Brothers (94 page)

Lin Hong was bone tired. She vaguely perceived that Baldy Li was on top of her, then answered a telephone call. Like a spring, this telephone call catapulted Baldy Li right off her. Then there was no sound, after which Baldy Li started shaking his fist and cursing himself as he pounded his head. Lin Hong opened her eyes but couldn't understand what was happening. She nervously sat up and saw that Baldy Li's phone had fallen to the floor while he himself was crying as though his heart were broken, wiping at his tears with both fists like a child. Lin Hong had a vague feeling and asked uneasily, "Did something happen?"

With tears streaming down his face, Baldy Li told her, "Song Gang is dead. That bastard killed himself by lying across the train tracks."

Her mouth hanging open, Lin Hong stared at Baldy Li in terror. Looking as if Baldy Li had just raped her, she leapt off the bed and quickly got dressed. Then she didn't know what to do next. She had a look of absolute bafflement on her face, as though a doctor had informed her that she was terminally ill. After a while, tears began to stream down her face. She bit her lip but couldn't stop the flow of tears. She noticed that Baldy Li was standing there naked and suddenly felt a wave of revulsion sweep over her. She spat at him, "Why don't you die?"

"You whore." Baldy Li finally found an enemy on whom to vent his fury. He thundered, "Song Gang's corpse has been lying at your front door for more than three hours, waiting for you to open the door! But you're out whoring around!"

"If I am a filthy whore," Lin Hong said furiously, "then what does that make you? You are a fucking bastard!"

"If I am a fucking bastard," Baldy Li responded, equally furiously, "then you are a fucking dirty slut!"

"If I am a dirty slut," Lin Hong said with bitter fury, "then you are worse than a beast."

"If I am worse than a beast"—Baldy Li's eyes glinted bright red— "then what the fuck are you? You fucking killed your own husband!"

"If I killed my own husband," Lin Hong screamed, "then you killed your own brother!"

After she said this, Baldy Li again began to cry. Suddenly pathetic,
he walked toward Lin Hong with his arms extended, exclaiming sorrowfully, "We both killed Song Gang, and therefore neither of us deserves to die well."

Lin Hong pushed away Baldy Li's hand and shouted with disgust, "Get away from me!"

She walked out of Baldy Li's bedroom and down the stairs. When she arrived in the living room, she noticed that Baldy Li, still buck-naked, was following her. When she opened the front door, a naked Baldy Li followed her out. Lin Hong then stopped and said, "Don't follow me!"

"Who is fucking following you?" the naked Baldy Li asked as he walked up to her. "I'm going to see Song Gang!"

"Stop!" Lin Hong cried. "You have no face to go see Song Gang."

"If I have no face to go see Song Gang," Baldy Li said as he sorrowfully came to a halt and then turned around and thrust a finger in Lin Hong's direction, "you, whore, also have no face to go see him."

"I may not have any face to see him"—Lin Hong nodded somberly, as if agreeing with Baldy Li—"but he is this whore's husband."

Baldy Li cried, "He is my brother."

He cried as he beat his breast and stamped his feet, whereupon he suddenly realized that he was completely naked. He stood there, not knowing what to do. When Lin Hong walked up from behind, he bashfully covered his crotch with his hands. She felt a jolt of pity and said softly, "You should go home."

Baldy Li nodded like an obedient child, and when Lin Hong walked past him she heard him mumbling, "I will receive my retribution, as will you."

Lin Hong nodded and, wiping her tears from her eyes, said, "I will certainly receive my retribution."

That night the autumn wind blew and the moon shone brightly. Someone walking along the railroad tracks collecting stray pieces of coal discovered Song Gang's body, and he told two people living near the tracks. The body didn't have a single bloodstain on it. The train had ridden over Song Gang's waist, and while his body was sliced clean in half, his clothing hadn't even been torn. At eleven o'clock that night, the two people living near the tracks transported Song Gang in a pull-cart to the front door of his house. Former workmates of his from the docks, they recognized Song Gang under the face mask and saw his clothes and glasses lying on the stone. After discussing the situation,
they found a pullcart and put Song Gang in it, then placed his glasses in his jacket pocket and draped the jacket over his body. Song Gang was very tall, so as his body lay in the cart his head stuck out and his feet dragged on the ground. Therefore, one of the workers walked in front pulling the cart while the other walked behind, holding up Song Gang s legs. In this way they walked through the deathly quiet streets of Liu Town. The autumn leaves rustled beneath the wheels, and occasionally a few passersby would stop and watch them curiously. Neither of the two workmates said anything as they walked, hunched over, returning Song Gang to his door.

