Pow! (50 page)

‘It's no big deal,’ Mother said indignantly, ‘certainly not worth blowing up over. It could give the deceased a bit of consolation.’

‘Does the deceased know that?’ Father said icily.

‘What do you think?’ Mother said, looking glum. ‘A person's heart lives on after death.’

‘Please stop spouting nonsense!’ Father railed.

‘What do you mean, nonsense?’

‘I'm not going to argue with you.’ Father lowered his voice. ‘He's your son, have him do what you want.’

Xiao Han, who had been crouching nearby, stood up.

‘Don't be so stubborn, Manager Luo. Since Director Yang's already told Boss Lan it's all right, and Director Xiaotong has no objections, why not let them have their way? Besides, it's just play-acting. Xiaotong could play the role of dutiful son ten thousand times, but he'd still be your son and no one could take that away from you. In fact, most people would fight for an opportunity like this.’

Father kept his head down and said nothing.

‘That's just what he's like—bullheaded,’ Mother said. ‘He'll pick a fight with me over just about anything, and I'm stuck. That's the story of my life.’

‘You'll leave one of these days,’ Father said unemotionally.

‘That's ridiculous,’ Mother said unkindly and then turned to me. ‘Xiaotong, go see Huang Biao's wife and get her to help you change. I don't want you goofing off when the reporters show up. Aunty Lan treated you like a son, so repay her by acting like one.’

‘I want to go change too,’ Jiaojiao whined.

‘Jiaojiao!’ Father growled as he glared at her.

Jiaojiao's mouth trembled as though she were about to burst out crying. The unyielding look on Father's face put a stop to that, although a few tears seeped from her eyes.

