The passage of Fourth Uncle’s corpse attracted far less attention than it had on the way over, when anyone who could walk fell in behind the grisly procession. Now the cortege comprised only a few yapping dogs.
Back home, the brothers laid their poles in front of the gate, making the door thud against the ground and raising clouds of noise from Gao Zhileng’s parakeets. Jinju, a blank look in her eyes, opened the gate. “Carry your father inside and lay him on the kang,” Fourth Aunt said. Neither son spoke or budged.
“Mother,” Number One broke the silence, “people say you shouldn’t lay the corpse of someone who’s died a violent death on the kang-”
Fourth Aunt cut him off. “Your father worked like a dog all his life, and now that he’s dead is he to be denied the comfort of a warm kang? That would be more than I could stand.”
Number Two remarked, “He is dead, after all, so a regular bed is just as good. ‘Death is like extinguishing a light,’ as the saying goes. ‘Breath becomes a spring breeze, flesh and bones turn to mud.’ If you put him on a heated kang, he’ll turn bad even faster.”
“In other words, do you plan to let your own father lie outside?”
“It’s as good a place as any,” Number Two replied. “The cool winds will cut down on the smell, and we’ll be spared the trouble of having to carry him outside tomorrow morning.”
“And let the dogs get at him?”
“Mother,” Number One spoke up, “we’ll be skinning the cow and carving up the meat to take to market tomorrow. What Deputy Yang said made sense, especially the part about how the dead are gone, but the survivors have to keep on living.”
Poor Fourth Aunt had no choice. Between sobs she said, “Husband, since your sons won’t let you sleep on the kang, you’ll have to lie out here tonight.”
“Don’t make yourself feel worse, Mother,” the older son said. “Go in and lie down. We’ll take care of things out here.” He then lit the lantern and set it on a stone roller alongside the threshing floor, while his brother brought out a pair of stools and placed them several feet apart on the ground. They picked up the door on which Fourth Uncles corpse lay and rested it on the stools.
“Go inside and get some rest, Mother,” her older son urged. “We’ll watch the body. Say what you want, but Father was fated to die like this, so there’s no reason to be so sad.”
But she sat down beside the raised door and cleaned maggots out of Fourth Uncle’s various openings with a twig while her sons spread a beat-up old tarp out on the threshing floor and rolled the dead cow up onto it until its belly was facing skyward. Then they propped the animal in that position by placing bricks on either side of its backbone. Four legs, stiff as boards, stuck straight up in the air.
Number One picked up a carving knife, Number Two a cleaver. Beginning in the center of the abdomen, they sliced the animal open, then began skinning it, Number One to the east, Number Two to the west. Fourth Aunt’s nostrils picked up the powerful stench of the dead cow and of Fourth Uncle.
Sister-in-Law, the murky light from that lantern fell on my husband’s face, and his black eyes bored into me until blasts of cold air shot out of every joint in my body. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t dig those maggots out of him. I know it sounds disgusting, but it didn’t seem so to me at the time. I hated those maggots, and I squashed every one I got my hands on. And my sons, all they cared about was skinning that cow. Not a thought for their own father. But my daughter carried a basin of water outside to clean his face with damp cotton. And since we didn’t have another knife, she trimmed the gray stubble on his chin with a pair of scissors, and even cut back his nose hairs. He cut quite a figure when he was young, but got all shriveled up when he was old, and was a real sight. Then she brought out his dark-green jacket, and the two of us put it on him. I know it doesnt seem right for a couple of women to be dressing a man, but right after I asked my sons to help, I noticed their bloody hands and told them to forget it. Jinju, I said, this is your own father, not some strange man, so let’s you and me do it. He was skin and bones, and the clothes helped a lot. All this time, my sons were’s truggling with that cowhide, until their faces were all sweaty. That reminded me of a joke. An old man calls his three sons to his deathbed. ‘I’m going to die soon. How do you boys plan to dispose of my body?” The eldest son says, “Dad, we’re so poor we can’t afford a decent coffin, so I say we buy a cheap pine box, put you in it, and bury you. How does that sound?”
“No good,” his father says, shaking his head, “no good at all.”
“Dad,” the second son says, “I think we ought to wrap you in an old straw mat and bury you that way. How’s that?”
“No good,” his father says, “no good at all.” The third son says, “Dad, here’s what I recommend: we chop you into three pieces, skin you, and take everything to market, where we palm you off as dogmeat, beef, and donkey. What do you think of that?” Their father smiles and says, “Number Three knows his father’s mind. Now don’t forget to add a little water to the meat to keep the weight up.” Are you asleep, Sister-in-Law?
Her sons’ hands were so coated with blood and gore that the knives kept slipping, so they wiped them off on the ground; the yellow grains of sand that stuck to their hands looked like little gold nuggets. Flies from the government compound, having picked up the smell, came flitting over and landed on the cow’s carcass, crawling all over it. Number Two smashed them with the side of his cleaver. Meanwhue, Fourth Aunt told Jinju to get her well- used fan so she could keep the flies from landing on Fourth Uncle’s face and producing more maggots.
The sound of birds on the wing broke the silence above them. Dark recesses in the wall were home to the green eyes and urgent pant-ings of wild creatures.
Around midnight the brothers finally finished skinning the cow. Now the animal was in the raw, except for its four hooves-sort of like a naked man wearing only a pair of shoes. Number Two dumped a bucket of water on the skinned animal; then the boys squatted alongside it and smoked cigarettes. When they finished their smokes, they began the butchering process. “Easy, now,” Number One said. “Don’t damage the organs.” Number Two made an incision in the abdomen, and the animal’s guts tumbled out, along with the unborn calf. A hot, rank odor assailed Fourth Aunt’s nostrils. The shrieks of birds rent the sky above them.
After evacuating the long coils of intestines, Number Two was about to throw them away when Number One said they went well with wine if you cleaned them up. As for the calf, he said that an unborn bovine fetus had medicinal properties, and that people got rich palming it off as balm of deer uterus.
Don’t be so sad, Sister-in-Law. You say they gave you five years? Well, those years will just fly by, and by the time you get out, your son will be a useful member of society.
4.
“Better to be a military advisor than a property divider,” the village boss, Gao Jinjiao, said. “Why me? Officials who don’t bail people out of jams should stay home and plant their yams.’ Okay, let’s hear what each of you has to say, and confine it to the here and now.”
“Director,” Number One said, “we want you to divide it up.”
So Gao Jinjiao began. “You have a four-room house. One for each brother, two for Fourth Aunt. When she dies-I don’t mean to make you feel bad, Fourth Aunt, but the truth isn’t always pleasant-each of you gets one of her rooms. Since one is larger than the other, the smaller one includes the gate and the arch above it. The kitchen utensils will be divided into three portions; then you’ll draw lots to see who gets which portion. Damages for Fourth Uncle and the cow came to three thousand six hundred yuan, which divides out to twelve hundred apiece. There is thirteen hundred yuan in the bank, so each son gets four hundred, Fourth Aunt gets five. When Gao Ma hands over the ten thousand, half will go to Fourth Aunt, the other half will be divided equally between the two brothers. When Jinju marries, Fourth Aunt will be responsible for the dowry. You boys are welcome to help out, but no one’s forcing you to. Your grain stores will be divided into three and a half portions, with Jinju getting the half-portion. When Fourth Aunt gets ‘ to the age where she can’t take care of herself, you boys will take turns caring for her, alternating every month or every year, however you want to work it out. That’s about it. Have I forgotten anything?”
“What about the garlic?” Elder Brother asked.
“Divide that into three portions as well,” Gao Jinjiao replied. “But is Fourth Aunt able to go to market and sell
