THE AFTERNOON
Desheng Zong
1.
Little recollection remained of when he first fell to the grip of the penetrating cold, which had been steadily arising from deep within and immediately infused the whole body every time it came. The world had shrunk to a narrow black and white flux of dotted lights - silent, broken, and rapidly fleeing; the only thing that remained was the sharp pains in the stiffened joints and soreness in the muscles caused by frequent cramps.
The small, skeletal early juvenile body and the thin limbs shuddered every time the chill came and the fits started. The senses had become so heightened that even the dim light from the oil lamp pierced through the tightly shut eyes, causing stinging pain. The thick blanket in which he was wrapped hurt him more than it did in alleviating the cold.
It had not always been like that though; earlier on, when the intervals between the waking moments were still not as lengthy as they were now, he could still feel, in reminiscence, the fits of permeating nausea that he acutely experienced just before the cold started to take hold of him; there were also times when fragmentary memories of seeing hurried figures moving across the room would flash across his foggy head.
But all this was quickly going, as the unyielding cold from within gradually tightened its grip on him. As he lay face down with knees bent and arms held around the chest, a shrinking world of darkness with vertical streaks of gray lines was caving in on him.
Sometime around midnight he came to briefly, only to sink back in unconsciousness moments later.
A descending swirl of loosely joined thin clouds with funnel-shaped end pointing downward had suddenly stopped in mid air � frozen for the moment, as it were, before taking him and resuming its fatal downward spiraling toward the dark and foreign land below.
He woke up to an expanding world of warm, slow-floating air. Things still looked hazy, but the shrinking world of gray had been replaced by a colorful, almost bubbly world. He was lying face up, with uncovered limbs spread out. The head felt unusually heavy, and there was also lingering pain with some dull voices echoing in it; however, the previously contracted muscles and joints had relaxed, and the sheeting under the head was soaked with sweat.
The night must have turned hot and humid at some point without him noticing it.
A delirium had set in for some time. In the height of fever a moment of awareness would suddenly return, and then, for a brief moment, everything would be as clear as daylight.
�A shot of quinine,� an unfamiliar voice at once came into his ear. On another occasion he heard a voice say, �Plenty of water but no food,� the voice was answered by another muffled voice that came from the far side of the room.
There were also a few times when he suddenly rose and spoke to the figures at the bedside, as if he had just woke up from a dream and realized something important.
�Quick, ask for the doctor!� he muttered, but would immediately drop back in bed even before the words were finished.
Then, from some immemorial time on, the bubbly, slow-expanding world receded, and everything began to slow down; a cool breeze started to blow, steadily and continuously. In front of his closed eyes was the thin, whitish sky, almost autumn-like; it spread so thinly and so far and wide across the firmament, only to suddenly drop back down in the four bleak corners of the autumn earth.
He lay face down on rows of dark and newly ploughed damp soil that ran far off into the distance under the autumn sky. The body and the limbs were so heavy, they felt as if they had been flattened and filled with lead. The heavy weight held him down, pressing his face and every inch of his skin hard against the damp soil; stinging pain shot through the muscles every time he moved.
He could not tell whether it was him who was lying face down on the soft and damp soil that buried him up to the face, or was he himself the freshly ploughed soil lying under the broad sky. The eyes seemed to have become detached from the rest of his body; from behind the void where the lines of vision converged they registered the unchanging autumn scenes � the desolate land that started from under his face and spread out into the far distance, where a tractor with rows of sharp ploughs had been running back and forth plowing the field � or his flattened body; even with his face buried in the damp fresh soil he could still see the rows of deep cuts made by the machine into the flesh on his back.
He fell asleep at some point.
A heavy and slow going up of a mountain path. In the undergrowth by the roadside grew exotic plants with large, elongated yellow flowers. The path curved to one side and disappeared as soon as it turned the corner. From behind the hill on the other side, rays of broad and glaringly bright light poured forth against the background of a golden and yet empty sky filled with the same broad and glaring light.
