the people. I, Luo Xiaotong, have sunk to the lowest tier of society and am pretty well assured of never being able to turn my life round. My abilities do not extend beyond sitting in this dilapidated temple, propping up a body exhausted by the occurrence of what might have been an epileptic seizure and relating dusty old stories to a Wise Monk whose body is like rotting wood—

A large, gleaming purplish red coffin rested in Lao Lan's living room. In it lay a fancy urn full of bones. Why go to all that trouble? I wondered. But then Lao Lan knelt by the coffin and smacked it with his hand as he keened, and I got my answer. A hand on an empty coffin was the only way to create such a soul-stirring sound; only a grand coffin suited the sight of the imposing Lao Lan kneeling alongside; and only a coffin of that grandeur was capable of encapsulating the appropriately sombre atmosphere. I had no way of knowing if my conjectures were correct, because what happened later made me lose all interest in this train of thought.

I sat at the head of the coffin, draped in hempen mourning attire. Tiangua sat at the opposite end, similarly clad. A clay pot for burning spirit money had been placed in the space between us. She and I lit sheets of yellow paper embossed like money from the flame of the bean-oil lamp resting atop the coffin and fed them into the clay pot, where they quickly turned to white ash and swirls of smoke. The stifling heat of that lunar July day, coupled with the rope-belted hempen cloth I was swathed in and the fire in the pot made the sweat spill from my pores. I looked at Tiangua—she was in a similar state. We took turns removing sheets of paper from the stack in front of us and burning them. Her sober expression was short on grief and there were no signs of tears on her cheeks; perhaps she had no more tears to shed. I was faintly aware of talk that the woman in the casket wasn't her birth mother and that she'd been bought from a human trafficker. Another rumour had it that she was born of an affair between Lao Lan and a young woman in another village, then brought back to be raised by his wife. I kept looking at her and at the face of the woman in the framed photograph behind the coffin but saw no resemblance. Then I compared her with Lao Lan and saw no resemblance there either, so perhaps she had been bought from a human trafficker after all.

Mother walked up with a cool wet towel and wiped my sweaty face. ‘Don't burn it too fast,’ she whispered. ‘Just enough to keep the fire going.’

She folded the towel, walked over to Tiangua and wiped her face as well. Tiangua looked up at Mother and rolled her eyes. She should have thanked her but she didn't.

Intrigued by our burning of the spirit money, Jiaojiao tiptoed over and crouched down next to me. Picking up a sheet, she tossed it into the clay pot and whispered: ‘Could we barbecue meat in that?’

‘No,’ I said.

The two newspaper photographers we'd hired walked in from the yard, one carrying a video camera, the other a light, to film the activity round the bier. Mother rushed up to take Jiaojiao outside; she balked and Mother had to grab her under her arms and drag her away.

Since I was being filmed, I affected a sombre expression as I placed a sheet of paper into the bowl. Tiangua did the same. After turning his lens to the fire, nearly touching the flames, the cameraman moved first to my face and then to Tiangua's. Next my hands, then her hands and from there to the coffin. Finally, to the framed picture of the deceased, which drew my attention back to the pale, oversized face on the wall. There was sadness in Aunty Lan's eyes, belying the trace of a smile on her lips, and as I stared at her I became aware that she was staring at me. I was awestruck by how much was hidden in her gaze; I looked away, first to the reporters in the doorway and then to Tiangua, who sat head-down, looking stranger to me by the minute. She grew less like a person and more like some sort of sprite, while the real Tiangua died along with her mother (birth mother or not, it didn't matter). What filled my eyes next was a funeral cart pulled by four horses along a broad dirt road heading southwest from their yard, carrying Aunty Lan and Tiangua, their baggy white attire billowing like butterfly wings.

At noontime, Huang Biao's wife called Tiangua and me into the kitchen; there, she laid out a platter of meatballs, a winter melon soup with ham and a basket of steamed buns for the two of us and Jiaojiao. I didn't have much of an appetite—the day was hot and I'd spent most of the morning breathing in smoke from the burning paper. But Tiangua and my sister wolfed down their food—a meatball washed down with a spoonful of soup, followed by a bite from a steamed bun. They ate without looking at each other, as if engaged in an eating contest. Lao Lan walked in before we'd finished. He hadn't combed his hair or shaved, his clothes were rumpled, his eyes were bloodshot and he looked utterly dejected.