After they put the cart down, they pulled Song Gang s body a little so that his head was no longer hanging over the side, and folded up his legs so that his feet rested on the ground. Then they gently knocked on the door, called out softly, and waited silently for more than half an hour before realizing that Lin Hong was not home. One of them sat on the pullcart's handlebars watching over Song Gang while the other walked along the empty streets, trying to find someone from Baldy Li's company. The dockworker knew that Baldy Li was Song Gangs brother and had heard the rumors about Lin Hong and Baldy Li.

The dead Song Gang had been brought home, but they couldn't get him through his own front door; instead, he was lying faceup in the flatbed of a pullcart in front of the house. The worker sitting on the handlebars watched blankly as the wind blew leaves onto Song Gang's body. Some of the leaves came from the tree overhead, and some were blown up from the ground. Around two o'clock in the morning, the worker finally saw his workmate coming back with Deputy Liu.

Deputy Liu stood in front of the pullcart looking at Song Gang. After shaking his head, he stepped aside to call Baldy Li, then walked back to the pullcart, and the three of them waited there in front of Song Gang's house. At around three, they saw Lin Hong appear in the empty street, and as she approached she passed in and out of the light from the streetlamps. She walked solemnly with her head bowed and hugging her shoulders, looking as if she were walking in and out of life itself.

Lin Hong walked up to the pullcart, avoiding the three men's gazes, then turned and walked away. As she was opening the front door she looked back at Song Gang's body lying in the pullcart, covered with leaves. She opened the door and found complete darkness inside. Lin Hong looked back at Song Gang and couldn't help going back and
leaning over the pullcart to clean off the leaves that were covering his body. What she saw was not Song Gangs face but his face mask. She knelt down and began to cry, her entire body shuddering, as she pulled off the mask. Under the moonlight she was able to make out his peaceful expression. As she cried her trembling hands caressed his face. This face that once had so many happy smiles, that not so long before was full of yearning as Song Gang rode the train back to Liu, was now lifeless, as cold as the dark night.

CHAPTER 76

L
IN HONG
experienced a silent dawn. After Song Gang was carried to his bed by his former workmates, she realized that his body had been virtually sliced in two. As the two men lifted the tenuously connected halves of Song Gang by his arms and legs and walked toward the bed, Song Gangs body looked as though it had been folded in half. His posterior dragged against the concrete floor, as leaves fell from his body. After they lay Song Gang down, his folded body was once again stretched flat, and a few remaining leaves fell onto the bed. After Deputy Liu and Song Gangs two former workmates left, predawn Liu Town was absolutely silent. Lin Hong sat on the bed hugging her knees to her chest, gazing at the peaceful Song Gang and the peaceful leaves as tears streamed down her face, her thoughts alternating between utter confusion and utter clarity.

In her periods of confusion, she felt as lonely as the depth of night. In her periods of clarity, it seemed as if Song Gang were speaking, smiling, walking, and tenderly caressing her. These were sweet secrets that the two of them shared and that no one could intrude upon. Now the twenty years they had shared had been brought to an end, and they would never again share any experience together. Lin Hong felt a chill run through her body, a chill of loneliness and solitude. She told herself over and over that it was she who killed Song Gang; as a result, she hated herself and wanted to scream. She didn't scream but instead silently grabbed a clump of her hair and pulled it with all her might. Her hair sliced open her fingers, leaving them red with blood. She gazed abjectly at Song Gang, lying there in eternal rest, and asked over and over again, "Why did you have to leave?"

Then she felt a wave of humiliation sweep over her as she remembered how lonely she had been after he left and all she had suffered at the hands of the chain-smoking Director Liu, and she couldn't help sobbing, "You left before I had a chance to tell you about all the humiliation I endured."

