Three Days in the Coffin

The first day was long. In the coffin I saw nothing. Black. Not the black of night — night has a little light, window paper pale, cracks under the door. This black was solid, pressing on my eyelids, on my ears, on my chest. I lay inside my own body, unable to move, but I could hear. First, people came and went in the hall. Someone wept. It was Sister-in-law Liu, the wife of Aunt Liu's man. She knelt beside the coffin and cried a while, saying things like "a good man gone too soon." She cried a bit longer, then was led away. Then Old Wang from next door came, stood a long while before the coffin, sighed several times, muttering "barely forty." After that came distant relatives on my mother's side; they stood at the hall door, did not enter, glanced in, offered a few words of condolence, and left. Every word they spoke, I heard. I wanted to answer. I could not open my mouth. By afternoon, someone set up tables in the hall for the funeral meal. Bowls clinked, chopsticks tapped the table edge. A straw mat was spread by the coffin, on it a pair of straw sandals — the filial shoes, worn by the mourner at the funeral. The hemp cord of the sandals scraped the coffin wood. I lay in the coffin, counting these sounds. By the thirty-second sound, I noticed something: I was no longer cold. When I had entered, that cold had crept from fingertips to chest, like well water. Now it had receded. Where had it gone? It had sunk to the bones. Not the biting cold, but a slow, settled cold, like a stone at the bottom of a well — not icy to touch, but bring it up, it is always cold. My body lay on the white cotton sheet, the cloth's ridges pressed against my back. It grew dark. The people in the hall dispersed. I heard my cousin close the courtyard gate, the hinge creaking. The lamp in my mother's room was still lit — I could not see it, but I could hear her moving, shifting something, then the chair creaked as she sat. She did not cry. From the time I entered the coffin until now, she had not wept once in the hall. Only once, from her room, I heard her say something very softly. "Wait one more day." I did not know whom she was speaking to. The second day was longer. When dawn came I knew it — not by seeing, but by hearing. The rooster crowed, footsteps passed the gate and receded. My cousin rose and heated water, the pot bubbling. He carried a bowl to my mother's room, set it on the table; she took a sip, and the bowl was set down again. In the morning, more people came. Village neighbors. They filed in, glanced at the coffin one by one. I heard their footsteps, one after another, coming to the coffin, stopping, looking down, then backing out. Someone sighed, someone shook his head, someone murmured "so young." An old woman stood before the coffin a long time, muttering something I could not catch. When she left, her steps were slow, dragging. They were looking at me. I lay in the coffin, eyes open — I knew they were open, but I saw nothing. They looked down at my face, at my closed eyes, at my folded hands. They did not know that I was watching too. I lay in the dark, listening to them come one by one and leave one by one. By afternoon the crowd dispersed. My cousin came into the hall, crouched by the coffin. I heard his hand rest on the rim, pause a while. Then he stood and went out into the courtyard and called: "Brother Liu —" I heard Liu's voice from outside: "What is it?" "The funeral's tomorrow," my cousin said. "The lid has to be nailed on tonight." "Nail it," Liu said. "I'll get the men." I lay in the coffin and heard this. Tonight, nail the coffin lid. My body lay on the white sheet. My hands were folded on my stomach. My eyes were closed. I lay in the coffin, a thin cypress plank above me, outside it my cousin, Liu, and the hammer that would nail the lid. I could not move. I wanted to shout. I could not. I wanted to lift my hand and push the lid. My hand would not lift. I lay there listening to my cousin and Liu talk in the courtyard — where the nails should go, where the hammer was. Their voices drifted in through the hall door, through the cypress wood, to my ears. Then my mother's voice came from her room. "Do not nail it." Three soft words. The hall and her room were only a wall apart; I heard them clearly. My cousin stopped. After a moment he said: "Aunt?" "I said, do not nail it." Her voice was not loud, but it was steady. "Wait one more day." "Aunt, the custom is the third day —" "I said, wait one more day." My mother said. "He has not come home yet." The courtyard went silent. I lay in the coffin, listening to this. She knew. She had always known. She sat in that dark room, listening to the sounds in the hall, hearing them talk of nailing the lid, and she said the words: "He has not come home yet." She was not speaking of custom, not of reluctance — she was waiting. She was waiting for me. My cousin said no more. After a while I heard his footsteps leave the courtyard gate. Liu followed. They spoke outside, low, and I could not hear. Then the gate latch clicked, and they were gone. It grew dark. The hall was empty again. The lamp in my mother's room was still lit. The third day. The third day had no sounds. No one came in the morning. No one came in the afternoon. My cousin did not come, Sister-in-law Liu did not come, the neighbors did not come. All of Songjia Village seemed to have gone quiet. I lay in the coffin and heard my own breathing — when had I begun to breathe? I did not know. At some moment, I had started. In, through the nose; out, through the mouth. Very light, very slow, like someone breathing in a dream. I could feel my own heartbeat now. Also from some moment. Thump. Once. A long pause, then another. Very slow, slow as counting the hours. But it was beating. It kept beating. Toward evening, the hall door opened. It was my mother. She entered, her steps slower than the previous two days. She came to the coffin and stood. I heard her hand rest on the edge — this time her hand did not tremble. Her palm lay flat on the cypress, and stayed there a long while. Then she spoke. "Tao." She called my name. "Have you come home?" I lay in the coffin. My heart beat once. Thump. "Mother knows you have come home," she said. "These two nights, every night, Mother has heard hoofbeats in the courtyard. When your father died, there were hoofbeats too. Mother knows them." She paused. "If you have come home, answer Mother." I lay there, unable to open my mouth. But my finger moved. I did not know it myself. Was it the thought first, or the finger? — I wanted to move, and then the finger moved. Right hand, index finger, on the white sheet, curled slightly. My mother stood at the coffin and saw it. She did not cry out. She simply placed both hands on the lid — it was still propped, not nailed — and gripped the edges, and lifted. The lid opened. Light. Light came through the hall window, gray-white, the light of evening. It fell on my face and I squinted — how long had it been since I had seen light? No, I had only been gone a day. But after three days in this coffin, the light on my eyelids felt sharp, like a needle. I opened my eyes. My mother's face was right above me. I looked at her. She looked at me. She had aged — not truly aged. She was still seventy, but these three days had aged her. Her eye sockets were sunken, her cheekbones sharp, her hair had been half-white and was now all white. Tears stood at the corners of her eyes, dried, then wet again. She looked at me, her lips moving, not crying. Her face had aged nine years. Not nine years of time weighing on her face, but three days of tears. Three days without closing her eyes. Three days, sitting in that dark room, listening to the sounds in the coffin, waiting. I looked at her and opened my mouth. My throat was parched, as if stuffed with sand. It took all my strength to force out a word. My voice was hoarse, not my own: "Mother…" Her hand came down from the coffin rim and took mine. Her hand was warm, mine cold. She held it, a long while. Then she nodded and said: "You're home." **【Archive Verification】** From the Song family genealogy: Song Tao, dead three days, returned to life. On the day the coffin was opened, Song's mother herself lifted the lid, to the astonishment of neighbors. Song's first words did not call for his mother, nor ask for water — he asked: "That scholar from Changshan, the one surnamed Zhang — how is he now?" The family did not understand. Messengers were sent to Changshan to inquire; indeed there was a Zhang scholar, who died that day, a smile on his face. Recorded for reference. — Volume 1, Biographies. I lay in the coffin, my mother holding my hand. Light from the window fell on half her face. I looked at her face, that face aged nine years. Then I asked the question. "Changshan… the scholar surnamed Zhang… what has become of him?"