by Yan Lianke
They were taking me away.
There was the pop-popping of firecrackers and the babble of voices, fountains of sparks rising into the air and bits of burnt paper fluttering down. My father, walking behind my coffin, glanced around at the villagers who had come to join in this rare celebration.
He instructed the pallbearers to stop for a moment, then stood atop a little sand dune and announced loudly:
‘People of Ding Village, brothers and sisters, friends and neighbours, thank you for coming out today. In the future, if you ever need help with anything, anything at all, you can find me in the city. But I was born right here, and as a native son of Ding Village, you know I’ll always be truthful with you. So I may as well tell you about my latest venture: the county governor and I are planning to buy nearly 1,000 acres of land on the banks of the Yellow River, halfway between Kaifeng and the county seat, and turn it into a funeral park. It will be a burial site fit for an emperor, with the best location, steps away from the water, and feng shui to rival the imperial tombs of the Mang mountain range in Luoyang.
‘I know you’ve all heard the saying,’ my father continued in a booming voice, ‘that it’s best to be born in Suzhou or Hangzhou, and best to be buried in the mountains of Mang. But how many people are lucky enough to be born in those cities, or buried in those mountains? I can’t do anything about where you were born, but now that I’m a county cadre, the least I can do is see that you’re buried in style. Fellow villagers, friends and neighbours, I give you my pledge: anyone from Ding Village who wants to be buried in my funeral park will receive the finest plot of land on the banks of the Yellow River, right next to my son Ding Qiang. I guarantee that you’ll be able to purchase one of these fine burial sites for the lowest possible price. You’ll be getting a final resting place with a river view and auspicious feng shui practically for free.’
When my father had finished his sales pitch, he looked up at the blazing sun, which was nearly overhead, and swept his eyes over the crowd. Then he stepped down from the sand dune and signalled to the pallbearers that it was time to continue the procession.
The villagers trailed after my coffin, chattering excitedly about the planned funeral park. Grandpa stayed behind for a few last words with my father.
‘It’s safe to leave the village now,’ said Grandpa. ‘Jia Genzhu is dead. He won’t be bothering you any more.’
My father laughed. ‘Dad, as long as you don’t plan on killing me, I’ll always be safe. There’s not a person in any village on this plain who would dare to mess with me now.’
My father rejoined the funeral procession into the village, leaving Grandpa standing at my empty grave, next to the space where my golden coffin had been. Grandpa’s face had turned pale, his features rigid. My father’s words seemed to have triggered something in him, brought back some long-forgotten memory. He could feel his heart thundering in his chest, the perspiration oozing from his pores, the palms of his hands growing slick with sweat. He shifted his gaze from my father’s retreating back to the crowd of villagers and the golden coffin, draped with red silk, being carried into the village like a bridal sedan chair. Like a flame being held aloft. The midday sun was dazzling, and a layer of haze hung over the plain like a luminous veil. The silence in all directions was absolute. Willow Hamlet, Two-Li Village and Yellow Creek lay hushed beneath the sunlight. Even the cattle and sheep grazing among the dunes nibbled their dry grass in silence. The only living sounds came from the cicadas, crying lustily from the branches of the few remaining trees. Their buzzing, and the distant explosions of fireworks, echoed in Grandpa’s ears. As he turned to look at my empty grave, the grave they had opened and not bothered to fill in, realization came crashing down upon him: they were taking me away. My father and the others were carrying me away, taking me away from him for ever. Grandpa was alone in the school, friendless in the village, and abandoned by his family. I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed it before, but there wasn’t a single black hair left on Grandpa’s head. His silvery-white hair stuck up in tufts, making him look like a sacrificial lamb that had been hoisted into the air, waiting to be dashed upon the ground. The wrinkles on his weathered, ancient face were as numerous as cracks upon the arid plain, and the eyes that followed my funeral procession held no sorrow, or anger, or tears. All that was left was an indescribable hopelessness. His eyes were twin pools of despair, wells that had dried up long, long ago.
They were carrying me away, farther and farther away. Grandpa was now just a blur in the distance. From inside my coffin, I began to scream.
‘Grandpa! Don’t let them take me!’
My cries shook the heavens.
‘I don’t want to leave here! Don’t let them take me!’
My screams ripped holes in the sky.
‘Save me, Grandpa, save me . . .
’ The idea struck Grandpa like a thunderclap, draining the colour from his face and making his hands shake. Trembling, he bent down and picked up a stick, a stout piece of chestnut that someone had left lying on the ground. He began walking towards the crowd, following the funeral procession. In a few quick strides, he caught up with my father, who was lagging at the edge of the crowd. Grandpa raised the stick over his head and brought it down on my father’s head, smashing in the back of his skull. The blow fell so quickly that my father didn’t have time to turn around, or to cry out. He swayed for a second, then fell with a soft thud, like a sack of flour.
