Life and Death are Wearing Me Out (74 page)

Someone else I made sure to see each day was your father-in-law. Huang Tong was laid up with liver disease and probably didn’t have long to live either. Your mother-in-law, Wu Qiuxiang, looked to be in good health, though her hair had turned white and her eyesight had dimmed. No trace of her youthful flirtatiousness remained.

But most of all I went to your father’s room, where I sprawled on the floor next to the
kang,
and the old man and I would just look at each other, communicating with our eyes and not our mouths. There were times when I assumed he knew exactly who I was; he’d start jabbering, as if talking in his sleep:

“Old Master, you shouldn’t have died the way you did, but the world has changed over the last ten years or more, and lots of people died who shouldn’t have. . . .”

I whined softly, which earned an immediate response from him:

“What are you whining about, old dog? Did I say something wrong?”

Rats shamelessly nibbled the corn hanging from the rafters. It was seed corn, something a farmer values almost as much as life itself. But not your father. He was unmoved. “Go ahead, eat up. There’s more food in the vats. Gome help me finish it off so I can leave. . . .”

On nights when there was a bright moon he would walk out with a hoe over his shoulder and work in the moonlight, the same as he’d done for years, as everyone in Northeast Gaomi Township knew.

And every time he did that, I tagged along, no matter how tired I was. He never wound up anywhere but on his one-point-six-acre sliver of land, a plot that, over a period of fifty years, had nearly evolved into a graveyard. Ximen Nao and Ximen Bai were there, your mother was buried there, as were the donkey, the ox, the pig, my dog-mother, and Ximen Jinlong. Weeds covered the spots where there were no graves, the first time that had ever happened there.

One night, by jogging my deteriorating memory, I located the spot I’d chosen. I lay down and whimpered pathetically.

“No need to cry, old dog,” your father said. “I know what you’re thinking. If you die before me, I’ll bury you right there. If I go first, I’ll tell them to bury you there, if I have to do it with my last breath.”

Your father dug up some dirt behind your mother’s grave.

“This spot is for Hezuo.”

The moon was a melancholy object in the sky, its beams translucent and chilled. I followed your father as he prowled the area. He startled a pair of partridges, which flew off to someone else’s land. The rends they made in the moonlight were quickly swallowed up. Your father stood about ten yards north of the Ximen family graveyard and looked all around. He stamped his foot on the ground.

“This is my place,” he said.

He then started to dig, and didn’t stop until he’d carved out a hole roughly three feet by six and two feet deep. He lay down in it and stared up at the moon for about half an hour.

“Old dog,” he said after climbing out, “you and the moon are my witnesses that I’ve slept in this spot. It’s mine, and no one can take it from me.”

Then he went over to where I had lain down, measured my body, and dug a hole for me. I knew what he had in mind, so I jumped in. After lying there for a while, I got out.

“That’s your spot, old dog. The moon and I are your witnesses.”

In the company of the melancholy moon, we headed home along the riverbank, reaching the Ximen compound just before the roosters crowed. Dozens of dogs, having been influenced by dogs in town, were holding a meeting in the square across from the Ximen family gate. They were sitting in a circle around a female with a red silk kerchief around her neck; she was singing to the moon. Needless to say, to humans her song sounded like a bunch of crazed barks. But to me it was clear and musical, with a wonderfully moving melody and poetic lyrics. Here is the gist of what she was singing:

“Moon, ah, moon, you make me so sad . . . girl, ah, girl, you make me go mad ...”

That night your father and your wife spoke through the wall for the first time. He rapped on the thin wall and said:

“Kaifang’s mother.”

“I can hear you, Father, go ahead.”

“I’ve selected your spot. It’s ten paces behind your mother’s grave.”

“Then I can be at peace, Father. I was born a Lan and will be a Lan ghost after I die.”

We knew she wouldn’t eat anything we brought, but we bought as much nutritious food as we could. Kaifang, in his oversize policeman’s uniform, rode us over to Ximen Village in an official sidecar motorcycle. Chunmiao was in the sidecar, with all the cans and bags we’d brought in her arms and packed around her. I sat behind my son, gripping a steel bar with both hands. He wore a somber look; the glare in his eyes was chilling. He looked impressive in his uniform, even if it was too big for him. His blue birthmark beautifully matched his blue uniform. Son, you’ve chosen the right profession. These blue birthmarks of ours are perfect symbols for the incorruptible face of the law.

