THE FIFTH DAY
I was searching for my father among the throngs of skeletal people. I had the uplifting sensation that he had left traces here, even if those traces were as faint as the distant call of a departing goose. Surely I would discern the marks he had left, just as one feels the movement of a breeze as it ruffles one’s hair. I knew that I might not be able to recognize my father even if he was standing in front of me, but he would be able to recognize me at a glance. I would make my way toward the skeletal people — som
etimes a large crowd, sometimes a small clump — and stand before them as though on display, hoping that one among them would call me by my name.
I knew that such a voice would sound foreign to my ears, just as Li Qing’s greeting had sounded unfamiliar. But I would be able to distinguish my father’s call just from his tone. In the world that had left me, there had always been an intimate note to my father’s greeting, and in this new world that should remain unchanged.
Here there roamed everywhere the figures of those who had no graves. Denied a place of rest, these figures were like trees in motion — sometimes scattered, disconnected trees, sometimes dense stands of timber. When I walked among them, it was as though I were wending my way through a well-managed forest. I was looking forward to hearing the sound of my father’s voice, ahead of me or behind me, to the left or the right. I was looking forward to that call of “Yang Fei!”
Often I would run into people wearing black armbands. With the black gauze fastened in place, their sleeves seemed empty. The absence of skin and flesh told me these people must have been here a long time. They would look at me and smile — a smile conveyed not by facial expression but through their vacant eyes. It was a smile of understanding, because we were all in the same boat. In the other world no one would wear a black armband on our behalf — we were all grieving for ourselves.
One such self-mourner noticed my searching look. He stood in front of me and I gazed at his bony face. There was a little hole in his forehead. He greeted me in a friendly fashion.
“Are you looking for someone?” he asked. “Or for several people?”
“Just one,” I said. “My father. He may be here.”
“Your father?”
“Yang Jinbiao is his name.”
“Names don’t mean anything here.”
“He was in his sixties—”
“It’s impossible to tell people’s ages here.”
I looked at the skeletons walking in the distance and close by, and it was true that one couldn’t tell how old they were. My eyes could distinguish only tall and short, wide and narrow, and my ears could differentiate only male and female, old and young.
Recalling how debilitated my father had become in his final days, I added further details: “He’s five foot seven, very thin—”
“Everyone here is thin.”
Looking at these people who were all so thin that only their bones were left, I didn’t know how further to describe my father.
“Do you remember what he was wearing when he came over?” he asked.
“A railroad uniform,” I told him. “A brand-new railroad uniform.”
“How long ago was it that he came over?”
“It’s been over a year now.”
“I’ve seen people in other kinds of uniform, but nobody wearing a railroad uniform.”
“Maybe somebody else has noticed him.”
“I’ve been here a long time. If I haven’t seen him, nobody else will have, either.”
“Maybe he changed his clothes.”
“A lot of people do change before coming here, it’s true.”
“I feel he must be here somewhere.”
“If you can’t find him, he may have gone to the burial ground.”
“He has no grave.”
“If he has no grave, then he should be here.”
As I wandered here and there in search of my father, I found myself once more approaching the two avid chess players. They sat cross-legged on the grass, as concentrated as two statues. Their bodies were completely motionless, and it was just their hands that continually gestured, as though making moves. I saw neither board nor chess pieces, just their hands moving forward and back or side to side, and I couldn’t tell whether the game they were playing was Chinese chess or Go.
One skeleton’s hand had just put down a piece, only to raise it again immediately. Two skeletal hands immediately clasped that skeletal hand, and their owner shouted, “You can’t retract your move!”
The owner of the single hand cried out, “But you just retracted a move yourself.”
“I retracted that move because you did that before.”
“I did that because you retracted your previous move.”
“I retracted that previous move because yesterday you retracted moves.”
“Yesterday it was you who retracted a move first — that was why I did it.”
“The day before yesterday it was you who started it.”
“Well, who started it the day before that?”
The two of them kept up an endless wrangle, accusing each other of retracting moves and tracing their adversary’s history of such misdeeds farther and farther back into the past, from days to months and from months to years.
“I can’t let you take back that move,” the owner of two of the hands cried. “I’m about to win.”
“No, I’m taking back that move,” the owner of the one hand cried.
“I’m not playing with you anymore.”
“I’m not playing with you, either.”
“I’m never going to play with you again.”
“I’ve been wanting to stop playing with you for ages.”
“Let me tell you something: I’m leaving. I’m going to get cremated tomorrow and then go off to my burial ground.”
“I’ve been meaning to get cremated for ages now — can’t wait to get to my burial ground!”
I interrupted their bickering. “I know your story.”
“Everyone here knows our story,” one of them said.
“Newcomers maybe don’t,” the other said.
“Even if they don’t, our story is still kicking ass.”
“Or, to put it more delicately, our story is the talk of the town.”