A puddle of blood bloomed on the ground, as red as a blossom in spring.
CHAPTER FOUR
After he killed my dad, Grandpa acted like he had done the village a tremendous service. Ignoring my dad’s body lying on the ground, he ran off to spread the good news in the village and to everyone he met along the way.
‘Did you hear? I killed Ding Hui.’
‘Hey, you there! Ding Hui’s dead. I bashed him over the head with a stick.’
‘Hi, just thought I’d let you know . . . you don’t have to worry about Ding Hui any more. I killed him.’
As Grandpa raced towards the village, he seemed sprightlier, as if he was suddenly ten years younger. Starting at the west end of the village, he went from house to house opening doors, walking into people’s courtyards and announcing his news.
‘Hi, have you heard?’ he called, pushing open the gate of the first house he came to. ‘I killed my son, Ding Hui. Smashed his head in.’
At the second house: ‘Are your parents home? Well, when they come back, tell them that Ding Hui is dead and that I killed him. I bashed him in the back of the head with a stick of chestnut, this long and this thick.’ Grandpa illustrated his words with a gesture. ‘Killed him with the first blow.’
At the third house: ‘So you’re back here, visiting? That’s just as well. You can burn offerings at your brother and parents’ graves and tell them that Ding Hui is finally dead. I killed him with one blow to the skull.’
At the seventh house he came to, Grandpa walked into the courtyard and saw that all the rooms were shuttered and locked. There were weathered funeral scrolls pasted to the lintels of every door. He knelt in the middle of the courtyard, clasped his hands together and bowed three times. Then, although there was no one alive to hear his announcement, he said: ‘Brothers, you brothers and your wives, I came to give you some good news. My son Ding Hui is dead, and I killed him.’
When Grandpa arrived at Jia Genzhu’s house and saw the black coffin in the courtyard, he fell to his knees and touched his head to the ground. ‘Genzhu, you were always like a nephew to me. I wanted to tell you the good news in person, and I hope you’ll rest easier knowing that Ding Hui is dead. I killed him myself, bashed his head in with a stick.’
Later, Grandpa knelt in front of a cluster of new graves outside the village gate and cried: ‘Listen, everyone . . . I’ve got some good news! Today I killed Ding Hui, my first-born son. I came up behind him and bashed his brains in. Ding Hui is dead . . .’
VOLUME 8
Summer was ove
r, and autumn was here again.
Summer had passed without a drop of rain. Now it was midway through autumn, and there hadn’t been a rainstorm for more than six months. The dry spell had lasted for 180 days. It was the worst drought seen on this plain in nearly a century. All the grasses and crops had died.
The trees were gone, too. Unable to resist the drought, the paulownia, scholar trees, chinaberries, elms, toons and rare honey locusts quietly passed away.
The big trees had all been chopped down, and the smaller ones had been lost to drought. There were no more trees.
Ponds congealed. Rivers stopped. Wells ran dry.
When the water disappeared, so did the mosquitoes.
Cicadas shed their skin and left before it was time. Their golden yellow corpses littered the trunks, branches and forks of dead trees, and clung to the shady side of walls and fences.
But the sun survived. The wind lived on. The sun and moon, stars and planets were alive and well.
A few days after my father’s funeral, they came to arrest Grandpa. He was a murderer, a man who had murdered his son, so they had to take him away. Three months after his arrest, in the second month of autumn, it rained for seven days and seven nights without stopping. And when the rain was over, they let my grandpa go. It was like the rain had been his salvation. They took him away at the height of the drought, when all the grasses and trees were dying, and asked him a lot of questions. They asked him about Ding Village and blood-selling and coffins and matchmaking the dead. When he had answered all their questions and the rains had ended, when the wells and ponds and rivers and ditches were no longer dry, they let him go.
They sent him home and spared his life.
When Grandpa came back to Ding Village, it was already late autumn. The dusk of a late-autumn day. The sun above the plain was a blood-red ball, making red of the earth and sky. Laughing on the horizon, cackling from the western plain. All across the silent land, there were sounds of life. Chirps and squeaks and tiny insect sounds. Normally, at this time of year, the trees would be shedding their leaves, but most of the trees were gone. The grass had all but been killed off. Almost, but not quite. In the fields and in the spaces in between, along the sand dunes of the ancient Yellow River path, there were spots of green, pale-green patches of something still alive. Mingled with the autumn’s rotting grass was a smell as fresh as spring. The scent of something new and clean.
Against the bright red sky, an occasional bird took flight. Crows and sparrows; an eagle. Their shadows flitted across the ground like wisps of smoke.
It was to this that Grandpa had returned.
He hadn’t changed much. Grandpa was as thin as ever, and his face was pale, ashen grey. Wearing an old straw hat and carrying his bedroll, he looked like a traveller returning home after a long journey. What struck him first about Ding Village was the silence, the intensity of the silence. In the three months that he had been gone, in those 100 days from mid-summer to mid-autumn, Ding Village had become a different place.