Huang Biao's wife went up and gazed at him with her limpid eyes. ‘General Manager,’ she said, her voice heavy with concern, ‘I know how painful this is for you. One night between a man and a woman produces a lifetime of affection. And you were together for so many years. Your wife was a virtuous woman, so saintly that we are as saddened by her departure as you. But she has left us, and there is nothing we can do about that, while you have your family to look after. And the company cannot operate without you. You are the village backbone. So, my dear elder brother, you must eat something, not for yourself but for all us villagers…’

His eyes red and puffy from crying, Lao Lan said: ‘I appreciate your kind thoughts but I can't eat. Make sure the young ones are fed. I have many things to do.’ He rubbed my head, then Jiaojiao's and Tiangua's, before walking out of the kitchen with tears in his eyes.

Huang Biao's wife followed him with her eyes. ‘He's a fine man with a good heart,’ she said emotionally.

When we finished eating, we went back to burning spirit paper at the bier.

A steady stream of people walked in and out of the yard, undisturbed by the family's dogs, which had been struck dumb after the death of Lao Lan's wife. They lay sprawled on the ground, resting their heads on their paws, teary-eyed and sad; only their eyes moved as they followed the people in the yard. The saying ‘Dogs share human qualities’ could not be truer. A group of men carrying papier-mâché human and horse figures entered the yard and made a big show of looking for a spot to place them. The artisan was a fit old man whose eyes darted this way and that. His head was as smooth and shiny as a light bulb, and he sported a few mousey whiskers on his chin. Mother signalled to him to have his men stand the figures in a row in front of the house's western wing. There were four altogether, each the size of a real horse, white with black hooves and eyes made of dyed eggshells. Horse-sized though they were, they had the mischievous look of ponies. The camera focused first on the horses, then moved to the craftsman and then finally to the human figures, of which there were two, a boy and a girl. Their names were pinned to their chests. His was Laifu—Good Fortune—hers Abao—Treasure. People said that the whiskered old man was illiterate, and yet at the end of every year he set up a stall in the marketplace and he sold New Year's scrolls. He didn't write what was on his scrolls—he simply drew what had been written by others. He was a true artist, a master of plastic arts. There were many stories about the man but none that I can go into here. He also brought along a money tree, its branches made of paper and from which hung leaves, each a shiny coin whose sparkle dazzled the eye.

But before Mother had seen off the first paper artisans, a second group showed up, this one with a Western flavour. The leader, we were told, was an art-institute student, a girl with short hair and glittering hoops in her ears. She was wearing a short fishnet blouse and what looked like rags over a pair of jeans. Her midriff was bare and her trouser legs shredded, like mops, with holes at the knees. Imagine a girl like that taking up a trade like that. Her men carried in a paper Audi A6, a large-screen TV, a stereo system—all modern things. None of those seemed especially out of place—what did were her human figures, also a boy and a girl. The face of the boy, dressed in a suit and leather shoes, was powdered, his lips painted red; the girl wore a white dress that showed her breasts. Everything about them said bride and groom—and not funeral figures. The cameramen were captivated by these new arrivals—they followed their subjects and knelt for close-ups. (The one from the small-town paper would one day gain fame as a portrait photographer.) Yao Qi wove his way through the paper figures crowding the small yard ahead of a band of funeral musicians, led by a man with a suona hanging at his waist and a cassocked monk working his prayer beads. They went straight to Mother.

‘Lao Luo,’ she shouted towards the eastern wing as she wiped the sweat from her brow, ‘come out here and give me a hand.’

