Pow!

  ‘Put some oomph into it, gentlemen!’ Yao Qi shouted. ‘Your host will show his gratitude later.’

  Yao Qi's loathsome face glowed, a petty man intoxicated by his perceived glory. The same man who had once approached my father with a plan to bring Lao Lan to his knees was now his chief lackey. But I knew how unreliable he was, that he had the bones of a backstabber and that Lao Lan would be wise to keep him at arm's length. Now that I was out, I had no desire to return to the head of the coffin so, together with Jiaojiao, who had shown up from somewhere, I ran round the yard taking in all the excitement. She had gouged out the eyes of a paper horse and was clutching them like treasured objects.

  As the music from the monks and musicians came to an end, Huang Biao's wife, who had changed into an off-white dress, pranced into the yard like an operatic coquette and placed tea services on both tables. Biting her lower lip, she poured the tea. After a drink of tea and some cigarettes, it was time to perform. The monks began by intoning loud, rhythmic chants, liquid sounds filled with devotion, like pond bullfrogs croaking on a summer night. The crisp, melodic clangs of cymbals and the hollow thumps of the wooden fish highlighted the clear voices. After a while the minor monks ended their chorus, leaving only the strains of the old monk's full voice, with its uncanny modulation, to mesmerize the listeners. Everyone held their breath as they drank in each sacred note emerging from deep in the old monk's chest; it seemed to send their spirits floating idly, lazily, into the clouds. The old monk chanted on for several moments, then picked up his cymbals and beat them with changing rhythms. Faster and faster, now throwing his arms open wide and bringing them back, now barely moving. The sounds changed with the movements of his hands and arms, heavy clangs giving way to thin chattering clicks. At the moment of crescendo, one of the cymbals flew into the air and twirled like a magic talisman. The old monk uttered a Buddhist incantation, spun round and held the remaining cymbal behind his back, waiting for its mate to drop from the sky atop it; as it landed it produced a metallic tremble that lingered in the air. A cry of delight rose from the crowd and the monk flung both cymbals skyward—they chased each other like inseparable twins and, on meeting, sent a loud clang earthward. As they descended they seemed to seek out the old monk's hands. The performance that day by the wise old monk, a Buddhist devotee of high attainments, left a lasting impression on every one of us.

  Their performance ended, the monks sat down and returned to their tea. The crowd now turned its attention to the musicians in anticipation of something new. The monks’ performance would be a hard act to follow, but we would have been disappointed with the musicians for not surpassing it.

  Without a moment's hesitation, the musicians stood up and began as an ensemble, opening with the tune ‘Boldly Move Forward, Little Sister’, followed by ‘When Will You Return’ and then the brisk ‘The Little Shepherd’. When they laid down their instruments, they turned their eyes to their shifu, who peeled off his jacket, revealing a frame so slight you could count his ribs. He shut his eyes, raised his head and then began to play a funereal tune on his suona, his Adam's apple sliding up and down rhythmically. I didn't know the tune but its sad effect on me was unmistakable. As he played, the suona moved from his mouth up into one of his nostrils, which muted the notes while retaining the instrument's mournfully melodic tone. His eyes still shut, he reached out his hand and into it a disciple placed a second suona. The reed of this one too he inserted into a nostril, and now two suonas created a tune of surpassing sorrow. His face grew bright red, his temples throbbed and his audience was so moved it forget to cheer. Yao Qi had not exaggerated when he said he'd engaged a suona master of great renown. When the tune ended, he extracted the instruments from his nostrils, handed them to his disciples and fell into a chair. Disciples rushed up to pour him tea and hand him a cigarette, which he lit and immediately blew two streams of thick smoke from his nose, like dragons’ whiskers. And then blood slithered, worm-like, out of both nostrils.

  ‘Your reward for wonderful performances—’ Yao Qi bellowed.

  Xiao Han, the meat inspector, ran out from the eastern wing with a pair of identical red envelopes and laid one on each table. The old monk and head musician immediately began a man-to-man competition, and it was hard to tell who won. But I doubt that you're interested in hearing about such things, Wise Monk, so I'll skip this part and move on to what unfolded next.

