The Seventh Day (28 page)

The other two fell silent. “Nobody who’s gone there has ever come back,” the man in the fur robe said, “so nobody knows whether it’s hot or cold. If by any chance the conditions are harsh, I’m all prepared.”

“He doesn’t understand,” a skeleton near me muttered. “Fur comes from animals. He’s going to be reborn an animal.”

The other two VIPs asked the man in the fur robe where his burial site was. On a tall mountain peak, they were told, and one where the mountain falls away on all sides, so that he could enjoy a 360-degree view.

The other two VIPs nodded. “Excellent choice.”

“They don’t have a clue,” the same skeleton muttered. “A mountain should have high spurs on both sides rather than fall away sheer. If it has high spurs, one’s children will prosper, but if it falls away on both sides, one’s children will end up beggars.”

The number V12 was now called. The VIP in the fur robe rose with a slight stoop, as though from extensive experience of emerging from sedan cars. He nodded to his two peers, then walked smugly toward the oven room.

It was now the turn of A44. The number was slowly called three times, and then it was on to A45. This number too was called slowly three times, and then it was on to A46. When the numbers were called, it was like the sound of soughing wind on a dark night—drawn out and lonely. This lonesome sound made the waiting room seem empty and unreal. After three unanswered summonses, A47 stood up—a female figure who came forward hesitantly.

We sat quietly around Mouse Girl, conscious that the hour of her leaving was growing closer. After the VIPs V13 and V14 left, the call went out for A52 and our eyes could not help but turn toward Mouse Girl. She sat lost in thought with her hands clasped in front of her chest, her head bowed.

After A52 was called three times, we heard Mouse Girl’s A53 called and we bowed our heads in unison, conscious that Mouse Girl was walking away from the plastic chairs.

Although I had averted my gaze, I could still in my imagination see Mouse Girl, trailing a wedding-gown-like dress behind her, walking off to her resting place. I could see her walk off but did not see the oven room and did not see the burial ground. What I saw was her walking toward a place where ten thousand flowers bloom.

Then I heard the plastic seats give a slight creak and I knew the skeletons were rising from their places and leaving, withdrawing gently, the way a tide goes out.

I stayed put. In the row in front of me, five remaining crematees were seated, and my father in his faded blue jacket and worn white gloves stood in the passageway to their left, looking ready to respond to any need they might have. I felt as though my father’s erect figure was like that of a silent mourner. When a crematee turned his head and said something, my father stepped forward promptly and responded quietly to the person’s question, then withdrew to his post in the passageway. My father was always sedulous in performing his duties, no matter whether in that departed world or in this one.

After the remaining five crematees entered the oven room in turn, the waiting room seemed so empty it was almost as though it had run out of air, with only a dim light emanating from the widely separated candle-shaped sconces. My father came over with heavy steps and I rose to meet him. I clutched his empty sleeves—the bones inside seemed as slender as a cord. Supporting his weight, I was planning to head toward the VIP zone, where comfortable chairs awaited. But my father stopped me, saying, “That’s not the place for us.”

We sat down on the plastic chairs and I clasped my father’s gloved hand. Through a hole in the glove I could feel the bones of his fingers, and they seemed so brittle that they would break at the slightest impact. My father’s dim eyes peered at me as though determined to confirm my identity. “You’re here so soon,” he said mournfully.

“Dad,” I said, “were you afraid of being a burden, and that’s why you left?”

He shook his head. “I just wanted to go back there and have a look,” he said.

“Why?”

“I was upset. The thought of having abandoned you upset me.”

“Dad,” I said, “you didn’t abandon me.”

“I just thought of that rock, and wanted to sit there for a bit. I’d always wanted to go there. When it got dark, I would want to go there, but in the morning I would see you and change my mind, because I couldn’t bear to leave you.”

“Dad, why didn’t you tell me? I would have gone with you.”

“I thought of telling you—I thought of that many times.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Were you worried I’d be upset?”

“No, that wasn’t it,” he said. “I preferred to go there myself.”

“So you left without saying goodbye.”

“No,” he said, “I meant to come back on the evening train.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I did.” After he died, he meant. “I stood a long time opposite the shop and saw it was someone else who came out from inside.”

“I went to look for you.”

“When I saw that someone else had taken over the shop, I knew you had gone to look for me.”

