The Seventh Day Read online

  The new arrival had not finished. “Starting this morning, all the main roads in the city were sealed off and the vehicle carrying the mayor’s remains moved along at walking pace, with several hundred cars following to escort it. What should have taken just thirty minutes required a good hour and a half. The main roads are still sealed off and regular traffic won’t resume until after the mayor’s ashes have been returned home.”

  If the main roads are sealed off, the other streets are bound to be crammed with traffic. I remembered the sound of collisions when I was walking in the fog that morning and the scene of havoc that I saw later. Then I was reminded of the news of the mayor’s sudden death that had circulated in all the newspapers and on television channels a couple of weeks earlier. The official explanation was that the mayor had suffered a heart attack as a result of overwork; the popular version making the rounds on the Internet was that the mayor had suffered a heart attack in the executive suite of a five-star hotel just as he reached orgasm with a young model. The model was so shocked that she ran into the corridor screaming and sobbing, forgetting she was naked below the waist.

  Then both sets of conversations turned to the topic of burial plots. Those in the plastic seats had plots measuring one square yard, whereas the burial grounds for the VIPs were all at least six acres. Perhaps because the VIPs had heard what the plastic-seaters were saying, one of them asked loudly, “How can one possibly make do with one square yard?”

  A hush fell over the plastic seats as people began to listen to the luxurious appointments of those in the armchairs. Five out of the six burial plots were established on mountain peaks, facing the sea, encircled by clouds, the most uplifting and awe-inspiring ocean-view grave sites imaginable. The sixth was in a dale where trees grew thickly, streams gurgled, and birds sang, and where a natural rock that had been rooted there for hundreds of thousands of years served as headstone. These days everyone wants to eat organic foodstuffs, the owner said, but his was an organic headstone. Of the other five burial plots, two had monuments that were miniature versions of real buildings—one a Chinese-style courtyard dwelling, the other a Western-style villa—while two others boasted formal grave steles: they didn’t go in for all that showy stuff, their owners said. The last one took everybody by surprise, for the stele was a full-scale replica of the Monument to the People’s Heroes in Tiananmen Square, the only difference being that the inscription in Mao Zedong’s calligraphy on the monument, “In eternal tribute to the people’s heroes,” had been changed to “In eternal tribute to Comrade Li Feng”—also in Mao’s calligraphy, since the owner’s family had hunted down the characters for “Comrade Li Feng” in Mao’s manuscripts, enlarged them, and inscribed them on the stele.

  “Comrade Li Feng—that’s me,” the owner added.

  “It all sounds a bit risky,” another VIP said. “One of these days the government might insist on demolishing a memorial like that.”

  “I’ve already paid my hush money,” he responded confidently. “I can’t afford to let the story get out, so my family has already deployed a dozen people to keep reporters from covering it. Twelve is exactly the strength of an army squad, and with a team of guards protecting me I can rest without any worries.”

  At this point the two rows of ceiling lights in the waiting room came on, and the twilight hour suddenly was transformed into noonday. The usher quickly marched toward the front door.

  The mayor entered, dressed in a black suit, white shirt, and black tie. He walked in soberly, sporting heavy makeup on his face, a pair of bushy black eyebrows, and bright lipstick on his lips. The usher greeted him, leading him in solicitously. “Mayor, please make yourself comfortable in the VIP luxury suite.”

  The mayor, nodding, followed him in. Two huge doors in the waiting room slowly swung open, only to close again slowly once he had entered.

  The VIPs in the armchairs had all gone quiet. The VIP luxury suite had reduced the armchair zone to silence; wealth conceded its inferiority to power.

  Among the plastic chairs, conversation continued to rise and fall, with burial remaining the topic of interest. Everyone bemoaned the fact that graves were now even more expensive than houses. In graveyards that were terribly crowded, despite their remote location, a square-yard plot still cost you thirty thousand yuan—and with a guaranteed tenure of only twenty-five years. Although houses were expensive, at least you could be sure of keeping them for seventy years. Some crematees were highly indignant, while others were racked with anxiety. “What will happen after twenty-five years?” they worried. By that time the price of a grave plot would most likely have reached astronomical levels, and if their family couldn’t afford to pay out for a renewal of the lease, their ashes would simply end up as fertilizer.

