Eventually he went through the wall, like the masters of Mount Lao, and crossed into another realm. He made contact with the worlds of both yin and yang — and became a Daoist priest.
Dad used to say he wasn’t like us. He was a man who had seen the king of the underworld, a man with one foot in the land of the living and the other in the land of the dead — not that his feet were much use. His body was such a mess that it was hard to imagine the handsome young man he had been. But his eyes were still bright, as if all his energy was focused in them. My dad said those eyes could see things that were invisible to ordinary folk. He always had the greatest respect for the priest, though he despised everyone else. That was too bad for One Eye — no one could make him paralysed, like the priest.
My dad always asked the priest to do the funeral ceremonies. He couldn’t use his legs, so someone had to carry him into the suffocating darkness of the dead person’s house. Some boy would prop the door open, another would shift things out of the way. There was a great commotion. One Eye would start to shout: ‘Get back! Get back! Make way for the priest!’ But the priest took no notice. He heard nothing, he saw nothing. With his body limp and his eyes closed he might have been half dead, but he still had enormous presence. In fact his presence came from being half dead — that was why he became a priest in the first place, why everyone was afraid of him.
At one funeral, I did something pretty stupid. A young woman had died but we didn’t go to her house, we went to the government buildings in the local capital. I was scared. Normally we’d keep well away from the gate in case the police arrested us, but the family weren’t worried. They laid the dead body down by the entrance.
My dad wasn’t worried either — he set the memorial room up right there. The white cloth was covered with black characters I couldn’t read and the grown-ups said the writing was an accusation against a senior official who worked there.
‘Which one?’ I asked.
‘A head of department. You wouldn’t understand.’
What did they mean, I wouldn’t understand? Eventually I picked up that the official wanted to sleep with the young woman and she refused, so he got her drunk and dragged her off to his hotel room. When she woke up and realised what had happened, she ran away and threw herself in the river.
Candles flickered round the dead girl and the hell money burned, filling the air with confetti. The charred paper settled on the sentries’ peaked caps. They didn’t look scary, just bored — they couldn’t be bothered to flick it off. The family glared at the gate and yelled, their arms akimbo, or clutched the body, weeping and wailing into a loudspeaker that shook the building to the foundations. After they had cried themselves hoarse, my dad told the funeral band to start playing. He was as caught up in the funeral as the family. So were all the bystanders. They looked really pissed off.
Finally the manager came out of the building. No one knew who he was and they all demanded to see the city’s chief executive. The manager said that was impossible. I wasn’t surprised. Why would the city chief want to see ordinary people like us? I didn’t even know what he looked like. But the crowd wouldn’t let it go.
‘We can sort this out,’ said the manager. ‘Why are you all making such a fuss?’
‘We’ve waited for ages! The only reason you came out was because we’re making a fuss.’
‘But this is against the law.’
‘Against the law?’ they shouted back. ‘You’ve got nerve to talk about the law!’
The manager was furious. He pulled out a mobile and called the police. I was pretty scared by then, and couldn’t understand why nobody else was. But they didn’t back down. The police came and tried to push them out of the way, but they pushed back. A couple of people got arrested, but the others ran to the body and clung on tight. The inspector was livid. ‘Take that corpse away!’ he shouted. His officers tried to drag the family off, but they stuck to it like limpets. People shouted: ‘The police are stealing the body!’
‘Hands off!’ My dad’s voice rang out. ‘Or there will be vengeance.’
The policemen froze.
‘Aren’t you afraid she’ll come after you?’ Dad said darkly. ‘Female spirits are dangerous!’
The police let go and took a step back, waiting to see what the inspector would say. Then the family started attacking the police with their fists. ‘Does nobody ever die in your family?’ they yelled. ‘What if your sister was raped too!’ The police began to back off, step by step. It was amazing — I couldn’t believe it — they were useless. I wanted to beat them up too. How stupid to be scared of these paper tigers — they stood with the living and we stood with the dead.
When you’re dead you have nothing more to fear. You become invincible, like the dead girl. That’s why we make offerings to our ancestors, so they don’t turn into ghosts and come and get us. That’s why dying is such a powerful thing. The only reason you have no power is because you’re not dead yet, because you’re afraid of dying. Sure it’s painful — that girl must have suffered a lot — but she made it through and now she is a spirit.
In the end, the city chief agreed to see the girl’s family. They didn’t look at all afraid as they went in, as if the girl’s spirit was hovering over them like a threat. My dad told my mum that the mayor was worried about publicity, that the county had set targets for the number of unnatural deaths each year. If they didn’t meet the target, the county leader would lose his job. ‘This is a dreadful case,’ Dad said, though he sounded pretty pleased. At least the girl’s death had got her family in to see the chief.
‘We can’t take the corpse for cremation yet,’ Dad added. ‘We have to keep it. Once it’s cremated, it’s useless.’
3
The head of department got the sack and the family got a big payout, so the sevens got a bit rowdy. But there seemed to be something bothering the Daoist priest as he conducted the ceremonies. While he was reciting the prayers, his long, black lashes flickered — he kept taking sneaky glances at her picture. She was very pretty.
During one of the breaks, I found myself alone with the priest — the family was busy outside and the monks had gone for a drink of water.
‘She was pretty, wasn’t she?’ he said.
I nodded.
‘That’s why he went for her. In this world, there’s always a price to be paid if you’re good-looking. It’s better to be plain. If you’re good-looking you have to be born lucky too. Otherwise evil will be done. Do you see?’
I half-understood … Suddenly the priest said: ‘She’s smiling.’
I jumped and looked at the body. It was true, the girl was smiling.
‘If you’re born unlucky, you’ll only find peace in death,’ the priest went on. ‘It’s too bad. That’s one less woman to get married.’
I had no idea what he meant. He mumbled something — it was as if he was speaking from inside an urn.
‘What?’
‘Shh!’ he held his finger to his lips. Then suddenly he came out with: ‘Why don’t I give her to you?’
‘To me?’
‘To marry. Do you know what marriage means?’
Of course I knew. People who were very close got married. I wanted to marry my friend Blockhead once, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to marry his sister.
The priest chuckled. ‘You don’t understand a thing.’
‘I do!’ I said.
‘OK, OK, you do,’ he agreed. ‘So, if you’re going to marry her, you have to step over the coffin.’
‘Step over the coffin?’
‘The husband has to step over the wife’s coffin. Then she’s yours.’