  Back in the eastern wing Yao Qi was boasting of the great service he'd rendered my father, Xiao Han and several of the men who had helped out, telling them how he had travelled five hundred li to engage the services of the two troupes, ‘wearing out the soles of my shoes in the process'. He lifted his foot as proof. Xiao Han, known for his caustic tongue, couldn't resist a barb: ‘I hear you used to think of Lao Lan as your mortal enemy. You must have changed your mind when you decided to be his chief lackey.’

  Father's lip curled and, though he held his tongue, his face spoke volumes.

  ‘We're all lackeys,’ Yao Qi remarked nonchalantly. ‘But at least I sell myself. Some people sell their wives and children.’

  Father's face darkened. ‘Who are you talking about?’ he demanded, gnashing his teeth.

  ‘Only myself, Lao Luo, why so angry?’ Yao Qi replied slyly. ‘I hear you're going to be married soon.’

  Father picked up his ink box and flung it at Yao Qi and then stood up.

  A brief look of anger on Yao Qi's face was supplanted by a sinister grin. ‘What a temper, Old Brother, you have to “out with the old” before you can “in with the new”. For a big-time plant manager like you, nothing could be easier than getting your paws on a young maiden. Just leave it to me. I may not have what it takes to be an official, but as a matchmaker I'm peerless. How about your young sister, Xiao Han?’

  ‘Fuck you, Yao Qi!’ I cursed.

  ‘Director Luo, no, it should be Director Lan,’ Yao Qi said, ‘you're the crown prince of the village!’

  Xiao Han rushed at the man before Father could, grabbed him by the arms and spun him so hard that his head drooped. Then he pushed him towards the door, jammed his knee into his buttocks and gave him a shove that sent him out the door as if he'd been shot from a cannon. He lay sprawled on the ground for a long while after.

  At five that evening, it was time for the formal funeral ceremony to begin. Mother grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and dragged me back to the coffin, where she pushed me down into the dutiful son's spot. A pair of white candles as thick as turnips burnt on the table behind the coffin, their flickering light heavy with the rancid odour of sheep's tallow. Light from the bean-oil lantern showed up about as bright as a glowworm's tail alongside the burning candle, and that in a room in which hung a twenty-eight-bulb crystal chandelier encircled by twenty-four spotlights. If they had all been turned on, you would have been able to count the ants crawling across the floorboards. But electric lights lacked the mystique of candles. Tiangua looked even stranger and less human as she sat across from me in the flickering light, but the more I tried to avoid looking at her the harder it was and the less human her image became. Her face underwent constant changes, like ripples on water. She was a bird one moment, a cat the next and then a wolf. And then I realized that her eyes were locked onto me, refusing to let go. Yet what really made my heart race was her posture—she was sitting on the edge of her stool, legs bent and taut, leaning forward like a predatory animal poised to attack. At any moment, I imagined, she'd spring from her stool, bound across the clay pot with its burning paper and pounce, then wrap her hands round my neck and gnaw on my face—crunch crunch, like a turnip—until she'd eaten my head. Then she'd howl and take on her true form, with a long, bushy tail, and flee without a trace. I knew that the real Tiangua had died long before, and that the figure seated across me was actually an evil spirit that had assumed her form and was waiting for the right moment to partake of the flesh of Luo Xiaotong, a meat-eater and thus tastier than other children. I'd once heard an alms-begging monk talk about retributio
n on the wheel of life; he'd said that individuals who ate meat would themselves be eaten by other meat-eaters. That monk had achieved a high degree of Buddhist attainments, one of many such monks in that place of ours. Take that alms-begging monk, for instance. He once sat in the snow in the middle of the winter, naked to the waist, lotus position, without eating or drinking for three days and nights. Many kindhearted women, afraid he would freeze to death, brought him blankets to keep warm, only to discover that his face was nice and ruddy and that steam rose from his scalp, almost as if his head were a stove. Blankets were the last thing he needed. Admittedly, there were people who said he had taken a ‘fire dragon’ pill, that he had no special gift. But who has ever seen one of those pills? The stuff of legend. But the monk in the snow? I saw him with my own eyes.

