Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

by Mo Yan

  Master Xu signaled for the carpenters to come inside with their tools. They carefully picked up the lid and placed it over the body of a woman who had died with her eyes still slightly open. As the nails were pounded in, the chorus of wails reached another crescendo.

  Over the next two days, Jinlong, Baofeng, Huzhu, and Hezuo sat on grass mats watching over the coffin from opposite ends, day and night. Lan Kaifang and Ximen Huan sat on stools at the head of the coffin facing each other and burning spirit money in an earthenware platter; at the other end, two thick red candles burned in front of your mother’s spirit tablet, the smoke merging solemnly with paper ash floating in the air.

  A steady stream of mourners passed by Master Xu, who meticulously recorded every gift of spirit money, which quickly piled up beneath the apricot tree. It was such a cold day that he had to blow on the tip of his pen to keep the ink flowing. A layer of frost covered his beard; ice formed on the branches of the tree, turning it silver.

  Under the director’s guidance, we assumed the moods of our characters. I had to keep reminding myself that I was not Lan Jiefang, but the ruthless bandit Blue Face, a man who had planted a bomb in his stove to explode in his wife’s face when she lit the stove to cook breakfast, and who had cut the tongue out of a boy who had called him by my nickname, Blue Face. I was grief-stricken over the death of my mother, but had to control my tears and bury my sorrow in my heart. My tears were too precious to let them flow like water from a tap. But at the sight of Chunmiao in mourning attire, her face dirtied, my personal grief overwhelmed the part I was playing; my emotions supplanted his. So I tried again, but the director still was not satisfied. Mo Yan was on the set that day, and the director went over and said something to him. I heard Mo Yan reply, “You’re taking this too seriously, Baldy He. If you don’t help me here, you and I are no longer friends.” Then Mo Yan took us aside and said, “What’s wrong with you? Do you have overactive tear glands or what? Chunmiao can cry if she wants, but all you need to do is shed a few tears. It’s not your mother who’s died, it’s the bandit’s. Three episodes, at three thousand RMB apiece for you and two thousand for Chunmiao. That’s enough for you two to live on nicely. Here’s the trick: do not mix this woman in the coffin up with your own mother, who’s back home wearing silks and satins and eating fine food. All you have to do is imagine the coffin filled with fifteen thousand RMB!”

  Forty sedans drove into Ximen Village on the day of the interment, even though the road was covered with snow, which their exhaust pipes turned black. They parked across from the Ximen family compound, where the third son of the Sun family, a red armband over his sleeve, directed traffic. The drivers stayed in their cars and kept their engines running, creating a blanket of white mist.

  All the late-arriving mourners were people of means and power, most of them officials in the county; a few were Ximen Jinlong’s friends from other counties. Villagers braved the cold to stand outside the gate waiting for the clamor that would accompany the emergence of the coffin. Over those several days everyone seemed to forget about me, so I just hung around with Dog Two, strolling here and there. Your son fed me twice: once he tossed me a steamed bun, the other time he tossed me some frozen chicken wings. I ate the bun, but not the wings. Sad events from the past as Ximen Nao kept rising up from deep in my memory. Forgetting sometimes that I was in my fourth reincarnation, I felt myself to be the head of this household, a man whose wife had just died; at other times I understood that the yin and the yang were different worlds, and that the affairs of the human world were unrelated to me, a dog.

  Most of the people out to watch the procession were elderly, or were snot-nosed little children; the younger men and women were working in town. The oldsters told the children all about how Ximen Nao had seen his own mother off in a four-inch-thick cypress coffin carried by twenty-four strong men. The funeral streamers and wreaths had stood in an unbroken line on both sides of the street, and every fifty paces a tent had been thrown up to accommodate roadside sacrifices of whole pigs, watermelons, oversize steamed buns ... I didn’t stick around to hear any more. Those were memories too painful to recall. I was now a dog only, one who did not have many more years in him. The officials who had decided to attend the interment were all wearing black overcoats with black scarves. Some — the bald or balding — were sporting black marten caps. Those without caps had full heads of hair. The snow covering their heads beautifully matched the white paper flowers in their lapels.