Even as the afternoon sun blazed down I remained at the head of the coffin, mechanically tossing paper money into the clay pot, gazing out at the excitement in the yard and casting an occasional glance at Tiangua; she was yawning, barely able to stay awake. Jiaojiao had run off somewhere. Huang Biao's wife, full of energy and reeking of meat, busied herself like a whirlwind, shuttling back and forth in the hall. Lao Lan was in the next room, holding forth loudly—I couldn't say who he was speaking to, given the dizzying number of people who had come and gone. The house was like a command centre, replete with staff officers, clerks, assistants, local officials, society bigwigs, enlightened gentry and more. Father emerged from the eastern wing, bent over at the waist, with a dark look on his face. Mother had shed her coat and was now wearing only a white shirt tucked into a black skirt. Her face was as red as a laying hen. As she surveyed the two teams of paper artisans, she pointed to Father, who was as wooden as she was efficient and passionate, and said: ‘He'll pay you.’ Without a word, Father turned and re-entered the eastern wing; the two craftsmen exchanged a brief disdainful look before following him in. By then Mother was talking to Yao Qi, the musicians and the monks. Her voice, loud and shrill, pounded against my eardrums. I felt my eyelids grow heavy.

I must have dozed off; the next time I looked into the yard, all the paper figures had been squeezed together to make room for a pair of tables and a dozen or more folding chairs. The blistering sun was now hidden behind clouds. A July day, like the face of a woman, is always apt to change, or so they say. Huang Biao's wife went out into the yard. ‘Please, please,’ I heard her say when she returned, ‘please don't rain!’

‘You can't stop the rain from falling or your mother from marrying,’ said a woman in a white robe. Her hair newly permed, her lips painted black, her face covered with pimples, she had materialized in the doorway. ‘Where's General Manager Lan?’ she asked.

Huang Biao's wife looked the new arrival up and down.

‘So, it's you, Fan Zhaoxia,’ she remarked disdainfully. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Are you inferring that you're welcome but I'm not,’ Fan replied with the same disdain. ‘Boss Lan called and asked for a shave.’

‘That's a lie, and you know it, Fan Zhaoxia,’ hissed Huang Biao's wife. ‘He hasn't eaten in two days, hasn't even touched water. Shaving is the last thing on his mind.’

‘Really?’ Fan said icily. ‘It was him on the phone. I recognized his voice.’

‘You're sure you're not hallucinating?’ asked Huang Biao's wife. ‘That would explain everything.’

‘Why don't you cool off?’ Fan Zhaoxia spit in contempt. ‘Her body's still warm and you're already acting like you're in charge.’ She tried to walk into the room with her barber's kit, only to be stopped by Huang Biao's wife who spread her arms and legs to block the way. ‘Move!’ Fan demanded.

Huang Biao's wife looked at her feet and pointed with her chin. ‘There's a tunnel for you.’

‘You bitch!’ Fan cursed angrily as she aimed a kick at the woman's crotch.

‘How dare you!’ shrieked Huang Biao's wife. She lunged at Fan and grabbed a handful of her hair; Fan retaliated by grabbing Huang Biao's breast.

Huang Biao took notice of the frenetic activity in the yard when he walked in through the gate with his basket of cooking utensils. But when he spotted the catfight between two women—one of them his wife—he shouted, threw down his basket, sending the pots and pans crashing loudly to the ground, and joined the fray, fists and feet. But his blows were seriously off target, and he wound up kicking his wife in the buttocks and punching her in the shoulder.

A relative of Fan Zhaoxia's ran up to even the odds, quickly driving his shoulder into Huang Biao. One of the strongest porters at the train station, the man had muscles like steel and shoulders that could carry five hundred pounds. His shove sent Huang Biao stumbling backward, until he sat down hard next to his basket. Infuriated, he began hurling plates and bowls, filling the air with flying porcelain, some thudding into the wall, some landing amid the crowds of people, some shattering and some rolling across the ground. My kind of fun!

Lao Lan appeared at that moment. ‘Stop it,’ he said, ‘all of you!’

Like a hawk flying into the forest and quieting the birds or a tiger leaving its den and sending animals into hiding, one shout from him was all it took. ‘Are you people here to help me,’ he asked hoarsely, ‘or to take advantage of a bad situation? Do you really think you've seen the last of Lao Lan?’

With that, he turned and left. The two scuffling women stopped fighting and merely glared at each with loathing. They both needed to catch their breath and nurse their wounds. Fan Zhaoxia was missing a handful of hair and a piece of her scalp. Huang Biao's wife's robe was missing its buttons; it lay open like a torn flag, exposing the tops of her scratched breasts.

