Brothers

by Yu Hua

  Li Lan told them that she missed her own home very much. She explained to the doctor that she was feeling much better today, and since both her sons were now with her, she would like to go home and take a look. The doctor, aware that she was nearing the end, agreed that she might as well go home but warned Baldy Li and Song Gang that she shouldn't stay out for more than a couple of hours.

  Song Gang carried Li Lan on his back and walked out of the hospital. As they walked down the street Li Lan looked about at the people and houses with the astonishment of a newborn. A few acquaintances even called out to her, asking whether she was feeling better. Li Lan seemed extremely happy as she answered, "Yes, much better." When they walked past the basketball court, Li Lan thought again of Song Fanping. With her hands clasped around Song Gang's shoulders, she was the picture of contentment. She said, "Song Gang, you look more and more like your father every day."

  Once they reached home, Li Lan gazed fondly at the table, the chairs, and the armoire; at the walls, the windows, the cobweb in the corner of the room, and the layer of dust on the desk—her eyes soaking up everything as if they were sponges. As she sat down on one of the chairs, with Song Gang supporting her from behind, she asked Baldy Li to bring her a rag. She started to carefully wipe the dust off the table, saying, "Its so nice to be home."

  Then, feeling tired, she asked Baldy Li and Song Gang to help her lie down on the bed. She closed her eyes as if asleep, but after a while she opened them again and had Baldy Li and Song Gang sit together at her bedside. In a frail voice she then told them, "I'm about to die."

  Song Gang started sobbing, and Baldy Li also lowered his head and wiped at his eyes. Li Lan said, "Don't cry, don't cry, my sons…"

  Song Gang nodded obediently and stopped his sobbing. Baldy Li also raised his head. Li Lan continued, "I've already reserved a coffin. Please bury me next to your papa. I promised him that I was going to wait till you were grown up to go find him, but I'm afraid I can't hold on any longer."

  Song Gang burst out into loud sobs, and the sound of his weeping brought Baldy Li's head down again. Li Lan repeated, "Don't cry, don't cry."

  Song Gang wiped his eyes and muffled his sobs, but Baldy Li still had his head buried in his chest. Li Lan smiled, saying, "I've cleansed myself already, so no need to bathe me after I'm gone. Just put me in a clean set of clothes. Don't give me a sweater, though, because the knots in the yarn would trip me on my way to the netherworld. Dress me in cotton instead."

  Exhausted, she closed her eyes and rested. A dozen minutes passed before she opened her eyes again and told her sons, "I just heard your father call out to me."

  Li Lan smiled contentedly. She asked Song Gang to pull out a wooden chest from under the bed and remove the bundle inside. Baldy Li and Song Gang unwrapped the bundle and saw that it contained the bag of soil stained with Song Fanping's blood, a handkerchief wrapped around the three pairs of ancients’ chopsticks, and three copies of their family portrait. Li Lan said that two of the copies were for Baldy Li and Song Gang; since they would marry and start their own families, she wanted to make sure that each had his own copy. The third she wanted to take with her to the netherworld to show Song Fanping, noting, "He never had a chance to see the portrait."

  She also wanted to take with her the pairs of ancients’ chopsticks, as well as the dirt stained with Song Fanping's blood. She instructed, "Once I'm set in the coffin, spread the bloody dirt all over my body."

  As she spoke she asked her sons to help her up so that she could reach her hand into the soil. Seven years had passed, and the bloodstained dirt had turned completely black. She felt around, saying, "It feels very cozy inside."

  Li Lan smiled contentedly. "I'm about to see your father, so I'm very happy. Seven years—he's been waiting for me for seven years. I have so many stories to tell him, stories about Song Gang and about Baldy Li— it would take me days and days just to get through them all."

  When she looked again at Baldy Li and Song Gang, she wept. "But what will become of you? You are fifteen and sixteen years old—I really can't bear to part with you. My sons, you really have to take good care of yourselves. You are brothers and must look after each other."

