Chapter 13
Tree-cutting was another village fun Bing had enjoyed in his boyhood. He was always fond of going to the hills where, depending on the season, an assortment of wild fruit was available to pick. The trees they cut were most of the time the young pines that could be carried on their shoulders. Fir trees could also be an alternative if they came their way. However, fir is not as good as pine for firewood, due to its lack of flammable resin.
One day during school holiday, he and Dan decided to go to the hill cutting the tree. At about 8am, Bing’s mum and Dan’s, were already in the fields planting the crops. His grandma, on hearing what they were going to do, raised her eyes from her occupation of mending a pair of socks, expressing her half-disapproval by ‘Aiya-hah, go to hills? Cut trees? Careful, careful, come back early ...’ to which Bing didn’t have to make a reply. From the corner, he picked a chopper used typically by younger people in the village, which, compared to the common axe used by adults, was lighter and with its shorter handle and longer blade, better suited to boys for cutting the medium size trees they were able to carry home.
In several minutes, they were on their way.
In the morning sun of this spring, the surface of the earth was steaming, like a sea of hot porridge ready to serve. Swallows were flitting and soaring in the sky, twittering merrily, flapping close on the mirror-like fields, catching the insects flying in their way. The farmers with their backs and heads and shoulders rising and falling frequently were in their busiest planting season. Their intermit shouting and yelling came to his ears remote and faint due to the distance and the airy space. And the smell that was actually a blend of manure and urine and sweat and plants and flowers was assailing their nostrils. Dogs were wandering about in twos and threes; one might sniff another, whose tail would suddenly jerk and dodge and shudder as if under attack.
Led by Dan, the two boys took their careful steps, skipping over the slippery path. They had soon reached the bottom of a hill that they were set to climb.
‘Look what they are doing,’ Dan said suddenly, pointing.
Following his finger to the other side of the hill, Bing saw, on a grassy land, a cow and a bull were grappling.
‘They were mating,’ Bing stated the obvious, and lifted his foot to move on.
But Dan, after throwing a quick glance around, said, ‘Let’s go closer and have a look.’
‘What? You mean…?’ Bing began to laugh, very much amused.
‘Don’t laugh,’ Dan hushed him, ‘you may be heard.’
They moved towards the couple, their pace considerably slower than before. And with the choppers in their hands, it was like they were stalking after some beasts.
About five meters away, they stopped to watch them. But unfortunately, the bull, seeing their approach, began to slip off from the back of the cow, heavily and clumsily. Its giant organ, like the trunk of an elephant in some books he had read about, swaying vividly, and awfully. Bing had seen cattle in the act before, but not as close as this.
Then, as if the bull didn’t feel that the threat from two small kids was realistic, it managed to mount its massive body onto the cow’s back again, with unspeakable awkwardness. But after a run of efforts it seemed to have found a sort of difficult but delicate balance. Only the cow looked rather disgruntled and half-hearted, not at all demonstrating the like passion of the bull.
Holding his breath, Bing, wild-eyed, was looking at them in mighty awe.
Then Dan, tentatively withdrawing his gaze, turned to him and said, ‘Let me find a stick.’
‘…’ Bing broke out in suppressed laughter. He knew the trick, and was ready to enjoy the idea, so long as it was handled by Dan, not himself. He couldn’t explain why it seemed to be out of the question for him to do this. But he liked to watch it, honestly.
Dan went back a few metres from where they stood, picked up a dry stick in the thicket, trimmed and polished a little, and came back.
‘This will do,’ he said.
He laid the chopper on the ground, hid the stick in his behind, arched his back and moved towards the busy couple, taking a small step at a time. At first, the bull didn’t bother, didn’t budge from its capture. Then, as Dan was near the range of the stick’s space, its bulky head turned, slowly but firmly, glaring at him; its solid and steady horns were casting out like a pair of great sickles.
The moment was tense and dangerous. Dan, as if detecting something imminent, quickly brought out the stick from his back, aimlessly throwing it at the bull, and at the same instant, plucked his feet, turning and darting away from the zone of danger.