Dusk has just settled in and work on the opera stage is done
;
the four workmen are carrying the freshly painted Meat God to one side of the tall stage. Its face comes alive in the moist rays of the setting July sun
;
its feet are nailed to a wooden base to keep it from tipping over. My heart tightens with every thud as they pound in those long, thick nails and my feet twitch in pain. I didn't realize I'd fainted till I came to. The wet stains on the front of my pants are proof, as is the taste of blood from a bitten tongue and the pain in the pinched spot between my nose and mouth. A young woman, a medical-school badge pinned to her blouse, straightens up and says to a male student with dyed blond hair
: ‘
Probably an epileptic seizure
.’
He leans over and asks
: ‘
Is there a family history of epilepsy
?’
Confused, I shake my head, which is pretty much empty
. ‘
How is he supposed to understand that kind of question
?’
she says as she glares at him
. ‘
Has anyone in your family ever had a seizure
?’
I think really hard but I'm so weak I can hardly lift my arms. A seizure
?
Well, Fan Zhaoxia's father frequently passed out on the street, foaming at the mouth and suffering from violent spasms, and I heard people say those were seizures. But no one in my family had them, not even when my mother was furious with my father or me. I shake my head and struggle to prop myself into a seated position with arms as weak as limp noodles
. ‘
It could have been a symptomatic seizure caused by emotional trauma
,’
the woman says to the man
. ‘
What kind of traumatic experience can someone with a simple intellectual life have
?’
He is not convinced. Fuck you
!
I fume inwardly. What do you know about my so-called simple intellectual life
?
My life is complex as hell. The woman raises her voice
. ‘
Avoid heights, don't go in the water, do not drive a car or a motorbike and no riding horses
’
I understand every word but I doubt that the look on my face shows it
. ‘
Let's go, Tiangua
’
the man says
. ‘
The opera is about to begin
’
Tiangua
?
My heart lurches as an avalanche of memories thuds into my head. Is it even remotely possible that the slim-waisted, long-legged university student
with shoulder-length hair, finely formed features and kind heart is Lao Lan's daughter, the girl with the dull, colourless hair, Tiangua
?
She has developed into quite a young woman. There's really no telling what a girl will look like when she grows up. Tiangua
!
It could have been me calling out or it could have been the crumbling Horse God. I hope it was me, because they say that if the Horse God calls out to a pretty girl and she makes the mistake of responding
—
she'll have a hard time escaping from a debilitating fate. This time she turns to see who called her name. I mean absolutely nothing to her, so she can't possibly have expected to see the swaggering Luo Xiaotong of her childhood, not in the current state, a barely conscious beggar
—
I'm not a beggar but I'm sure that's what she and her boyfriend think
—
lying on the floor of a broken-down temple recovering from some kind of seizure. She stands there, her belly up against the face of the Wise Monk, who doesn't flinch. She doesn't seem to think anything of it as she leans forward, reaches out and strokes the Horse Spirit's neck
. ‘
Have you read the Wutong story in
Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio?’
she asks her friend without turning to look at him.
‘
No
,’
he says with evident embarrassment.
‘
We only studied our textbooks so we could get into college. The competition was brutal, since the required test scores were so incredibly high
.’ ‘
What do you know about the Wutong
?’
she turns to asks him, a mischievous grin on her face
. ‘
Nothing
.’ ‘
That's what I thought
’ ‘
So what is it
?’
he asks
. ‘
No wonder the writer Pu Songling said
“
After Wan's success with weapons, the area of Wu had no trouble with the remnants of the Wutong spirit
,’”
she teases
. ‘
Huh
?’
is all he can manage. She smiles
. ‘
Forget it. But look here. She holds out her mud-stained hand. See
?
The Horse Sprit is sweating
.’
He takes her hand and leads her out of the temple. She turns to look back, reluctant to leave, and though she is looking at the idol, she's talking to me when she says
: ‘
You should go to a hospital. You're not about to die but you do need some medical attention
.’
My nose begins to ache, in part out of gratitude and in part over the vicissitudes of life. More and more people have joined the crowd outside, including the very old and the very young, bringing with them stools to sit on, assembling from both sides of the road and the cultivated fields behind the temple. What I find strange is that there isn't a single vehicle on the usually busy road, a departure that can only be explained if the police have cordoned it off. I wonder why they haven't erected the stage in the open field across the way instead of on the cramped temple grounds. Nothing is the way it should
be, nothing makes sense. I look up and there's Lao Lan, his arm in a sling and a gauze bandage covering his left eye, looking like a defeated soldier, walking up to the temple from the cornfield behind us, escorted by Huang Biao. The girl they'd named Jiaojiao runs happily ahead of them, holding a fresh ear of corn she's just picked. Her mother, Fan Zhaoxia, cautions her
: ‘
Slow down, honey, you could trip and fall
.’
A middle-aged man in an undershirt, holding a folding fan and smiling broadly, runs up to greet the new arrivals
: ‘
Boss Lan, how good of you to come
.’
A man next to Lao Lan makes the introductions
: ‘
This is Troupe Leader Jiang of the Qingdao Opera Troupe. He's a true artist
.’ ‘
You can see why I can't shake your hand, Lao Lan says. My apologies
’ ‘
There's no need for you to apologize, General Manager. The troupe survives on your support
’ ‘
We help each other
,’
Lao Lan replies
. ‘
Tell your actors to put on a good show to thank the Meat God and the Wutong Spirit. I offended the gods by firing a gun in front of the temple and got what I deserved
’. ‘
Don't you worry, General Manager, we'll sing our hearts out
.’
Electricians with tool bags over their shoulders climb ladders to instal stage lighting, and watching them go up and down reminds me of the brothers who did electrical work back in Slaughterhouse Village years before. How things have changed. The surroundings are the same but not the people. I, Luo Xiaotong, have sunk to the lowest tier of society and am pretty well assured of never being able to turn my life round. My abilities do not extend beyond sitting in this dilapidated temple, propping up a body exhausted by the occurrence of what might have been an epileptic seizure and relating dusty old stories to a Wise Monk whose body is like rotting wood
—

A large, gleaming purplish red coffin rested in Lao Lan's living room. In it lay a fancy urn full of bones. Why go to all that trouble? I wondered. But then Lao Lan knelt by the coffin and smacked it with his hand as he keened, and I got my answer. A hand on an empty coffin was the only way to create such a soul-stirring sound; only a grand coffin suited the sight of the imposing Lao Lan kneeling alongside; and only a coffin of that grandeur was capable of encapsulating the appropriately sombre atmosphere. I had no way of knowing if my conjectures were correct, because what happened later made me lose all interest in this train of thought.

