Are you still listening, Wise Monk?
Lao Lan's wife's bier was placed in the family living room. A heavy-looking purple cinerary urn rested on a black square table and a framed black-and-white photograph of the deceased hung on the wall behind it. The head in the photograph was larger than it had been in life but what caught my attention was the trace of a wry smile at the corners of the mouth, reminding me of how nice she'd been to Jiaojiao and me when we ate at their house. How had they made it so large? I wondered. The small-town newspaper reporter who'd hired on with us was taking pictures inside and outside the house with a snap-on lens. He bent for some shots and knelt for some others. I could tell how hard he was working by the sweat stains on his white T-shirt, with the newspaper's name across the chest; it was actually sticking to his back. He'd gained so much weight since he'd joined the team that the skin on his face was taut, thanks to the added flesh underneath. His cheeks had taken on the appearance of rubber balls. I went up to him while he was putting in a new roll of film. ‘Hey, Skinny Horse,’ I said under my breath, ‘how did they make that photo on the wall so big?’
‘It's called an enlargement,’ he explained patiently. ‘If you like, I could make a picture of you as big as a camel.’
‘But I don't have a picture.’
He raised his camera, pointed it at my face, and—click. ‘Now you do. You'll have an enlargement in a couple of days, Director Luo.’
Jiaojiao ran up.
‘I want one too,’ she bawled.
He aimed his camera at her. Click.
‘Got it.’
‘I want one of the two of us,’ she said.
He aimed his camera. Click. ‘Got it.’
This made me so happy I wanted to keep chatting with him, but he was off taking more pictures. A man walked in through Lao Lan's open front door, wearing a wrinkled grey suit, a white shirt with a filthy collar, and a pink bolo tie made of fake pearls. One trouser leg was rolled up, revealing a purple sock and an orange, mud-coated leather shoe. We called him ‘Big Four’—big mouth, big eyes, big nose and big teeth. Actually, his ears were big enough for him to have been called ‘Big Five’. On his belt he wore a beeper, something we called an electric cricket at the time. Lao Lan was one of the few people within a hundred square li who owned a cellphone—the size of a brick, it was carried by Huang Biao and, although seldom used, it was quite a status symbol. While not in the same category as a cellphone, a beeper conferred status too. Big Four, the township head's brother-in-law, was also the best-known contractor of construction labour in the area. He won contracts for virtually every township project, whether a public road or a public toilet. Given to swaggering round most people, he didn't dare try that with Lao Lan or with Mother. Tucking his briefcase under his arm, he went up to my mother, nodded and bowed.
‘Director Yang…’
My mother had been promoted to serve as Huachang Corporation's office manager and assistant to the general manager, as well as chief accountant for United Meatpacking. She had on a full-length black dress with a white paper flower pinned to the breast and a pearl necklace. Shunning make-up, she wore a solemn expression and a piercing glare, like the sharp edges of a Chinese written character, like a sober eulogy, like a stately pine tree.
‘What are you doing here?’ Mother demanded. ‘Why aren't you out supervising the tomb construction?’
‘I've got gravediggers there now.’
‘You should be supervising them.’
‘I have been,’ Big Four said. ‘I wouldn't dare be careless on a job for Boss Lan. But…’
‘But what?’
He took out a notepad from his pocket: ‘Director, the gravediggers are almost finished and next comes the coffin chamber. For that we'll need three tonnes of lime, five thousand bricks, two tonnes of cement, five of sand, two cubic metres of lumber, and other odds and ends…can you advance some money for that?’
‘Don't you think you've bled us enough?’ Mother was not happy. ‘Building a tomb can't cost that much, yet you come asking for money. Use your own and get reimbursed when the job is finished.’
‘Where am I supposed to get the money?’ Big Four whined. ‘I get paid for the project in my left hand and then pass it on to the workers with my right. I'm a middleman, with nothing left over for me. Without some money now, we're looking at work delays.’
‘I can't believe I'm even talking to you,’ Mother said as she headed over to the eastern wing, with Big Four hard on her heels.
Father was sitting stony-faced behind a table on which lay a rice-paper accounts book. A brass ink box with a writing brush on top of it sat to the side. He accepted memorial gifts from a steady stream of people—cash or packets of yellow worship paper, a hundred sheets for some, two hundred for others—and entered them into his account book, while the Inspection Station's assistant head, Xiao Han, manning a squat table behind him, stamped the paper with the mark of an ancient copper coin, thus turning the paper into spirit money that could then be burnt for the deceased. Some people brought packets of actual spirit money issued by the ‘Bank of the Underworld’ and displaying the imagined likeness of King Yama, in denominations no smaller than a hundred million RMB. Picking up a billion-yuan note, Xiao Han said with a sigh: ‘Won't bills this big cause inflation down there?’
An old man named Ma Kui, who'd brought a hundred RMB in cash and two packets of worship paper, shook his head. ‘That stuff's almost useless. Only imprinted worship paper counts as money in the underworld.’
‘How do you know that?’ asked Xiao Han. ‘Have you been down there to check it out?’
‘My wife came to me in a dream and said that's considered fake money down there.’ He kicked piles of it on the floor. ‘You need to tell Lao Lan to throw it away. If she takes fake money with her, she'll be arrested as a counterfeiter.’
‘There are police down there?’ Xiao Han asked.
‘Of course there are. They've got everything we've got up here,’ Ma Kui replied confidently.
‘We've got a United Meatpacking Plant and we've got you—how about those?’
‘Don't get smart with me, young fellow. Go see for yourself if you don't believe me.’
‘Going down is the easy part. How do I get back? You'd like to see me dead, you old fart!’
Mother walked in and nodded to Ma Kui. ‘Where are you going, Inspector Han? Are you looking for a promotion?’ Mother picked up the phone before he could respond and dialled a number. ‘Is this the Finance Department? Xiao Qi, This is Yang Yuzhen. Big Four's on his way to see you. Give him five thousand RMB, and don't forget to get a receipt with his thumbprint.’
‘Make it ten thousand, Director Yang,’ Big Four said brazenly. ‘Five won't do it.’
‘Don't get greedy, Big Four,’ Mother said sharply.
‘That's not it.’ He took out his notebook. ‘Five thousand isn't nearly enough. See here. Three thousand for bricks, two thousand for lime, five thousand for lumber…’
‘Five thousand, and that's it,’ Mother cut him off.
Big Four sat down in the doorway. ‘In that case, we'll have to stop work…’
‘King Yama would tremble if he ran into the likes of you,’ Mother said as she picked up the phone again. ‘Give him eight thousand,’ she said.
‘You're an iron abacus, Director Yang. Make it an even number. After all, it's not your money.’
‘I can't authorize ten thousand precisely because it isn't my money.’
‘Lao Lan knew what he was doing when he hired you.’
‘Get out!’ Mother spat at him. ‘Just the sight of you gives me a headache!’