‘Douguan,’ Granddad said, ‘you don’t think your own mom’s bones are too dirty to touch, do you? Not you!’
Moved by the rare tragic look on Granddad’s face, Father bent down and tentatively reached out to touch Grandma’s pale leg bone, which was so icy it froze his guts. Granddad tried to lift the skeleton by the shoulder blades, but it disintegrated and landed in a heap on the ground. A pair of red ants crawled in the sockets that had once been home to Grandma’s limpid eyes, their antennae vibrating. Father threw down Grandma’s leg bone, turned tail, and ran, filling the air with howls of grief.
4
AT NOON, THE funeral master announced loudly, ‘Begin the procession,’ and mourners swept into the fields like a human tide, followed by the Yu family bier, moving slowly towards them like a floating iceberg. Large open tents in which sumptuous road offerings were displayed had been placed on both sides of the road every couple of hundred yards. Cavalry troops led by Five Troubles formed a guard on either side of the road, galloping round and round.
A fat monk in a yellow robe, his left shoulder and arm exposed, led the procession with a halberd from which chimes hung, twinkling as it spun around his body, sometimes flying up in the air towards the onlookers. At least half the onlookers recognised him as the pauper monk from the Tianqi Temple who never burned incense and never chanted the Buddha’s name, preferring to drink great bowlfuls of wine and boldly partake of meat and fish. He kept a skinny yet uncommonly fertile little woman, who presented him with a whole brood of little monks. He opened a passage through the crowds by flinging his halberd at their heads, his face beaming.
An Iron Society soldier followed, holding a long pole with a spirit-calling banner woven from thirty-two white strips of paper, one for each of Grandma’s years; it fluttered and snapped, though there wasn’t a breath of wind. Then came the banner of honour, held ten feet in the air by a strapping young Iron Society soldier, its white silk ornamented with large black letters:
Casket of the Woman Dai, 32-Year-Old Wife of Yu Zhan’ao, Guerrilla Commander of Northeast Gaomi Township, Republic of China.
Behind the banner of honour came the lesser canopy, in which Grandma’s spirit tablet lay, and behind that, the great canopy encasing her coffin. Sixty-four Iron Society soldiers marched in perfect cadence to the mournful strains of the funeral music. Father, white mourning hood over his head and shoulders, a willow grief-stick in his hand, was being carried by two Iron Society soldiers. His desolate wails were the standard dry variety – his eyes were dry, and blank. Thunder with no rain. This sort of dry wailing was more moving than tearful shrieks, and many of the onlookers were deeply touched by his performance.
Granddad and Black Eye walked shoulder to shoulder behind my father, their solemn expressions belying the conflicts raging inside them.
At least twenty armed Iron Society soldiers surrounded Granddad and Black Eye, their bayonets glinting deep blue under the sun’s rays. They in turn were followed by a dozen musicians from Northeast Gaomi Township playing beautiful music, and some men on stilts. Two lion figures brought up the rear, waving their tails and swinging their heads to the antics of a big-headed child who tumbled over the roadway.
The procession snaked along for at least two li, the going made difficult by the crowds of people jamming the narrow roadway and the need to stop at each roadside tent to pay respects to the spirits; when the coffin was halted, incense was burned, and the funeral master, bronze wine vessel in hand, performed an age-old ritual, all of which combined to keep the procession at a snail’s pace.
Three li outside the village, the procession stopped to pay respects to the spirits. As always, the funeral master performed the ritual sombrely and conscientiously. All of a sudden a shot rang out at the head of the procession, and the Iron Society soldier holding the banner of honour slipped slowly to the ground, his bamboo pole crashing down on the onlookers by the side of the road. The gunfire caused the crowd to scurry like ants, screaming and wailing like a raging river that has breached its dikes.
As the sound of the rifle shot died out, a dozen or so shiny black grenades came arching out of the crowds on either side of the road and landed at the feet of the Iron Society soldiers, spewing puffs of white smoke.
‘Villagers, on your bellies!’ someone shouted.
But they were packed so tightly they could barely move, and as the grenades exploded, powerful golden blasts ripped through the sky. At least a dozen soldiers were killed or wounded, including Black Eye, who was struck in the hip. Covering the bleeding wound with his hand, he screamed, ‘Fulai – Fulai -’
But Fulai, who was about Father’s age, was beyond answering, beyond coming to his aid. The night before, when Father had given Fulai the physician’s green marble, he’d put it in his mouth as though it were a precious gem and rolled it around with his tongue. Now Father saw the marble anchored in the fresh blood flowing from Fulai’s mouth, as green as jade, as green as anything could ever be, emitting a radiance like the legendary fox-spirit that spat out the elixir of life.
A piece of shrapnel hit the jugular vein of the funeral master, and he fell to the ground, his bronze wine vessel crashing beside him and spilling its contents onto the black earth, where it turned into a light mist. The great canopy tipped to one side, revealing Grandma’s black coffin.
‘Fellow villagers,’ came another shout, ‘on your bellies!’ Another salvo of grenades. With his arms wrapped around my father, Granddad hit the ground and rolled into a roadside ditch, where dozens of feet trampled on his injured arm. At least half of the Iron Society soldiers had thrown down their weapons and were fleeing helter-skelter. The rest stood mesmerised, quietly waiting for the grenades to explode. Finally, Granddad spotted a man whose face he knew throwing a grenade. It was the Jiao-Gao regiment! Little Foot Jiang’s men!
Another salvo of violent explosions. Gunsmoke rolled up and down the roadway, dust flew into the sky, and chunks of shrapnel shrieked in all directions, as people were cut down like harvested grain.
Granddad drew his pistol, awkwardly, and aimed at the bobbing head of the Jiao-Gao soldier. He squeezed the trigger, and the bullet hit the man right between the eyes, popping his green eyeballs out of their sockets like a pair of moth eggs.
‘Charge, comrades, get their weapons!’ someone shouted from the crowd.
Now that the shock had worn off, Black Eye and his Iron Society soldiers turned their guns on the crowd. Every bullet that left a barrel bit into flesh; every shell passed through at least one body and either embedded itself in another or gouged a lovely curving scar in the black earth.
Granddad scanned the faces of the Jiao-Gao troops. They were struggling like drowning men, and the looks of rapacious brutality hit Granddad like a knife in the heart. One after another, he smashed their faces with awesome precision, confident that he hit no innocent bystanders.
In the village, a bugle sounded the charge, and Granddad saw a hundred or more shouting Jiao-Gao soldiers running towards them, waving rifles, swords, and clubs behind their leader, Little Foot Jiang. In the sorghum field to the south, Five Troubles smacked his dappled horse on the rump and took off at full speed, leading his troops. The Iron Society soldiers reformed ranks on Granddad’s shrill orders and, taking cover behind the cover of funeral flags and memorial tents, fired at Little Foot Jiang’s men.
Granddad’s Iron Society recruiting exploits had seriously depleted the Jiao-Gao strength; yet the poorly armed soldiers advanced courageously, filled with the spirit of sacrifice, and even as their comrades were cut down by bullets, they charged, brandishing primitive weapons good only for hand-to-hand combat. They came in waves, awesome in their display of defiance as they overran the Iron Society soldiers. As soon as they were within range, the Jiao-Gao soldiers hurled grenades, routing the panicky Iron Society soldiers, who were pursued mercilessly by shrapnel that ripped their flesh.