by Yan Lianke
Those frost-covered leaves swayed back and forth. After a while, they separated themselves from the branches and drifted down to the ground. The air was as cold as his gaze. It was as if the sound was emerging from between his teeth.
He suddenly stood up, as though being pulled to his feet by the car that had just driven by. He stood up and gazed out in the direction that the car had gone. The muscles in his face collapsed, and there was again the sound of grinding teeth. He stood there as though a burst of energy were about to explode out of his joints. He didn’t say a word. It was as if he had become a different person—as if he were no longer the same person who, a moment earlier, had been afraid that his grain would rot in the fields. It was as if he were no longer the same person who, a moment earlier, had been concerned that his wife wouldn’t have anything to eat when she returned home. He had become a completely different person.
He didn’t look at me, nor did he look at the world around him. His gaze was somewhat askew, as though he were looking at something I was unable to see. It was as if he were looking at another world and another scene. That other world and other scene must have existed in his dream, and in his hysteria. He seemed to be able to see that other scene very clearly, as it appeared drop by drop in front of him. He turned pale and a layer of sweat appeared on his forehead. It was impossible to know what he had seen after falling back asleep, what he had encountered, or what had taken place in front of him. He didn’t say a word. He remained completely silent, and continued grinding his teeth. A thick vein was visible in his neck, as though a snake were crawling down his face.
Another vein began throbbing under the lamplight.
It was as though there were a couple of snakes crawling down his neck.
Three or four more veins appeared, like snakes crawling along his neck. He left the pile of hay and walked toward the threshing frame. He kicked the wooden shovel on the ground, as though kicking a branch or a bush on the side of the road. He was walking inside another dream—a dream that was completely different from his previous one. In this other dreamscape, he went over to the threshing frame, leaned over, picked up a steel rebar that was as thick as his thumb, and held it in his hand. He hefted it, then strode over toward the area beyond the fields.
The rebar was two feet long, and it seemed it had been sitting there for an eternity. It had been waiting for him to pick it up, and now, in his powerful hand, the rebar began striding toward the villages in town. He didn’t follow the road he had taken on his way there, but rather proceeded within a new dream. From one alleyway, he walked toward a location in his dream. I followed him and called out to him several times. Seeing that he was still not responding, I stopped to watch as he entered the village. I watched as he, in the still night, strode past a wall and disappeared.
As for myself, I also headed south down the road, toward home.
BOOK TWO
Geng 2, Part One: Birds Fly All Around
1. (21:00–21:20)
In New World, my family was also dreamwalking.
My mother was dreamwalking.
After I left, my mother cocked her head and entered the shop. In front of her was an array of multicolored pieces of paper. Different-sized scissors were scattered on the floor beneath her feet. Along the street, everything remained as it had been. The moon was bright white and the lamps were muddy yellow. The resulting combination of white and yellow resembled a basin of swill that had been dumped into a pool of fresh water—transforming the fresh water into foul, and then into swill.
Everything was very still—as still as death.
Like death, everything was extremely still.
Not long after dusk, the quiet night was broken by the muffled sound of fat pigs snoring. The sound was hot and dirty. Hot, dirty, and sticky. There was the smell of sweat, which seeped through the cracks in all the doors. The odors that gathered in the street were the odors of a summer night.
On this summer night, someone was sleeping on the side of the road. Someone else was sitting in front of a shop drinking tea and fanning himself. Someone else had brought out an electric fan and placed it in the doorway of his house, and the fan’s blades sounded like whirling knives. Everyone was chatting while either sitting or lying in front of the fan. The town’s streets were just as they had been, and the entire world was just as it had been.
But actually, the world would never be the same.
The great somnambulism had already begun. The footsteps of the dreamwalkers had gradually begun to enter my village, and my town. The somnambulism blotted out the sky and blanketed the earth, leaving everything in a state of chaos. No one knew that the somnambulism was already hanging over us like a dark cloud. Everyone assumed that what was overhead was simply a dark summer night’s cloud. People assumed that this summer night was like any other. Feeling a bit lonely, I returned to town, and when I heard the sound of snoring and saw how peaceful the streets were, I assumed that the world remained as it had been. The only difference was that there were a few more ordinary dreamwalkers. I looked at the town’s liveliest street—East Street. I gazed up at the immense night sky, and then returned to our New World funerary shop, where I saw that there was a small car parked across the street. My uncle had arrived. I saw that my uncle was standing in the doorway of our funerary shop, like a doctor standing in the central room of a patient’s home.
“Please sit.”
My uncle ignored my father, and instead continued standing in the doorway of the funerary shop, looking around in all directions.
