China by Edward Rutherfurd (historical books to read TXT) 📕

sheet, laid a yellow napkin over his face, and put him in the coffin. We set up a little altar at the foot of the coffin. My father stood a white candle on it, and the monks placed an incense burner there. We all wore white. The monks also left a little box near the door so that people could leave contributions for the cost of the burial.

I was amazed by how many friends Grandfather’s Elder Brother had. Everyone from the nearby streets seemed to know him. While the monks chanted the prayers, these friends all came by. People are supposed to make a lot of noise to show their grief, but he was so old and he’d gone so peacefully that it didn’t seem appropriate somehow. People just came in and told us nice stories about him, talking about what a kind and simple nature he had and that sort of thing. There was plenty for everybody to eat. The monks had seen to that, too.

That night some of the local men came and played card games like mah-jong with my father to help him keep awake through the vigil. If they hadn’t, I’m sure he would have disgraced us by falling asleep instead of standing guard over the body. I felt sorry for him, mind you, with all the walking he’d had to do and no inheritance to claim at the end of it all.

I was allowed to sleep a few hours, though.

The second day went all right except for two things. First, a little boy came into the yard wearing a red shirt—which as everyone knows is a fine color for a wedding, but terribly bad luck at a funeral. He didn’t get through the door, though, so the monks said it didn’t count. I hoped they were right. Sometimes, when I think about the way our lives developed, I’ve wondered if that little boy brought us all bad luck after all. But there’s no way of telling, really, is there?

In the afternoon, my father and the priest went through Grandfather’s Elder Brother’s chest. He had only a few clothes. You know it’s the custom to burn the clothes of the dead, and the monks had already burned the shreds he had on when he died. So now they took the other clothes to burn them, too. But my father kept rummaging around in the chest looking for some money, and when he found none, he got quite upset. I thought this was a bit unfeeling of him; but I’d forgotten that you’re supposed to give a little bit of money wrapped in paper to each guest at a funeral. And my poor father was upset because he was ashamed he hadn’t got any money to give. When the priest realized that, he told us the old man had already taken care of it, and sure enough the presents appeared at the right time. Whether Grandfather’s Elder Brother had really made these provisions, I don’t know. He might have. He was quite thorough.

The only time my father lost his composure was that moment after they put the lid on the coffin, when the senior family member has to take a hammer and drive in the nail that holds the lid down. But my father made a mess of it and the nail bent, and even the Taoist priest looked angry. My father just threw the hammer down and cried, “I can’t do anything right!” Then he picked the hammer up and gave it to me, saying, “You’d better do it. He liked you better than me.” Then he started crying, which wasn’t a very good idea.

Apart from that, everything went off all right. When we came to take the coffin to the slope where the old man was to be buried, I was allowed to be one of the bearers, which pleased me very much, because it’s an honor that brings good luck. There were two little bridges along the way where we crossed streams, and each time my father was careful to tell the corpse in the coffin that we were passing over water. So he got that right. After the burial and the prayers, we all went back to the house. The next day the monks put a little sign by the entrance of the house with red writing on it, to tell the old man’s ghost that this was his house. Why do we think that ghosts will get lost on their way home? I wonder. The idea is that the ghost will find its way home by the seventh day, and people often put powder across the threshold hoping that the ghost will disturb it in passing, so they’ll know it got safely back. Not that there’s much you can do about it, I suppose, if it didn’t. I don’t know if the monks put any powder across the threshold. We started for home the same day as the burial.

I remember wondering if anyone would really care whether a poor man’s ghost got home or not.

Father was quite depressed on the way back, but I wasn’t. “The old man lived just the way he wanted,” I said to cheer him up, “and he even died when he meant to, as well.”

“I suppose you’re right,” my father replied. “It’s more than you can say for most people.” But he didn’t look any happier.

—

Actually, Grandfather’s Elder Brother chose a good time to die. Because it was only months after we buried him that the Taiping appeared on the horizon.

One thing about living where we did, we always got all the news. In the back of beyond, up in the mountain villages, an emperor can die in the Forbidden City, and they may not hear about it for years. But we were only a day’s walk from Beijing. And because we were almost on the Grand Canal, there was constant news coming up from the port as well. The canal lock-keepers always knew everything.

The Taiping