A Private Life

9 A Coffin Looks For An Occupant…

The wind is the despot of Beijing 's North China winters. At one moment, its fierce, leaping blasts tear and pull at the black mantle of bare earth; at the next it becomes gentle under a warming sun, and the earth beneath one's feet is transformed into an endless river of golden light. Such extreme weather changes make the people who live through them moody and temperamental.

Winter is an endless season.

One winter day, the heavily falling snow soon above my ankles, I spent the entire afternoon building a snowman in our courtyard. For her eyes, I stole two lumps of coal from under the eaves of Mrs. Ge's house in the courtyard in front of us – the lady who had breast cancer. From our own kitchen I took some cabbage leaves for her hair, and I made an army cap for her out of a piece of cardboard. I made her look like a fearless woman soldier waving an arm in the empty, barren courtyard. Her blank eyes were open wide, as if she were pursuing some unseen or simply nonexistent enemy.

I chose a name for her – Ni Niuniu, same as myself.

That night after dinner, I was totally tired out.

When I went to my room and started writing in my diary, I couldn't stop yawning. The words in my diary, strung together like my yawns, were all awry and uneven, as illegible as the magic scribblings of a ghost. My head felt heavier and heavier, and all my bones seemed to have been pulled from my body so that I slumped in my chair.

At that moment my mother's image wavered into view before me. What was odd was that she hadn't called to me as she entered my room like she usually did, but had waited until she was beside me to call me quietly and mysteriously. Even more strange was the anachronistic sequence of actions: she was already beside me when I heard her knock at the door. But the knock was definitely my mother's. She tapped the door with her middle and index fingers, as if she were plucking a lute, not two or three times, but four times, in a very distinctive way. So that knock could not have been anyone else's.

Frightened, I shrank back.

Mother said, "Niuniu, I want you to come with me to the Ges' courtyard. Mrs. Ge has died, but there's nothing to be afraid of."

I said, "Why would I be afraid? Dead people's yards are safer than living people's."

Then I flew next door to see.

The courtyard had become a brightly lit funeral scene. Green bristlegrass, lilies, "never-die" portulaca, and sunflowers vied in the brilliance of their reds and golds, filling the space with such a rioting blaze of color that everything in the yard shimmered with glowing hues. The scene was dominated by a huge black wooden coffin so high that it blotted out half the wall of the house behind it. When I got closer, I saw that it was the propped-open lid that made it look so high.

One of the men in the Ge family was standing stiffly beside it, holding a small book in his hand. He raised his head to look around at the crowd of people, then look into the coffin again, and finally wrote something in the little book, showing absolutely no sign of grief.

When I came up to the coffin and looked in, I saw a female figure buried in a welter of brightly colored brocade. Her head, covered with a piece of white cloth, was resting on a pretty lotus-pink pillow with a floral border. Looking at her, I was very upset, but I wasn't really frightened.

Then I noticed that the body in the coffin appeared to be breathing. Under the white cloth covering her face, just below where the nose would be, there was a mouth-shaped oval indentation that was rising and falling rhythmically. I jumped back, scared out of my wits.

At that point, the lady in the coffin extended a long, emaciated arm and grasped my hand. I was astonished to find that her hand was warm. Then with her other hand she lifted a corner of the white cloth covering her face to reveal an eye, or, to be more precise, half an eye.

She smiled at me and very softly and weakly said, "Don't be afraid."

I said, "You haven't died yet?"

She said, "No, I haven't died yet. I'm conducting an experiment."

"Experiment?"

"I'm not too inclined to believe in people, including my husband. Look at him. All he's doing is making a list of the funeral gifts. He doesn't look the least bit grief-stricken; on the contrary, he actually looks quite happy. No doubt he's happy because he's gained a new chance."

"What kind of chance could your death give him?"

"The chance to choose a new, young bride."

I said, "He doesn't know you haven't died?"

She said, “No, he doesn’t know. It’s a secret. Only you and I know, and you mustn't tell anyone else. All I wanted was to know, while I was still alive, who was saddened by my death and who was happy, who would truly grieve for me and whose tears were false, and whose silence was truly out of grief."

She paused to take a breath, then continued, "One person's place in another person's heart is revealed by how much of that person's heart consists of tears. All I want to do is measure the amount and quality of the tears people shed over my death."

I heaved a long sigh. "Anyway, I'm glad you're not dead. I'll stay with you. I'm not afraid."

She continued her one-sided conversation. "Everywhere you go in this world there is filth and deception. I can't stop worrying about where my coffin will be buried. Look at this eulogy. It says that during a certain incident in the struggle to cleanse class ranks in a certain year, I took a firm position, identifying what was correct, what incorrect, and that I gave the enemy no quarter, thus revealing my fearless spirit. You probably think that this was meant to praise me. Actually, it slanders me, since that was a particularly ruthless and bloody incident."

"Really? Why would they want to do that?" I asked uncertainly.

"Because everyone has ten mouths, and the only one of them that's sincere is the one that's silent in sleep." The more she talked, the feebler her breathing became. Every word that she spoke floated through the air of the crowded, chaotic courtyard like a thready note from a long-silent ancient lute.

"When you die, I promise I won't slander you," I said.

"Oh well, my real burial place will always be in my own heart," she said.

She smiled at me for a moment, then added, "Don't worry about any of this. When you're my age, everything will be perfectly clear. What do you think of my funeral gown? Isn't it lovely?"