Bing, affected just as much from Dan’s sudden flight, was also dashing in retreat.
But the bull didn’t chase them as they had feared. When they sensed they were safe, they stopped to laugh convulsively, and checking the scene, they noticed that the bull was already off from the back of its partner, steady on its own fours, looking at them quietly with its dark bulging eyes.
Then Dan realized he had forgotten to take his chopper with him in his flight. So, gingerly like a person with guilt, he went back to fetch it, and returned as swiftly as his feet permitted him.
In a little while, they were back to where they had been diverted, and began to climb the hill.
‘Cattle are more dangerous,’ Dan chuckled. ‘The dogs are no problem.’
‘Haha’ Bing laughed. ‘Of course, different size.’
‘Even if I hit the dog’s thing, they won’t break away,’ Dan said. ‘They only whine, but they stick together, so strange.’
‘I saw the dogs once,’ Bing remarked, recalling the scene when the boys had fun annoying the dogs.
‘But, you know, I don’t understand, you know, the chickens?’ Dan seemed to have become quite absorbed.
‘Well…’ Bing laughed aloud.
Dan went on, ‘It is so quick, like nothing happened.’
Bing let out from his belly a wave of laughter, ‘Haha… how would you know?’
‘Of course I don’t know, I am not a chicken…’
Their mirth, initiated from cattle’s love-making, continued in their brisk steps until they reached the high waist of the hill, where they were able to pick some fruits.
On the top of a thicket beside the road, he was attracted to a cloud of blue morning-glories - Flower of Qian Niu (Leading Cow) so called in Chinese. The flowers were just so beautiful, each of them was like a butterfly perching upon a filament, and its petals, having the shape of a trumpet and moving in the wind, were so fresh and soft and tender. He was tempted to pick one of them, but Dan who was now some distance in his front, was hurrying him.
So he hurried, and on the way, spotted a type of fruit tree, as did his cousin. They both approached it. The fruit, so called Danglian, looked like a miniature gourd, and was most common in the village. Its head was adorned with a ring of sepals, its dark skin velvety. Bing noticed some dry ones on the treetop, which he shoved aside, and at once found a number of round and fleshy fruits under the cover. He picked one and checked with his fingers the quality of its skin, to make sure it was smooth and round and fatty, without any scars or wrinkles, before throwing it into his mouth. Bing had had some bad experience of biting into worms. So he had learnt to be careful.
It tasted very sweet. Its flesh had a colour between black and purple, with tiny seeds the size of a quarter of grain. It didn’t take long before their mouth and teeth were stained ghastly black.
On the hill, there were also many clutches of blooming azalea flowers, which was known as the Flower of Goat Horn in the countryside. Bing never knew why it was called such a name, because the flower, neither in its shape nor its colour, had any resemblance to the horn of goat. Bing picked one of them, removing its green sepals and stigma and pistil, and started chewing the soft petals. The villagers didn’t normally eat the azalea flower, though they knew of its edibility. With a mild sweetness, it didn’t taste much, but it could help clear up their blackened teeth.
After some delay, they hurried back to pursue their core business. They needed to go around to the other side of hill and into the thicker woods for the pines they were after.
Speedily they advanced uphill, and a sheen of sweat began to appear on their foreheads. At the peak of the hill, they sat on the grass panting. Then an elder villager, called Qiang, was coming from the road towards them. He was carrying a bag of bamboo shoots, heading home. Bing asked to inspect his harvest.
‘Hao, hao, hao,’ he said, and putting down the sack from his shoulder, he opened it to reveal the bamboo shoots. Bing took one out, feeling the cool and full cone in his palm.
‘So big,’ Bing admired.
‘Take some,’ Qiang invited him.
‘No, I have to cut the tree first.’
‘Then come to my house, take it on your way home,’ Qiang said, as if impatient to share his success.
‘Hao, hao, thank you, Grandpa Qiang,’ Bing nodded, put it back into the sack. Though the bamboo shoot was delicious, one couldn’t eat too many of them, especially when pig-oil was not enough to cook together with it. Otherwise, it would cause severe constipation.