Mother entered. ‘All right,’ she said to the women in icy tones, ‘you can leave now.’

Out in the yard, the monks—seven altogether—and the musicians—also seven—took their places, like competing teams, under the direction of their leaders. The monks took seats at the table to the west, on which they laid their wooden fish, their chimes and their cymbals. The musicians took seats at the other table, on which they laid their horns, their suonas and their eighteen-holed flutes. The leading monk wore a saffron cassock, the others grey. The musicians’ clothes were so tattered that we could see the abdomens of at least three of them. When the large wooden bell in Lao Lan's house was struck three times, Mother turned to Yao Qi. ‘Begin,’ she said.

From his position between the two tables, Yao Qi raised his arms like a conductor. ‘Begin, Shifu!’ he announced as he dropped his arms flamboyantly, thoroughly enjoying his moment as the centre of attention. It should have been me out there, but I was stuck inside, acting the dutiful son at the head of the coffin. Shit!

At Yao Qi's signal, two kinds of music erupted across the yard. On this side, the clap-clap of wooden fish and the clang of chimes and cymbals and the drone of chanted sutras. Along with that, a dirge with horns and woodwinds and flutes. A mournful sound indeed. As a murky dusk settled outside, the room grew dark, the only light a green sparkle from the bean-oil. I saw a woman's face in that light, and after staring at it for a few moments, I recognized it as Lao Lan's wife. Ghostly pale and bleeding from every orifice. ‘Look, Tiangua!’ I whispered, scared witless.

But she had dozed off, her head slumped onto her chest, like a chick resting against a wall. A chill ran down my spine, my hairs stood on end and my bladder threatened to burst, all good reasons to leave my post at the bier. Wetting my pants would surely be disrespectful towards the deceased! So I grabbed a handful of paper, threw it into the pot, jumped to my feet and ran out into the yard where I breathed in the fresh air before heading to the latrine next to the kennel and opening the floodgates with a shudder. The leaves on the plane tree quivered in the wind, but I could hear neither the wind nor the leaves, for both were drowned by the music and the chants. I watched the reporter taking shot after shot of the musicians and the monks.

‘Put some oomph into it, gentlemen!’ Yao Qi shouted. ‘Your host will show his gratitude later.’

Yao Qi's loathsome face glowed, a petty man intoxicated by his perceived glory. The same man who had once approached my father with a plan to bring Lao Lan to his knees was now his chief lackey. But I knew how unreliable he was, that he had the bones of a backstabber and that Lao Lan would be wise to keep him at arm's length. Now that I was out, I had no desire to return to the head of the coffin so, together with Jiaojiao, who had shown up from somewhere, I ran round the yard taking in all the excitement. She had gouged out the eyes of a paper horse and was clutching them like treasured objects.

As the music from the monks and musicians came to an end, Huang Biao's wife, who had changed into an off-white dress, pranced into the yard like an operatic coquette and placed tea services on both tables. Biting her lower lip, she poured the tea. After a drink of tea and some cigarettes, it was time to perform. The monks began by intoning loud, rhythmic chants, liquid sounds filled with devotion, like pond bullfrogs croaking on a summer night. The crisp, melodic clangs of cymbals and the hollow thumps of the wooden fish highlighted the clear voices. After a while the minor monks ended their chorus, leaving only the strains of the old monk's full voice, with its uncanny modulation, to mesmerize the listeners. Everyone held their breath as they drank in each sacred note emerging from deep in the old monk's chest; it seemed to send their spirits floating idly, lazily, into the clouds. The old monk chanted on for several moments, then picked up his cymbals and beat them with changing rhythms. Faster and faster, now throwing his arms open wide and bringing them back, now barely moving. The sounds changed with the movements of his hands and arms, heavy clangs giving way to thin chattering clicks. At the moment of crescendo, one of the cymbals flew into the air and twirled like a magic talisman. The old monk uttered a Buddhist incantation, spun round and held the remaining cymbal behind his back, waiting for its mate to drop from the sky atop it; as it landed it produced a metallic tremble that lingered in the air. A cry of delight rose from the crowd and the monk flung both cymbals skyward—they chased each other like inseparable twins and, on meeting, sent a loud clang earthward. As they descended they seemed to seek out the old monk's hands. The performance that day by the wise old monk, a Buddhist devotee of high attainments, left a lasting impression on every one of us.

