4.
The director called over someone else from the funeral home and introduced her to me.
“This is our makeup artist, Lưu Trúc.”
The director pointed to the woman with the full figure and beautiful face.
“She’s single, by the way.”
The director gave me a meaningful glance.
“Ms. Lưu.”
I bowed respectfully in greeting, not daring to say anything overly familiar in response to the director’s hint.
Lưu Trúc was also one of the director’s trusted associates. Once, she’d gone to a gold shop in town and bought a whole kilogram of pure gold on the spot. Gold had been 270 đồng per gram then, which came to over a hundred thousand đồng.
At the time, a farming family in the town below earned only 500 đồng a month, while she spent over a hundred thousand in a single purchase.
Lưu Trúc smiled, apparently pleased by how quick I was to catch on, and seemed willing to make conversation.
“Did the director really have to point that out? What’s wrong with being single?”
The director only smiled and said nothing.
I didn’t dare speak either, afraid I might say the wrong thing and offend her.
The director sat in a chair and looked at me.
“Step two is learning the skills you’ll need for the job.”
5.
It was right around noon, and two families were waiting outside to make arrangements.
Lưu Trúc led me to the makeup room, where a body lay—a young woman who had died too soon.
Lưu Trúc took out her kit and stood beside the body. I thought she was going to teach me how to apply makeup, but instead she pulled on a pair of gloves and lifted the corpse’s stiff, bruised right hand.
“Many families want the body to look lifelike when they come to see it.”
After carefully rubbing on product for a while, the hand gradually regained its youthful pink color, and its joints grew supple, as if waiting for someone to slip a ring onto one of its fingers.
“But once the memorial service is over, nobody cares whether someone’s a person or a ghost.”
With that, she let the corpse’s hand drop carelessly.
After teaching me a few techniques and seeing that I followed her instructions, Lưu Trúc pulled off her rubber gloves and tossed them into the trash.
“The director said you’ll be staying here for the next three days. They’ve arranged a room for you, right next to mine. Go out from here and turn right; yours is the third room. Get some rest.”
Then she left without giving me another glance.
I went to the room they’d arranged for me, lay down on the bed, and closed my eyes. The dark images from last night and the scene in the makeup room today played before my eyes one after another, like a slow-motion film.
I don’t know how long it was before I drifted off.
6.
I was woken by a knock at the door.
When I opened it, Lưu Trúc was standing there with a large kit bag, smiling at me.
She’d changed clothes. She was no longer wearing the blue work uniform from that day; now she had on silk pajamas.
“Ms. Lưu, what are you doing?” I asked, bewildered.
I glanced at the clock. It was past ten at night, and she was standing outside the room of a young man like me…
“Your lesson isn’t over yet.”
Lưu Trúc said it as if it were perfectly obvious and slipped into the room.
I glanced at her standing right beside me and shifted aside to let her in.
“The room’s a little messy. I hope you don’t mind, Ms. Lưu.”
The room the funeral home provided wasn’t large, and it still had a lot of the previous occupant’s belongings. I hadn’t touched them; I’d only set my laptop on the desk.
“You boys really don’t know how to take care of yourselves.”
Lưu Trúc looked around and sighed reproachfully.
“Come on, let’s go to my room.”
I scratched my head awkwardly. “Is that really okay?”
Lưu Trúc glanced at me, her eyes full of meaning.
“If I’m not afraid, what are you afraid of?”
I took her kit bag for her and followed her to her room.
Sure enough, Lưu Trúc’s room was not only neat and tidy, but also faintly scented.
I stood awkwardly in a corner, trying to keep my distance from the bed with its soft pink curtains.
“Ms. Lưu, is there anything else you want to teach me?”
Lưu Trúc sat on the bed. “Why are you standing so far away? Come over and sit beside me.”
I hesitated. Lưu Trúc was right there in front of me, radiating an irresistible sensuality. Any man would have thrown himself at her.
But I couldn’t let a small matter ruin the bigger plan.
Unwilling to give up, Lưu Trúc saw that I wasn’t moving and came closer, lightly stroking my chest with her right hand.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never done this before!”
