Mao's Last Dancer - Li Cunxin [16]
“The old man’s son showed up?”
“Ha-ha!” Cunmao laughed heartily and shook his head. “The old man suddenly opened his eyes wide and said in a loud voice, ‘What do you think you’re doing, young man?’ The robber, as if he had seen a ghost, jumped out of the grave and bolted away.”
I sat there petrified. This was the last outcome I’d expected. Cunmao opened his eyes wide, just like the old man.
“Why did he become alive again?” I asked, terrified.
“I knew you wouldn’t get it!” Cunmao scoffed. “The egg got stuck in the old man’s throat and when the robber punched him, it was knocked loose so he got his breath back. And that’s why we have to leave Na-na’s body here for three days, in case she comes alive again too.”
“Then why didn’t anyone punch our na-na three times?”
“Do you think our elders would do it in front of us? Okay, go and play now.”
When I asked my second brother Cunyuan about the reason for our na-na’s three-day staying, he told me it was so relatives who lived far away could see her before she was buried. I thought Cunmao’s story was more satisfying.
I was stricken with grief at Na-na’s death. She had told my parents, a few days before her death, ‘If there is one thing I want you to do for me when I’m dead, it is to bury me properly.’ She firmly believed that her spirit would live on in a different world. So my dia and uncles asked a good carpenter to make a special coffin, carved with birds, flowers, trees, and water. Our youngest aunt’s husband, who is a furniture painter, painted it.
It wasn’t easy to obtain permission for Na-na’s burial since this was now considered an old, unhealthy tradition. The government had started forcing people to cremate the dead. Na-na’s burial was the last one allowed in our village.
The village leaders let us select the edge of a ditch for her burial site. It was a water escape channel. Any place with water was a lucky place.
Before she died, Na-na had made her own funeral clothes, shoes, and other essential burial items. Na-na’s daughters dressed her in her dark greenish blue cotton jacket and black shoes with flowers stitched on the soles. The man with the best handwriting in the village wrote Na-na’s name on a large piece of white paper, the same shape as the stone nameplate on the grave. Once a person died, his or her spirit would linger, looking for the place where they belonged. If we didn’t have her nameplate put up quickly, her soul might wander away and become lost forever. At least one person would stay by the coffin at all times during those three days, to “keep the beloved company.” Any person related to Na-na had to cry loudly as soon as they walked into the room. The person who was “keeping the beloved company” had to cry as well, and as they cried they would call out the visitor’s name so Na-na would know who was paying her their respects.
As soon as the sun went down on the first day after her death, the entire family formed a procession. Everyone cried loudly all the way to a miniature temple, about ten minutes away from our house. The Red Guards had destroyed all the real temples, so my dia and uncles had to make this one. Here the local god would determine if our na-na was worthy of a happy life. If there were a god, he would definitely look after my na-na. She was the best na-na in the world. I couldn’t imagine anyone kinder.
This procession was repeated again on the second night after sunset, and very early on the third day, when skilled diggers went to the burial site before sunrise.
The funeral itself was expensive. Our family hired coffin carriers; dancers on stilts; musicians; blanket-and-quilt carriers; even people to carry mirrors, combs, cups, food, drinks, and a lot of fake paper money.
The procession began from Na-na’s house. Only men were permitted to go to the burial site. The women were left to cry in the house and cook the feast. My eldest uncle carried a big clay pot on his head.