Their performance ended, the monks sat down and returned to their tea. The crowd now turned its attention to the musicians in anticipation of something new. The monks’ performance would be a hard act to follow, but we would have been disappointed with the musicians for not surpassing it.

Without a moment's hesitation, the musicians stood up and began as an ensemble, opening with the tune ‘Boldly Move Forward, Little Sister’, followed by ‘When Will You Return’ and then the brisk ‘The Little Shepherd’. When they laid down their instruments, they turned their eyes to their shifu, who peeled off his jacket, revealing a frame so slight you could count his ribs. He shut his eyes, raised his head and then began to play a funereal tune on his suona, his Adam's apple sliding up and down rhythmically. I didn't know the tune but its sad effect on me was unmistakable. As he played, the suona moved from his mouth up into one of his nostrils, which muted the notes while retaining the instrument's mournfully melodic tone. His eyes still shut, he reached out his hand and into it a disciple placed a second suona. The reed of this one too he inserted into a nostril, and now two suonas created a tune of surpassing sorrow. His face grew bright red, his temples throbbed and his audience was so moved it forget to cheer. Yao Qi had not exaggerated when he said he'd engaged a suona master of great renown. When the tune ended, he extracted the instruments from his nostrils, handed them to his disciples and fell into a chair. Disciples rushed up to pour him tea and hand him a cigarette, which he lit and immediately blew two streams of thick smoke from his nose, like dragons’ whiskers. And then blood slithered, worm-like, out of both nostrils.

‘Your reward for wonderful performances—’ Yao Qi bellowed.

Xiao Han, the meat inspector, ran out from the eastern wing with a pair of identical red envelopes and laid one on each table. The old monk and head musician immediately began a man-to-man competition, and it was hard to tell who won. But I doubt that you're interested in hearing about such things, Wise Monk, so I'll skip this part and move on to what unfolded next.

Back in the eastern wing Yao Qi was boasting of the great service he'd rendered my father, Xiao Han and several of the men who had helped out, telling them how he had travelled five hundred li to engage the services of the two troupes, ‘wearing out the soles of my shoes in the process'. He lifted his foot as proof. Xiao Han, known for his caustic tongue, couldn't resist a barb: ‘I hear you used to think of Lao Lan as your mortal enemy. You must have changed your mind when you decided to be his chief lackey.’

Father's lip curled and, though he held his tongue, his face spoke volumes.

‘We're all lackeys,’ Yao Qi remarked nonchalantly. ‘But at least I sell myself. Some people sell their wives and children.’

Father's face darkened. ‘Who are you talking about?’ he demanded, gnashing his teeth.

‘Only myself, Lao Luo, why so angry?’ Yao Qi replied slyly. ‘I hear you're going to be married soon.’

Father picked up his ink box and flung it at Yao Qi and then stood up.

A brief look of anger on Yao Qi's face was supplanted by a sinister grin. ‘What a temper, Old Brother, you have to “out with the old” before you can “in with the new”. For a big-time plant manager like you, nothing could be easier than getting your paws on a young maiden. Just leave it to me. I may not have what it takes to be an official, but as a matchmaker I'm peerless. How about your young sister, Xiao Han?’

‘F*ck you, Yao Qi!’ I cursed.

‘Director Luo, no, it should be Director Lan,’ Yao Qi said, ‘you're the crown prince of the village!’

Xiao Han rushed at the man before Father could, grabbed him by the arms and spun him so hard that his head drooped. Then he pushed him towards the door, jammed his knee into his buttocks and gave him a shove that sent him out the door as if he'd been shot from a cannon. He lay sprawled on the ground for a long while after.

