Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

  He was quite thin, but taller than me, and slightly stooped. Despite the heat, he was wearing a black long-sleeved shirt-jacket, black trousers, and a pair of sneakers of an indefinable color. His body gave off a sour smell; his clothes were sweat-stained. His luggage consisted solely of a transparent plastic bag. Saddened by the sight of a son who looked so much older than his years, I was on the verge of tears. I ran up to him, but the off-putting look on his face kept me from embracing him. I let my arms drop heavily to my sides.

  “Kaifang . . .”

  He looked me over without a trace of warmth, disgusted even by the tears that were now washing my face. He frowned, imprinting creases on his forehead above a nearly unbroken line of eyebrows, like his mother’s. He sneered.

  “Not bad, you two, making it to a place like this.”

  I was too tongue-tied to say anything.

  Chunmiao opened the door and carried in our fan and microwave. Turning on the twenty-five-watt overhead light, she said:

  “Since you’re here, Kaifang, you’d better come in. We can talk in here.”

  “I have nothing to say to you,” he said with a quick glance inside, “and I’m not going inside your house!”

  “No matter what, Kaifang, I’m still your father,” I said. “You’ve come a long way, and Aunt Chunmiao and I would like to take you to dinner.”

  “You two go, I’ll stay here,” Chunmiao said. “Treat him to something good.”

  “I’m not going to eat anything you give me,” he said as he swung the bag in his hand. “I brought my own food.”

  “Kaifang . . .” More tears. “Can’t you give your father a little face?”

  “Okay, that’s enough,” he said with obvious repulsion. “Don’t think I hate you two, because I don’t, not a bit. It was my mother’s idea to come looking for you, not mine.”

  “She . . . how is she?” I said hesitantly.

  “She has cancer.” His voice was low. There was silence for a moment before he continued. “She doesn’t have long to live, and would like to see you both. She says she has many things she wants to say to you.”

  “How could she have cancer?” said Chunmiao, now crying openly.

  My son looked at Chunmiao and just shook his head noncom-mittally.

  “Well, I’ve delivered the message,” he said. “Whether you go back or not is up to you.”

  He turned and walked off.

  “Kaifang ...” I grabbed his arm. “We can go together. We’ll leave tomorrow.”

  He wrested his arm from my grip.

  “I’m not traveling with you. I have a return ticket for tonight.”

  “Then we’ll go with you.”

  “I said I’m not traveling with you.”

  “Then we’ll walk you to the station,” Chunmiao said.

  “No,” my son said with steely determination. “There’s no need.”

  After your wife learned she had cancer, she insisted on going back to Ximen Village. Your son, who hadn’t graduated from high school, was bent on quitting school and becoming a policeman. His application was accepted by your old friend Du Luwen, once the Lüdian Township Party secretary, and now county police commissioner, either as a result of your relationship or of your son’s excellent qualifications. He was assigned to the criminal division.

  Following the death of your mother, your father moved back into the southern end of the little room in the western addition, where he resumed the solitary, eccentric lifestyle of his independent farming days. No one ever saw him out in the compound during the day, nor did they often see smoke from his chimney, though he prepared his own meals. He wouldn’t eat the food Huzhu or Baofeng brought to him, preferring to let it go bad on the counter by the stove or on his table. Late at night he’d get down off his sleeping platform, the kang, and come back to life. He’d boil a pot of water on the stove and make some soupy rice, which he’d eat before it was fully cooked. Either that or he’d simply eat raw, crunchy grain and wash it down with cold water. Then he’d be right back on the kang.

  When your wife returned to the village, she moved into the northern end of the western addition, previously occupied by your mother. Her twin sister, Huzhu, took care of her. Sick as she was, I never heard a single moan from her. She just lay quietly in bed, eyes closed as she tried to get some sleep, or open as she stared at the ceiling. Huzhu and Baofeng tried all sorts of home remedies, such as cooking a toad in soupy rice or preparing pig’s lung with a special grass or snakeskin with stir-fried eggs or gecko in liquor. She refused to try any of these remedies. Her room was separated by your father’s only by a thin wall of sorghum stalks and mud, so they could hear each other’s coughs and sighs; but they never exchanged a word.

  In your father’s room there were a vat of raw wheat, another of mung beans, and two strings of corn ears hanging from the rafters. After Dog Two died, I found myself with nothing to do and no mood to try anything new, so I either slept the day away in my kennel or wandered through the compound. After the death of Jinlong, Ximen Huan hung out with a bad crowd in town, returning infrequently, and only to get money from his mother. After Pang Kangmei was arrested, Jinlong’s company was taken over by county officials, as was the Ximen Village Party secretary position. By then his company existed on paper only, and all the millions in bank loans were gone. He left nothing for Huzhu or Ximen Huan. So after her son used up all of Huzhu’s personal savings, he stopped showing up altogether.

  Huzhu was living in the main house; every time I entered the house she was seated at her square table, cutting paper figures. Everything she made — plants and flowers, insects and fish, birds and beasts — was remarkably lifelike. She mounted the figures between sheets of white paper and, when she’d finished a hundred of them, took them into town to sell next to shops that carried all sorts of mementos; from that she maintained a simple life. I occasionally saw her comb her hair, standing on a bench to let it fall all the way to the floor. Watching the way she had to bend her neck to run the comb through it made me very sad.

  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,” yo
ur 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.”