  The face of Cheng Tianle, who had just lost a tooth, was mapped with more than eighty creases. Chosen as the master of ceremonies for the memorial service, he had a white ribbon draped over his shoulders and wore a white, heavily pleated hat like a rooster's coxcomb. He made a late appearance, though, causing people to wonder where he'd hidden himself for so long. He smelt heavily of alcohol, salted fish and damp earth, which made me surmise that he'd spent the time in Lao Lan's cellar. Well on his way to being drunk, he had trouble focusing his bleary eyes, almost gummed together with sticky residue. His assistant was Shen Gang, the man who'd once borrowed money from my mother. Smelling the same as Cheng Tianle—his cellar mate, obviously—he was dressed in black, with a pair of white oversleeves. In one hand he carried a hatchet and in the other a rooster—white with a black cockscomb. An important individual who walked into the room with them cannot go unmentioned—Su Zhou, younger brother of Lao Lan's wife, a close relative of some note who ought to have made an early appearance. His late arrival was either planned or was the result of his being delayed on the road.

  Father, Yao Qi, Xiao Han and a clutch of brawny fellows followed the trio into the main room. A pair of low benches had been set up in the yard, where men with poles waited under the veranda eaves.

  ‘Homage to the coffin—’

  As Cheng Tianle's shout echoed in the air, Lao Lan rushed out of his room and fell to his knees in front of the coffin. ‘Oh, dear mother of our daughter—ah huh huh huh—’ he wailed, pounding the lid, ‘you have cruelly left Tiangua and me behind—’

  He thumped the coffin lid loudly with his hand and tears streaked his face, revealing the depth of his overwhelming grief (and immediately squelching a good many rumours).

  Out in the yard the musicians played a dirge as the monks chanted, loudly and with enthusiasm. Inside and out, sound triumphantly created an aura of unbearable grief. For the moment I had no thoughts for the evil spirit across from me, as tears cascaded down my face.

  Even the heavens lent a hand, first with rolling thunder, then with raindrops the size of old coins that beat a tattoo on the ground. The rain pounded the monks’ shaved heads and battered the faces of the musicians. Soon the drops grew smaller and the curtain of rain grew denser. But the monks and musicians persisted. The water splashing on the monks’ heads had a relaxing effect on the people, though the brassy sound of horns and funereal strains of the suona became increasingly sorrowful. But nothing suffered more than the paper figures. Pounded by the relentless rain, they softened, then began to fall apart, with gaping holes in the front and at the back revealing the sorghum stalk frames on which they were fashioned.

  With a silent signal from Cheng Tianle, Yao Qi led the grief-stricken Lao Lan to one side. Mother had me stand at the head of the coffin; Huang Biao's wife had Tiangua stand at the foot. Our eyes met across its length. Like a conjurer, Cheng Tianle whisked out a brass gong and brought an abrupt end to the chants and the music outside. Now the only sound was the patter of raindrops. Shen Gang walked up stiffly to the coffin and laid his rooster, legs tightly bound, on top. He raised his hatchet over his head. The gong rang out. The rooster's head rolled to the ground.

  ‘Lift the coffin—’ shouted Cheng Tianle.

  The pallbearers stepped up, prepared to pick up the coffin and carry it out into the yard, then place it atop the benches, fit it with ropes and shoulder it out the gate onto the street all the way to the cemetery. It would be interred in the waiting tomb, which would then be sealed; once a headstone was in place, everything would be brought to an orderly end. But it was not to be.

  Lao Lan's young brother-in-law, Su Zhou, abruptly rushed up and threw himself across the coffin. ‘Elder Sister—my beloved elder sister ‘he wailed, ‘how tragically you died—how unjustly—how suspiciously—’

  As he pounded the coffin lid, staining his hand with chicken blood, the congregation fell into an awkward silence. We could only look on, wide-eyed and helpless.

  Finally Cheng Tianle regained his senses; he walked up and tugged at the man's clothing. ‘That's enough, Su Zhou. Now that you've poured out your grief, it's time to bury your sister and let her rest in peace.’