Saying bye to Qiang, they went deeper into the forest, where they located a number of suitable pine trees downhill.
‘Let’s get down there, there are trees we can cut,’ Dan said.
‘It is very steep,’ Bing was concerned, ‘it will be difficult to carry them up to the road.’
‘No problem, we can carry them together, let’s get down,’ Dan said, but he didn’t move. He seemed to wait for Bing to take the first step.
Never mind, Bing thought to himself, he was older than Dan.
So Bing tested and slid his feet into the slope, descending. The thicket was thick and messy; the ferns and some prickly plants were up to their shoulders. Carefully, he was managing each step, lest he tumble down the hill or be scratched by the thorns. One of his hands must grab anything solid enough for support, such as tree trunks or shrub stems, while the other brandished the chopper to clear his way.
Then Bing saw a pine tree of a good size and asked Dan to take it, as he himself went further down to another, slightly bigger.
The cutting began. The echo was remarkable. For every thumping caused by the chopper, there was a delayed and lingering response coming back, as if there were other people at the far side of forest, mimicking their actions.
The bigger the tree, the bigger the initial opening was needed, because the cut would be narrowing in the progress, leaving no space for further penetration if it didn’t begin wide enough. As soon as the tough barks were chipped away, the sap was seeping out and trickling down, exposing the kernel fresh and livid like the bones of a wounded animal.
Soon, he became sweaty and thirsty.
‘Dan, there must be a spring at the foot of the hill?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. Let’s go to have a look.’
On the way down, they picked another type of fruits. Round, hard-cored, thrice as big as a grain, they were supposed to be taken in a mouthful. It was still sweet enough, but they had to spit out their kernels after sucking the juice.
Then a wasp was droning over and landed on a leaf just a metre away, scaring him so much that he halted with a great effort in resisting the downhill inertia to stare at the dreadful creature. Its yellow and black striped rump was squirming, it stinger rapidly pushing as if to sting the leaf. Bing, stunned as much like petrified, felt his hair roots stirring and tingling. It was well known that the wasp was very venomous, far worse than the bees. One single sting in one’s hand or head would soon balloon them to a dangerous size.
Lucky, the wasp didn’t attack him, nor did it stay there long. In a little while, they had reached the very bottom of the hill. The area was wet like marsh, but they didn’t see any obvious stream. So they went upwards, and encouragingly, the trace of water seemed to be more apparent, guiding them finally to a small pool laying like a shallow basin. From the jutting cliff above, the water was dripping to it, producing on its surface the rippling rings, as well as a sound so clear and pleasing. The water was clear too, but inside it something was moving, constantly darting about. Bing knew it was a type of insect often found in spring water.
Dan stepped forward, squatted down, and hasted to scoop the water to his lips. At once, the water turned murky. They had to wait for it to come clear again.
‘We’d better use the leaves,’ Bing said, ‘hands are too big for the pool.’
They went and returned, each with a sizable leave that was later folded as a spoon for drinking. And strange, the water level was barely changed even if they thought they had drunk a lot.
After the drink, they went back to resume their work. Dan’s tree was soon brought down, while Bing needed a little more effort. Only a little remaining in the cut, Bing was pushing and shaking it with his hands. He heard the breaking of the last linkage, but it refused to fall. So, with the chopper, he flung a few more forceful strokes into the gash until the tree finally surrendered. Its bone was broken, its glorious stance was collapsing.
Watching it fall, hearing the dying sound uttered by its swishing leaves, he sensed a strange power surging in his chest. Indeed, he had conquered a tree, had made a living thing yield to him. He had killed a form of life, which, just a little while earlier, seemed so high, so strong, so indomitable.
Then straightway he set to cut and trim the branches along the trunk, estimating the length he had to carry, and chopping off the smaller end of it, he declared the job complete. Dan’s tree, though smaller, had more branches, which had taken him a little longer to finish.