Gingko trees lining the road were as big around as an average bowl. The stems of wisteria planted in the center divider were bent low by the profusion of white and dark red flowers. The village had undergone dramatic changes in the years I’d been away. And I was thinking, anyone who says that Ximen Jinlong and Pang Kangmei were responsible for nothing good did not see the whole picture.

My son pulled up in front of the family compound gate and led us inside.

“Are you going to see Grandpa first or my mother?” he asked frigidly.

I wavered for a moment.

“Tradition demands that I see Grandpa first.”

Father’s door was shut tight. Kaifang stepped up and knocked. No sound emerged from inside, so he walked over to the tiny window and rapped on it.

“It’s Kaifang, Grandpa. Your son is here.”

A sad, heavy sigh eventually broke the silence.

“Dad, your unfilial son has come home.” I fell to my knees in front of the window. Chunmiao knelt beside me. Weeping and sniveling, I said, “Please open the door, Dad, and let me see you. . . .”

“I don’t have the face to see you,” he said, “but there are some things I want to say to you. Are you listening?”

“I’m listening, Dad. . . .”

“Kaifang’s mother’s gravesite is ten paces behind your mother’s. I’ve piled up some dirt to mark the site. The old dog’s grave is just west of the pig’s; I’ve already framed it out. Mine is thirty paces north of your mother’s; I’ve framed it too. When I die I don’t want a coffin, and no musicians. Don’t notify any friends or relatives. Just get a rush mat, roll me up in it, and quietly put me in. Then take the grain from the vat in my room and dump it in the hole to cover my face and body. It all came from my plot of land, so that’s where it should return to. No one is to cry over my death; there’s nothing to cry about. As for Kaifang’s mother, you make whatever arrangements for her you want, I don’t care. If there’s still a filial bone in your body, you’ll do exactly as I ask.”

“I will, Dad, I won’t forget. But please open the door and let me see you.”

“Go see your wife, she only has a few days left. I should have another year or so. I won’t die anytime soon.”

So Chunmiao and I stood beside Hezuo’s
kang.
Kaifang called to her and then stepped outside. Knowing we’d come, Hezuo was ready for us. She was wearing a blue jacket with side openings that had belonged to my mother — her hair was neatly combed and her face washed. She was sitting up on the
kang.
But she was almost inhumanly thin; her face was bones covered by a layer of yellow skin. With tears in her eyes, Chunmiao called out Big Sister and laid the cans and bags on the
kang.

“You’ve thrown your money away on all that,” Hezuo said. “Take it back with you and get your money back.”

“Hezuo . . .” Tears were streaming down my face. “I treated you terribly.”

“At this point, talk like that is meaningless,” she said. “You two have suffered over the years too.” She turned to Chunmiao. “You’ve gotten old yourself.” Then she turned to me. “Not many black hairs on your head anymore . . .” She coughed, turning her face red. I could smell blood. But then the jaundiced look returned.

“Why don’t you lie back, Big Sister?” Chunmiao said. “I won’t leave, I’ll stay here and take care of you.”

“I can’t ask that of you,” Hezuo said with a wave of her hand. “I had Kaifang ask you to come so I could tell you I only have a few days left, and there’s no reason for you to hide yourselves far away. I was foolish. I don’t know why I didn’t agree to what you wanted back then. . . .”

“Big Sister . . .” Chunmiao was weeping bitterly. “It’s all my fault.”

“It’s nobody’s fault,” Hezuo said. “Everything is determined by fate, and there’s no way anyone can escape it.”

“Don’t give up, Hezuo,” I said. “We’ll get you to a hospital and find a good doctor.”

She managed a sad smile.

“Jiefang, you and I were husband and wife, and after I die, I want you to take good care of her . . . she’s a good person. Women who stay with you are not blessed with good fortune ... all I ask is that you look after Kaifang. He’s suffered a lot because of us. . . .”

I heard Kaifang blow his nose out in the yard.

Hezuo died three days later.

After the funeral my son wrapped his arms around the old dog’s neck and sat in front of his mother’s grave from noon to sunset, without crying and without moving.

Like my father, Huang Tong and his wife refused to see me. I got down on my knees at their door and kowtowed three times, banging my head loudly enough for them to hear.

