All the late-arriving mourners were people of means and power, most of them officials in the county; a few were Ximen Jinlong’s friends from other counties. Villagers braved the cold to stand outside the gate waiting for the clamor that would accompany the emergence of the coffin. Over those several days everyone seemed to forget about me, so I just hung around with Dog Two, strolling here and there. Your son fed me twice: once he tossed me a steamed bun, the other time he tossed me some frozen chicken wings. I ate the bun, but not the wings. Sad events from the past as Ximen Nao kept rising up from deep in my memory. Forgetting sometimes that I was in my fourth reincarnation, I felt myself to be the head of this household, a man whose wife had just died; at other times I understood that the yin and the yang were different worlds, and that the affairs of the human world were unrelated to me, a dog.
Most of the people out to watch the procession were elderly, or were snot-nosed little children; the younger men and women were working in town. The oldsters told the children all about how Ximen Nao had seen his own mother off in a four-inch-thick cypress coffin carried by twenty-four strong men. The funeral streamers and wreaths had stood in an unbroken line on both sides of the street, and every fifty paces a tent had been thrown up to accommodate roadside sacrifices of whole pigs, watermelons, oversize steamed buns… I didn’t stick around to hear any more. Those were memories too painful to recall. I was now a dog only, one who did not have many more years in him. The officials who had decided to attend the interment were all wearing black overcoats with black scarves. Some – the bald or balding – were sporting black marten caps. Those without caps had full heads of hair. The snow covering their heads beautifully matched the white paper flowers in their lapels.
At noon a Red Flag sedan, followed by a black Audi, drove up to the Ximen compound. Ximen Jinlong, in mourning attire, rushed out to greet the new arrival. The driver opened the door, and out stepped Pang Kangmei in a black wool overcoat. Her face looked even fairer than usual, owing to the contrast with her coat. Deep wrinkles at the corners of her mouth and eyes were new since the last time I’d seen her. A man, probably her secretary, pinned a white funeral flower to her coat. Though she cut an imposing figure, a look of deep sadness filled her eyes, undetectable by most people. She held out her hand, encased in a black glove, and greeted Jinlong, who took her hand in his. Her comment was pregnant with hidden meaning:
“Keep your grief under control, be calm, don’t lose your cool!”
Jinlong, looking equally solemn, nodded.
The good girl Pang Fenghuang followed Kangmei out of the car. Already taller than her mother, she was not only beautiful but fashionable, with a white down jacket over blue jeans and a pair of white lambskin loafers. She wore a white wool-knit cap on her head and no makeup – she didn’t need to.
“This is your uncle Ximen,” Kangmei said to her daughter.
“How do you do, Uncle?” Fenghuang said reluctantly.
“I want you to go up to Grandma’s coffin and kowtow,” Kangmei said with deep emotion. “She helped raise you.”
I imagined that there were fifteen thousand RMB in the coffin, spread all around, not tied in bundles, ready to fly out when the lid was removed. It worked. I strode into the yard, holding Chunmiao by the arm; I could feel her stumbling along behind me, like a child being dragged along against her will. I burst into the room, where I was immediately confronted by a mahogany coffin whose lid was standing against the wall, waiting to be placed on top – after my arrival. A dozen or so people were standing around the coffin, some in mourning attire, some in street clothes. I knew that most of them were PLA in disguise, and that in a moment they were going to pin me to the floor. I saw Blue Face’s mother lying in the coffin, her face covered by a sheet of yellow paper. Her purple funeral clothes were made of satin with dark gold longevity characters sewn in. I fell to my knees in front of the coffin.