I sat at the head of the coffin, draped in hempen mourning attire. Tiangua sat at the opposite end, similarly clad. A clay pot for burning spirit money had been placed in the space between us. She and I lit sheets of yellow paper
embossed like money from the flame of the bean-oil lamp resting atop the coffin and fed them into the clay pot, where they quickly turned to white ash and swirls of smoke. The stifling heat of that lunar July day, coupled with the rope-belted hempen cloth I was swathed in and the fire in the pot made the sweat spill from my pores. I looked at Tiangua—she was in a similar state. We took turns removing sheets of paper from the stack in front of us and burning them. Her sober expression was short on grief and there were no signs of tears on her cheeks; perhaps she had no more tears to shed. I was faintly aware of talk that the woman in the casket wasn't her birth mother and that she'd been bought from a human trafficker. Another rumour had it that she was born of an affair between Lao Lan and a young woman in another village, then brought back to be raised by his wife. I kept looking at her and at the face of the woman in the framed photograph behind the coffin but saw no resemblance. Then I compared her with Lao Lan and saw no resemblance there either, so perhaps she had been bought from a human trafficker after all.

Mother walked up with a cool wet towel and wiped my sweaty face. ‘Don't burn it too fast,’ she whispered. ‘Just enough to keep the fire going.’

She folded the towel, walked over to Tiangua and wiped her face as well. Tiangua looked up at Mother and rolled her eyes. She should have thanked her but she didn't.

Intrigued by our burning of the spirit money, Jiaojiao tiptoed over and crouched down next to me. Picking up a sheet, she tossed it into the clay pot and whispered: ‘Could we barbecue meat in that?’

‘No,’ I said.

The two newspaper photographers we'd hired walked in from the yard, one carrying a video camera, the other a light, to film the activity round the bier. Mother rushed up to take Jiaojiao outside; she balked and Mother had to grab her under her arms and drag her away.

Since I was being filmed, I affected a sombre expression as I placed a sheet of paper into the bowl. Tiangua did the same. After turning his lens to the fire, nearly touching the flames, the cameraman moved first to my face and then to Tiangua's. Next my hands, then her hands and from there to the coffin. Finally, to the framed picture of the deceased, which drew my attention back to the pale, oversized face on the wall. There was sadness in Aunty Lan's
eyes, belying the trace of a smile on her lips, and as I stared at her I became aware that she was staring at me. I was awestruck by how much was hidden in her gaze; I looked away, first to the reporters in the doorway and then to Tiangua, who sat head-down, looking stranger to me by the minute. She grew less like a person and more like some sort of sprite, while the real Tiangua died along with her mother (birth mother or not, it didn't matter). What filled my eyes next was a funeral cart pulled by four horses along a broad dirt road heading southwest from their yard, carrying Aunty Lan and Tiangua, their baggy white attire billowing like butterfly wings.

At noontime, Huang Biao's wife called Tiangua and me into the kitchen; there, she laid out a platter of meatballs, a winter melon soup with ham and a basket of steamed buns for the two of us and Jiaojiao. I didn't have much of an appetite—the day was hot and I'd spent most of the morning breathing in smoke from the burning paper. But Tiangua and my sister wolfed down their food—a meatball washed down with a spoonful of soup, followed by a bite from a steamed bun. They ate without looking at each other, as if engaged in an eating contest. Lao Lan walked in before we'd finished. He hadn't combed his hair or shaved, his clothes were rumpled, his eyes were bloodshot and he looked utterly dejected.