Next, facing them was even a bigger task: move the two trunks uphill to the track so that they could be carried home.
It was a steep slope; they couldn’t possibly use their shoulders to carry the trunks as they could in flat area. They had to hurl it by both ends, bit by bit, which was exactly what they did. Dan, above, was pulling the trunk, while Bing, below, was pushing it up.
They tried to coordinate their efforts, which proved to be hard to achieve. Most of time their energy was wasted. And worse, the trunk would often slip back, invalidating the series of little successes they had made before. They were like two ants, trying to move an insect much bigger than themselves, and also like ants, they persisted in their efforts, hitching up their legs and backs and necks.
Sweating and tired, with his hands badly scratched, and also very hungry, Bing exhaled a long breath to feel a big victory when they had successfully brought Dan’s log up to the road.
They then returned to handle his log, which was slightly bigger and heavier. Bing thought they had gained a bit of experience by doing the first. But he was wrong, their little experience had proved to have little effect, especially when their energy was fast flagging.
They had been kicking hard, struggling with all their strength for what seemed to be hours against the trunk, but they only dragged it half a distance to the destination.
They sat there, depressed, and exhausted.
Then suddenly, in a kind of impotent desperation, Bing found himself shouting at Dan, ‘Get up, we can’t just sit here.’
Startled by Bing’s abrupt outburst, Dan stood up, but didn’t say a word as if he had lost the force to utter it.
Bit by bit, they continued to push the log upwards. Then, to Bing’s exacerbation, Dan lost his grip, the log slid off, driving Bing a few steps downhill. Bing scrambled to steady himself, and as soon as he was able to sit still, he started cursing, ‘You, idiot, stupid! How could you drop it like that?!’
‘Too heavy,’ Dan murmured sheepishly at Bing’s fury.
‘It was you who chose this terrible place,’ he bellowed. ‘Now, get up! Move your ass!’
Fairly disgruntled, Dan raised himself up and began to pull again, but the progress was as little as their remaining energy. All the time, the log might edge up a bit, then slip down even more. Utterly frustrated, they stopped and slumped to the earth, panting. Then Bing took his breath, renewing the round of cursing and blaming, and exercised no constraint of his bitter vehemence. Finally, Dan, as if had had enough, blurted out, ‘I’m going, I’m going home.’ He began to move upwards by himself.
Now Bing’s rage was leaping boundless. All the dirty words he had learnt thus far in his life were rushing out of his teeth. ‘Dead pig’, ‘lazy dog’, ‘son of a dog’, ‘go to hell’, ‘go and die’, ‘stupid pig’, and anything else that sounded malicious enough to unleash his wrath. Teeth gritted, eyes reddened, his passionate frustration was mounting to a level of a monster about to destroy the world. He plucked the grass, banged on the earth, kicked the log, then as if still not enough, picked the chopper, threw it far down the hill, and howled like a wolf.
Dan, at this time, was already sitting on the edge of the road, watching Bing’s total loss of control and his fervent emotions exhibited in such a frantic manner, probably for the first time in their years of companionship. His usual indifferent and gloating disposition under similar circumstances was replaced markedly with a sincere compassion. Bing, through his tearful eyes, saw the traces of genuine concern and worry and sympathy in his cousin’s face, which strangely, affected him, and helped him quieten down.
Then without a word, Dan came down to sit on the other end of the trunk in silence, by which time Bing had stopped his tears and entered into a lethargic state of mind after the outburst.
They stayed like this for several minutes before Bing directed a furtive glance to his cousin, catching his secretive, amused smile stifling at the corner of his mouth.
Then in spite of himself, Bing put on his own version of shallow smile, which immediately triggered a wave of laughter from Dan, as if he had saved much of his fun for its release only at this moment.
Bing couldn’t help but laugh, bitterly.
At length, Bing sighed the deepest sigh of his life, as their capricious merriment succumbed to the mess of reality. ‘Hai...how could we handle this?’
Dan scrubbed his head, ‘We give this one up, and cut a new one somewhere else?’
