Grandma's Funeral (version 2)
The house was a two-storeyed house along a crackly and sandy tar road. It faced a dingy coffee shop and an abandoned construction shed, where a lonesome thin tree, leafless and bare, quietly waved a faltering branch. The tree would be gone soon. Like smoke. Like ashes.An old dying fence separated our house from the neighbours’, as creepers and vines sprawled all over, strangling and entangling it, causing it to lean and bend. Uncle and Cousin had parked their motorbikes and van at the porch. The family dog, Boxy or Brownie as I used to call him, lazed in the sweltering heat with half-opened eyes, oblivious to the flies buzzing around him. Two ghostly white lanterns swayed lightly above the doorway -- someone from this house was dead.
A narrow walkway surrounded the house. To the right of the porch, dripping wet laundry hung from thin bamboo poles. An old stone well, damp and overgrown with moss and algae, rested behind the laundry area. To the left, Uncle had piled dusty gunny sacks, junk metal, rubber hoses, and deflated tyres. The back of the house was crammed with broken buckets, tubs, wooden boxes, old woks, and crates of used glass bottles. Pigeons and crows scattered themselves on the weathered roof, while the drain was crawling with centipedes and black ants. 'Remember to pay your respects to Grandma,' Father said. I nodded, but remained silent. A feeling of dread and impending despair filled the air.
Inside, the aunties and cousins folded joss papers in quiet gloom. No one lifted a head when we entered. An unearthly smell of incense filled the hall, as thin clouds of smoke drifted like spirits in the shadowy darkness. The stiff wooden coffin was placed in the centre, right in front of the alter, which was then covered with large pieces of crisp red papers.
Without a word, I lit the joss sticks and paid my respects. Dad went alone to the kitchen while I helped the rest fold the joss papers. 'Hi,' Cousin Yun broke the silence at last. It was a restrained sob, and her red eyes averted my gaze. I could only forge a wistful smile.
We folded the joss papers beside the wooden staircase. If one had walked straight to the kitchen and turned left, one would see a slightly ajar door, leading to a tiny poorly-ventilated room. This was where Grandma slept and died. The room was cluttered with decade-old furniture and worn-out mattresses. It smelled of medicated ointment and urine. Grandma's prayer beads were strewn about in disarray. An old radio was moaning in a monotonous drone, 'Namu-Amida-Butsu, Namu-Amida-Butsu...' repeating itself in an endless cycle, as one would mourn for the dead. However, it was perhaps Grandma's only source of comfort and solace when she was still alive.
As I carelessly folded the joss papers, I tried to conjure memories of Grandma in my mind. I tried very hard, but nothing came. I could not even imagine her face clearly. Were her spectacle rims golden or silver? Did she wear a bangle on her right wrist, or on her left? All these I could not remember. To me, Grandma was only a kindly old lady, with a gentle smile, bending over a plump and aged body, dressed in a floral blue shirt and black pants.
(... ...)
***
Evening came. 'Come and eat,' Grandma would call out when she was still alive, and the children would flock to the dinner table and gather. But the laughter and gaiety was gone; it was replaced by a sombre silence. We had all grown anyway. We were no longer children. 'Eat,' Auntie said gravely when she passed the bowls of rice around. She had prepared a table full of food for dinner -- a dull-looking pomphret steamed with plums and ginger, a half-cooked white chicken oozing with blood, poorly-chopped slices of roast duck, a dish of preserved vegetables, fishball soup with thin lettuce slices, and a pot of fat pork braised in oily soy sauce. I stuffed myself with the white rice and plain water.
After dinner, Auntie Hun's sons and daughters came over. Their loud voices and boisterous laughter filled the hall. 'Where's the mahjong table?' Ah Leong asked as he put aside a can of beer. 'We'll stay up till dawn to accompany Grandma.' Ah Hong, who had recently won in a pageant, sashayed across the hall in a tight black T-shirt that clung snugly to her curvaceous figure. 'It's sad that Grandma died,' she remarked casually after offering her joss sticks. Then she purred a 'hi' to my mum, sank herself into an old sofa's welcoming embrace, and switched on the television. Soon, the hall was drowned in the noise of clattering mahjong tiles, tossing chips and drunken voices. Right next to Grandma's coffin.
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