Song Fanping walked alongside Song Gang. As they walked past the Lis they paused, and Song Fanping turned to nod to Li Lan. Song Gang imitated his father and nodded to Baldy Li. Li Lan then took Baldy Li by the hand and followed along at the end of the funeral procession, which marched slowly down the stone paved roads out of Liu Town and onto the dirt road in the countryside.
Baldy Li and his mother followed those weeping people for a very long time, until they eventually arrived at an open grave. As the coffin was lowered into the ground the soft weeping became loud wails. Li Lan stood with her basket and Baldy Li to one side and watched while the mourners shoveled the dirt into the grave until it became a mound. The wailing once again became soft weeping, whereupon Song Fanping turned around, came toward Li Lan and Baldy Li, and gazed at Li Lan through tear-filled eyes as he took the basket from her hands. He then returned to the grave and placed the paper ingots and coins on top of the fresh grave and lit them with a match. Once the paper money started burning brightly, the weeping broke out again. Baldy Li saw that his mother was also weeping, as though her heart were broken, as she remembered her own misfortunes.
Then they all walked a very long way until they finally got back to town. Li Lan was still carrying her basket and holding her sons hand, following behind everyone. Song Fanping, up front, repeatedly turned around to look at the mother and son. When they neared Li Lan s alley, Song Fanping paused and waited for Li Lan and Baldy Li to walk up. He spoke to Li Lan in a low voice, inviting them to come to his house for a tofu meal in memory of the deceased. This was a custom of the town.
Li Lan shook her head hesitantly, then walked with Baldy Li down their alley and into their home. After having walked for almost the whole day, Baldy Li fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. Li Lan sat alone, staring out the window. At dusk someone knocked at the door. Waking from her reverie, Li Lan went to open the door and found Song Fanping standing outside.
His sudden appearance startled Li Lan. She didn't notice the basket in his hand, and even forgot to ask him to come in. Out of habit, she lowered her head. When Song Fanping took food out of the basket and handed it to her, she saw that he had brought them the tofu meal. She timidly accepted the dishes that Song Fanping placed in her hands and deftly poured the food into her own bowls. She quickly rinsed out the dishes, but when she returned them to Song Fanping, her hands began to shake again. Song Fanping put his plates in his basket and turned to leave, and once again Li Lan bowed her head. Only when Song Fan-pings footsteps could no longer be heard did she realize that she hadn't even asked him in. By the time she lifted her head, Song Fanping had disappeared from sight.
CHAPTER 5
BALDY LI didn't really know how Song Gangs father got together with his mother. By the time he learned that this man's name was Song Fanping, he was about seven.
One summer evening, Li Lan led Baldy Li to the barbershop, where he was shaved to the proper degree of baldness. Then she took him to the basketball court across from the movie theater. This was the only lighted court in Liu Town, and everyone called it the Light Court. That evening, Liu Town was playing a neighboring town, and more than a thousand men and women shuffled in in their slippers to form concentric circles around the court, looking like mounds of dirt around a giant ditch. The men were smoking, and the women were cracking watermelon seeds. The nearby trees were full of screaming children, while foul-mouthed men crowded the wall behind. There wasn't a spare spot along the entire wall as the people below struggled to climb up and the people on top kept kicking them back down.
It was here that the two boys spoke to each other for the first time. Song Gang was wearing a white sleeveless shirt and blue shorts, had a runny nose, and was holding on to Li Lan s clothes. Li Lan caressed the top of his head, his face, and his slender neck, looking as though she wanted to eat him up. Then she pulled the two kids together and chattered on and on, but it was so noisy the boys couldn't make out a thing she was saying. Watermelon seeds and cigarette smoke were flying everywhere, and a fight had broken out over by the wall, where one of the tree branches had snapped and dumped two kids to the ground. Li Lan was still chattering at them, and finally they were able to make out what she was saying.
Li Lan pointed at Song Gang and said to Baldy Li, "This is your older brother. His name is Song Gang."
Baldy Li nodded to the boy and repeated, "Song Gang."
Li Lan then pointed at Baldy Li and said to Song Gang, "This is your younger brother. His name is Baldy Li."
When Song Gang heard Baldy Li's nickname, he broke out into peals of laughter as he stared at the younger boys shiny bald head. "Your name is Baldy Li? That's hilarious!"
But suddenly Song Gang started to bawl as a man burned his arm with his cigarette. When Baldy Li saw Song Gang bawling, he was amused and almost laughed out loud, until another mans cigarette burned him on the neck and he started bawling as well.
At that point the game began. Under the brilliant lights of the court and amid the cyclones of sound, Song Fanping shone. Li Lan was astounded by his height, strength, jumps, and skills. She yelled until she was hoarse and her eyes were bloodshot. Every time Song Fanping made a basket, he would run past them, his arms extended as if he were flying. Once he even dunked the ball. In his entire life he managed to dunk only once, and this was that time. For the thousand spectators crowded around the court, this was also the first and only time they witnessed a dunk. The deafening roar suddenly died away, and people stood slack-jawed, looking at one another as if trying to confirm what they had just witnessed. Then the waves of human voices roared back all around the court. It hadn't been this loud even back when the Japanese invaded.
Stunned by his own dunk, Song Fanping stood frozen for a moment under the net. After he realized what he had accomplished, he ran toward Li Lan and the kids, flushed and wide-eyed. He spread his arms and lifted Song Gang and Baldy Li high into the sky, then he ran with them toward the basket and would have joyfully tossed them in if they hadn't been crying so loudly. Fortunately, he eventually recalled that they weren't basketballs and, chuckling, ran back and set them down. Still lost in the moment, he then lifted Li Lan. In front of a thousand people, he lifted her up as waves of laughter washed over them. Every variety of laugh could be heard: bellows, titters, shrieks, chuckles, guffaws, cackles, dry and wet laughs.
In those days, to see a man embracing a woman was tantamount to watching an adult film today. After Song Fanping put Li Lan down, he ran with arms extended back into the game. Now that she had starred in her adult film, Li Lan was perceived in a completely different light, and for the rest of the game half the spectators watched the match while the other half stared at her curiously. They recalled the man who had died while peeping at women's naked bottoms, and they pointed out that she had been his wife. Li Lan, meanwhile, was lost in her own happiness. Tears in her eyes, lips trembling, she no longer cared what anyone else said.
After the game, Song Fanping removed his sweat-soaked jersey and Li Lan held it up to her breast, as if it were something precious. The four of them then walked over to a soda shop. By the time they were seated, the sweat from Song Fanping's jersey had soaked through Li Lan's white blouse, but she was blissfully unaware that her breasts were now completely visible. Song Fanping ordered two bowls of mung bean ice and two bottles of soda. Baldy Li and Song Gang both dug in. Song Fanping opened the cold bottles of soda and passed one to Li Lan as he gulped down the other. Li Lan didn't drink hers but instead pushed it back to Song Fanping, who paused for a second, then picked it up and gulped it down, too. The two of them sat gazing at each other, no longer paying any attention to their children. Song Fanping couldn't help staring at Li Lan's breasts, and she kept looking at his bare chest — his wide shoulders and cut muscles making her blush.