It might be a sensible idea, but Bing, who could be very obstinate in will and mind, said, ‘No, that would be even more trouble.’ And, feeling his rattling stomach, he added, ‘we are so hungry, can’t start the job all over again. We have to push this up, I guess the trouble we had had before was that we rarely acted together.’
He stood up, more determined that he could have imagined. ‘Let us try again.’
When they were both in the position, Bing said, ‘I’ll count, 1, 2, 3, we exert our force accordingly.’
The result was inspiring. Each movement was more resolute towards their target, and after each shifting progress, Bing set to stop it from sliding back with both his hands and knees, before advancing for the next push.
When the trunk was at last lifted up to the road, Bing wondered how it could have been done so easily this time, considering just a while ago the task seemed to have so diabolically intimidated him.
Then Bing went down to search his chopper he had thrown away. With Dan’s help, it didn’t take long.
Back on the road, Bing lifted the log somewhere in the middle to find its balance, then used the chopper to chafe and smooth out the rough surface as the carrying point. That done, he flung a forceful stroke with the chopper so as to attach it to the end of the log.
Carrying the log downhill was never easy, though one might not feel its hardship at the beginning. His knees, bearing the combined weight of his body and the wood, would after some distance grow weak and trembling. He felt it very difficult to halt his steps once he had started moving, because the inertia of the descending mass would push him forward in a somewhat automatic manner, causing a tormenting moment if he desired to stop to change the shoulder for the pressure, which happened almost every minute. To resist the inertia, he had to strain hard his feet, slowing himself down to achieve a full stop, then slowly rotated the log across the nape of his neck, until the weight was safely shifted over. The rotation was scraping the skin, invariably causing bad bruise. Of course, you could use a towel as insulation to help buffer the friction, but it was very inconvenient, and the towel would drop off easily during the journey. Alternatively, to prevent the painful rotation, you could also lay the log on the ground first to perform the swapping, but the back bending and unbending would become its inevitable toll, unless you wanted to take a longer rest, which would not only prolong the journey but also sharpen the shoulder pain after taking the break. At any rate, getting yourself accustomed to the excruciating process was the only way out. In the village, many people had the flesh and bone around their shoulder considerably thickened, unnaturally developed and heavily muscled, especially at the lower part of nape, which might thrust out a lump as big as a goose egg. Compared to them, and even to Dan, Bing’s pain was small, only occasional, and not even unenjoyable.
Nevertheless, Bing was not an inexperienced boy in dealing with shoulder-carrying. Even in his earlier years, he had begun to carry the water home from the stream in the village. The bucket was very special, not made of wood but three separate bamboo trunks bundled together. His mum told him that this carrying device was left behind by an urbane youth from Mianyang, who had come to be ‘educated’ in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution, by the ‘Up to the Mountain and Down to the Village’ policy of Chairman Mao. Bing had, while carrying the water with the bamboo pole, once tripped and fallen to the ground, as his mother recalled later, and that his lips had finished up red and purple. Nowadays, the bamboo bucket was too small for him and he would shoulder the normal wooden buckets used by adults, carrying half to three quarters of its capacity, depending on his level of strength.
They arrived home in mid-afternoon, much later than they had estimated, due to the drama on the hill. His grandma came swiftly to check his shoulder, ‘Aiya-hah, red and blue,’ she said.
But she, and later his mum, listened with a great deal of amusement, blended with no less amount of pity, when Dan told them of Bing’s incidental outburst. Bing had actually thought of asking Dan to hold his tongue, but knowing his character as he was, he didn’t bother. It was impossible to shut up Dan’s mouth for this type of gossip.
One week later, in the morning, he experienced his first ejaculation.
Alone in the kitchen, he was then sitting on the bench, to keep up the flame in the stove, as his mum had asked him to do. The wok was cooking a large amount of pig-food, comprised of vegetables or some special grasses or even weeds for the pigs, and the rice soup, which was a leftover after the solid rice had been exacted and stored away for family’s consumption.