2.
He could now get up and walk about for several minutes at a time, and was well enough to be left at home alone for most of the day. But he was still weak; a short trip to the outside for firewood would make him sweat profusely and gasp for air.
The highland sun was always hot and dry; but its scorching force reached only things directly exposed to it. Inside the house the air was always pleasantly cool. In the long hours of the afternoon when the sun reached the height of its power there were always rays of light that managed to creep through the cleaves in the roof and come into the rooms. Like sharp swords, the beams of transparent light with tiny dust specks floating in them pierced through the space hanging still in front of the eye, giving the silent void an almost solid, touchable nature.
The upper level of the two-story house had a broad wooden window in the front with vertically mounted wooden panes. From the window he could see half of the village houses, which were built in tiers on two adjoining hills, separated only by a creek.
The views from the window rarely changed. The first thing that came in view was always the layers of pointed roofs; but beyond the blue smoke that drowsily rose in gentle curls above the village houses� gray tiles that seemed to glitter in the sun, the sky above the valley further down the hills was always open and clear. Farther off, where mountains met the end of earth, towering fiery clouds filled the horizon; like flames that had descended from heaven, they burned continuously throughout most of the day.
3.
He had been at the window since early morning. Someone in the house a few levels down the hillside had died the night before. The loud mourning howls of bewailing women could be clearly heard from the window.
From where he stood he could clearly see the activities in the courtyard. The family was apparently in the process of coffining the deceased. The procedure was being done in the hall that had been cleared out for this purpose.
The deceased seemed to be a male; the cloth that covered his head had been flipped to the side. A person with a shaving knife kneeled down by the head of the deceased and started to shave it. While the man was doing the shaving a few other men in black stood silently by the bedside. The shaving did not take long, and as soon as it was over the hair was immediately swept into a short handle shovel and taken away. Water was carried to the bedside in small bowls and the shroud that had covered the body of the decease was partly lifted. One of the men that had been standing by the bedside picked up a towel, dipped it in a bowl and started to wash the showing part of the body.
He could not see the face of the decease; but he could see the cleanly shaven head and the very white body. All the people in the hall were male and they were all moving silently. The loud wailing came from the two women down the hall in the yard. They were all on their knees and they bent their heads to touch the ground in keeping with the rhythm of the slow mourning tune they were singing. The crying was a simple tune that they repeated again and again, but he could not make out the words that they sang.
While the body was being washed a few men prepared the coffin, which had been placed on the ground with its top piece laid by the side. There were a few brick-sized clods of hardened earth lying by the coffin. The men wrapped the clods one piece at a time with a kind of yellow paper that had holes that were half punched through; they then placed the finished pieces inside the coffin on the front side.
When all this was done the by now well-dressed corpse was placed in the coffin and the top piece was nailed back on. As soon as this was done the womenfolk were allowed to go into the hall, which they did with the assistance of the women by their sides who did not join the wailing. As soon as they reached the coffin they immediately threw themselves on the coffin and started to cry loudly again.
The intermittent wailing of the women could be heard long after the coffining of the dead had finished.
His father took him along when he went to pay his condolence visit to the mourning family. The walk took only a few minutes. There were already visitors when he and his father got there, and there were freshly written mourning couplets and other signs hung on the doors. As they entered the door and were going through the tiny courtyard he saw a few women and children in the wing house with white hemp on their heads.
The son in mourning was in the hall where the coffin was. It was a wooden structure painted red and black and was now sitting on two racks. The house head was kneeling on the floor. On his head was a large piece of white clothe made of hemp. His father went up to the man to express his condolences and the man raised his head to talk to him. His eyes were dry and he had a dazed look on his sallow, slightly emaciated face. He also thought he looked tired. Before they left he saw more visitors come in. They all went to greet the man in mourning just like his father did. All the while the man�s knees never left the ground.
