Yu Hua - Brothers

Then she turned to Li Lan. "Why don't you take the kids home?"

Li Lan nodded. She knotted the shirt filled with dark crimson earth and placed it in her bag. It was already afternoon. Li Lan walked ahead with her heavy travel bag, and Baldy Li and Song Gang walked hand in hand behind her. The boys saw that her shoulder sloped from the weight.

All the way home Li Lan did not weep or wail but only stumbled forward. She paused to rest a few times, due to the weight of her bag, whereupon she would look back on the two boys without saying a word. They no longer wept or spoke. When an acquaintance called out her name, she would only nod her head slightly.

Li Lan walked silently back to her home. As she entered, the sight of Song Fanpings badly mutilated body on their bed caused her to keel over, but she immediately got back up. She still didn't cry but only stood shaking her head. She reached out to gently touch Song Fan-ping's face but then pulled her hand away in a panic, as if worried that she was hurting him. Her hand hung in the air for a moment before she started to comb a few dead flies out of his matted hair. With her right hand she slowly removed all the dead flies from Song Fanpings corpse and placed them in the palm of her left. All afternoon Li Lan stood by the bed, picking flies from the body. Several neighbors looked in from the window, and a couple of them came in to speak with her. Li Lan remained silent, only nodding or shaking her head in response to their questions. After they left, she closed the windows and door, and it wasn't until nightfall, when she was satisfied that there were no more flies on Song Fanpings body, that she finally sat down on the bed and looked out at the reflection of the sunset on their window.

Baldy Li and Song Gang had not eaten anything all day. They stood by Li Lan sobbing, but it was a very long time before Li Lan realized they were there. She turned to them and said in a low voice, "Don't cry. Don't let others hear us cry."

The boys immediately covered their mouths. Baldy Li added timidly, "We are hungry."

As if suddenly waking from a dream, Li Lan gave them money and grain coupons and told them to go buy themselves something to eat. When the boys left, they saw that she was once again sitting dully by the bed. They bought three buns, and Baldy Li and Song Gang ate theirs as they walked home. They found Li Lan still sitting on the edge of the bed, and when they handed her the third bun, she merely stared at it and asked distractedly, "What is this?"

Baldy Li and Song Gang replied, "A bun."

Li Lan nodded, appearing to understand, and then took a bite out of the bun and slowly chewed. Baldy Li and Song Gang watched her until she finished the bun. Then she said, "Let's go to sleep."

That night, as the boys lay dreaming, they sensed that someone kept walking in and out of the house, and they could also make out the sounds of pouring water. It was Li Lan, going again and again to draw water from the well. She carefully cleaned Song Fanpings corpse and changed him into clean clothes. The children did not know how the small, frail Li Lan managed to change the clothes on Song Fanpings massive body, or whether she got any sleep. The next day, after Li Lan left, Baldy Li and Song Gang discovered that Song Fanping was as neat and tidy as a groom. Even the sheets beneath him had been changed, though his scrubbed face was a mass of green and purple blotches.

Song Fanpings corpse lay on the near side of the bed. The pillow on the far side had a few strands of Li Lan's hair, and a few more were dangling from Song Fanpings neck. Li Lan must have spent the night cradled on Song Fanpings chest. This was to be the last night she spent with Song Fanping. The bloodied clothes and sheets were soaking in the wooden tub under the bed, and floating on top of the water were a few flies that had wedged themselves in the crevices of his clothing.

All night Li Lan had wept. As she wiped down Song Fanpings body, she shuddered over his bruises and wounds. Several times she almost burst out into terrible wails, but each time she managed to swallow her sobs and would bravely rouse herself, though the effort almost made her faint. Her lips bled from biting down on them. No one could imagine how she survived that night, how she reined herself in and managed not to go insane. Afterward, she lay down on the bed and placed her head on Song Fanpings chest, falling into a state that was not so much sleep as a long, pitch-black unconsciousness. Only when the sun s rays pierced the room did she rouse herself once again from the terrible pit of her pain.

Li Lan, her eyes bloodshot and puffy, left the house to go to the coffin shop, bringing with her all the money that she had in the house. She wanted to buy her husband the best coffin, but she didn't have enough money. She was only able to afford an unvarnished one made of thin wood planks, and even then only the shortest of the four. She returned shortly before noon, followed by four men carrying the thin-plank coffin on their backs. They set the coffin down next to Baldy Li and Song Gangs bed. The boys looked with fear and horror at the coffin as the four sweat-drenched men wiped themselves with their towels and fanned themselves with their straw hats. Looking about, they asked loudly, "Where is the corpse? Where is it?"

Silently, Li Lan opened the door to the inside room. The men's leader walked into the room and spotted Song Fanping on the bed. He waved for his men to follow him in. They stood by the bed quietly discussing matters for a while, then abruptly grabbed Song Fanping by the arms and legs. The leader bellowed, "Lift him up!" and the four men lifted Song Fanping, their faces as red as pig's liver. They carried Song Fanping through the door and then attempted to place him in the coffin. When Song's torso was positioned in the coffin, his feet still dangled out. The men panted noisily, trying to catch their breath. They asked Li Lan, "How much did Song Fanping weigh when he was alive?"

Li Lan was leaning against the door frame as she replied in a low voice that her husband probably weighed 180 pounds or so. All the men had looks of "Aha!" The man in charge explained, "No wonder he was so heavy. When people die, they weigh twice as much. That was probably three hundred and sixty pounds right there. No wonder I almost sprained my back!"

The men from the coffin shop then began an animated discussion about how to wedge Song Fanpings feet into the coffin. The corpse was too long, and the coffin too short. The four of them struggled for more than an hour. Song Fanpings head was already squashed and crooked, but still they could not manage to squeeze his two feet in. They discussed placing him on his side, in a fetal position, saying that then they could manage to fit all of him in.

But Li Lan balked at this. She felt that the dead should be buried faceup, since they would want to look up at the living. "You can't lay him on his side. If he's on his side, he won't be able to see us."

The man in charge retorted, "With the coffin lid and all the dirt, he wouldn't be able to see even if he were lying faceup. Hugging his knees, he'd be in the same position as he was when he was born, and furthermore it would make coming back for the next go-round easier."

Li Lan shook her head. She still wanted to say something, but the four men had already bent over and, with much grunting and huffing, rolled Song Fanping onto his side. Then they discovered that the coffin was too narrow, and Song Fanpings body was too wide and too thick. Plus his legs were too long, so even in a fetal position they couldn't fit all of him in. The men shook their heads. Lifting their shirts to wipe the sweat that had flowed from their faces down onto their chests, they complained, "What kind of fucking coffin is this? A foot-washing basin is more like it."