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climbing that platform. My father spent seven days up there, so keep those stinking mouths shut till you've spent eight.’

    They slunk away under my withering attack.

    ‘You're the best, Dieh,’ I said proudly.

    Not a word from my ashen-faced father. He followed us into his office, where Lao Lan and Mother met his arrival with seeming indifference. It was as if we'd just come from one of the workshops or the toilet and not off the rebirth platform.

    ‘Good news, Lao Luo,’ Lao Lan said. ‘The Riches for All supermarket finally paid up what they owed us. We'll keep our distance from unscrupulous concerns like that from now on.’

    ‘Lao Lan,’ Father said glumly, ‘I quit. I don't want to be plant manager any longer.’

    ‘Why?’ Lao Lan was surprised. ‘Why do you want to quit?’

    Father sat on the stool, his head hung low. ‘I've failed,’ he said after a long moment.

    ‘You're too old to be pouting like a child,’ Lao Lan said. ‘Was it something I said or did?’

    ‘Don't pay any attention to him, Lao Lan,’ Mother said contemptuously. ‘He's his own worst enemy.’

    On the verge of losing his temper, Father merely shook his head and kept quiet.

    Lao Lan flipped open a colour edition of a newspaper. ‘Take a look at that, Lao Luo,’ he said softly. ‘My third uncle has given up his wealth, left all those women who've been in love with him, shaved his head and become a monk at the Yunmen Temple.’

    Father merely glanced at the newspaper.

    ‘My third uncle is a man of great, if strange, substance,’ Lao Lan continued emotionally. ‘I used to think I understood him, but now I realize I'm too vulgar to comprehend a man of his calibre. I tell you, Lao Luo, life's too short to be caught up with things like women and wealth, fame and status. You're born without them and you'll leave them behind when you die. My third uncle has seen the light.’

    ‘You will, too, very soon,’ Mother said sarcastically.

    ‘My father was up on the platform for seven days,’ Jiaojiao said, ‘and he saw the light.’

    Lao Lan and Mother turned to her in surprise. ‘Xiaotong,’ Mother said after a moment, ‘take your sister outside and let the grown-ups talk. You don't know what this is about.’

    ‘I do,’ insisted Jiaojiao.

    ‘Go outside!’ Father barked angrily, banging the table with his fist.

    His hair was a tangled mess, his face coated with grime, he stank, and he was in a foul mood. Seven days of meditating on a tall platform will do that to a man. I took Jiaojiao's hand and fled outside.

    Are you still listening, Wise Monk ?

    Lao Lan's wife's bier was placed in the family living room. A heavy-looking purple cinerary urn rested on a black square table and a framed black-and-white photograph of the deceased hung on the wall behind it. The head in the photograph was larger than it had been in life but what caught my attention was the trace of a wry smile at the corners of the mouth, reminding me of how nice she'd been to Jiaojiao and me when we ate at their house. How had they made it so large? I wondered. The small-town newspaper reporter who'd hired on with us was taking pictures inside and outside the house with a snap-on lens. He bent for some shots and knelt for some others. I could tell how hard he was working by the sweat stains on his white T-shirt, with the newspaper's name across the chest; it was actually sticking to his back. He'd gained so much weight since he'd joined the team that the skin on his face was taut, thanks to the added flesh underneath. His cheeks had taken on the appearance of rubber balls. I went up to him while he was putting in a new roll of film. ‘Hey, Skinny Horse,’ I said under my breath, ‘how did they make that photo on the wall so big?’

    ‘It's called an enlargement,’ he explained patiently. ‘If you like, I could make a picture of you as big as a camel.’

    ‘But I don't have a picture.’

    He raised his camera, pointed it at my face, and —click. ‘Now you do. You'll have an enlargement in a couple of days, Director Luo.’

    Jiaojiao ran up.

    ‘I want one too,’ she bawled.

    He aimed his camera at her. Click.

    ‘Got it.’

    ‘I want one of the two of us,’ she said.

    He aimed his camera. Click. ‘Got it.’

    This made me so happy I wanted to keep chatting with him, but he was off taking more pictures. A man walked in through Lao Lan's open front door, wearing a wrinkled grey suit, a white shirt with a filthy