Uncle was one-point-eight meters tall, and my father was one-point-five. Uncle was wearing the sort of silk shirt that wealthy men used to wear during the Republican period. Father, meanwhile, was in his underwear. Father wasn’t particularly thin, but next to my uncle he appeared downright skinny. He stood there like a small tree beneath a larger one. My father stood in front of my uncle like a child in front of a tall, strong doctor. My mother was still sitting where she had been sleeping. Now, however, she was no longer sleeping, and instead was sitting on the stool where she always sat while making papercuts. On the stool, there was a filthy cotton pad. My mother’s expression resembled not a stone in an old wall, but rather a dirty rag, or an old newspaper. She didn’t look at anyone, and instead merely sat there talking to herself. “Whenever someone dies, you should always make sure there is a wreath over the grave. You should make sure there are several wreaths over the grave.” As she said this, she continued cutting the pile of paper she was holding, as though she were kneeling down and carefully watering a flowerpot. She had already cut out many paper blossoms—piles and piles of them. She had also cut out countless green leaves—piles and piles of them. Father was now sitting next to her, and at his feet there were some bamboo strips, glue, string, and a knife. She continued cutting until she fell back asleep. Father said to Uncle, “I woke her up twice and then went to wash my face. But when I returned, I found that she had fallen asleep again.” She continued cutting until she fell asleep, and even after she fell asleep her hands continued cutting. Her half-closed eyes continued staring straight ahead, and her mouth kept speaking as her hands kept cutting. This is how Father knew that she was dreamwalking. I also realized that she was dreamwalking. These past several days, we had entered a season of death. Our funerary goods sold out quickly, and Mother entered a somnambulistic state.
Uncle stood there looking at his sister, like a doctor examining a sick patient. When he turned away, his eyes resembled two chunks of ice bearing down on Father’s face.
Father laughed.
“Hasn’t business at your crematorium been very good these past few days?”
When Father turned to Uncle, he told him—as though telling a doctor—that Mother’s symptoms were actually quite common, and therefore her condition was nothing out of the ordinary. But he forgot that Mother was actually Uncle’s younger sister, and Uncle couldn’t bear to watch his sister laboriously making papercuts. Even after she fell asleep, her hands would
continue cutting out floral wreaths. “Bring over another basin of cold water, so that she can wash her face.” Uncle glanced disapprovingly at Father. The room was filled with the scent of freshly made flour paste, mixed with the smell of sweat from Father’s bare torso. After a brief hesitation, Father took the basin to fetch some cold water. “Given that everyone has relatives who have died, we have no choice but to work overtime to make wreaths for them.” As he was saying this, Father turned to Uncle. He seemed a bit disdainful, but didn’t dare do anything overt. Instead, he merely knocked the basin against the corner of the stairs leading to the kitchen, making a banging sound. He seemed to resent the fact that Uncle was meddling in his family’s affairs. At this point, Mother suddenly looked in Uncle’s direction. It appeared she had just woken up, but still seemed unable to see anything at all, and instead remained focused on her papercuts. The sound of her cutting resembled the calls of cicadas sitting on a jujube tree on a summer night. Uncle continued watching his sister. At this point, he noticed me—as though I were a child who had not remained standing by his parent’s sickbed and instead was running around outside. Uncle appeared very displeased, and resentful. He raised his eyebrows, then kicked the stool in front of him, as his mouth drooped into a frown and his complexion came to resemble a piece of rusted iron.
“You need to haul away the corpse oil.
“Niannian, your father is busy, so you should help your parents out.”
As Uncle was saying this, he shifted his gaze from my face to Yan Lianke’s novel, which was resting on the corner of the stool in the doorway—as though the origins of the recent crises could be traced back to that work. He looked as though he wanted to kick that book out of the doorway, or light a fire and burn that copy of Kissing Lenin’s Years of Sun.
But Father emerged from the kitchen over by the staircase. He brought over a basin of water with a cloth inside. Father summoned Uncle’s gaze, placed the basin next to Mother’s feet, then took out the cloth and squeezed out most of the water. Father took the cloth and wiped Mother’s face as though he were a nurse wiping the face of a terminally ill patient. “The water is a little cold, and once you feel it you’ll immediately wake up.” Father said this to Mother, but it also seemed he was speaking to himself. I was surprised by the warmth with which Father was treating Mother. I knew that Father was saying this for Uncle’s benefit, but was also saying it for himself. Uncle listened and watched as Father washed Mother’s face. With a wet cloth, he washed Mother right out of her dreamscape. As the cold, wet cloth in Father’s hand was rubbing Mother’s face, Mother’s hand suddenly paused in midair. As Father continued wiping Mother’s face in a clockwise direction, the scissors dropped from Mother’s hand and fell to the ground.
As Father continued wiping Mother’s face in a clockwise direction, a papercut dropped from Mother’s hand and fell to the ground.
Father wet the cloth again, then squeezed it out. As he was wiping Mother’s face in a counterclockwise direction, Mother woke up. She recovered consciousness, as though someone had dumped a basin of cold water on her face. She woke up just like that, and angrily pushed Father’s hand away. She blinked her eyes, then looked at the room as though seeing a new world for the first time. The room was warm. Very, very warm. The cold vapor from the water produced a faint scent that gradually dissipated through the room. It was as though the cold water in the basin was slowly being poured into a pot of boiling water. “Just now, I was making papercuts in my sleep, wasn’t I?” Mother phrased this as a question, but it was also as if she were informing herself of this fact. “Brother, you’ve come.” She turned to Uncle, and added, “Please sit down. I haven’t seen you in over a month.” Then she turned to me, and said,
“Niannian, hurry and bring your uncle a stool.”