No, it was still the same place, but all the people were gone. The streets were as silent as death, empty of man or beast. There were no chickens, pigs, ducks, cats or dogs. Now and then, the call of a sparrow shattered the quiet, like a stone hurled through a pane of glass. Grandpa met only one living thing, a stray dog so skinny you could see its ribs. It came out of Zhao Qiuqin’s gate and stood in the middle of the road, staring at Grandpa. Then, without barking, it slunk away with its tail between its legs.
Grandpa stood in the centre of the village, gazing around him in confusion, wondering if he’d taken a wrong turn. Then he saw a structure he recognized: a decrepit cowshed. It hadn’t changed much since he’d last seen it; it was still on the verge of collapse. A fallen rafter lay atop its crumbling brick walls like a chopstick resting on the cracked rim of a bowl.
The concrete roads, built years earlier with blood money, were now covered with a layer of dirt so thick you could plant crops in it. There were cracks and fissures, as crooked as national boundaries on a map.
Ma Xianglin’s house at the village crossroads was more or less the same. Grandpa recognized the faded white funeral scrolls pasted to the lintels of the door. Finding the gate ajar, Grandpa went into the courtyard and called out, ‘Is anybody home?’
There was no answer. The house was deathly silent.
Grandpa moved on to the next house, which belonged to Wang Baoshan. He shouted the man’s name, but again, there was no answer. This house, too, was deathly still. The only occupants seemed to be a pair of mice. Disturbed by Grandpa’s voice, they skittered through the courtyard and into the house.
The next house, too, was deserted. The whole village seemed deserted. Everywhere Grandpa looked, he found no sign of life.
When the fever had exploded, it had destroyed Ding Village. Most of those who hadn’t died had moved away. Then came the drought, which swept away the last inhabitants as if they were leaves on a breeze. Ding Village had been snuffed out like a candle.
Grandpa went from house to house, door to door, shouting until his voice was hoarse. The only living creatures to answer his call were a few stray dogs following behind him, wagging their tails.
There was a fine red silken sunset, like the cloth they’d draped over my golden coffin so many months earlier. It settled over the houses and streets with only the faintest sound, like a feather floating through the air.
Grandpa walked until he came to my uncle’s house on New Street. Ding Xiaoming and his family had taken possession of the house after Uncle died, but now they seemed to have moved away, too. A padlock hung sadly from the door.
Further down the street, our three-storey house was still standing, but all the doors and windows were gone. Someone had even removed the courtyard gate. The villagers had stripped the house bare. The courtyard was in slightly better shape. Mustard greens had taken over the entire courtyard. The air was thick with their crude, numbing scent.
Grandpa decided to visit the school. As he crossed the village, he felt as if he were passing through an endless ravine, or trudging through a barren desert. The road to the school was as deserted as the ancient Yellow River path. The sunset was a dazzling, silent hush of red. A cool breeze carried the mingled scents of rotting plants and newly sprouted grass across the plain. They swirled through the air, blending into one another like the clean and muddy currents of a river. The sand dunes along the ancient Yellow River path seemed somehow smaller than before. Then again, maybe they’d grown in size. At this distance, it was hard to tell.
The school hadn’t changed too much. There were a few more weeds in the schoolyard, and a lot more grasshoppers, dragonflies and moths flitting through the air.
Grandpa was exhausted. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so tired. He walked into his rooms, took one look at the teaching awards gathering dust on the walls, and collapsed on his bed. He never wanted to get up again. Grandpa fell asleep. As always, he dreamed.
In his dream, Grandpa passed through all the places he had known: Willow Hamlet, Yellow Creek, Two-Li Village, Old Riverton, Ming Village, Cottonwood, and so many, many others. He must have walked for hundreds of miles across the plain, visiting hundreds of villages and market towns, every one of them the same. In every place he went, he found no people or animals or trees. Only the buildings and houses remained. The people had died or moved away, and the animals had been slaughtered or starved. The trees, of course, had been chopped down to make coffins.
The houses were still standing, but their wooden parts were gone.
Doors, crossbeams, cabinets and window frames had been salvaged and made into coffins.
Even in the most distant counties, it was rare to see a single soul.
People and animals had been obliterated, and the plain was barren.
That night there was a rainstorm, a torrential downpour that transformed the plain into a vast expanse of mud. Grandpa dreamed of a woman, digging in the mud with the branch of a willow tree. With each flick
of the branch, each stroke of the willow, she raised a small army of tiny mud people from the soil. Soon there were hundreds upon thousands of them, thousands upon millions, millions upon millions of tiny mud people leaping from the soil, dancing on the earth, blistering the plain like so many raindrops from the sky.
Grandpa found himself gazing at a new and teeming plain.
A new world danced before his eyes.