“Mother,” I wailed, “your unfilial son has come too late…”
Your mother’s coffin finally emerged through the gateway, accompanied by the mournful wails of those who survived her and funeral music provided by a renowned peasant musician’s troupe. Excitement spread among the bystanders, who had waited a long time for this moment. The musicians were preceded by two men carrying long bamboo poles to clear the way ahead. White mourning cloth hung from the ends of the poles, like antisparrow poles. They were followed by ten or fifteen boys carrying funeral banners, for which they would be richly rewarded, reason enough for them to beam happily. Behind this youthful honor guard came two men who covered the procession route with spirit money Next came a four-man purple canopy protecting your mother’s spirit tablet, on which, in ancient script, was written: “Wife of Ximen Nao, Surnamed Bai, called Yingchun.” Everyone who saw this tablet knew that Ximen Jinlong had established his mother’s lineage as the deceased spouse not of Lan Lian but of his biological father, Ximen Nao, and not as concubine but as legal wife. This, of course, was highly unconventional, for a remarried woman was normally not entitled to interment near her original husband’s family graves. But Jinlong broke with this tradition. Then came your mother’s mahogany casket, followed by the direct descendants of the deceased, all walking with willow lamentation canes. Your son, Ximen Huan, and Ma Gaige had simply thrown a white funeral sackcloth over their street clothes and wrapped their heads in white fabric. Each supported his grieving mother, all shedding silent tears. Jinlong trailed his lamentation cane behind him, stopping frequently to go down on his knees and wail, shedding red tears. Baofeng’s voice was raspy, all but inaudible. Her eyes were glassy and her mouth hung open, but there were no tears or sounds. Your son, with his lean frame, had to support the entire weight of your wife, requiring the assistance of some of the other mourners. She wasn’t walking to the cemetery, she was being carried along. Huzhu’s loose black hair caught everyone’s attention. Normally worn in a braid and encased in a black net, now, in accordance with funeral protocol, she let it fall loosely around her shoulders, like a black cataract spreading out on the ground, muddying the tips. A distant niece of the deceased, who had her wits about her, trotted ahead, scooped up Huzhu’s hair, and laid it across her bent elbow. Many of the bystanders were whispering comments regarding Huzhu’s miraculous hair. Someone said, Ximen Jinlong lives amid a cloud of beautiful women, but he won’t ask his wife for a divorce. Why? Because the life he lives has been bestowed upon him by his wife. It is her miraculous hair that has brought him wealth and prosperity.
Pang Kangmei walked hand in hand with Pang Fenghuang with the group of dignitaries, behind the direct descendants. She was but three months away from being tried for a double offense. Her term of office had ended, but she had not yet been reassigned, which was a sure sign that trouble was brewing for her. Why, then, had she chosen to participate in a funeral that would later become a major expose by the news media? Now, I was a dog who had experienced many of life’s vicissitudes, but this was too complicated a problem for me to figure out. Nonetheless, I think the answer lay not in anything involving Kangmei herself, but must have been tied to Pang Fenghuang, a charming but rebellious girl who was, after all your mother’s granddaughter.
“Mother, your unfilial son has come too late…” After I shouted my line, all of Mo Yan’s instructions disappeared without a trace, as did my awareness that I was acting the part of Blue Face in a TV series. I had a hallucination – no, it wasn’t a hallucination, it was a real-life feeling that the person lying in the coffin in funeral clothes with a sheet of yellow paper covering her face was, in fact, my mother. Images of the last time I’d seen her, six years earlier, flashed before my eyes, and one side of my face swelled up and felt hot. There’d been a ringing in my ears after my father had slapped me with the sole of his shoe. What my eyes took in here – my mother’s white hair; her face, awash in murky tears; her sunken, toothless mouth; her age-spotted, veiny, nearly useless hands; her prickly-ash cane, which lay on the floor; her anguished cry as she tried to protect me – all this appeared before me, and tears gushed from my eyes. Mother, I’ve come too late. Mother, how did you manage to get through the days with an unfilial son who was cursed and spat on for what he did? And yet your son’s filial feelings toward you have never wavered. Now I’ve brought Chunmiao to see you, Mother, so please accept her as your daughter-in-law…