She let go my hand and began removing the colorful material covering her and the fragrant blossoms that filled the coffin so that I could see her funeral gown, and finally she lifted the white cloth from her face.

Only at this point did I see that the body in the coffin was not Mrs. Ge at all. Through the fresh blossoms and pear branches, the woman I saw emerge from under the burial clothes was a different person altogether. The woman I had been staring at all this time was the Widow Ho, who was now gazing wearily heavenward.

When I realized I was looking at Widow Ho, I was at first frightened, but then, stricken with grief, I started to cry, fiercely and silently. Standing alone beside the coffin, I shed my inconsolable tears, but I didn't want anyone in the courtyard to know. It was as if Ho and I cherished a special secret.

I was awakened by my own sobbing to find that I was lying with my face in my exercise book, its pages wet with my tears.

Just at that point, the wind outside my window began to howl as if it had gone mad, with such intensity that it seemed it would blow itself out. Sitting up straight, I tried to concentrate, but my mind was too confused. I could make no sense of what had just happened. In the end, I was so unsettled that I ran over to see Widow Ho.

There was no moon and it was very dark out, with only the dim light reflected from the snow on the ground. I made a wild dash from our courtyard through the raging blizzard to pound on her door.

When she opened the door, she looked as alert and cautious as a cat, but when she saw that it was me, she gave a sigh of relief and suddenly looked tired and sleepy. She lay down on her bed again, looking rather ill.

"What's wrong, Niuniu?" she asked me in a husky, tired voice, as she was lying down. It was as if the words came only with great effort, not from her lips but from somewhere deep within her body, because her lips did not seem to have moved at all.

"I just came to see if you were okay."

"Thank you, Niuniu, I'm fine."

Standing in the doorway, I was looking at her smooth, milk-white skin. She was wearing a long, white nightgown that was far too big for her thin frame. Lying there on her big, soft, fluffy bed, she looked like a pure white lily, as peaceful as still water, although she had suffered her share of the endless uncertainties of life.

I have always had a special kind of feeling about her. She was my neighbor and I was always able to catch a glimpse of her coming and going. She was a kind of light in my otherwise bland inner life. In her I had found a warm and close friend, a special kind of woman who could take the place of my mother. When she was near me, even if we were silent, a fragrant warm feeling of security and gentleness enclosed me. This feeling was a kind of intangible glow that bathed or illumined my skin. And unlike the energy of remote control devices that can be blocked by intervening objects, it was of such strength that nothing could stay it.

I think it is principally bonds like this that can develop between people that distinguish us from stones.

When I saw that there was nothing wrong, and how lovely she looked lying there on her bed, I went back home reassured and was soon asleep.

Early the next morning, I knew that I was sick when I awoke with the cold shivers and a terrible headache. I was definitely running a fever. Although my entire body was hot and my pajamas were soaked through with sweat, I felt like an open refrigerator spilling out its icy air.

Lying on my bed, I made an effort to call my mother, but my voice sounded like a bunch of fluttering feathers and my ears started to ring. I called a number of times, but for some reason the entire house remained silent, and there was no sign of my mother. I didn't have the strength to call anymore, so all I could do was wait.

It was only after I stopped calling that I heard a commotion in the courtyard outside. A confused scuffling of feet seemed to come from the courtyard facing ours. I was able to make out a few words, like "died" and "police."

Just then, my mother strode into my room in great agitation, saying, "Niuniu, Mrs. Ge has been murdered. Whatever you do, don't leave the house."

When she came close and saw that I was burning with a fever as fierce as glowing coals and curled up in a ball shivering uncontrollably, she cried out, "Oh my god!"

My father was busy with meetings in another province and hadn't been home for many days. This morning, my mother, alone and suddenly faced with crises both at home and at the neighbor's, couldn't avoid feeling flustered.

She made me open my mouth, and in the light from the window she checked my throat. "Look at that," she said, "your throat is swollen almost shut!"

She nattered on about a grown-up girl like me making a snowman as if I were still a child, while she was looking in the closet for our thickest padded cotton coat to bundle me up in. She was convinced that my fever was the result of my spending too much time playing in the snow.

I rode to the hospital on the back of Mother's bicycle. As we passed by the Ges' courtyard, I saw many people milling around their door with strange expressions on their faces, their chatter spilling out on the snow. Like a layer of deep shadow, this atmosphere wiped away the lifeless emptiness of winter in the courtyard. The police were also there, like so many green trees on little wheels. With little to say and showing no signs of being the least bit touched, they shunted about the snow-covered courtyard telling people to move, to stand back. From the irritation on their faces, I could see that they detested disorder. They were trying to provide a framework of stability for the disquieted crowd, to bring some order to the chaotic courtyard.

From childhood I have always suffered from a kind of unaccountable inner chaos, as if the cells within my body could exist only under a frightening state of total anarchy. So I have always instinctively stayed clear of the kind of order represented by the police. Now, when I saw that the police had arrived, my entire body suddenly became tense.

I heard some of the neighbors secretively discussing how Mr. Ge had fled without leaving a trace after strangling his wife with his belt.

These frightening details stabbed into my brain to explode like great rolls of thunder. I felt dizzy and had to gasp for breath. My fear turned the short path through their front courtyard that I was so familiar with into a black and endless corridor.

It seemed that the air was filled with the smell of rotting flesh, and the withered and bare wisteria in their courtyard suddenly reminded me of my dream.

I began to shake uncontrollably.