Brothers (23 page)

Li Lan was still recovering from her initial fright when the crazy woman started to hum a tune. As she hummed she also muttered, her voice popping like a machine gun. Li Lan was no longer scared. Though she could not make out what the crazy woman was saying, the continual din of a human voice actually put her at ease. With a faint smile, Li Lan fell back to sleep.

After some time had passed, Li Lan in her dreams heard the sounds of palms slapping. She raised her sleep-heavy lids to see the crazy woman, sitting by her side, flapping her arms to shoo away the mosquitoes, and sometimes slapping at them. The crazy woman repeatedly slapped her hands together, then carefully scraped the mosquitoes from her palms and put them in her mouth, chuckling as she gulped them down. Her actions reminded Li Lan of the steamed bun in her bag, so she sat up, took out the bun, and broke off half for the crazy woman.

Li Lan extended the bun almost directly to the woman's face, but she ignored it. She cackled as she slapped at the mosquitoes and placed them into her mouth. Her raised arm tiring, Li Lan was about to put it down when the woman suddenly snatched away the half bun. Then the woman immediately stood up and walked down the waiting room's steps, moaning and muttering and acting as if she was looking for something. She took a few steps south, then a few steps north, and
finally raised the bun in her hand and proceeded east. As the crazy woman walked farther away, Li Lan was finally able to make out what she was saying: "Brother, brother …"

Li Lan was now alone again under the dim streetlight. She sat and slowly ate her bun, feeling hollow inside. As she finished, the streetlight suddenly went out, and when she looked up, she saw the first rays of daybreak. It was at that moment that her tears finally gushed forth.

Li Lan boarded the early bus. As the bus pulled out of the station she turned around, still scanning the streets outside in hopes of catching sight of Song Fanping. Only when the bus left Shanghai and the landscape outside her window had turned into fields did Li Lan close her eyes. She rested her head on the window frame and dozed off despite the bumpiness of the drive. During that three-hour journey, Li Lan repeatedly drifted in and out of sleep, and images of those envelopes floated into her mind. Why were the stamps always placed in different spots? Her earlier suspicions resurfaced and grew stronger and stronger. She knew that Song Fanping was a man of his word, and if he said that he would come pick her up in Shanghai, then he would do so at all costs. If he hadn't come, then something must have happened. This train of thought caused her heart to shudder. As the bus neared Liu Town and the landscape outside her window grew increasingly familiar, Li Lan's uneasy premonitions grew stronger and stronger. By now she was convinced that something terrible must have happened. Her whole body shook as she buried her face in her hands, and she didn't dare think more concretely. She felt that she was falling apart as tears streamed from her eyes.

When the bus pulled into the Liu Town depot, Li Lan, carrying her gray travel bag with
SHANGHAI
printed on the side, was the last to emerge. She followed behind the crowds, her limbs feeling as heavy as lead. Every step took her closer to bad news. When she dragged herself outside of the station, only to be greeted by two wailing boys who were as filthy as if they had been fished from a garbage dump, Li Lan knew that her terrible premonitions had proven true. Her eyes grew dark, and she dropped the travel bag to the ground. The two filthy boys were Baldy Li and Song Gang, and they were wailing, "Papa's dead!"

CHAPTER 19

L
I LAN
stood motionless as Baldy Li and Song Gang wailed over and over again, "Papas dead!" She stood planted on the spot, as if her soul had left her body. In this moment of brilliant noon sunshine, she could see only darkness. It was as if she suddenly became both blind and deaf. Li Lan stood there, rigid and corpselike, for more than ten minutes before everything finally came back into focus and she could again make out the two boys crying and wailing in front of her. She could now clearly see the bus depot, the men and women walking by, and Baldy Li and Song Gang. The boys’ faces were covered in snot and tears, and they tugged at her clothes, crying, "Papas dead."

Li Lan nodded her head lightly. "I know."

