‘Lao Luo,’ she shouted towards the eastern wing as she wiped the sweat from her brow, ‘come out here and give me a hand.’
Even as the afternoon sun blazed down I remained at the head of the coffin, mechanically tossing paper money into the clay pot, gazing out at the excitement in the yard and casting an occasional glance at Tiangua; she was yawning, barely able to stay awake. Jiaojiao had run off somewhere. Huang Biao's wife, full of energy and reeking of meat, busied herself like a whirlwind, shuttling back and forth in the hall. Lao Lan was in the next room, holding forth loudly—I couldn't say who he was speaking to, given the dizzying number of people who had come and gone. The house was like a command centre, replete with staff officers, clerks, assistants, local officials, society bigwigs, enlightened gentry and more. Father emerged from the eastern wing, bent over at the waist, with a dark look on his face. Mother had shed her coat and was now wearing only a white shirt tucked into a black skirt. Her face was as red as a laying hen. As she surveyed the two teams of paper artisans, she pointed to Father, who was as wooden as she was efficient and passionate, and said: ‘He'll pay you.’ Without a word, Father turned and re-entered the eastern wing; the two craftsmen exchanged a brief disdainful look before following him in. By then Mother was talking to Yao Qi, the musicians and the monks. Her voice, loud and shrill, pounded against my eardrums. I felt my eyelids grow heavy.
I must have dozed off; the next time I looked into the yard, all the paper figures had been squeezed together to make room for a pair of tables and a dozen or more folding chairs. The blistering sun was now hidden behind clouds. A July day, like the face of a woman, is always apt to change, or so they say. Huang Biao's wife went out into the yard. ‘Please, please,’ I heard her say when she returned, ‘please don't rain!’
‘You can't stop the rain from falling or your mother from marrying,’ said a woman in a white robe. Her hair newly permed, her lips painted black, her face covered with pimples, she had materialized in the doorway. ‘Where's General Manager Lan?’ she asked.
Huang Biao's wife looked the new arrival up and down.
‘So, it's you, Fan Zhaoxia,’ she remarked disdainfully. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Are you inferring that you're welcome but I'm not,’ Fan replied with the same disdain. ‘Boss Lan called and asked for a shave.’
‘That's a lie, and you know it, Fan Zhaoxia,’ hissed Huang Biao's wife. ‘He hasn't eaten in two days, hasn't even touched water. Shaving is the last thing on his mind.’
‘Really?’ Fan said icily. ‘It was him on the phone. I recognized his voice.’
‘You're sure you're not hallucinating?’ asked Huang Biao's wife. ‘That would explain everything.’
‘Why don't you cool off?’ Fan Zhaoxia spit in contempt. ‘Her body's still warm and you're already acting like you're in charge.’ She tried to walk into the room with her barber's kit, only to be stopped by Huang Biao's wife who spread her arms and legs to block the way. ‘Move!’ Fan demanded.
Huang Biao's wife looked at her feet and pointed with her chin. ‘There's a tunnel for you.’
‘You bitch!’ Fan cursed angrily as she aimed a kick at the woman's crotch.
‘How dare you!’ shrieked Huang Biao's wife. She lunged at Fan and grabbed a handful of her hair; Fan retaliated by grabbing Huang Biao's breast.
Huang Biao took notice of the frenetic activity in the yard when he walked in through the gate with his basket of cooking utensils. But when he spotted the catfight between two women—one of them his wife—he shouted, threw down his basket, sending the pots and pans crashing loudly to the ground, and joined the fray, fists and feet. But his blows were seriously off target, and he wound up kicking his wife in the buttocks and punching her in the shoulder.
A relative of Fan Zhaoxia's ran up to even the odds, quickly driving his shoulder into Huang Biao. One of the strongest porters at the train station, the man had muscles like steel and shoulders that could carry five hundred pounds. His shove sent Huang Biao stumbling backward, until he sat down hard next to his basket. Infuriated, he began hurling plates and bowls, filling the air with flying porcelain, some thudding into the wall, some landing amid the crowds of people, some shattering and some rolling across the ground. My kind of fun!
Lao Lan appeared at that moment. ‘Stop it,’ he said, ‘all of you!’
Like a hawk flying into the forest and quieting the birds or a tiger leaving its den and sending animals into hiding, one shout from him was all it took. ‘Are you people here to help me,’ he asked hoarsely, ‘or to take advantage of a bad situation? Do you really think you've seen the last of Lao Lan?’
With that, he turned and left. The two scuffling women stopped fighting and merely glared at each with loathing. They both needed to catch their breath and nurse their wounds. Fan Zhaoxia was missing a handful of hair and a piece of her scalp. Huang Biao's wife's robe was missing its buttons; it lay open like a torn flag, exposing the tops of her scratched breasts.
Mother entered. ‘All right,’ she said to the women in icy tones, ‘you can leave now.’
Out in the yard, the monks—seven altogether—and the musicians—also seven—took their places, like competing teams, under the direction of their leaders. The monks took seats at the table to the west, on which they laid their wooden fish, their chimes and their cymbals. The musicians took seats at the other table, on which they laid their horns, their suonas and their eighteen-holed flutes. The leading monk wore a saffron cassock, the others grey. The musicians’ clothes were so tattered that we could see the abdomens of at least three of them. When the large wooden bell in Lao Lan's house was struck three times, Mother turned to Yao Qi. ‘Begin,’ she said.
From his position between the two tables, Yao Qi raised his arms like a conductor. ‘Begin, Shifu!’ he announced as he dropped his arms flamboyantly, thoroughly enjoying his moment as the centre of attention. It should have been me out there, but I was stuck inside, acting the dutiful son at the head of the coffin. Shit!
At Yao Qi's signal, two kinds of music erupted across the yard. On this side, the clap-clap of wooden fish and the clang of chimes and cymbals and the drone of chanted sutras. Along with that, a dirge with horns and woodwinds and flutes. A mournful sound indeed. As a murky dusk settled outside, the room grew dark, the only light a green sparkle from the bean-oil. I saw a woman's face in that light, and after staring at it for a few moments, I recognized it as Lao Lan's wife. Ghostly pale and bleeding from every orifice. ‘Look, Tiangua!’ I whispered, scared witless.
But she had dozed off, her head slumped onto her chest, like a chick resting against a wall. A chill ran down my spine, my hairs stood on end and my bladder threatened to burst, all good reasons to leave my post at the bier. Wetting my pants would surely be disrespectful towards the deceased! So I grabbed a handful of paper, threw it into the pot, jumped to my feet and ran out into the yard where I breathed in the fresh air before heading to the latrine next to the kennel and opening the floodgates with a shudder. The leaves on the plane tree quivered in the wind, but I could hear neither the wind nor the leaves, for both were drowned by the music and the chants. I watched the reporter taking shot after shot of the musicians and the monks.