  “Dying is such an expensive business these days!” one of the crematees in the front row grumbled.

  “Best not to think about the future,” the old gentleman next to me calmly advised.

  The old man told me that seven years earlier he had purchased a square-yard plot for three thousand yuan, and now it was worth thirty thousand. He rejoiced in his foresight at the time—if he wanted to buy it now, he would never be able to afford it.

  “In seven years the price has risen tenfold,” he sighed.

  Reservation numbers began to be called. The mayor had now been cremated, and his urn, over which the Communist Party flag had been laid, was deposited on a black hearse, which then slowly moved away, followed by several hundred sedans. Funereal music began to sound from the sealed-off roads. I realized now that whereas ordinary reservation numbers began with an A, VIP reservation numbers began with a V. I wasn’t sure what letter reservation numbers of luxury VIPs like the mayor started with—perhaps they didn’t require any number whatsoever.

  The six VIPs with the V numbers went in. Many A numbers were called, but just as the usher in blue had said, there were a lot of no-shows—occasionally there would be ten or more no-shows one after another. I noticed now that the usher was standing in the passageway next to me, and when I raised my head to look at him, his weary voice again sounded. “The no-shows don’t have graves.”

  I had neither urn nor grave. Why did I come here? I wondered.

  I heard the number A64—my number—called, but I stayed put in my chair. A64 was called three times, and then they moved on to A65. The woman next to me stood up. She was wearing a traditional shroud—in the Qing dynasty style, it looked like—and as she walked, her wide sleeves swung back and forth.

  The old man next to me was still waiting, and still chatting. He said that although his grave site was out of the way and hard to get to, the scenery was decent, with a small lake nearby and some just-planted saplings. He said that once he was there he planned to stay put, so it didn’t matter to him that it was far away and not convenient to reach. Then he inquired in which funeral garden he would find my grave.

  I shook my head. “I have no grave.”

  “Without a grave, where will you go?” he asked in astonishment.

  I felt my body stand up. It took me and left the waiting room.

  Once more I placed myself in the enveloping fog and swirling snow, but I didn’t know where to go. I was stricken with uncertainty, knowing I had died but not knowing how.

  I walked in a hazy, indistinct city, my thoughts searching for a direction to follow amid the densely intersecting paths of memory. I needed to track down the last scene in my life, I realized, and this final scene was bound to lie at the farthest end of one such path; finding it would mean I had identified the moment of my own death. Taking their cue from my body’s motion, my thoughts traversed a myriad of scenes that swirled in profusion like so many snowflakes before finally arriving at one particular day.

  This day seemed a lot like yesterday, or a lot like the day before, or perhaps it was today. The only thing I could be sure of was that it was my last day on earth. I saw myself walking down a road with a cold wind blowing in my face.

  I was walking,
walking toward the square in front of the city government headquarters. About two hundred people were standing there, protesting against forced demolitions. They had not, however, unfurled protest banners and were not shouting slogans—they were simply swapping stories of personal misfortune. From what I could make out as I made my way through their ranks, they had all in various ways fallen afoul of recent demolitions. An old lady with tears running down her face was saying that she had just left her house to buy groceries and returned to find her house was gone—she had thought for a moment that she had taken a wrong turn. Others were relating the terror they had experienced during late-night demolitions, when they were woken from sleep by huge blasts, their house swaying back and forth as though in an earthquake; only when they rushed out in panic did they see bulldozers and excavators destroying their housing complex. One man was loudly relating an embarrassing experience: just as he and his girlfriend were making love, their front door suddenly opened with a crash and several fierce-looking men burst in, tied them up inside their comforter, and then carried them, comforter and all, into a waiting vehicle. It drove around the city the whole night, with him and his girlfriend scared out of their wits, not knowing where they were being taken. Only at dawn did the car return them to their place of departure; at that point their captors dumped them on the ground, untied the cord that bound them, and tossed them some items of clothing. Shivering, they hastily dressed, as passersby watched them curiously, and when they finally stood up and looked around they found that their home had been flattened. His girlfriend burst out wailing and vowed never to go to bed with him again—sleeping with him was scarier than watching a horror movie.