She looked down at her travel bag. When she bent to pick it up, she suddenly keeled over, bringing down with her Baldy Li and Song Gang. She helped the boys up and got up herself by leaning on the bag, but when she bent down once again to pick it up, her legs again gave out from under her and she knelt down on the ground, trembling all over. Baldy Li and Song Gang watched her, terrified, and reached down to nudge her, calling out over and over again, "Mama, Mama …"

Li Lan got up by leaning on the boys’ shoulders. She let out a long sigh, then picked up her travel bag and stumbled forward. The noon sun was making her dizzy, making her wobble unsteadily. The empty lot in front of the bus depot was still streaked with Song Fanping's blood, and a few dozen dead flies dotted the blood-darkened earth. Song Gang pointed at the blood and told Li Lan, "This is where Papa died."

The children had stopped weeping, but when Song Gang said this, he again burst into tears, and Baldy Li couldn't help but cry as well. Li Lan's travel bag again dropped to the ground. She looked down at the blood that had already turned dark, then looked around, and finally looked at the two boys, her gaze blurring as her eyes filled with tears. She knelt down, opened her bag, and took out a piece of clothing to spread on the ground. Then she carefully brushed off the flies and scooped up the dark crimson dirt into the shirt, kneeling there until
she had gathered every last speck of dirt that had been stained by the blood. Even then she continued to kneel, sifting the dirt through her fingers as if she were searching for gold, still looking for the last traces of Song Fanpings blood.

She knelt there for a very long time. A large crowd gathered around, watching and discussing her. Some knew her and others did not; some of them spoke of Song Fanping, about how he had been beaten to death. The details they mentioned were ones Baldy Li and Song Gang had not known about: how the men smashed wooden bats over Song Fanpings head and kicked him in the chest, and how they stabbed his abdomen with the splintered bats. With every sentence Baldy Li and Song Gang shrieked and wept. Li Lan heard too, and her body shuddered with each new revelation. She raised her head a few times, but each time she glimpsed those who were speaking, she would lower her head again and continue gathering up Song Fanpings traces. Finally Mama Su walked over from her snack shop to scold the bystanders, saying, "Stop talking! How can you talk about these things in front of his wife and kids? And you call yourself human!"

Then she turned to Li Lan. "Why don't you take the kids home?"

Li Lan nodded. She knotted the shirt filled with dark crimson earth and placed it in her bag. It was already afternoon. Li Lan walked ahead with her heavy travel bag, and Baldy Li and Song Gang walked hand in hand behind her. The boys saw that her shoulder sloped from the weight.

All the way home Li Lan did not weep or wail but only stumbled forward. She paused to rest a few times, due to the weight of her bag, whereupon she would look back on the two boys without saying a word. They no longer wept or spoke. When an acquaintance called out her name, she would only nod her head slightly.

Li Lan walked silently back to her home. As she entered, the sight of Song Fanpings badly mutilated body on their bed caused her to keel over, but she immediately got back up. She still didn't cry but only stood shaking her head. She reached out to gently touch Song Fan-ping's face but then pulled her hand away in a panic, as if worried that she was hurting him. Her hand hung in the air for a moment before she started to comb a few dead flies out of his matted hair. With her right hand she slowly removed all the dead flies from Song Fanpings corpse and placed them in the palm of her left. All afternoon Li Lan stood by the bed, picking flies from the body. Several neighbors looked in from the window, and a couple of them came in to speak with her. Li Lan
remained silent, only nodding or shaking her head in response to their questions. After they left, she closed the windows and door, and it wasn't until nightfall, when she was satisfied that there were no more flies on Song Fanpings body, that she finally sat down on the bed and looked out at the reflection of the sunset on their window.

Baldy Li and Song Gang had not eaten anything all day. They stood by Li Lan sobbing, but it was a very long time before Li Lan realized they were there. She turned to them and said in a low voice, "Don't cry. Don't let others hear us cry."

The boys immediately covered their mouths. Baldy Li added timidly, "We are hungry."

As if suddenly waking from a dream, Li Lan gave them money and grain coupons and told them to go buy themselves something to eat. When the boys left, they saw that she was once again sitting dully by the bed. They bought three buns, and Baldy Li and Song Gang ate theirs as they walked home. They found Li Lan still sitting on the edge of the bed, and when they handed her the third bun, she merely stared at it and asked distractedly, "What is this?"

Baldy Li and Song Gang replied, "A bun."

Li Lan nodded, appearing to understand, and then took a bite out of the bun and slowly chewed. Baldy Li and Song Gang watched her until she finished the bun. Then she said, "Let's go to sleep."