Lưu Trúc’s forwardness frightened me. I shoved her away and ran back to my room.
She didn’t chase after me.
But from behind the pink curtain, a gaze followed me.
7.
That night, I had a lot of dreams.
Whenever I came to my senses, realized something was wrong, and tried to wake up, I found I was still dreaming.
At first, I was in the school cafeteria, buying lunch. The woman serving food scooped a spoonful of ribs onto my tray, then, like all the other servers, shook the spoon back and forth a few times. I was just about to see how much was left…
I looked down and realized that, at some point, the food in my bowl had turned into a large, bloodied pig’s head set in front of a gravestone. Its two big nostrils pointed straight at me. I could clearly see the nose hairs still left inside, unplucked, and the mouth below them was stretched into a mocking smile.
Startled, I flipped my food tray over, only to realize I’d woken up in the top bunk in my school dorm. The sound of my roommate typing on the keyboard below still echoed in my ears.
“Wake up, your girlfriend’s calling!”
I pulled myself together and reached for the phone beside my pillow to answer, but the screen showed a picture of a gravestone, weathered and worn.
The candle beside the gravestone flared fiercely. Its red-hot flames swallowed the pig’s head, swallowed the gravestone, swallowed the phone, and then swallowed me…
When I woke again, I was back in my hometown. As a college student who’d left the village to study, whenever I came home, someone in the village would invite me over for a meal, as if eating there would bring their children a little of the luck of Wenquxing, the Star of Literature.
“I made all your favorite dishes. Don’t complain, okay?”
My neighbor Chú Lý was my father’s close friend. His daughter was taking the college entrance exam the following year, and he wanted me to share some advice with her.
When Chú Lý’s daughter brought out the food, her hand looked exactly like the hand that had been made up—the joints were flushed pink.
My breath caught in my throat, but Chú Lý was still telling me, “Don’t be shy. Eat up.”
The food piled high on the table, almostabout to bury me.
I gasped for breath. Even though I knew perfectly well I was dreaming, I still couldn’t wake up.
8.
At eight o’clock that morning, the director summoned me.
He was holding the comb again.
“How was your makeup lesson yesterday?”
“Lưu taught me a lot. I learned quite a bit.”
“I heard you went into her room?”
I froze. How was I supposed to answer that?
The director set down the comb, then suddenly flipped the washbasin upside down, splashing half its water all over me.
“Still not going to tell the truth?”
I took a deep breath, trying to stay calm.
“I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you. I did go into Lưu’s room yesterday.”
“Did she touch you?”
“She… she did, but only a little.”
“Did you touch her?”
“No! Absolutely not, Director! I swear!”
“Why not?”
“What?” I stared at the director, confused.
“Why didn’t you touch her?!”
He kicked me hard, sending me sprawling to the floor. The force of it made the lump on his chin jiggle. It looked disgusting.
“I came here to learn, Director!”
“What did you come here for, then?”
The director wiped the dirt off his leather shoes and looked down at me arrogantly. From this angle, the lump obscured his entire face.
I wiped the water from my face. “Director, I came here to make money. I want to prove to women that I’m strong!”
He said nothing. His large frame moved closer, his eyes seeming to see right through me.
“No man can resist Lưu Trúc’s charms. You hate women so much and want to prove yourself, yet you wouldn’t touch a sexy woman standing right in front of you?”
“Either you’re not up to it, or you’ve got some task to complete at this funeral home. Until that task is done, you don’t have time for romance.”
The director repeated himself. “Lying to me won’t do you any good. Tell me the truth!”
“I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you!”
Desperate, I lowered my head and confessed my secret to the director.
“My girlfriend… died last month. I… I really didn’t mean to! I killed her by accident!”
“She was cremated, and her ashes are hidden in this funeral home. I…”
“I still couldn’t feel at ease, so I wanted to come here and get rid of them.”
The director was silent for a long time. He didn’t look nearly as surprised as I’d expected.
“Fine. Today is your third day of probation. The final step is an assessment of your work attitude. Lâm Tiếu will come see you in a bit. Pass this test, and you’ll be hired.”
I was so grateful I nearly fell to my knees. “Thank you, Director! Thank you!”