Trembling, Li Lan stood up; trembling, she opened the door; trembling, she walked out. With unimaginable difficulty she approached the coffin, where she saw her husbands broken calves placed atop his thighs, as if they were someone else's. She teetered a few times but didn't collapse. She didn't see Song Fanping's shattered knees, since they had already placed his calves in his pants legs, but she saw the broken shards of bone and the bits of flesh that had stuck to the sides of the coffin. Li Lan grasped the coffin with both hands and looked with infinite longing at Song Fanping. Despite his contorted visage, she could still make out his former liveliness, his smile, and recall the way in which he would turn around and wave. Now he walked alone along an empty road, in a landscape devoid of mortals — the love of Li Lan's life was rushing down to the netherworld.
From where they were sitting on the bed, Baldy Li and Song Gang could hear Li Lan's voice tremble as she said, "You can close it now."
CHAPTER 20
BALDY LI and Song Gang never understood how Li Lan managed to be so strong, from the time she emerged from the longdistance bus depot and saw Baldy Li and Song Gang wailing, to when she knelt on the ground gathering up the blood-soaked earth, to witnessing Song Fanpings battered corpse, to buying a thin-planked coffin, to letting the four men from the coffin shop smash up Song Fanpings knees. Through all that she never once cried out loud. As they listened to Song Fanpings legs being smashed, several times Baldy Li and Song Gang opened their mouths and were about to cry out, but then they remembered Li Lan had told them that they shouldn't cry and promptly shut them again.
That night Li Lan prepared a tofu dinner, as was the custom of Liu Town. She cooked a giant pot of tofu and placed it in the center of the table, along with a bowl of greens. As night fell they lit their lamp and the three of them sat at the table, with Song Fanpings coffin just to the side. On top of his coffin was a small kerosene lamp, meant to illuminate Song Fanpings way to the netherworld.
Li Lan did not say a single word the entire afternoon. Baldy Li and Song Gang also didn't dare speak, so the house remained ghostly and silent. Only when Li Lan started to cook did the children hear some clattering and see the steam rising from the pot. This was the first time Li Lan had cooked at home since returning from Shanghai. Her tears streamed down as she stood in front of the kerosene stove, but not once did she raise her hand to wipe them away. As she placed the giant bowls of tofu and greens on the table Baldy Li and Song Gang saw that her tears were still gushing forth, and she continued weeping as she filled their bowls with rice. Then she turned to get the chopsticks with a dreamlike expression on her face. Weeping, she sat on the bench and stared down in confusion at the sticks in her hands. Song Gang whispered, "Those are the chopsticks of the ancients."
Through her tears she looked at the boys, and they told her the story of the chopsticks. At last she raised her hand, wiped the tears from her face, and then handed Baldy Li and Song Gang the chopsticks of the ancients. Softly she said, "These chopsticks of the ancients are wonderful."
When she said this, she turned and smiled slightly at the coffin. Her smile was as warm and familiar as if Song Fanping had been sitting right there watching her. Then she took up her rice bowl and her tears flowed anew. Sobbing, she ate soundlessly. Baldy Li saw that Song Gangs tears were also flowing into his rice bowl, and so he couldn't help crying, too. The three of them wept and ate in silence.
The morning after their tofu dinner, Li Lan solemnly washed her face and combed her hair. After she had tidied herself up, she took Baldy Li and Song Gangs hands and walked proudly outside. She led the two children through the streets awash in Cultural Revolution flags and slogans, walking as though they were alone on the street. She ignored all the people pointing at her. First she went to the fabric store, and while everyone else was buying red cloth to make flags and armbands, Li Lan instead purchased some black sash and white cloth. The clerks regarded her with curiosity. Someone recognized her as Song Fanping's wife and walked up to her, fists raised, shouting, "Down with counterrevolutionaries!" With equanimity she paid with her last bit of cash, rolled up the sash and cloth, and walked out of the store hugging the fabric close to her chest.
Grasping on to Li Lan s shirt, Baldy Li and Song Gang followed her into the photography studio. As she received the photograph her hands would not stop trembling; she hugged the photograph close to her chest, along with the black sash and white cloth, and continued her proud journey down the main street. At that moment she had forgotten that Baldy Li and Song Gang were following. Her head was filled with images of Song Fanping, instructing the photographer on how to position the lights and when to press the shutter, and all four of them happily walking out of the studio toward the bus depot. It was at the depot that she last waved goodbye to Song Fanping, and this was the final image she had of him. By the time she had returned from Shanghai, Song Fanping was no longer.
Li Lan pressed on, resisting the urge to take the family portrait out of the envelope she held in her trembling hands. She forced herself to walk proudly until she reached the bridge, where the parading masses blocked her way. She, of course, didn't know that Song Fanping had once stood here, gloriously waving a giant red flag, but once she stopped, she could not control herself any longer and removed the photograph. The first thing she noticed was Song Fanpings open smile, and before she could make out the other three smiling faces, she had collapsed. For three days she had borne this horrible tragedy with dignity and reserve, but now Song Fanpings smile in the photograph completely undid her.
Baldy Li and Song Gang were still holding on to her shirttails when suddenly she disappeared. Standing before them was a man with an astonished expression. The boys then noticed that Li Lan had fallen to the ground, and they cried as they squatted, nudging her. She, however, merely lay there with her eyes closed, unresponsive. Baldy Li and Song Gang burst out in terrified wails as more and more people gathered around. The two boys knelt beside Li Lan, believing that they were now all alone in this world. Weeping, they begged the bystanders to save their mother, not realizing that she had merely fainted. They sobbed as they asked, "Why has Mama fallen down?"
Everyone was talking at the same time, then one suggested, "Flip up her eyelids. Are her pupils dilated?"
Baldy Li and Song Gang rushed to flip open her eyelids. They looked at her eyes but didn't know exactly which were her pupils. Looking up, they answered, "They're very large."
This man said, "If her pupils are dilated, she's probably dead."
When the boys heard this, they clutched each other and cried even louder. Another man bent down, saying, "Stop crying, stop crying. You kids don't even know what pupils are. Feel for her pulse. If you can feel her pulse, then you know she isn't dead."
Baldy Li and Song Gang immediately stopped crying and asked anxiously, "Where do we find her pulse?"
The man extended his left hand and used his right to point it out, "Right here, on the wrist."
Baldy Li and Song Gang each grabbed one of Li Lan's hands and started feeling her wrists. The man asked them, "Do you feel anything?"
Baldy Li shook his head. "Nothing."
Baldy Li looked nervously at Song Gang, who also shook his head. "Nothing."
The man stood back up, concluding, "Then she probably is dead."
Baldy Li and Song Gang now felt that they had lost all hope. They opened their mouths and wailed. After a while they paused, then burst out again. Song Gang sobbed, "Papas dead. Now Mamas dead, too."