The Day the Sun Died

by Yan Lianke

  He stood there for a long time, staring straight ahead as he gingerly touched his face with his hands.

  As the fire died down, the crowd dispersed.

  The brigade headed toward the crematorium at the base of the mountain.

  There were five or six men, all strong and burly. The eldest was around forty, while the youngest was younger than Father. They were all wearing the sort of standard dark-green uniforms that were worn by county and town employees. They were from a legal enforcement brigade that had been constituted at the county level, and were just like a real brigade. Every village and town had its own enforcement brigade, which would suddenly appear wherever there was a corpse that had not been cremated. This brigade would appear at the family’s grave plot. They would explode and burn the tomb, and then leave.

  After the enforcement brigade departed, my father went over to the Yang family’s grave. The pit was two feet deep, and smelled of gas and scorched earth. After twenty minutes, the fire died out. The smell of gasoline and scorched earth, combined with the stench of burnt flesh and baked bones, resembled the stench that surges out of a furnace when you open it after having cremated a corpse. The handful of bones that had not yet been reduced to ash were like pieces of unburned kindling at the bottom of a dark hole. There was a round pit, next to which there were pieces of flesh and bone that the men had forgotten to kick into the fire. The bone had cracked open and turned grayish black, while the flesh resembled a piece of red clay sitting on the freshly scorched earth. Standing on the black and red soil, my father turned pale. Seeing that next to his feet there was a bone resembling a human vertebra, he turned pale. His face turned deathly white. He stared in shock. It was as though he already had centuries of experience, despite being only twenty-two.

  In the distance, the Funiu Mountains fell silent. At the base of the mountains, Gaotian Village—or perhaps I should say Gaotian Town—also fell deathly silent. There wasn’t a sound, and it was as if the entire world had died. As though everything was thoroughly dead. There were only the men of the enforcement brigade, who had already walked away, like a family returning home after having harvested their grain. The members of the brigade appeared calm and unhurried, and were laughing happily. Some of them were even singing, and the sound of their song soared into the solitary, deathly sky, like a flock of wild birds cutting through it. The predusk light of the setting sun resembled fiery embers in the gray sky, or white ashes being dumped on a still-burning fire.

  It was extremely cold and a wind was blowing mercilessly through the graveyard.

  My father stood next to the grave that had been exploded and burned. He stood there motionless, as though he were dead. At that instant, the red pimples on his face began to turn green. These pimples covered his forehead and nose, and he stroked the painful ones on his forehead. Then he leaned over to pick up that piece of flesh and bone that looked like a vertebra. He examined it, then quickly dropped it again, as though he had touched a piece of ice. Because the Yang family’s grandmother was already ninety-two years old when she passed away, the family had decided not to cremate her. Therefore, they didn’t weep when she died, and neither did they wear white mourning clothes or weep in the entranceway of their home to announce that someone in the family had died. But my father still knew. When he walked past the family’s house, he noticed that their gate remained tightly closed, even though it was the middle of the day. Moreover, through the gate, he could smell the aroma of people gathered for a banquet.

  He knew someone in the family had died.

  He had already known that the family’s ninety-two-year-old grandmother had been on her sickbed.

  That night, Father had climbed the hill and had seen a light at the Yang family grave site. He saw that someone, under the cover of darkness, was digging a new grave there. Father then went to the crematorium to reveal the Yang family’s secret. As Uncle was stuffing four hundred yuan into Father’s hand, he patted Father on the shoulder and smiled. “Li Tianbao, don’t worry that you are still young. In the future, you will definitely enjoy success. To survive, you must be willing to do things that others are unwilling to do.” Father didn’t respond. As he was leaving the crematorium, Mother was in a room in the crematorium sewing and selling funeral clothes. She opened her door and looked at Father, then dropped a piece of cloth in the doorway. “Someone else has died.” It was hard to tell whether this was a question, or whether she was simply talking to herself. Father looked at her, and saw that her face was as sallow as a sheet of yellow paper. He nodded, as though in response, but also as though expressing respect and offering greetings to the younger sister of the crematorium owner who always gave him money.

  Then he left.

  Just as he always did.

  He didn’t return to the village. Instead, he went to see one of my aunts, just as he always did. He went to the house of his elder sister, who lived far away. He acted as though he didn’t have a clue that someone in the village had died. But when he returned three days later, he found this scene at the grave site. The carter had not hauled away the corpse of the Yang family’s grandmother for cremation. Instead, after waiting for the family to bury the corpse, the crematorium workers went to the grave site and blew it up, then doused the corpse in gasoline and burned it.

