Your mother’s grave was located at the southern end of Lan Lian’s notorious plot of land. Ximen Jinlong was not daring enough to open the tomb in which Ximen Nao and Ximen Bai were buried together, and that served to save a bit of face for his adoptive father and mother-in-law. Instead he built a splendid tomb to the left of his biological parents’ tomb. The stone doors seemed to open onto a deep, dark passage. The tomb was surrounded by an impenetrable wall of excited bystanders. I looked at the donkey’s grave, and at the ox’s grave, and the pig’s grave, and at a dog’s grave, and I looked at the ground, trampled into a rock-hard surface. A succession of thoughts crowded my mind. I could smell the sizzling spray of urine on Ximen Nao and Ximen Bai’s markers from years back, and my heart was struck by apocalyptic feelings of doom. I walked slowly over to the pig’s burial site and sprayed it. Then I lay down beside it, and as my eyes swelled with tears, I reflected: descendants of the Ximen family and those associated closely with it, I hope you will be able to discern my wishes and bury the dog-body of this incarnation in the spot I have chosen.
I nearly swooned from crying. I could hear someone shouting behind me, but could not tell what they were saying. Oh, Mother, let me see you one more time… I reached over and removed the paper covering Mother’s face; a woman who looked nothing like my mother sat up and said with extraordinary seriousness: Son, the PLA always treats its prisoners humanely, so please turn in your weapons and surrender to them! I sat down hard, my mind a blank, as the people standing around the bier swarmed up and pinned me to the ground. Cold hands reached down and pulled a pair of pistols from my waistband.
Just as your mother’s coffin was being placed in the tomb, a man in a heavy padded coat stepped out from the surrounding crowd. He staggered a bit and reeked of alcohol. As he trotted unsteadily ahead, he peeled off his padded coat and flung it behind him; it hit the ground like a dead lamb. Using both hands and feet, he climbed up onto your mother’s tomb, where he started tipping to one side and seemed in danger of slipping off altogether. But he didn’t. He stood up. Hong Taiyue! It was Hong Taiyue! He was standing, steadily now, on top of your mother’s tomb, dressed in rags: a brownish yellow army uniform, with a red detonating cap hanging from his belt. He raised a hand high in the air and shouted:
“Comrades, proletarian brothers, foot soldiers for Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Mao Zedong, the time to declare war on the descendant of the landlord class, the enemy of the worldwide proletarian movement, and a despoiler of the earth, Ximen Jinlong, has arrived!”
The crowd was stunned. For a moment everything stood still before some of the people turned and ran, others hit the ground, flat on their bellies, and some simply didn’t know what to do. Pang Kangmei pulled her daughter around behind her, looking frantic, but quickly regained her composure. She took several steps forward and said, looking unusually harsh, “Hong Taiyue, I am Pang Kangmei, secretary of the Gaomi County Communist Party Committee, and I order you to stop this idiotic behavior at once!”
“Pang Kangmei, don’t put on those stinking airs with me! Communist Party secretary, like hell! You and Ximen Jinlong are links in the same chain, in cahoots with one another in your attempt to bring capitalism back to Northeast Gaomi Township, turning a red township into a black one. You are traitors to the proletariat, enemies of the people!”
Ximen Jinlong stood up and pushed his funeral cap back on his head; it fell to the ground. As if trying to calm an angry bull, he slowly approached the tomb.
“Don’t come any closer!” Hong Taiyue shouted as he reached for the detonator fuse.
“Uncle, good uncle,” Jinlong said with a kindly smile. “You nurtured me like a son. I remember every lesson you gave me. Our society has developed along with the changing times, and everything I’ve done has befitted those changes. Tell me the truth, Uncle, over the past decade have the people’s lives gotten better or haven’t they?…”
“I don’t want to hear any more fine words from you!”
“Come down, Uncle,” Jinlong said. “If you say I’ve made a mess of things, I’ll resign and let someone more capable take over. Or, if you prefer, you can be the one holding the Ximen Village official seal.”
While this exchange between Jinlong and Hong Taiyue was playing out, the policemen who had driven Pang Kangmei and others to the funeral were crawling toward the tomb. Just as they jumped to their feet, Hong Taiyue leaped off of the tomb and wrapped his arms around Jinlong.
A muffled explosion sent smoke and the stench of blood flying into the air.
After what seemed like an eternity, the stunned crowd quickly converged on the spot and pulled the two mangled bodies apart. Jinlong had been killed instantly, but Hong was still breathing, and no one knew what to do with the mortally wounded old man. They just stood there gawping at him. His face was waxen.
“This is,” he stammered in a soft, barely audible voice as blood oozed from his mouth, “the last battle… unite for tomorrow… Internationale… has to…”
Blood spurted from his mouth, a foot-high red fountain, and splattered on the ground around him. His eyes lit up, like burning chicken feathers, once, twice, and then darkened, the fires extinguished for all time.
53
As Death Nears, Charity and Enmity Vanish
A Dog Dies, but the Wheel of Life Rolls on
I was carrying an old floor-model electric fan given to us by a colleague at the newspaper who had been promoted and was moving into new quarters. Chunmiao was carrying an old microwave oven, also a gift from that colleague. We’d just alighted from a crowded bus and were sweating profusely. It was hot and we were tired, but delighted to have these new – to us – items without having to spend a cent. It was a three-li walk from the bus stop to where we lived, but we weren’t willing to part with our limited funds to hire a pedicab, so we hoofed it, stopping frequently to rest.
Dusk was deepening when we reached our kennel-like apartment, where our fat landlady was cursing at two other tenants for using tap water to cool the street in front of the building. Those two young tenants, our next-door neighbors, were gleefully throwing curses right back at her. A tall, thin man was standing in our doorway, the blue birthmark that covered half his face looking bronzed in the twilight. I set the fan down on the ground, hard, as I was racked by a chill throughout my body.
“What is it?” Chunmiao asked.
“It’s Kaifang,” I said. “Maybe you should make yourself scarce.” “What for? It’s time to deal with the situation.” We made ourselves as presentable as possible and, trying hard to look relaxed, walked up to my son carrying our new possessions.
He was quite thin, but taller than me, and slightly stooped. Despite the heat, he was wearing a black long-sleeved shirt-jacket, black trousers, and a pair of sneakers of an indefinable color. His body gave off a sour smell; his clothes were sweat-stained. His luggage consisted solely of a transparent plastic bag. Saddened by the sight of a son who looked so much older than his years, I was on the verge of tears. I ran up to him, but the off-putting look on his face kept me from embracing him. I let my arms drop heavily to my sides.