Two months later Huang Tong was dead.

On the night of his death, Wu Qiuxiang hanged herself from a dead branch on the apricot tree in the middle of the yard.

Once the funerals for my father-in-law and mother-in-law were over, Chunmiao and I moved into the Ximen family compound. The two rooms Mother and Hezuo had occupied now became our living quarters, separated from Father only by that thin wall. As before, he never went out in the daytime, but if we looked out our window at night we sometimes saw his crooked back along with the old dog, who never left his side.

In accordance with Qiuxiang’s wishes, we buried her to the right of Ximen Nao and Ximen Bai. Ximen Nao and his women were now all united in the ground. Huang Tong? We buried him in the Ximen Village public cemetery, no more than two yards from where Hong Taiyue lay.

On October 5, 1998, the fifteenth day of the eight month by the lunar calendar, the Mid-Autumn Festival, there was a reunion of all who had lived in the Ximen family compound. Kaifang returned on his motorcycle from the county town, his sidecar filled with two boxes of moon cakes and a watermelon. Baofeng and Ma Gaige were there. Gaige, who had worked for a private cottonseed-processing factory, had lost his left arm in a cutting machine; his sleeve hung empty at his side. You wanted to express your condolences to this nephew of yours, it seemed, but no words emerged when your lips moved. That was also the day that you, Lan Jiefang, and Pang Chunmiao received formal permission to marry. After years of hardship, your lover finally became your wife, and even an old dog like me was happy for you. You kneeled outside your father’s window. In a supplicating tone, you said:

“Dad . . . we’re married, we are a legally married couple, and will no longer bring you shame. . . . Dad . . . open your door and let your son and your daughter-in-law pay their respects to you. . . .”

Finally your father’s dilapidated door swung open, and you went up to it on your knees; there you held the marriage certificate high over your head. “Father,” you said.

“Father . . . ,” Chunmiao greeted him.

He rested his hand on the door frame. His blue face twitched, his blue beard quivered, blue tears fell from his blue eyes. The Mid-Autumn moon sent down blue rays of light.

“Get up,” your father said in a voice that trembled. “At last you’ve put yourselves in the proper roles . . . my heart is free of concerns.”

The Mid-Autumn banquet was held under the apricot tree, with moon cakes, watermelon, and a variety of fine dishes arrayed on the table. Your father sat at the north end, with me crouched beside him. You and Chunmiao sat to the east, opposite Baofeng and Gaige. Kaifang and Huzhu sat to the south. The moon, perfectly round, sent its rays down on the Ximen family compound. The old tree had all but died years earlier, but in lunar August, a few new leaves appeared on some of the branches. Your father flung a glassful of liquor up toward the moon, which shuddered; the beams suddenly darkened, as if a layer of mist had shrouded the face of the moon. But only for a moment; the new light was brighter, warmer, and cleaner than before. Everything in the compound — the buildings, the trees, the people, and the dog — seemed to be steeped in a bath of light blue ink.

Your father splashed the second glassful on the ground. He poured the third glassful down my mouth. It was a dry red wine that Mo Yan had asked a German master winemaker friend to make. Deep red in color, with a wonderful bouquet and a slightly bitter taste, when it touched my throat it brought a host of memories.

It was Chunmiao’s and my first night as husband and wife, and our hearts were so full of emotions sleep would not come. We were bathed by moonlight streaming in through the cracks. We lay naked on the
kang
my mother and Hezuo had both slept on, staring at each other’s face and body as if for the first time. “Mother, Hezuo,” I said in silent benediction, “I know you are watching us. You sacrificed yourselves to bring happiness to us.

“Chunmiao,” I called out softly, “let’s make love. When Mother and Hezuo see that we are in perfect harmony, they will be able to move on, knowing all is well. . . .”

We wrapped our arms around each other and began to move in the moonlight like fish tumbling in the water. We made love with tears of gratitude in our eyes. Our bodies seemed to float up and out the window, all the way to the moon, with countless lamps and the purple ground far below. There we saw: Mother, Hezuo, Huang Tong, Qiuxiang, Chunmiao’s mother, Ximen Jinlong, Hong Taiyue, Ximen Bai. . . They were all sitting astride white birds, flying into a void we could not see. Even Ma Gaige’s lost arm, dark as an eel, was following in their wake.