  As Li Lan finished speaking she closed her eyes and seemed to doze off for a bit. When she opened her eyes again, she asked Baldy Li to go and buy a few buns. Having diverted Baldy Li, she then held Song Gang's hand and told him her final wishes: "Song Gang, Baldy Li is your little brother. You must take care of him all your life. I'm not worried about you, but I am worried about him. If he takes the straight path, he will make something of himself; but if he goes the other way, I'm worried that he will end up in jail. You have to watch out for him and not let him go the wrong way. Song Gang, promise me that, no matter what Baldy Li might do, you will take care of him."

  Song Gang nodded as he wiped at his tears. "Mama, don't you worry. I'll take care of Baldy Li for as long as I live. Even if I have one bowl of rice left, I'll let him have it, and if I have just one shirt left, I'll give it to him."

  Weeping, Li Lan shook her head. "If there is one bowl of rice left, the two of you should split it; and if there's one shirt left, you should take turns wearing it."

  This was the last day of Li Lan's life. She slept on the family bed until dusk, and when she woke up she heard Baldy Li and Song Gang whispering to each other. Rays from the setting sun shone into the room, warming it with reds and oranges. The sound of Baldy Li and Song Gang talking to each other convinced Li Lan of their intimacy. She smiled, then softly said that it was time to return to the hospital.

  Song Gang carried Li Lan out the front door. As Baldy Li followed them out, she remarked, "It's good to be home."

  Baldy Li and Song Gang remained with Li Lan at the hospital. Her spirits seemed to revive somewhat. She would doze for a while, then stay awake for a while. Every time she woke up and spotted her sons sitting at her bedside whispering away, she would urge them once again to return home and get some sleep.

  Baldy Li and Song Gang stayed in the hospital until one in the morning and then walked home along the deserted streets. Baldy Li knew that Song Gang had become very interested in reading, so he told him about a room in Red Flag Alley that contained all the items confiscated during the early days of the Cultural Revolution. They had everything there: books, paintings, toys, stuff that you couldn't even imagine. Baldy Li told Song Gang that Victory Zhao and Success Liu had raided the place a few times, and every time they made off with lots of good books. Baldy Li explained, "Do you know how Victory Zhao became Poet Zhao, and Success Liu, Writer Liu? Its because they stole these books and read them that now they can write books themselves."

  Baldy Li and Song Gang crept up to the room. They had planned on breaking the windows and climbing in, but when they got there, they saw that the window had no panes left. After they crept in, they realized that someone had long ago cleaned the place out, leaving only a few empty cabinets. They searched every corner of the room, every nook of every cabinet, but managed to find only a single red high-heeled shoe. Thinking they had found something special, they stashed it under their clothing, crept out through the window, and ran. When they reached a completely deserted streetlamp, Baldy Li and Song Gang stopped and studied the item for a good long while. They had never seen a high-heeled shoe before, nor even a red shoe, and asked each other, "What is this thing?"

  The brothers went back and forth on whether it was indeed a shoe. They wondered if it might be a toy boat. In the end they concluded that it was a toy—not a toy boat but a toy shoe. Baldy Li and Song Gang happily carried the red high-heeled shoe back with them to their home, then sat on the bed examining it for a bit longer. They still agreed that the high-heel was a toy but of a sort that they had never seen before. Then they hid it under the bed.

  By the time Baldy Li and Song Gang woke up the next day, the sun was shining on their bottoms. They rushed to the hospital, but Li Lan s bed was empty. As they were standing there in a panic, looking all a
bout them and not knowing what to do, a nurse walked in and informed them that Li Lan was dead and laid out in the morgue.

  Song Gang immediately burst into loud wails. Sobbing, he walked down the hospitals aisles toward the morgue. Baldy Li initially didn't cry as he followed Song Gang in a daze, but when he saw his mother lying stiffly on a concrete cot in the morgue, he burst out into wails too, crying even louder than Song Gang.

  Li Lan's eyes were still open. She had wanted so badly to see her sons before dying, but the last glimmer of light disappeared from her gaze without her getting a final glimpse of her beloved sons.