That night, as the boys lay dreaming, they sensed that someone kept walking in and out of the house, and they could also make out the sounds of pouring water. It was Li Lan, going again and again to draw water from the well. She carefully cleaned Song Fanpings corpse and changed him into clean clothes. The children did not know how the small, frail Li Lan managed to change the clothes on Song Fanpings massive body, or whether she got any sleep. The next day, after Li Lan left, Baldy Li and Song Gang discovered that Song Fanping was as neat and tidy as a groom. Even the sheets beneath him had been changed, though his scrubbed face was a mass of green and purple blotches.

Song Fanpings corpse lay on the near side of the bed. The pillow on the far side had a few strands of Li Lan's hair, and a few more were dangling from Song Fanpings neck. Li Lan must have spent the night cradled on Song Fanpings chest. This was to be the last night she spent with Song Fanping. The bloodied clothes and sheets were soaking in the wooden tub under the bed, and floating on top of the water were a few flies that had wedged themselves in the crevices of his clothing.

All night Li Lan had wept. As she wiped down Song Fanpings body, she shuddered over his bruises and wounds. Several times she almost burst out into terrible wails, but each time she managed to swallow her sobs and would bravely rouse herself, though the effort almost made her faint. Her lips bled from biting down on them. No one could imagine how she survived that night, how she reined herself in and managed not to go insane. Afterward, she lay down on the bed and placed her head on Song Fanpings chest, falling into a state that was not so much sleep as a long, pitch-black unconsciousness. Only when the sun s rays pierced the room did she rouse herself once again from the terrible pit of her pain.

Li Lan, her eyes bloodshot and puffy, left the house to go to the coffin shop, bringing with her all the money that she had in the house. She wanted to buy her husband the best coffin, but she didn't have enough money. She was only able to afford an unvarnished one made of thin wood planks, and even then only the shortest of the four. She returned shortly before noon, followed by four men carrying the thin-plank coffin on their backs. They set the coffin down next to Baldy Li and Song Gangs bed. The boys looked with fear and horror at the coffin as the four sweat-drenched men wiped themselves with their towels and fanned themselves with their straw hats. Looking about, they asked loudly, "Where is the corpse? Where is it?"

Silently, Li Lan opened the door to the inside room. The men's leader walked into the room and spotted Song Fanping on the bed. He waved for his men to follow him in. They stood by the bed quietly discussing matters for a while, then abruptly grabbed Song Fanping by the arms and legs. The leader bellowed, "Lift him up!" and the four men lifted Song Fanping, their faces as red as pig's liver. They carried Song Fanping through the door and then attempted to place him in the coffin. When Song's torso was positioned in the coffin, his feet still dangled out. The men panted noisily, trying to catch their breath. They asked Li Lan, "How much did Song Fanping weigh when he was alive?"

Li Lan was leaning against the door frame as she replied in a low voice that her husband probably weighed 180 pounds or so. All the men had looks of "Aha!" The man in charge explained, "No wonder he was so heavy. When people die, they weigh twice as much. That was probably three hundred and sixty pounds right there. No wonder I almost sprained my back!"

The men from the coffin shop then began an animated discussion about how to wedge Song Fanpings feet into the coffin. The corpse was too long, and the coffin too short. The four of them struggled for more than an hour. Song Fanpings head was already squashed and crooked, but still they could not manage to squeeze his two feet in. They discussed placing him on his side, in a fetal position, saying that then they could manage to fit all of him in.

But Li Lan balked at this. She felt that the dead should be buried faceup, since they would want to look up at the living. "You can't lay him on his side. If he's on his side, he won't be able to see us."

The man in charge retorted, "With the coffin lid and all the dirt, he wouldn't be able to see even if he were lying faceup. Hugging his knees, he'd be in the same position as he was when he was born, and furthermore it would make coming back for the next go-round easier."

Li Lan shook her head. She still wanted to say something, but the four men had already bent over and, with much grunting and huffing, rolled Song Fanping onto his side. Then they discovered that the coffin was too narrow, and Song Fanpings body was too wide and too thick. Plus his legs were too long, so even in a fetal position they couldn't fit all of him in. The men shook their heads. Lifting their shirts to wipe the sweat that had flowed from their faces down onto their chests, they complained, "What kind of fucking coffin is this? A foot-washing basin is more like it."