At five that evening, it was time for the formal funeral ceremony to begin. Mother grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and dragged me back to the coffin, where she pushed me down into the dutiful son's spot. A pair of white candles as thick as turnips burnt on the table behind the coffin, their flickering light heavy with the rancid odour of sheep's tallow. Light from the bean-oil lantern showed up about as bright as a glowworm's tail alongside the burning candle, and that in a room in which hung a twenty-eight-bulb crystal chandelier encircled by twenty-four spotlights. If they had all been turned on, you would have been able to count the ants crawling across the floorboards. But electric lights lacked the mystique of candles. Tiangua looked even stranger and less human as she sat across from me in the flickering light, but the more I tried to avoid looking at her the harder it was and the less human her image became. Her face underwent constant changes, like ripples on water. She was a bird one moment, a cat the next and then a wolf. And then I realized that her eyes were locked onto me, refusing to let go. Yet what really made my heart race was her posture—she was sitting on the edge of her stool, legs bent and taut, leaning forward like a predatory animal poised to attack. At any moment, I imagined, she'd spring from her stool, bound across the clay pot with its burning paper and pounce, then wrap her hands round my neck and gnaw on my face—crunch crunch, like a turnip—until she'd eaten my head. Then she'd howl and take on her true form, with a long, bushy tail, and flee without a trace. I knew that the real Tiangua had died long before, and that the figure seated across me was actually an evil spirit that had assumed her form and was waiting for the right moment to partake of the flesh of Luo Xiaotong, a meat-eater and thus tastier than other children. I'd once heard an alms-begging monk talk about retribution on the wheel of life; he'd said that individuals who ate meat would themselves be eaten by other meat-eaters. That monk had achieved a high degree of Buddhist attainments, one of many such monks in that place of ours. Take that alms-begging monk, for instance. He once sat in the snow in the middle of the winter, naked to the waist, lotus position, without eating or drinking for three days and nights. Many kindhearted women, afraid he would freeze to death, brought him blankets to keep warm, only to discover that his face was nice and ruddy and that steam rose from his scalp, almost as if his head were a stove. Blankets were the last thing he needed. Admittedly, there were people who said he had taken a ‘fire dragon’ pill, that he had no special gift. But who has ever seen one of those pills? The stuff of legend. But the monk in the snow? I saw him with my own eyes.

The face of Cheng Tianle, who had just lost a tooth, was mapped with more than eighty creases. Chosen as the master of ceremonies for the memorial service, he had a white ribbon draped over his shoulders and wore a white, heavily pleated hat like a rooster's coxcomb. He made a late appearance, though, causing people to wonder where he'd hidden himself for so long. He smelt heavily of alcohol, salted fish and damp earth, which made me surmise that he'd spent the time in Lao Lan's cellar. Well on his way to being drunk, he had trouble focusing his bleary eyes, almost gummed together with sticky residue. His assistant was Shen Gang, the man who'd once borrowed money from my mother. Smelling the same as Cheng Tianle—his cellar mate, obviously—he was dressed in black, with a pair of white oversleeves. In one hand he carried a hatchet and in the other a rooster—white with a black cockscomb. An important individual who walked into the room with them cannot go unmentioned—Su Zhou, younger brother of Lao Lan's wife, a close relative of some note who ought to have made an early appearance. His late arrival was either planned or was the result of his being delayed on the road.

Father, Yao Qi, Xiao Han and a clutch of brawny fellows followed the trio into the main room. A pair of low benches had been set up in the yard, where men with poles waited under the veranda eaves.

‘Homage to the coffin—’

As Cheng Tianle's shout echoed in the air, Lao Lan rushed out of his room and fell to his knees in front of the coffin. ‘Oh, dear mother of our daughter—ah huh huh huh—’ he wailed, pounding the lid, ‘you have cruelly left Tiangua and me behind—’

He thumped the coffin lid loudly with his hand and tears streaked his face, revealing the depth of his overwhelming grief (and immediately squelching a good many rumours).

Out in the yard the musicians played a dirge as the monks chanted, loudly and with enthusiasm. Inside and out, sound triumphantly created an aura of unbearable grief. For the moment I had no thoughts for the evil spirit across from me, as tears cascaded down my face.

Even the heavens lent a hand, first with rolling thunder, then with raindrops the size of old coins that beat a tattoo on the ground. The rain pounded the monks’ shaved heads and battered the faces of the musicians. Soon the drops grew smaller and the curtain of rain grew denser. But the monks and musicians persisted. The water splashing on the monks’ heads had a relaxing effect on the people, though the brassy sound of horns and funereal strains of the suona became increasingly sorrowful. But nothing suffered more than the paper figures. Pounded by the relentless rain, they softened, then began to fall apart, with gaping holes in the front and at the back revealing the sorghum stalk frames on which they were fashioned.