I brought over a stool, and placed it under Uncle’s butt.
But Uncle didn’t even glance at it.
“I came to ask your family to haul away the corpse oil from the crematorium. There is now another barrel.” As Uncle was saying this, he looked around, and added, “However much money you’ve earned, it’s enough. If you are tired, you should go to bed. There is no point in exhausting yourself like this only to earn a little more cash.” My uncle was disdainful of the small change that my family was able to earn selling wreaths and funeral ornaments. As he was turning to leave, we heard the puttering sound of a motorcycle in the street.
The sound came to a stop in front of my family’s funerary shop.
A very young, dark face appeared in the doorway, with an expression of surprise and congratulations. The visitor said, “Hey, Zhang Mutou, who lives across the street, has gone mad.” It turned out that Zhang Mutou had found a two-foot-long iron pipe somewhere and taken it home, while repeatedly saying to himself, “Watch me beat him to death! Watch me beat him to death!” When he got home, he ran into his wife, who had returned with a man named Wang, who worked at a brick kiln north of town. Zhang Mutou slammed down the pipe he was holding, and with a single blow he shattered Wang’s skull. The young man added,
“You tell me, how did Zhang Mutou know that his wife and Boss Wang had returned home together? And, how is it that Zhang Mutou’s timing was so good? His wife and the Wang fellow had just gotten home, and Zhang Mutou was right there waiting for them!
“I don’t know who notified Zhang Mutou. Old Wang, the kiln worker, was very burly, but as soon as he entered the courtyard, an iron rod was smashed down on his head, and he collapsed in Zhang Mutou’s courtyard like a sack of cotton.
“Bricklayer Wang is from one of our town’s richest families, and Mutou’s wife was not the first woman he had tried to seduce. After he died, the ground was covered in blood, as though he had scattered several dozen bundles of red hundred-yuan bills all over the ground.
“The blood startled Zhang Mutou awake. He stared in shock for a moment, and then woke up. It turns out that Mutou, that bastard, had been asleep. It turns out that he, that bastard, had been so brazen precisely because he was dreamwalking. After waking up from his dream, he lay on the ground, exclaiming and sobbing, ‘I killed a man! I killed a man!’ Then he became cowardly.”
The person on the motorcycle laughed and gestured, and a pair of rat eyes flickered in front of my family’s funerary shop like pearls.
“Everyone knows I am a distant relative of Old Wang from the brick kiln. But he was ruthless, while we were very principled. Now I’ve gone to notify Old Wang’s wife that she needs to go to Mutou’s house to collect the corpse. Being both affectionate and principled, I have also come to notify you here at New World, so that you can prepare some extra wreaths, paper ornaments, and funerary objects. His is the richest family in town, and whenever other families want to build a new house, they have to go to his family to purchase bricks and tiles. You should go there to prepare some extra funerary objects for him. If his family won’t offer to pay for the funerary objects themselves, I’ll do so on their behalf. Whose fault is it that I’m their relative? I’m willing to buy ten or twenty wreaths on their behalf, to place on his grave.” The person on the motorcycle spoke quickly, as though someone had opened a sluice. He had a look of delight, as though his wife had finally become pregnant with a son. He was standing outside, with his head in the doorway. His eyes resembled those of a rabbit that has emerged from hibernation and is gazing out to where the spring flowers are blooming. As he was about to leave, his eyes again came to rest on my uncle’s face. He laughed to himself, and his face appeared to burst into bloom.
“Director Shao, you’re here! However much money Bricklayer Wang’s family gave you for his cremation, I’ll match it. Just be certain you instruct the crematorium workers well, because we need to make sure that Bricklayer Wang’s bones are not completely burned and shattered. We need to make sure that, when they are removed from the furnace, there will still be some intact leg or hip bones. These need to be longer than the funerary urn, so that we’ll have no choice but to smash them with a hammer in order to ge
t them to fit into the urn . . . I’ll give you some extra money, if you make sure you don’t burn all of his bones to ashes. We need to leave some bones intact, so that we then have to smash them into pieces to get them into the urn.”
That face in the doorway was talking and laughing—appearing as romantic as a peony blossom under the spring sun. After this person finished speaking and left, the echoes of his laughter continued to resonate in the entranceway. I felt a bit cold, as though someone had ridden by on a motorcycle and dumped a bucket of ice water over my head. Outside, there was the puttering sound of a motorcycle. “Damn it!” My uncle cursed as he looked away from the doorway. It was as if he had just seen a performance. It was as if, as he was walking along, he suddenly noticed he was stepping in a pile of vomit left by a drunk townsperson. The entire world once again became preternaturally quiet, and a cool breeze blew through the town, and through the entire world. But the entire world was once again condensed into our funerary shop. “Go haul away a barrel of corpse oil. If you leave it here tonight, then when we have another cremation tomorrow, we won’t have anywhere to store the new oil. We definitely can’t allow excess corpse oil to accumulate in the furnace room.”