Bing sat there, now and again turning to grasp strands of fire-grass, poking them into the stove. The fire was crackling, the place cosy and warm. Within time, he felt the heat reaching to penetrate his chest and stir about his bowel. Through his body, a vague flow, a subtle stream was circulating.
Then he felt his thing start moving, and before he was conscious of what was happening, it grew hard and stiff. It had happened before, but most of the time it was during sleep when he was unaware of its activity.
This morning it was different, so live and acute. Something fresh and primitive, outside his sense and reason, but definitely within his flesh and blood, was inciting and teasing a desire.
With one hand he covered it and pressed its rigidity. It sprang. Then, possessed and controlled by a power foreign to him, he put his hand inside his pants.
He lowered his pants, and fought it with his limbs. The image of cattle mating was emerging to his mind.
It surged and burst, far far away. The force and the tremor stunned him, blinding him for a long eternity.
One week later, his grandpa died.
When he was carried down from his bed to the living room, he was still breathing. His uncle and aunt, who had first noticed his groaning when passing his bedroom, held his arms and legs respectively. Bing followed them down the staircase.
His grandma quickly constructed a convenient bed, by two wooden stools, a wooden board, a square straw pillow and a straw mat. The bed was actually in the same corner as the dog-hole.
His grandpa was a solitary figure in Bing’s mind. He couldn’t remember a time when his grandpa was sitting together around a table with the rest of the bigger family. He lived alone with his first wife. He spent more than half of each month away from home, buying things to fill his stall. On the market days, he went there to sell his little commodities, and occasionally he might ask Bing to carry things for him, or to help prevent the potential thieves from pinching his goods.
At home, his grandpa was forever grumbling, about anything that came his way; he had never been agreeable with his two sons and his two wives. In Bing’s eyes he had never smiled, therefore, Bing had no way of imagining what his face would be like if only he did so. To Bing, he was more like an old dog, straying and wandering in a shadowy society, calculating his little earnings of commerce and, to him, the home was just a temporary burrow.
But unlike a domestic dog, he presented no tendency of affection towards any soul in the household.
Was he like a homeless lone wolf? Maybe!
Or a tiger, at least once, as Bing had ever seen.
The fight was between his grandpa and the next-door neighbour. The dispute had started over the boundary of the two houses. He was building something against the line, which was regarded by the neighbour as a type of intrusion, a stretch beyond the measurement. The argument was rapidly heating up. Then, all of the sudden, without any prelude of warning or threatening words, his grandpa went into the house, grabbed a hoe and went straight to attack the wall corner of the neighbour’s house. His violent strokes dug deep into the soil-stacked construction. At least four strikes of damage had already been done before the neighbour, a much younger, middle-aged man, took his own hoe, evoking the similar damage for retaliation. The horrible escalation was eventually stopped by a crowd of villagers who had rushed over after hearing the fight.
Bing, witnessing, was dumbfounded. His grandpa’s extreme fury and the fearless nerve, as exhibited in the incident, were imprinted deeply into Bing’s brain, earning in him an enormous respect for the old man. However, whenever his grandpa, as one of his eccentricities, walked by self-muttering, with his thick under lip thrusting out so damp as if dribbling and his index finger pointing to the ground as if money-counting, Bing found it difficult to reconcile his reclusive figure to that impression of a fully ruffled tiger.
How could such a man turn all at once so violent, not fearing danger or even potential death?
His grandpa was born without seeing his father, Bing’s great-grandfather, who was rumoured to have been killed by someone and somewhere not even his wife had ever known about. The cause of his father’s death was said to relate to opium addiction, which was all Bing’s grandma had once told him. Years of hardship, lack of paternal and fraternal affection might have shaped his cold and harsh personality, when self-reliance and self-defence had become a necessity for survival in the crude society.
Regardless of how eccentric and affectionless his wives and offspring had perceived him to be, he had built the house to shelter the big family, by his own bare hands and means. He bought and sold fireworks, fishing hooks and lines, cotton threads for socks and sweaters, and scissors, and many things that the village was not able to produce.