  Song Gang knelt on the floor in front of the concrete cot and wept until he shook all over, while Baldy Li, standing at the foot of the bed, wept and trembled like a sapling in the wind. Together they wept, calling out for their mama. It was not until this moment that Baldy Li truly understood that he was now an orphan and that he and Song Gang were all they each had left in this world.

  Song Gang then hoisted Li Lan s body onto his back. With Baldy Li following behind, the three of them went home. Song Gang wept continuously as he carried Li Lan down the street while Baldy Li also repeatedly wiped his eyes. The two of them no longer howled, instead sobbed silently. As they reached the basketball court Song Gang cried out loud again, saying to Baldy Li, "Yesterday when we reached here, Mama was still talking to me."

  Song Gang wept so hard he could not take another step. Baldy Li urged him to let him carry their mother, but Song Gang shook his head, explaining, "You're my younger brother. I have to take care of you."

  Sobbing, the two youths made their way with the corpse down the streets of Liu Town. The body kept sliding down Song Gangs back, so Baldy Li propped it up from behind. Song Gang repeatedly stopped to bend down so that Baldy Li could gently hoist the body back up. Eventually Song Gang was doubled over with the effort, with Baldy Li trotting alongside helping to support the body. The two young men carefully tended to Li Lan s corpse as if she were merely asleep and they were afraid of hurting her. When people saw them, they were all heartbroken. When Mama Su and Missy Su saw them, tears trickled down Mama Sus face as she said to her daughter, "Li Lan was such a good woman. Its such a pity that she's now gone and left her good sons behind."

  Two days later the two youths reappeared in the streets, this time pulling Blacksmith Tongs cart. Atop the cart was Li Lan in the coffin that she had selected herself. Inside the coffin was a portrait of their family, three pairs of ancients’ chopsticks, and dirt that had once been soaked through with Song Fanping's blood. Song Gang walked in front, pulling the cart, while Baldy Li followed, guiding it from behind. The two worried that the coffin might slip off the cart, so they both squatted down in order to roll the cart horizontally. Song Gangs body was bent over like a bow, as was Baldy Li's. Heads bowed, they walked in silence as the wheels creaked along the stone slabs on the street.

  Seven years earlier another pullcart holding another coffin had passed down this same street, and the body lying inside had been Song Fanpings. At that time, it had been the old landlord pulling in front and Li Lan and the two children pushing from behind. This time the two boys were young men, and it was Li Lan who was lying in the coffin.

  They walked out the southern gate and onto the dirt road leading into the country. Seven years earlier, this was the spot where Li Lan had said, "Go ahead and cry," and where all four of them had erupted in sobs, their wailing startling even the sparrows in the trees. Now the boys were again pulling a cart carrying a thin-planked coffin, and the fields were just as wide, the skies just as vast, but this time there were only two of them, and they had no tears left. With their backs bent, one in front and one in back, one pulling and one pushing, they were positioned lower than the coffin on the cart. From a distance they didn't resemble two people so much as an oversize cart.

  The two young men escorted their mother to the village where Song Fanping was born and raised. Song Fanping had been waiting in his grave by the village entrance for seven years, and now his wife was finally here to keep him company. The old landlord waited at his son's grave, his entire weight resting on a tree branch serving as a cane; he looked frail and weak, as if he were also taking his last breaths and would have collapsed to the ground without the branch. The old landlord was so poor he couldn't even afford a cane, so Song Gang had fashioned this one by whittling down a tree branch. There was a grave already dug next to Song Fanpings, thanks once again to the poor relatives who stood there leaning on their shovels, wearing clothes just as tattered as they had been seven years earlier.