The next morning Lin Hong received the letter Song Gang had sent her before committing suicide. The letter was six pages long, and each
line was deeply moving. Song Gang told her that he had been very happy all these years together and thanked her for always being at his side. He said that ever since his lungs went bad, he had considered separating from her, but she had told him that, no matter what happened, she would never leave him. He said that, knowing this, he could die without regrets. He asked that she forgive him for taking his own life and that she not feel bad because of him. He said that being with her those twenty years was better than spending twenty lifetimes with any other woman, and therefore he had no regrets. Song Gang also told her very apologetically that when he left without saying goodbye more than a year earlier, it was only in order to earn enough money so that she would be able to live without worries. He regretted, however, that he was not very talented at earning money and had been able to bring back only thirty thousand yuan, which he had stuffed under the pillow. He hoped that, after she rid herself of this burden, she could live comfortably, relying on her own abilities. Finally, he emphasized that he didn't hate Baldy Li and certainly didn't hate Lin Hong, nor did he hate himself. He had just taken a first step and would look for Lin Hong in the next world. He was confident that they would have an opportunity to be together again, and after that they would be together forever.

Lin Hong read Song Gang's letter over and over again, crying so much that the pages became soaked with tears. Then, still crying, she got up, removed Song Gang's clothes, and began washing his body. When she noticed the two red swellings on his chest, she gripped the towel in terror, wiped at the red swellings, and uncovered the festering wounds under his armpits. Her entire body began to tremble. She looked at Song Gang's wounds over and over again, and each time her tears started to blur her vision, she would wipe them away and continue looking carefully at the wounds, until her eyes would again blur over. She couldn't understand what these wounds were from, or what had happened to Song Gang while he was away traveling. She stood blankly for a long time, still holding the towel. She cried, she shook her head, she became confused, she couldn't understand.

Finally, she unwrapped the thirty thousand yuan that Song Gang had carefully wrapped in newspaper and placed under the pillow, and she nearly fainted. Her legs gave out as she knelt, looking at the bills scattered across the bed, and it was then that she understood their significance. She picked up every bill and carefully folded it. From Song
Gangs swellings on his chest and the wounds under his armpits, she knew that every one of these bills was soaked with his sweat and blood.

When they cremated Song Gangs corpse five days later, the people of Liu saw Lin Hong again and noticed that her eyes were red and swollen. By that time she didn't have any tears left, and her expressionless gaze seemed oddly detached. When Song Gangs corpse was pushed into the cremation furnace she didn't wail in grief as people expected she would but, rather, closed her eyes and silently told Song Gang, "Regardless of what I might have done, you are the only person I have ever loved."

Baldy Li also received Song Gang's letter, and tears also streamed down his face as he read it. In his letter, Song Gang recalled their tragic childhood and how they had relied on each other for survival. He mentioned how, after he went to the countryside, he had taken long bus rides to come back and see Baldy Li; how, when he came back to Liu Town at the age of eighteen to work, Baldy Li had happily gone to make him a spare key; as well as the happiness they had both felt the first time they received their wages. Then he mentioned Lin Hong, and at this point Song Gang's tone became joyful as he recalled with something resembling pride how Lin Hong had not fallen in love with Baldy Li but instead had fallen in love with him. Song Gang told Baldy Li that he had always been secretly happy for each of Baldy Li's successes. He said that, before their mother died, she had urged him to look after Baldy Li, and therefore he was happy that, when he saw their mother, he would have no regrets and could tell her how great Baldy Li was. Song Gang once again became sorrowful as he described how he still very much missed their father, Song Fanping, and how, if it weren't for that family portrait, he probably wouldn't even be able to remember what Papa looked like. He hoped that, after all these years, Papa's appearance would not have changed, and when he encountered him in the netherworld, he would be able to recognize him at once. In the final page of the letter Song Gang encouraged Baldy Li to look out for Lin Hong, in consideration of their brotherly love. The last line of Song Gang's letter read: "Baldy Li, you once said to me: ‘Even if heaven and earth were to be turned upside down, we would still be brothers.’ Now I say to you: ‘Even if we are separated by life and death, we will still be brothers.'"