“I kept looking and looking,” I said. “I went to the department store, because there had been a fire there the day you left and I worried you might have been trapped.”

“What department store?”

“The big silver one not far from the shop.”

“I don’t remember that.”

I realized that when the department store opened he was already struck down by illness and pain. “You never went there,” I said.

“You’re here so soon,” he repeated.

“I looked all over the city, and I went to the countryside to look for you too,” I said.

“Did you see your uncles and aunts?” he asked.

“I saw them, yes. There’s a lot of change there too.” I didn’t tell him how desolate things looked.

“Do they still bear a grudge?” he asked.

“No, they were very upset by the news.”

“I should have gone to see them long ago,” he said.

“I looked for you everywhere,” I said. “It just never occurred to me that you had taken the train there.”

“I boarded the train—” he muttered.

I smiled, thinking how we had been looking for each other in two separate worlds.

Once more he picked up his mournful refrain: “You’re here so soon.”

“Dad, I never thought I would find you here.”

“Every day here I was hoping to see you, but I didn’t want you to come so soon.”

“Dad, we’re together now.”

After a long parting, my father and I had run into each other again. Although we now had no body warmth and no breath, we were together once more. I removed my hand from the slender, bony fingers inside his old glove and carefully placed it on his bony shoulder. I very much wanted to say “Dad, come with me.” But I knew he loved to work, loved this waiting-room usher’s work, so I simply said, “Dad, I’ll often come visit you.”

I felt a smile appear on his skeletal face.

“Does your birth mother know?”

“Not yet, I don’t think.”

He gave a sigh. “They’ll find out before long.”

I said nothing more, and he said nothing either. The waiting room fell back into the quiet of remembrance. We treasured this moment of togetherness and in silence felt each other’s presence. I was conscious that he was gazing intently at the scars on my face. Li Qing had only restored my left eye, nose, and chin, without erasing the scars left there.

His hands, encased in those old white gloves, began to rub my shoulders. His skeletal fingers were trembling, and I felt his caress was designed to signal a reunion just as much as a final parting.

His fingers froze when they reached my black armband. He hung his head, sinking into a distant grief. He knew that after he left I had become a lonely orphan in that other world. He did not inquire what events had led to my arrival here, perhaps because he didn’t want to upset me, or perhaps because he didn’t want to upset himself. After a little while he told me softly that he wanted to wear the armband. This was genuinely his wish, I could tell, so I nodded and took it off and passed it to him. He removed his gloves, and ten trembling skeletal fingers received the armband. He placed it on his empty sleeve.

After he put the worn white gloves back on his skeletal hands, he raised his head to look at me, and I saw two tears fall from his empty eyes. Although he had arrived here before me, he still shed the tears that white-haired people shed for dark-haired ones.

On my way back, a young man hailed me. His left hand clutching his midriff, he was walking in haste but with a slight stoop, as though still recovering from a major illness. “Somebody told me that if I keep going in this direction I can see my girlfriend,” he said to me.

“Who’s your girlfriend?” I asked.

“The prettiest girl around.”

“What’s her name?”

“Her name’s Liu Mei. She’s also called Mouse Girl.”

“You must be Wu Chao,” I said. A fur hat now covered his unruly hair. It must have been a long time since he had dyed his hair, or cut it.

“How do you know that?”

“I recognize you.”

“Where have we met?”

“In the shelter.”

My reminder gradually cleared away the confusion on his face. “I do feel I’ve seen you somewhere.”

“Yes, in the shelter.”

Now he remembered, and the wisp of a smile appeared on his face. “That’s right, that’s where I saw you.”

I looked at the area on his waist that his left hand was clutching. “Is it still sore there?”

“Not anymore,” he said.

His hand left the spot, only to return to the same place out of habit soon after.

“We know you sold a kidney to buy a burial plot for Mouse Girl,” I said.

“We?” he looked at me in confusion.

“Me and the others over there.” I pointed up ahead.

“The others over there?”

“Those of us without graves.”

He nodded, seeming to have understood. “How do you know about me?” he asked.

“Xiao Qing came over, and he told us.”

“Xiao Qing’s here too?” he said. “When did he come?”

“It must be six days ago now,” I said. “He kept getting lost and didn’t get here until yesterday.”