With a silent signal from Cheng Tianle, Yao Qi led the grief-stricken Lao Lan to one side. Mother had me stand at the head of the coffin; Huang Biao's wife had Tiangua stand at the foot. Our eyes met across its length. Like a conjurer, Cheng Tianle whisked out a brass gong and brought an abrupt end to the chants and the music outside. Now the only sound was the patter of raindrops. Shen Gang walked up stiffly to the coffin and laid his rooster, legs tightly bound, on top. He raised his hatchet over his head. The gong rang out. The rooster's head rolled to the ground.

‘Lift the coffin—’ shouted Cheng Tianle.

The pallbearers stepped up, prepared to pick up the coffin and carry it out into the yard, then place it atop the benches, fit it with ropes and shoulder it out the gate onto the street all the way to the cemetery. It would be interred in the waiting tomb, which would then be sealed; once a headstone was in place, everything would be brought to an orderly end. But it was not to be.

Lao Lan's young brother-in-law, Su Zhou, abruptly rushed up and threw himself across the coffin. ‘Elder Sister—my beloved elder sister ‘he wailed, ‘how tragically you died—how unjustly—how suspiciously—’

As he pounded the coffin lid, staining his hand with chicken blood, the congregation fell into an awkward silence. We could only look on, wide-eyed and helpless.

Finally Cheng Tianle regained his senses; he walked up and tugged at the man's clothing. ‘That's enough, Su Zhou. Now that you've poured out your grief, it's time to bury your sister and let her rest in peace.’

‘Rest in peace?’ Su Zhou demanded, his wailing abruptly ended. He jerked up straight, turned away from the coffin and then leapt backward to sit on it. Rays of green light emerged from his eyes and shone over the crowd. ‘Rest in peace? You will not destroy the evidence of a heinous crime. I won't let you!’

Lao Lan kept his head down and held his tongue but Su Zhou's outburst made it impossible for others to intervene. So it was up to Lao Lan to reply, however dispiritedly: ‘Go ahead, Su Zhou, say what you have to say.’

‘What I have to say?’ the man was boiling over with rage. ‘I have to say that you murdered your wife, you evil man!’

Lao Lan shook his head, his anguish obvious: ‘You're not a child, Su Zhou, who can get away with saying anything. You have to weigh your words. The law does not permit that sort of libel.’

‘Libel?’ Su Zhou sneered. ‘Ha-ha, ha-ha, libel, he says. What does the law say about the murder of one's wife?’

‘Where's your proof?’ asked Lao Lan calmly.

Su Zhou banged the coffin with his bloodied hand. ‘Here's my proof!’

‘You're going to have to be clearer than that.’

‘If you weren't hiding something, why were you in such a hurry to cremate her? Why didn't you wait for me to come and seal the coffin?’

‘I sent people for you more than once—they told me you were off in the northeast replenishing your stock or having a good time on Hainan Island. It's so hot that even the rolling pins are sprouting, but still we waited two full days for you.’

‘Don't assume you've destroyed the evidence by cremating her body,’ Su Zhou said with an icy laugh. ‘Years after Napoleon's death they were able to determine that he'd died of arsenic poisoning by examining his bones. Pan Jinlian burnt up Wu Dalang, but Wu Song discovered scars on his bones. You won't get away with this.’

‘What a monumental joke,’ Lao Lan said to the crowd as tears gushed from his eyes. ‘If my marriage had been an unhappy one, I could easily have demanded a divorce. Why in the world would I do what he's saying? My fellow villagers are not easily fooled. I ask you, is Lao Lan capable of anything so stupid?’

‘Then tell me: how did my sister die?’ Su Zhou demanded fiercely.

‘You give me no choice, Su Zhou,’ Lao Lan said as he crouched down and wrapped his arms round his head. ‘You're forcing me to reveal a family disgrace. For some idiotic reason, your sister took the easy way out—she hanged herself…’

‘Why?’ Su Zhou insisted tearfully. ‘Tell me, why did she hang herself?’