  With the house gone and his girlfriend gone, he told the people around him, his sexual desire had completely dried up. He stretched out four fingers. In an effort to cure his erectile dysfunction, he said, he had already spent over forty thousand yuan and consumed all kinds of Western and Chinese medicines and resorted to remedies both orthodox and unconventional, but down below, his plane was only capable of taxiing.

  “Does it start its descent just after taking off?” someone asked.

  “Oh, I wish,” he said. “No, it taxis only, no taking off at all.”

  “Demand compensation!” someone shouted.

  “The government compensated me for my demolished house”—he smiled grimly—“but not for my traumatized libido.”

  “Take some Viagra,” someone suggested.

  “I did that,” he said, “and it made my heart pound sure enough, but down below all I could do was taxi.”

  Much laughter followed this remark; it seemed to me that these people weren’t protesting so much as having a party. After crossing the square, I passed two bus stops; ahead of me was Amity Street.

  My life was at a low ebb by this point: my wife had left me long before, and more than a year earlier my father had fallen gravely ill. So as to pay for his treatment and look after him better, I had sold our apartment, handed in my notice, and bought a little shop near the hospital. Later, my father left without saying goodbye and disappeared in the endless sea of people, so I gave up the shop and moved into a cheap rental, searching for my father despite all the odds stacked against me. I had roamed through every corner of the city, scanning men’s features wherever I went, but my father’s face always eluded me.

  With the loss of work and apartment and shop, my determination flagged. As my savings dwindled, I needed to find a way to support myself, for I was only forty-one, with plenty of time ahead of me. Through an agency involved with extramural education I found a job as a tutor.

  Amity Street was where my first pupil lived. When I initially placed a call to her father, from the other end of the line came a hoarse and hesitant voice. The girl’s name was Zheng Xiaomin, her father said; his daughter was a good student, now in fourth grade. He and his wife worked in a factory, for a low income, so it was difficult for them to afford my proposed fifty-yuan-an-hour fee for tutoring their daughter. Hearing a helplessness in his voice that sounded a lot like my own, I suggested he pay me thirty yuan an hour instead, and after a moment he said “Thank you” three times.

  We arranged that I would teach the first lesson at four o’clock in the afternoon. I got my hair cut, then went home and had a shave, changed into clean clothes, and put on a cotton overcoat. My overcoat was old, and so were the clothes I wore underneath.

  I arrived on Amity Street, in an area I knew well. I knew where up ahead there was a supermarket and where to find Starbucks, McDonald’s, and KFC, where there was a street lined with fashion boutiques and where to go for Chinese food.

  After I passed these businesses, everything suddenly became unfamiliar. The three six-story apartment buildings that used to overlook Amity Street were now just a heap of ruins. The apartment that I was due to visit for the tutorial session would have been in the second block.

  The three buildings had still been standing when I passed this way a few days earlier, with laundry hung out to dry on the balconies and white banners hanging from some of the windows. In big black characters the banners read: “We firmly resist forcible demolition,” “We are opposed to violent demolition,” and “We will defend our homes to the death.”

  As I gazed at the ruins, I could dimly make out a few items of clothing caught among the tangle of steel rods and broken concrete. Two excavators and two trucks were stopped nearby, along with a police car in which four policemen sat with the engine running.

  A young girl in a red down jacket was sitting alone on a concrete slab, from which severed steel rods jutted out in twisted shapes at both ends. Her satchel was resting on her knees and a textbook and exercise book were lying open on her lap; she was bending down to write something. She had walked out of her own building when she left for school that morning, but it was gone when she came back at the end of the day, and there was no sign of her parents. She sat in the ruins waiting for them to come home, doing her homework and shivering in the cold.