  The weather was exceedingly cold, and the wind tore through the hills. He found a broken shovel that had been discarded by someone digging a grave, and used it to toss the soft earth back into the fiery pit. The rays of the setting sun resembled burning embers in the gray sky—like a lid of white ash covering a still-burning fire. Father scooped up one shovelful of soil after another. He wanted to re-cover the bones in the grave that had been blasted open. He filled the pit with soil, and then covered it once again with cornstalks and tree branches. This way, it looked as though nothing had happened. With this, all the problems were solved, and all that was left was a cold winter breeze blowing through the mountain ridge. However, someone was coming up from the base of the ridge. The Yang family had already been summoned out of the village and up the mountain ridge by the sound of explosions and burning. Leading the way were the young people, who could run quickly. Behind them was a large group of men and women from the Yang clan, appearing as though they were being blown over by the wind, along with the sound of mountains and seas. After seeing the crowd on its way to the Yang family grave, my father quickly left. He headed in the direction of the enforcement brigade. As he walked away, he kept glancing back to see whether or not that group of Yang family members was following him. He checked to see whether or not anyone had noticed his presence. He resembled a thief—a thief who, just before he manages to seize what he is attempting to steal, hears the owner at the door. My father felt cold, and his heart was shivering. Although he was wearing new padded boots and sweatpants, he was still extremely cold. As soon as he had money, he bought himself and my grandmother some padded clothes. At the time, he had been very warm, but now he was exceedingly cold. Heading east along the mountain path, the men of the enforcement brigade were already far away. In fact, there was no trace of them. In the predusk stillness, it seemed as if the entire world had died, and as though my father had also died. His face was deathly pale, and his forehead was covered in icelike beads of sweat. As he was about to reach the entrance to the crematorium, he sat down on the side of the road. Biting his lip, he sat down on the edge of someone’s field. Without realizing what he was doing, he kicked the dirt under his feet into a pile. In front of the pile, there was a deep pit.

  Finally, after the sky had turned completely dark, he headed into the crematorium.

  I didn’t learn about all of this until later.

  But without knowing for certain, I assumed that this was what had happened.

  This was the only explanation for how Mother and Father could have ended up this way while dreamwalking on that particular night of that month of that year. If this was not what happened, then my parents wouldn’t have ended up this way. If things ha
dn’t gone that way, my parents definitely would not have ended up this way on the night of the great somnambulism.

  When my father reached the crematorium, he took out the four hundred yuan my uncle had given him. He took the four one-hundred-yuan bills and placed them on the edge of Uncle’s table. “I’m not going to do this anymore. Even if my life depended on it, I still won’t do it. Even if it means I won’t be able to build myself a house and instead have to sleep out in the open, I still won’t do it.” After saying this, my father was about to leave. He was about to walk out of the crematorium office. My uncle didn’t try to stop him, but neither did he accept the four hundred yuan. “If you won’t do it, there are surely others in your village who will. All they need to do is say a few things and run around a bit, and in the amount of time it takes to eat a bowl of rice they can earn themselves four hundred yuan. Where else will you find this good a deal?” The office consisted of two rooms, and on the wall there was a slogan that had been copied from official documents: PROMOTE CREMATION TO SAVE FARMLAND. The lamplight was as bright as day. There were nightingales cooing in the crematorium courtyard. On the front wall of the two-story cremation hall there were the freshly painted words FAREWELL HALL, which appeared golden in the lamplight. One could see the water in the reservoir, appearing as though the moonlight had been gathered together and was floating on the water’s surface.

  As my father left the office, Uncle stood in the doorway like a giant, and declared, “I hope you don’t regret this!” My father left the office. He walked away without saying a word. He was silent, and the entire world was silent. “I won’t regret it.” As my father said this, his footsteps sounded like water dripping onto tree leaves. The bricks for the new house had already been ordered, and cement had already been purchased. All Father needed was for five or six more villagers to die—and if out of five or six deaths there were three or four families who were not willing to accept cremation and instead tried to secretly bury their dead, that would be enough to allow him to buy the steel rebar he still needed. But his side job as an informer had become more difficult, since people increasingly would take their dead to the crematorium of their own accord—the same way that after the moon comes out there will inevitably be moonlight, and when the sun comes out there will inevitably be sunlight. Winter was the season of death. Every winter several villagers died, and inevitably there would be some families unwilling to accept cremation who instead would attempt to secretly bury their dead. Obviously, the crematorium could easily retrieve the corpses from the homes of the deceased. Uncle, however, would always wait until they had already been buried before blowing up their graves—insisting on going to the grave and using gasoline to light a fire. After my father left, my uncle came out and stood in the entranceway. “Li Tianbao, if you pass up this money, you’ll come to regret it . . . You’ll definitely regret it.”

  My father proceeded out of the crematorium. He departed without even a backward glance. He resembled a chick that was determined to fly away. The night sky opened up before him like a curtain, and the moonlight was stained with the smell of earth from the fields. He walked, and his footsteps continued to resonate as he went down the street. He also heard someone else’s footsteps, and when he turned to listen more carefully he heard Uncle, behind him, cursing and telling him to go back inside.

