Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

Face has been dispersed, he flees into the mountains alone. Knowing his reputation as a filial son, the PLA convinces his sister and mother to fake the mother’s death and sends his sister into the mountains to pass on the news. Blue Face comes down from the mountains in his mourning garments and goes straight to his mother’s bier, where PLA soldiers, who are staked out among the mourners, rush up and pin him to the floor. At that moment, his mother sits up in her coffin and says, Son, the PLA always treats its prisoners humanely, so please surrender to them. . . . “Got it?” the director asked us. “Got it,” we said.
    Before sealing the coffin, Mistress Xu lifted the yellow paper covering your mother’s face and said:
    “Filial mourners, take one last look. But please control yourselves and do not let tears fall on her face.”
    Your mother’s face was puffy and jaundiced-looking, almost as if a thin layer of gold powder had been applied. Her eyes were open a crack, enough to release a pair of cold gleams, as if to scold everyone who looked upon her dead face.
    “Mother, why have you left me to live as an orphan? . . .” Ximen Jinlong was wailing so bitterly a pair of cousins had to come up and pull him back from the coffin.
    “Mother, my dear mother, take me with you. . . .” Baofeng banged her head against the side of the coffin, producing dull thuds. People dragged her away. Ma Gaige, his hair prematurely gray, wrapped his arm around his mother to keep her from throwing herself on the coffin.
    Your wife gripped the edge of the coffin and wept, open-mouthed, until her eyes rolled back in her head and she fell backward. Several of the mourners rushed up and dragged her off to the side, where some of them rubbed the skin between her thumb and forefinger and others pinched the spot beneath her nose to revive her. Slowly she regained consciousness.
    Master Xu signaled for the carpenters to come inside with their tools. They carefully picked up the lid and placed it over the body of a woman who had died with her eyes still slightly open. As the nails were pounded in, the chorus of wails reached another crescendo.
    Over the next two days, Jinlong, Baofeng, Huzhu, and Hezuo sat on grass mats watching over the coffin from opposite ends, day and night. Lan Kaifang and Ximen Huan sat on stools at the head of the coffin facing each other and burning spirit money in an earthenware platter; at the other end, two thick red candles burned in front of your mother’s spirit tablet, the smoke merging solemnly with paper ash floating in the air.
    A steady stream of mourners passed by Master Xu, who meticulously recorded every gift of spirit money, which quickly piled up beneath the apricot tree. It was such a cold day that he had to blow on the tip of his pen to keep the ink flowing. A layer of frost covered his beard; ice formed on the branches of the tree, turning it silver.
    Under the director’s guidance, we assumed the moods of our characters. I had to keep reminding myself that I was not Lan Jiefang, but the ruthless bandit Blue Face, a man who had planted a bomb in his stove to explode in his wife’s face when she lit the stove to cook breakfast, and who had cut the tongue out of a boy who had called him by my nickname, Blue Face. I was grief-stricken over the death of my mother, but had to control my tears and bury my sorrow in my heart. My tears were too precious to let them flow like water from a tap. But at the sight of Chunmiao in mourning attire, her face dirtied, my personal grief overwhelmed the part I was playing; my emotions supplanted his. So I tried again, but the director still was not satisfied. Mo Yan was on the set that day, and the director went over and said something to him. I heard Mo Yan reply, “You’re taking this too seriously, Baldy He. If you don’t help me here, you and I are no longer friends.” Then Mo Yan took us aside and said, “What’s wrong with you? Do you have overactive tear glands or what? Chunmiao can cry if she wants, but all you need to do is shed a few tears. It’s not your mother who’s died, it’s the bandit’s. Three episodes, at three thousand RMB apiece for you and two thousand for Chunmiao. That’s enough for you two to live on nicely. Here’s the trick: do not mix this woman in the coffin up with your own mother, who’s back home wearing silks and satins and eating fine food. All you have to do is imagine the coffin filled with fifteen thousand