‘Mother of my children, how could you be so foolish…’ Lao Lan wept as he pounded his head with his fist.

‘You bastard, Lao Lan,’ Su Zhou said through clenched teeth, ‘you and your secret mistress killed my sister, then made it look like suicide. Now I'm going to avenge her death!’ He grabbed the hatchet, jumped off the coffin and rushed at Lao Lan.

‘Stop him!’ Mother shrieked.

People leapt to their feet and grabbed Su Zhou round his waist. But not before he flung the hatchet at Lao Lan's head. It glinted in the light as it sliced through the air, trailing a bloody path above our heads. Mother quickly pushed Lao Lan out of the way. The hatchet dropped harmlessly to the floor and she kicked it across the room. ‘Su Zhou,’ she cried out in alarm, ‘what savage impulse drove you to try to kill him in broad daylight?’

‘Ha-ha, ha-ha,’ Su Zhou laughed wildly. ‘Yang Yuzhen, you wanton woman, it was you, you conspired with Lao Lan to kill my sister…’

Mother's face turned from red to white and her lips quivered as she pointed to Su Zhou with a shaky finger. ‘You…slinging unfounded…slander…’

‘Luo Tong,’ Su Zhou shouted as he pointed to Father, ‘you worthless excuse of a man, you green-hatted cuckold! Are you a man or are you not? They made you factory manager and your son a director so she could sleep with your boss. How can you still have the nerve to show your face in the village? If I were you, I'd have hanged myself long ago.’

‘F*ck you, Su Zhou!’ I rushed up and buried my fist in his gut.

Some men ran up and pulled me away.

Yao Qi tried to calm things down. ‘Young brother,’ he said to Su Zhou, ‘you don't hit a man in the face and you don't try to humiliate him, especially in the presence of his son and daughter. Now that you've brought this out in the open, how is Luo Tong supposed to hide his shame?’

‘F*ck your old lady, Yao Qi!’ I screamed.

Jiaojiao threaded her way up front and joined me: ‘F*ck your old lady, Yao Qi!’

‘A couple of brave children,’ Yao Qi said with a smile. ‘Always ready to f*ck someone's old lady. But do you know how do that?’

‘Mind your language, everyone,’ said Chen Tianle. ‘We've heard enough. I'm the master of ceremonies and what I say goes. Lift the coffin!’

No one paid him any attention—they couldn't take their eyes off Father, who had backed into a corner, his head raised, as if studying the patterns in the ceiling. Neither Su Zhou's curses nor Yao Qi's sarcasm seemed to have had any effect on him.

Outside, the sleeting rain splashed loudly. The monks and the musicians stood like wooden statues, unmoved by the downpour. A yellow-bellied swallow swooped into the room and darted round in a panic, the gusts of wind from its flapping wings making the candle flames flicker.

Father breathed a sigh and walked away from the wall, taking slow steps—one, two, three, four…blank stares followed him—five, six, seven, eight. He stopped in front of the hatchet, looked at it, then bent over and picked it up, holding the wooden handle with the thumb and index finger of his right hand. He wiped the chicken blood off the blade on the front of his jacket with the meticulous care of a carpenter cleaning his tools. He then took hold of the hatchet with his left hand. My father was the village's most famous lefty—I was one too and so was my sister. Lefties are known for being smart; but when we were at the table eating, our chopsticks invariably clashed with Mother's, since she was right-handed. Father walked up to Yao Qi, who hid behind Su Zhou. He then walked up to Su Zhou, who hid behind his sister's coffin, followed at once by Yao Qi in an effort to keep Su Zhou between him and Father. The truth is, they meant nothing to Father. He walked up to Lao Lan, who got to his feet and nodded calmly. ‘Luo Tong, I once thought highly of you but the truth is that you were no match for Wild Mule and you're no match for Yang Yuzhen.’

Father raised the hatchet over his head.

‘Father!’ I shrieked as I ran to him.

‘Father!’ Jiaojiao shrieked as she ran to him.

The local reporter raised his camera.

The cameraman turned his lens to Father and Lao Lan.

The hatchet circled the air above Father then swung down and split open Mother's head.

She stood as still as a post for a few seconds and then slumped into Father's arms.