"What's wrong?" she asked when she saw my frightened face.
"I've broken Niang's new plates!" I sobbed.
"How many did you break?" she asked.
"Six."
"How many?!" she shouted. I wasn't sure if she hadn't quite heard me or if she couldn't believe I had broken all six. My niang had proudly shown the plates to Na-na only the day before.
I repeated the number louder, and stuck out my thumb and my little finger on my right hand to indicate the number six.
"Oh! Wo de tian na!" My god! she exclaimed, with an expression of disbelief. "How did you manage to break that many?"
I quickly told her what had happened. Niang would be so upset when she found out.
"Don't worry. I'll take care of it. You can have lunch with me." Na-na looked at me reassuringly. "You broke those plates by trying to help your niang. You're a good boy. You shouldn't be punished for this." Then she murmured to herself, "What a world we're living in now. A mother of seven has to work in the fields! I've never heard of such a thing!"
She had already cooked her lunch and was placing some food on her wooden tray as she spoke. When I saw the amount of food on the tray, I knew she only had enough for herself.
"You go ahead and finish the food," she said. "I'll wait to eat with your niang later."
I hesitated. Na-na's food was provided by my parents and my uncles and aunties. Her food was always better than ours.
"Your niang will be home any minute if you don't hurry. I wouldn't be around when she gets back if I were you!" she said.
I gobbled up her delicious bread roll quickly and ran out. When I returned home late that afternoon I found my niang very upset. I heard her sigh to my dia, "Our niang was trying to help cook our lunch. She accidentally slipped off the stool and broke all our six new plates! She is getting on in age."
"Is she all right?" Dia asked, concerned.
"Yes, miraculously she didn't hurt herself at all," my niang replied.
I was eternally thankful to my na-na for saving my skin. I quietly slipped into her house that evening and whispered in her ear, "Thank you, Na-na!"
"What?!" she shouted.
I was so afraid others might find out the truth if I said it any louder, so I just gave her a big kiss on her bony cheek and went back home.
My na-na's health became progressively worse for the next half year. My fourth brother Cunsang, who always had a special bond with her, began to sleep in the same bed to watch over her. But still she worsened-she couldn't walk, she became unable to eat, lost her bowel control and gradually slipped away from us. She died about a year after I broke the plates.
As was the local custom, her body was laid in a coffin, in her living room, for three days. The smell of incense filled our houses.
"Why does Na-na's body have to stay here for three days?" I asked my third brother Cunmao.
"In case she comes alive again."
"How can a dead person come back to life?"
He told me a story then, which he'd heard from a friend: "A couple were looked after in their old age by their only son and daughter-in-law," he began. "They were not well cared for. Most of the time they were given leftovers to eat."
"Shouldn't they have been kind to their mother and father?" I interrupted.
"Not all people are kind to their elderly as we are in our family," he continued. "One day, a distant relative of the old couple took pity on them and quietly slipped two hard-boiled eggs into their hands. They were so excited that they quickly peeled the shells off and just as they were going to eat them they heard their daughter-in-law coming towards their room. The wife told her husband to hurry up and eat his egg. Fearing their daughter- inlaw would accuse them of stealing the eggs, the old man quickly put the egg in his mouth and swallowed it whole."
"Why didn't he chew it?" I asked Cunmao.
"He didn't have any teeth left," he replied. He knew by that stage I was gripped by his story. "Let's stop here," he said. "It may be too scary for you."
"Please, please! I promise I won't get scared!" I begged.
"Only if you promise me that you won't tell our parents I've told you this story if you can't sleep at night because of it!" he said.
"I promise, I promise with all my heart!" I pounded my fist on my chest.
"You swear?" he asked.
I spat on the ground and stamped on it with my foot.
"All right," he continued. "The old man choked on the egg and instantly stopped breathing."
"Was he dead?" I gasped.
"Of course he was dead!" Cunmao replied. "So they bought him a cheap coffin and had a cheap burial. In the meantime, the old lady didn't want to remain in this world without her husband and begged her son to bury her as well."
"Did they bury her?" I asked.
"No! It's illegal to bury a live person," he replied.
I could tell the best part of the story was still to come.
"The old lady's only treasure was a pearl necklace her husband had given her and she wrapped it around his neck. She begged his soul to find a peaceful resting place and then come back to get her. The old man's son didn't wait for the three-day period. He buried his father on the first night after his death. The word spread wide about the buried treasure around the old man's neck. At midnight, a robber dug up the grave and opened the coffin. He could see the pearls reflected in the moonlight. The robber made sure the old man was truly dead before he took the necklace by punching hard on the old man's chest three times. Just as he reached for the necklace…" Cunmao stopped. "Guess what happened?"
"The old man's son showed up?" I guessed.
"Ha-ha!" Cunmao laughed heartily. "Are you sure you won't be scared?"
"I already promised you, hurry up!" I urged him.
"The old man suddenly opened his eyes wide and said in a loud voice, `What do you think you're doing, young man?` The robber, as if he had seen a ghost, jumped out of the grave and bolted away witless."
I sat there petrified to the spot. This was the last outcome I'd expected. Cunmao opened his eyes big and wide, just like the old man's.
"Why did he become alive again?" I asked, terrified, gasping for air.
"I knew you wouldn't get it!" Cunmao scoffed. "The egg got stuck in the old man's throat and when the robber punched him, the egg was knocked loose so he got his breath back. And that's why we have to leave Na-na's body here for three days in case she comes alive again too."
"Then why didn't anyone punch our na-na three times?"
"Do you think our elders would do it in front of us? Okay, go and play now."
I still had a lot of questions I wanted to ask, but I could see Cunmao had had enough of me. When I asked my second brother Cunyuan about the reason for our na-na's three-day staying, he told me it was just to allow relatives who lived far away to see her before she was buried. But I thought Cunmao's story was much more satisfying.
I was stricken with grief at Na-na's death. At the beginning I didn't mind seeing her pale, motionless face in the coffin, but as time wore on, her face turned strange and very scary. I had nightmares for several nights.
Na-na didn't want to be buried near my grandfather because his first wife was also buried there and she didn't want any fights. She said the first wife always had priority. But she did say to my parents, a few days before her death, "If there is one thing I want you to do for me when I'm dead, it is to bury me properly." She firmly believed that her spirit would live on in a different world. So my dia and uncles asked a good carpenter to make a special coffin, carved with birds, flowers, trees and water. Our youngest aunt's husband painted it, the one who was the furniture painter and had lots of photographs.