And, as least sweet as he could be, he had always a lot of coins and notes, and he always gave his grandchildren handsome gifts of money at Spring Festivals, even if on these occasions his criticizing and scolding were also more severe than ever. It was as if his reprimand was the price his beneficiary had to pay for his generosity.
When he was in a better mood, or in other words in one not as bad as usual, he might share some of his food with his grandchildren. He would call them over, handing a bowl of soup to their humble hands, muttering and reproaching. The soup was very often something special, like birds, squirrels, or even pangolin, the scary ant eater. Snake was also on the list, though not as frequent as others.
When basic necessities became scarce, people were becoming practical. So long as Bing turned a deaf ear to what his grandpa said, a blind sight to how his grandpa composed his face, many benefits would come to his way. Fishing lines and hooks were just a few such examples that Bing and Dan could manage to store up for their own use or give to some good friends as the gifts.
And, ah, the fireworks, how exciting! They stole them and fired them up without the old man’s knowledge. And when Bing had a chance to help his grandpa’s business in the market, he could always save some coins and notes for himself from the customers’ payments. His grandpa might have known, or suspected, or might not, but he had never ever searched the pockets of his grandchildren.
He was seventy-five, and had been unwell for a couple of weeks. He was a very independent person, having looked after himself remarkably well in all his life. Only a few days prior to his death, he was seen in the market still doing his business. His wives and offspring were not, at least from their demeanours, demonstrating any filial intimacy or affection due for him. Therefore, when in the morning he was heard by his daughter-in-law moaning miserably in his bedroom, he must have already battled to the last minute of his life.
After laying him on the bed, Bing’s uncle went quickly to call the doctor, and also to inform his father. His uncle had to walk to the town, because he didn’t have a bicycle. Only his father had a bicycle.
Bing and his aunt and his grandma stood beside the bed, looking at him. He was still breathing, more like at repose. Once or twice his closed eyelids were observed to flicker. His parted lips, as pale and bloodless as the other features on his face, were puffing weakly. He didn’t seem to make any perceptible effort to maintain whatever life was left in him. He was unconscious, oblivious to the worried calls of his grandma who had been thinking to give him a cup of water to wake him up.
He lay peacefully, ashen-faced like that for some time. Then a change began to happen about his face. There seemed a flush going over it, very fresh and healthily looking, not in the least like the dark-purple expression often seen in sick patients. He was even moving his body a little to one side, like to snuggle into a comfortable position.
‘He looks better,’ said his aunt. ‘Let him rest until the doctor comes.’
Three of them were about to leave him, when a sigh, not big but distinctly audible, was released from his gaping mouth. The beautiful colour, seen only a minute earlier, was slowly but resolutely fading from his face, until it sank to a pallor.
Something bad must have taken place, but Bing was not sure what it was. He was too puzzled to notice the loss of airflow between the still gaping lips.
His grandma and his aunt began to cry, while he was numb and confused, incredulous.
Half an hour later, the doctor came, together with his uncle and his father. The doctor opened his grandpa’s eyes and checked for a second or two, then shook his head. He went out, said something to his father, and left.
Bing didn’t feel much a grievance or tangible loss from his grandpa’s decease. But he cried a lot, and aloud, together with other mourners, during the mourning days when he wore the special garment made of straw. To him, the coffin looked too big for his grandpa’s body. And the dark, purple colour of its surface was spelling all the terrible and frightful things in his world.
But he was not alone, all the important people, his sister, mother, grandma, father, and cousin and others, coming in and going out, were around with him. The coffin was but a temporary thing that by his crying might soon vanish, together with all the ugly grieving symbols and items strewing the whole house.
By contrast, Dan was not seen crying at all. He was only musing, moderated somewhat from his usual easy manner. When Bing saw him, he could even detect a trace of curiosity in Dan’s eyes as if he was asking him why he had to cry so ostentatiously. But Bing cried his necessary tears just the same.
It was not until his mother came to console him and asked him to calm down did he realize crying a little should be enough.
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