  At noon a Red Flag sedan, followed by a black Audi, drove up to the Ximen compound. Ximen Jinlong, in mourning attire, rushed out to greet the new arrival. The driver opened the door, and out stepped Pang Kangmei in a black wool overcoat. Her face looked even fairer than usual, owing to the contrast with her coat. Deep wrinkles at the corners of her mouth and eyes were new since the last time I’d seen her. A man, probably her secretary, pinned a white funeral flower to her coat. Though she cut an imposing figure, a look of deep sadness filled her eyes, undetectable by most people. She held out her hand, encased in a black glove, and greeted Jinlong, who took her hand in his. Her comment was pregnant with hidden meaning:

  “Keep your grief under control, be calm, don’t lose your cool!”

  Jinlong, looking equally solemn, nodded.

  The good girl Pang Fenghuang followed Kangmei out of the car. Already taller than her mother, she was not only beautiful but fashionable, with a white down jacket over blue jeans and a pair of white lambskin loafers. She wore a white wool-knit cap on her head and no makeup — she didn’t need to.

  “This is your uncle Ximen,” Kangmei said to her daughter.

  “How do you do, Uncle?” Fenghuang said reluctantly.

  “I want you to go up to Grandma’s coffin and kowtow,” Kangmei said with deep emotion. “She helped raise you.”

  I imagined that there were fifteen thousand RMB in the coffin, spread all around, not tied in bundles, ready to fly out when the lid was removed. It worked. I strode into the yard, holding Chunmiao by the arm; I could feel her stumbling along behind me, like a child being dragged along against her will. I burst into the room, where I was immediately confronted by a mahogany coffin whose lid was standing against the wall, waiting to be placed on top — after my arrival. A dozen or so people were standing around the coffin, some in mourning attire, some in street clothes. I knew that most of them were PLA in disguise, and that in a moment they were going to pin me to the floor. I saw Blue Face’s mother lying in the coffin, her face covered by a sheet of yellow paper. Her purple funeral clothes were made of satin with dark gold longevity characters sewn in. I fell to my knees in front of the coffin.

  “Mother,” I wailed, “your unfilial son has come too late . . .”

  Your mother’s coffin finally emerged through the gateway, accompanied by the mournful wails of those who survived her and funeral music provided by a renowned peasant musician’s troupe. Excitement spread among the bystanders, who had waited a long time for this moment. The musicians were preceded by two men carrying long bamboo poles to clear the way ahead. White mourning cloth hung from the ends of the poles, like antisparrow poles. They were followed by ten or fifteen boys carrying funeral banners, for which they would be richly rewarded, reason enough for them to beam happily. Behind this youthful honor guard came two men who covered the procession route with spirit money Next came a four-man purple canopy protecting your mother’s spirit tablet, on which, in ancient script, was written: “Wife of Ximen Nao, Surnamed Bai, called Yingchun.” Everyone who saw this tablet knew that Ximen Jinlong had established his mother’s lineage as the deceased spouse not of Lan Lian but of his biological father, Ximen Nao, and not as concubine but as legal wife. This, of course, was highly unconventional, for a remarried woman was normally not entitled to interment near her original husband’s family graves. But Jinlong broke with this tradition. Then came your mother’s mahogany casket, followed by the direct descendants of the deceased, all walking with willow lamentation canes. Your son,
Ximen Huan, and Ma Gaige had simply thrown a white funeral sackcloth over their street clothes and wrapped their heads in white fabric. Each supported his grieving mother, all shedding silent tears. Jinlong trailed his lamentation cane behind him, stopping frequently to go down on his knees and wail, shedding red tears. Baofeng’s voice was raspy, all but inaudible. Her eyes were glassy and her mouth hung open, but there were no tears or sounds. Your son, with his lean frame, had to support the entire weight of your wife, requiring the assistance of some of the other mourners. She wasn’t walking to the cemetery, she was being carried along. Huzhu’s loose black hair caught everyone’s attention. Normally worn in a braid and encased in a black net, now, in accordance with funeral protocol, she let it fall loosely around her shoulders, like a black cataract spreading out on the ground, muddying the tips. A distant niece of the deceased, who had her wits about her, trotted ahead, scooped up Huzhu’s hair, and laid it across her bent elbow. Many of the bystanders were whispering comments regarding Huzhu’s miraculous hair. Someone said, Ximen Jinlong lives amid a cloud of beautiful women, but he won’t ask his wife for a divorce. Why? Because the life he lives has been bestowed upon him by his wife. It is her miraculous hair that has brought him wealth and prosperity.

  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.

  53

  As Death Nears, Charity and Enmity Vanish

  A Dog Dies, but the Wheel of Life Rolls on

  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.