I.

The summer I turned ten, my grandfather died. The day after his death, my aunts and uncles came to my house to take me to his funeral. 

As I walked toward my uncle's car, doubts and fear entered my thoughts. I had never met my grandfather, and so I didn’t know how to feel. What could death, or his death, in particular, the death of a man who was more fabled than real, mean to me? But my aunts and uncles were his children, and surely they must be devastated. Hesitant to confront their emotion directly, to be swarmed with the index of their grief, the varieties of their cries (some loud, some stifled), the streams of their unending tears, I reluctantly pulled the door open. 

"We can't do this, this needs to be burned!"

"What does it matter? It'll be burned at the funeral anyway. I can’t get dirt on my new jeans. I just bought them yesterday. They cost me 30 kuai!"

Five pairs of hands reached for the stack of joss paper on my uncle's lap. Aunt Cao snatched the entire stack. Hands jutted across the empty space, attempting to seize the papers. The aunt wearing 30 kuai jeans managed to extract a single piece. Triumphantly, she placed it on the seat behind her and sat down. I squeezed in beside her and slammed the door shut.

Conversation filled the car. Voices overlapped, interrupted occasionally by bursts of laughter. If I had not been informed of my grandfather's death, I would have been convinced that I was traveling to a wedding. 

II. 

We arrived.

As my relatives and I squeezed past each other to exit the car, Aunt Cao pulled me aside. "Your grandfather's neighbors in the village will be here," she said. "Don't let your family lose face." 

As the youngest, I was the last to enter the room. Upon entering, I witnessed the most extraordinary spectacle.

My relatives, who had laughed hysterically only moments ago, were now wiping away tears. Lips tightened, eyebrows knitted, heads bent down, shoulders hunched. Tears streamed down my relatives' cheeks, leaving tracks that charted the depth of their grief, that gave outward shape to the inward torment of facing death from this side of the grave. The room was full of the sound of sobbing.

At the center of the room, an aunt was hyperventilating. Her lips quivered, her chest heaved violently, her entire body trembled. 

Near my grandfather's coffin, the aunt wearing 30 kuai pants kneeled, her right hand outstretched toward grandfather's coffin, the tip of her fingers touching its brim. Her left grasped her neck as if she were struggling to vanquish an excess of violent emotion. Tears streamed down her cheeks as if she were a cloud that had finally broken. Her lips quivered, forming a silent "no!" But at the corner of her mouth, I was nearly certain, the trace of a smirk appeared.

I turned my head to look at my uncle. The rosy man had gone pale, the color stripped from his cheeks. He leaned forward, jaw set, eyes narrowed, staring intensely at the floor. He dabbed his eyes with his handkerchief.

Aunt Cao wept bitterly in front of me. "Grandfather was so nice to you, Paopao, and now he is dead," she whispered between sobs. She tried to infect me with her grief, wailing loudly and recounting moments I have shared with my grandfather (I had never met my grandfather). With the latter, she seemed to have encountered some difficulties and stopped abruptly.

Fear entered my thoughts. If I don't cry, I thought, I will be perceived as disrespectful and my family will lose face. I tried to focus on the most miserable moments of my ten-year-old life, arguments with friends, scraped knees, lost toys, but the absurdity of my relatives diverted my attention. The vehemence of their grief, so distant from their previous expression, so quickly adopted in the presence of others, an act of saving face, of appearance without depth, brought me to laughter. I chewed my lips, attempting to suffocate the immense tide of mirth. The constant suppression almost amounted to agony, and I felt the pain of holding out against it might bring me to tears instead.

“Why aren’t you crying?” Aunt Cao had turned around and was looking down at me. Anger was etched into her features. Her lips compressed, her brows settled into a petrified severity.

I felt a tingling sensation on my arm; pain quickly succeeded. A cry escaped my lips. I turned my head and saw Aunt Cao’s nails digging into my arm. My skin burned, blood oozed from where her nails dug into my skin, tears welled up in my eyes, but she refused to release my arm. Her nails continued to dig deeper into my skin. I started sobbing uncontrollably.

Through the midst of tears, I caught a glimpse of a smile at the corner of aunt Cao’s lips. My relatives had gained back their faces.

III.

When the cremation had concluded, the announcement came for repast. My relatives rushed toward their table where food had been prepared. Conversations resumed.

"Father could not have died at a better time."

"Absolutely."

“If he had not died, we would have needed to pool together our money to get him a nurse. Now that he is dead, I can buy myself a new pair of shoes,” said my aunt in the 30 kuai pants. She smiled. Her eyes leaked continuously with excitement. 

"Cheers to an incredible father!"

Laughter echoed around the table. With tears still glistening on their cheeks, my aunts and uncles laughed and clinked their cups. 

Underneath the table, my arm ached. The marks of Aunt Cao's nails deepened to crimson. But none of my relatives seemed to remember my injury. The funeral was finished, and they were moving on with their lives.