  Swaying awkwardly on the debris, I made my way over to where she was. When she raised her head, I saw a face scoured red by the wind.

  “Aren’t you cold?” I asked.

  “Yes, I am,” she replied.

  I pointed at the KFC nearby. “It’ll be warm inside,” I said. “Why not do your homework there?”

  She shook her head. “My mom and dad wouldn’t be able to find me when they come back.”

  She lowered her head again and went back to doing her homework on the table she had made with her legs. I scanned the ruins.

  “Do you know where Zheng Xiaomin lives?” I asked her.

  “Right here.” She pointed at where she was sitting. “I am Zheng Xiaomin.”

  Seeing her surprise at my knowing her name, I told her I was the man engaged to tutor her. She nodded to indicate that she knew of the arrangement, but looked around blankly. “Mom and Dad aren’t home yet.”

  “I’ll come back tomorrow,” I said.

  “We won’t be here tomorrow,” she said. “Call my dad,” she suggested, “he’ll know where we’ll be tomorrow.”

  “All right,” I said, “I’ll call him.”

  As I clambered back over the rubble, I heard her voice behind me. “Thanks, teacher.”

  It was the first time I’d been called “teacher.” I looked back at the girl in the red down jacket. Sitting there, she softened the ruins.

  I walked back to the city square, where now there were gathered two or three thousand people holding banners and shouting slogans—this time it looked as though they really were demonstrating. The perimeter of the square was filled with policemen and police cars, and the police had closed the roads and were preventing others from entering the square. I saw a demonstrator standing on the steps in front of the city government headquarters. He was holding a megaphone and shouting over and over again at the restive crowd: “Keep calm! Please keep calm!”

  With the repetition of this message, the demonstrators gradually calmed down. Holding the
megaphone in one hand and gesticulating with the other, the man began to address the crowd. “We are here to demand equity and justice. Our demonstration is peaceful. We mustn’t do anything extreme, we mustn’t give them a pretext to discredit us.”

  He paused. “I have to inform you all,” he continued, “that in the demolitions conducted this morning at Amity Street, a married couple were buried under the rubble and it’s not clear if they are alive or dead….”

  A van stopped next to me and seven or eight men jumped out of it, their pockets bulging. They went up to the police who were blocking the roads, waved ID in their faces, and then proceeded directly in through the cordon, first with a swaggering confidence, then at a rapid trot. They ran onto the steps in front of the government offices and began to yell, “Smash the city government!”

  They pulled stones out of their pockets and threw them at the windows and doors of the city government headquarters; I heard the sound of breaking glass. Police now poured into the square from all directions and began to disperse the crowd; chaos ensued as the demonstrators fled in all directions. Those who tried to resist were soon pinned to the ground. The group of men who had broken the windows came trotting back, nodded to the two policemen standing in front of me, and hopped into the van, which immediately sped off. It had no license plates, I noticed.

  That evening I went to a restaurant called Tan Family Eatery. It served tasty food at a reasonable price, and I had become a regular customer, though all I ever ordered was a bowl of noodles. I tried calling Zheng Xiaomin’s father several times from the phone next to the cash register, but nobody ever picked up and all I heard was a monotonous ringtone.

  On TV they were covering the afternoon’s demonstration. The report claimed that a small group of troublemakers had created a disturbance in the square in front of the city government headquarters, misleading those ignorant of the truth and causing damage to public property. The police had detained nineteen suspects and the situation had now been stabilized. The TV did not broadcast any video footage and all we saw were the two news anchors, a man and a woman, reporting this news. Then the media spokesman for the city government—well-dressed, sitting on a sofa—appeared on the screen, taking questions from a network reporter. The reporter would ask a question and the spokesman would answer it, the two of them simply repeating the lines uttered just a few moments earlier by the news anchors. Then the reporter asked if a married couple had been buried in the rubble during the demolitions on Amity Street. The spokesman strenuously denied this, describing it as pure rumor and announcing that those responsible for fabricating it were now in custody. The spokesman finished up by cataloging the outstanding achievements of the city government in recent years and extolling the improvements to people’s standard of living.