  ‘Rest in peace?’ Su Zhou demanded, his wailing abruptly ended. He jerked up straight, turned away from the coffin and then leapt backward to sit on it. Rays of green light emerged from his eyes and shone over the crowd. ‘Rest in peace? You will not destroy the evidence of a heinous crime. I won't let you!’

  Lao Lan kept his head down and held his tongue but Su Zhou's outburst made it impossible for others to intervene. So it was up to Lao Lan to reply, however dispiritedly: ‘Go ahead, Su Zhou, say what you have to say.’

  ‘What I have to say?’ the man was boiling over with rage. ‘I have to say that you murdered your wife, you evil man!’

  Lao Lan shook his head, his anguish obvious: ‘You're not a child, Su Zhou, who can get away with saying anything. You have to weigh your words. The law does not permit that sort of libel.’

  ‘Libel?’ Su Zhou sneered. ‘Ha-ha, ha-ha, libel, he says. What does the law say about the murder of one's wife?’

  ‘Where's your proof?’ asked Lao Lan calmly.

  Su Zhou banged the coffin with his bloodied hand. ‘Here's my proof!’

  ‘You're going to have to be clearer than that.’

  ‘If you weren't hiding something, why were you in such a hurry to cremate her? Why didn't you wait for me to come and seal the coffin?’

  ‘I sent people for you more than once—they told me you were off in the northeast replenishing your stock or having a good time on Hainan Island. It's so hot that even the rolling pins are sprouting, but still we waited two full days for you.’

  ‘Don't assume you've destroyed the evidence by cremating her body,’ Su Zhou said with an icy laugh. ‘Years after Napoleon's death they were able to determine that he'd died of arsenic poisoning by examining his bones. Pan Jinlian burnt up Wu Dalang, but Wu Song discovered scars on his bones. You won't get away with this.’

  ‘What a monumental joke,’ Lao Lan said to the crowd as tears gushed from his eyes. ‘If my marriage had been an unhappy one, I could easily have demanded a divorce. Why in the world would I do what he's saying? My fellow villagers are not easily fooled. I ask you, is Lao Lan capable of anything so stupid?’

  ‘Then tell me: how did my sister die?’ Su Zhou demanded fiercely.

  ‘You give me no choice, Su Zhou,’ Lao Lan said as he crouched down and wrapped his arms round his head. ‘You're forcing me to reveal a family disgrace. For some idiotic reason, your sister took the easy way out—she hanged herself…’

  ‘Why?’ Su Zhou insisted tearfully. ‘Tell me, why did she hang herself?’

  ‘Mother of my children, how could you be so foolish…’ Lao Lan wept as he pounded his head with his fist.

  ‘You bastard, Lao Lan,’ Su Zhou said through clenched teeth, ‘you and your secret mistress killed my sister, then made it look like suicide. Now I'm going to avenge her death!’ He grabbed the hatchet, jumped off the coffin and rushed at Lao Lan.

  ‘Stop him!’ Mother shrieked.

  People leapt to their feet and grabbed Su Zhou round his waist. But not be
fore he flung the hatchet at Lao Lan's head. It glinted in the light as it sliced through the air, trailing a bloody path above our heads. Mother quickly pushed Lao Lan out of the way. The hatchet dropped harmlessly to the floor and she kicked it across the room. ‘Su Zhou,’ she cried out in alarm, ‘what savage impulse drove you to try to kill him in broad daylight?’

  ‘Ha-ha, ha-ha,’ Su Zhou laughed wildly. ‘Yang Yuzhen, you wanton woman, it was you, you conspired with Lao Lan to kill my sister…’

  Mother's face turned from red to white and her lips quivered as she pointed to Su Zhou with a shaky finger. ‘You…slinging unfounded…slander…’

  ‘Luo Tong,’ Su Zhou shouted as he pointed to Father, ‘you worthless excuse of a man, you green-hatted cuckold! Are you a man or are you not? They made you factory manager and your son a director so she could sleep with your boss. How can you still have the nerve to show your face in the village? If I were you, I'd have hanged myself long ago.’

  ‘Fuck you, Su Zhou!’ I rushed up and buried my fist in his gut.

  Some men ran up and pulled me away.