�We will come back and spend some more time here in the evening,� said his father to him as they left the house. �But right now we must go to the village common house. The funeral banquet is being given there.�
The common house turned out to be a large enclosed building complex consisting of a spacious courtyard and double level halls with open front on three of its sides. The guests were sitting on the floors in groups of eight. Several dishes had been placed on the ground in front of each group. The guests ate quickly in silence and no one talked.
Later in the evening he and his father returned to the mourning son�s house. Most visitors had left; only a few close relatives and friends had stayed. They all sat in the middle of the hall on small round stools made of rice stalks. The coffin stood just behind them.
It was quiet in the house. The sun had almost gone down and one could see stars appearing in the sky over the walls across the courtyard. The vigil keepers were smoking homemade tobacco and engaged in leisurely but intermittent conversations.
It was soon completely dark. An oil lamp hung on a column in the corner dimly lit the empty hall. A candle in a small dish stood on the protruding head of the bottom piece of the coffin; it made a gentle spluttering sound as it was burning away. Through the dim light he could also see the wreaths that were made of white papers. He could see the incense and fruits on the small table that had been placed in front of the coffin. Now and then one could hear the barking of a village dog; but the noise would stop as quickly as it started, and silence would reign again.
He did not remember anything the adults said that night. The coffin was just a little bit to his right. He knew there was a person lying in it. He saw how he was shaved, washed, and coffined. But strangely, none of this caused any particular feelings in him. He could see the dark and seemingly heavy coffin that loomed large in the background; he could hear the candle in the small dish splutter; he could also feel the still air hanging in the hall in the quietness. But none of this struck him as being foreboding or ominous. If anything, it was rather the opposite. There was something homely about the scene, as if he had sat in halls in the dark like this numerous times before.
4.
Few noticed him as he wandered off from the group of funeral participants, who had now gathered at the clan burial ground of the family of the deceased after hours of climbing along narrow mountain paths.
The place � the smooth top of a mountain ridge � was so high above the surrounding mountains that the views from here took on an almost aerial feel. From the gentle slope where he was standing, the village�s crop fields that lay at the bottom of the mountains looked like tiny green dots; and the winding mountain path by which the funeral procession had come now resembled a broken brown line on a painter�s canvas.
On the slope where he was standing there was thick grass growing all over, some reaching as tall as the thigh, and a swish rolled across against the unusually silent background every time the wind blew across; the silent noise added an atmosphere of otherworldliness to the place.
Members of the procession, including the team of coffin carriers, were now preparing to move the coffin into the grave, which had been constructed years before; a few items � bundles of incense, decks of yellow papers with holes punches half-way through, a few pots with pre-prepared dishes, and a live rooster with legs tied � were scattered around on the ground nearby. Against the bare and almost level background the grave�s semi-circled shape and the tall grass that had grown around it made the grave look eerily out of tone with its surroundings.
He turned his eyes away from the site as the ceremony was starting and looked in the opposite direction. A distant, panoramic scene of mountains unfolded under the broad blue sky for as far as the eye could see. The view, as well as the radiant golden hue everything in it seemed to take on, dazzled his eyes as well as his young mind, and temporarily absorbed him.
Slowly emerging from the absorption and with eyes still on the distant scenes, he made an attempt to walk but almost tripped. Lying in his path were several drooping stems of wild olive branches heavy with ripe fruits. Without being fully aware of what he was doing, he took hold of one of the plants, and picked several of the fruits that were in easy reach before letting it go.
The fruits, whose appearance he did not take time to examine at the time he picked them, were small and round, but felt firm; and as he held them in his small hands, he could feel the cold and unmistakable sensation that they emitted onto his hands; and the cool feeling seemed to last as long as he continued to hold his hands together tight.
Had he turned around at that moment, he would have noticed that the burial had by now completed. But the thought never crossed his mind on that day. As he looked on, the boundless sky above and the timeless mountains in view seemed to be ever extending.
And they would continue to do so, for a thousand years.
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* The End *