  It was all over. If people died and were buried permanently, there wouldn’t be any more news about them. It was as if someone had been buried alive in the mud. It turns out that my mother had been standing in the entrance of the crematorium waiting for my father. She had watched as he emerged from the crematorium, as though flickering into view from the side of the road or from behind a shady tree.

  “You mustn’t ever do this again.”

  “I won’t.”

  “But if you don’t, how will you ever build your new house? I went to your street, and saw that while many of your neighbors have already built new houses, your family still lives in an old thatched-roof house.

  “I can help you build a new three-room house. All you need to do is to marry me, and in lieu of a dowry, I will help your family build a new house. After we marry, we can open a funerary shop in the middle of Town Street. We can sell wreaths and burial shrouds, as well as paper ornaments and funerary objects to be buried with the deceased. After that, you’ll never again need to do anything you don’t want to do.” As Mother was saying this, a cloud floated overhead and its shadow flickered over her body and her face. At that point, my mother was standing only three feet away from my father, and her breath was gently blowing onto his face.

  She was waiting for Father to respond, but he barely glanced at her. Instead, he snorted and walked away.

  She also walked away.

  3. (21:41–21:50)

  That night, during the second geng period—around nine o’clock—as I was heading toward the crematorium, I kept thinking about my family. I thought about affairs relating to my father, my mother, and my uncle. Uncle Yan wanted to know about these things, but I didn’t reveal anything to him.

  I don’t know what happened between Mother and Father, but the following spring they got married.

  I don’t know what happened between Mother and Father, but after they got married I was born.

  I don’t know what happened, but after I was born my grandmother died.

  Among all living things, every time one is born, another must die. And after one dies, another will be born. This way, the total number of living people, animals, and birds will always remain constant. There will never be one more or one less. The reason why the number of people in the world is constantly increasing is that the number of animals and birds is decreasing. One day, when the number of animals and birds finally increases again, the corresponding number of human lives will collapse like a demolished house. This passage is from one of Yan Lianke’s books, but I can’t remember which one. According to this logic, I was born because my grandmother was about to die, and my grandmother died because I was born.

  When my mother was pregnant with me, my grandmother fell ill, and as my mother’s belly grew larger and larger, my grandmother became sicker and sicker. It was like a race—a race between birth and death. Grandmother’s belly hurt so much that she wasn’t able to consume anything other than her medicine. As I grew increasingly fat inside my mother’s belly, my grandmother grew increasingly thin lying on her sickbed. As my body grew larger, hers grew smaller. Each time my weight increased by one jin, hers would decrease by the same amount. As I was about to be born, she curled into a fetal position and prepared to die. I was born in the winter of the same year that my parents got married. There was a blizzard, and the entire world was white. At that time, I was inside my mother’s belly struggling to get out, while my grandmother was lying on a bed in the southern room of our family’s new house, about to die. As I was waiting to emerge from my mother’s belly, Father went from the north room to the south room, where he stood in front of Grandmother’s bed. “A baby boy! A baby boy!” When Father said this, Grandmother grinned. “My life has been worthwhile. We have a new house, and now I have a grandson to burn incense for me after I die.” Then she smiled brightly and departed. It was as if she had been waiting for me to arrive before she left—like someone finishing a shift at work before someone else starts the next. After my grandmother completed her final shift, I started my first. I began living in Gaotian, and eventually began talking, crawling, and growing. Grandmother, meanwhile, died, after which she no longer spoke or did anything, and instead she entered a permanent state of rest.

  Before she died, Grandmother didn’t specify whether she wanted to be buried or cremated. Mother and Father were also not sure whether they should bury or cremate her. My arrival was a joyous occasion, while Grandmother’s departure was a sorrowful one. When a joyous and a sorrowful occasion coincide, one doesn’t worry about happiness or sadness. Father had a calm expression and Mother also appeared very calm as she lay in bed. My parents both acted as th
ough I hadn’t even been born, and as though Grandmother had not died. On that day, it was bitter cold, and had been snowing continuously for a whole month. The entire world was as white as the pristine snowy-whiteness of the inside of a grave. There were icicles hanging from the eaves of the house and from the tree branches. The snow in Gaotian Town came up to people’s knees, and sometimes even their waists. The entire world was filled with snow, and everything under heaven was bitterly, bitterly cold. The village was so quiet that the basin of charcoal burning next to my mother’s bed sounded like firecrackers. The snow visible through the window resembled blowing sand. The northern wind blew through the house and knocked down the icicles hanging from the eaves. In my mother’s embrace, I could hear water boiling over the fire. Father was sitting next to the fire and mother was lying in bed holding me. Grandmother, meanwhile, lay in that bed waiting for her funeral arrangements.

  Time was like an old saw being pulled between Father and Mother. I was born just as the sun was about to come up, the same way that Grandmother passed away just as the sun was about to come up. In this way, by noon I was crying and sleeping, sleeping and crying. When I was neither crying nor sleeping, I could hear my mother and father talking to each other, their voices very soft, as though they were about to fall asleep as well.