  Once Li Lan s coffin was lowered into the grave, the old landlord, his face covered in tears, could no longer hold himself up. Song Gang helped lift him to a seated position. The old landlord leaned against a tree and watched as dirt was shoveled into the grave, sobbing over and over, "It was my son's good fortune to marry such a good woman. It was my son's good fortune to marry such a good woman. It was my son's good fortune …"

  Li Lan s mound was now piled as high as Song Fanping's grave. The old landlord wept as he spoke of what a good daughter-in-law he had had: He said that Li Lan came every Qingming festival to sweep the grave, and every New Years she came to pay her respects to him. Song Gang asked Baldy Li to help his grandfather up and carry him back home. Baldy Li walked off with the old landlord on his back, and the poor relatives followed behind, carrying their shovels. Song Gang watched them walk away. Once he was alone, he knelt in front of Li Lan s grave and promised her, "Mama, don't you worry. Even if I only have one bowl of rice left, I'll give it to Baldy Li to eat, and even if I have only a single piece of clothing, I'll give it to Baldy Li to wear."

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER 27

  THE DEAD had departed; the living remained. Li Lan headed into the netherworld, walking along a penumbral path in search of Song Fanping's spirit amid a sea of ghosts. She was no longer aware of her sons’ wanderings in the mortal world.

  Song Gangs grandfather, the old landlord, was himself in his twilight years and confined to his bed. Every few days he would have only a single mouthful of rice and a few sips of water; as a result, he had been reduced to little more than skin and bones. Recognizing that he was about to expire, the old landlord would pull Song Gang toward him and hold him tight while staring out the door. Song Gang understood what his grandfather was trying to communicate with his gaze. Therefore, on clear, cloudless evenings, he would carry his grandfather on his back, and together they would walk past each house in the village as the old landlord gazed upon each familiar face as if he were bidding farewell. Upon arriving at the village entrance, Song Gang would pause under the elm tree, his grandfather still on his back, and the two of them would silently watch the sun set while standing next to Song Fanping and Li Lan s graves.

  The grandfather was now as light as a bundle of kindling on Song Gangs back. Every night after returning home from the village, Song Gang would lay his grandfather down and find him as still as death. The next day, however, the old man's eyes would open again at the crack of dawn, the life inside still flickering. Day after day, he looked as if he were already dead when in fact he was still holding on, though he no longer had the energy to speak or even to smile. One evening as Song Gang and his grandfather were standing under the elm tree next to Song Fanping and Li Lan s graves, the old man's appointed time finally arrived. Song Gang couldn't see that his grandfather was smiling behind him but heard him whispering softly in his ear: "Ah, the end of bitter days."

  With this, the old landlord's head dropped onto Song Gang's shoulder and lay there motionless, as if he were asleep. Song Gang, his grandfather still on his back, gazed at the road leading to Liu Town as it gradually became more indistinct in the encroaching darkness, and eventually he turned and walked back into the village under the light of the moon. As he walked Song Gang felt his grandfathers head on his shoulder rocking back and forth in time with his footsteps. Upon returning home, Song Gang carefully put his grandfather to bed and tucked him in as
usual. That night, the old landlord opened his eyes twice, trying to catch a glimpse of his grandson, but all he could see was silence and darkness. After that his eyes never opened again.

  Song Gang got out of bed the next morning without realizing that his grandfather had passed away, nor did he realize it that entire day. It was not at all uncommon for the old landlord to lie in bed without eating or drinking or even appearing to breathe, so Song Gang didn't think twice about it. At dusk he picked up his grandfather as usual but noticed that his body had become stiff, and as he walked out the door his grandfathers head slid off Song Gang s shoulder. Song Gang quickly reached back to reposition the head and continued walking past each of the houses in the village. The whole time his grandfathers head swung in time with his footsteps, a pendulous weight on his shoulders. It slid down several more times as they approached the entrance to the village, until finally Song Gang felt the chill of his grandfathers face when he reached behind to right the head. Song Gang paused under an elm tree and placed a finger under his grandfathers nostrils but did not feel any breath; instead, he felt his own finger grow cold, and it finally sank in that his grandfather had died.

  The next morning the villagers saw Song Gang hunched over, supporting his dead grandfather on his back with his left arm and carrying a straw mat and an iron shovel under his right. He stopped at one house after another, announcing bleakly, "Grandfather has died."