Authors: Yan Lianke
If the person in charge of the mausoleum happened to be a friend of yours, you might hear a masterful story about how these midsize trees were precisely the same age as Lenin when he passed away, and accordingly that they each had fifty-four growth rings. When these trees were transplanted, they were inspected by forestry experts from the county, who drilled a hole in the trunk of each tree, from which they were able to confirm that they were all precisely fifty-four years old. If the forestry experts determined that the age of a tree did not match Lenin’s age when he passed away, but rather was a little older or younger, then irrespective of how straight and tall the tree might be, or how dense its canopy, it would not be transplanted. The mausoleum manager said that in order to find twelve pine trees and sixteen cypresses that were each precisely fifty-four years old, forestry experts spent half a year digging up trees on Spirit Mountain, and for each tree that was the desired age they had to dig up five others that weren’t. On the entire mountainside, however, there were only about a hundred pines and cypresses in all. Out of every hundred or so trees, therefore, there might be only one pine or cypress, and furthermore there was no telling whether or not that particular tree would prove to be precisely fifty-four years old.
After they had finished searching several mountainsides throughout the county, and had dug up several forests’ worth of trees, they finally managed to find twelve pines and sixteen cypresses that were the requisite age.
Naturally, these twelve pines were called Lenin pines, and the sixteen cypresses were called Lenin cypresses. Planted on either side of the Lenin Mausoleum, these trees became the structure’s masterpiece. In order to verify the ages, a hole had been drilled in the trunk of each tree, and even after these holes were plugged with cement, sap continued to ooze like glue from around the cement ring.
There was a pungent odor of pine sap everywhere.
Of course, it was only in these technical details that the Lenin Mausoleum differed from its counterpart in Beijing. But if you were to see those trees and follow the crowds into the mausoleum, you would learn something even more mysterious, such as the fact that in the memorial hall there are precisely thirteen marble pillars and columns. Why is this? It is because Lenin’s original name was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, which in Chinese is written with thirteen characters. Therefore, these thirteen pillars and columns represent Lenin’s name. If you were to know all this, you might very well wonder about other details, and therefore would have to visit it again and again.
Inside the mausoleum there was a main hall that was twenty feet
high, which would make you feel very solemn. The lights embedded in the walls were as soft as milk, and beneath this milky light the crowds slowly made their way forward, following the rope railings. Although the main hall was half as large as a typical wheat field, or as big as a wealthy man’s courtyard, the path leading up to it was as narrow as a back alley. While Lenin’s corpse had not yet been brought in, the newly constructed coffin was already installed in the center of the main hall. The hall was already extremely solemn, and no talking was permitted.
If you had a crying baby, you would be immediately asked to leave.
And if you tried to smoke or take photographs, you would be immediately asked to leave, and would be fined.
Everyone crowded around the front and back doors as though they were lining up to cross a bridge. In this slow movement, it was as though they were walking through a narrow alley, and everyone, young or old, keenly felt a chill in the memorial hall. It was as if they’d suddenly entered a deep gorge in the middle of summer, and everyone at once felt as though their breath had been taken away, because they immediately saw the crystal coffin sitting on a platform in the center of the hall. The platform was made from large slabs of marble, and it was rectangular in shape, and as large as a reed mat. The coffin rested right on top of the marble platform, like a translucent shard of aquamarine glass, or a milky white piece of transparent crystal jade. A nylon rope marked a perimeter of about five or six feet around the coffin, keeping the tourists outside the roped area and ensuring that they would merely observe, and not touch, it.
Given that the coffin could not be touched, it appeared even more mysterious, leading people to want to examine it even more carefully. The more carefully they examined it, however, the more confused they would become. The coffin was the same shape as every other coffin, with a wide section for the head and a narrower one for the feet. It seemed as though the middle section was like that of typical rural coffins—about two feet seven inches wide and two feet seven inches high. But the section for the head was much wider and taller than that of a typical blackwood rural coffin, just as the section for the feet was slightly taller and wider than that of a conventional rural coffin. The overall coffin, meanwhile, was about half a foot longer than a typical rural one.
In sum, you felt that the coffin’s ratios were somewhat out of sync. But this was a crystal coffin, and in a few days the body of a great man would be lying in it. The coffin was for an enormous foreign figure who was admired by half the world. So, you didn’t dare ask why the coffin was constructed that way, but rather had no choice but to silently file past with everyone else, slowly moving forward as though walking along a balance beam. When you came up next to the coffin, you would feel a cold breeze, and you might even see several strands of hair on the transparent base of the coffin. These would be gray hairs, and they would make you suddenly start shivering again.
There was barely any noise in the enormous main hall, and everyone’s footsteps sounded like falling leaves. You could hear people breathing, like white strands of wool floating in the air. You could also see the flickering of the milky white lights, like winter fog along the mountain ridge. One person couldn’t restrain himself and coughed with his hand over his mouth, his dry cough resonating through the hall like a stone falling from the sky, shattering the silence. Everyone immediately stopped gazing at the coffin and instead turned to look in the direction of the cough.
The person bowed his head, as though he had just committed an unpardonable crime.
Everyone, young or old, was still trudging forward along the rope line, and by the time you brought your gaze back from the person who coughed, you would have already reached the coffin.
Even though you hadn’t seen enough of that crystal coffin, the people behind you would be already pushing you forward and out the back door of the hall.
Even after viewing the coffin, everyone felt as though they hadn’t seen anything. They therefore filed out of the hall and stood around morosely, feeling that it hadn’t been worth it and they hadn’t gained anything. It was as though they had traveled thousands of miles to go to the market, only to find that the market was closed, or as though they had traveled night and day to attend an opera, only to find that the opera had already concluded.
The sun was bright and the weather was warm. Everyone seemed rather bewildered, and you would stand there feeling somewhat lost, hearing people around you express their disappointment and discuss what was worth seeing and what wasn’t. At this point, you would notice several people crowded around a white-haired figure in his forties, who was perhaps the manager of the memorial hall. He would say that he personally placed the crystal coffin there, and that the memorial hall was constructed under his supervision. He would ask, “Do you know why the main hall of the mausoleum has three side rooms, rather than two, four, or six? It’s because when Chief Liu went to visit Lenin’s former residence, he reported that the house consisted of a main hall with three side rooms.”
He would ask, “Do you know why the crystal coffin is not seven Chinese feet long, but rather seven feet five inches? Do you know why the height, width, and depth of the head of the coffin are all two feet nine inches, rather than the more conventional two feet seven inches? And why the height, width, and depth of the foot of the coffin are all one foot five inches, rather than the more conventional one foot nine inches? Why is this? Does anyone know?”
He said, “Given that I’m sure none of you knows the answer, I’ll just tell you. The reason why the coffin was constructed to these precise dimensions is because when Chief Liu traveled to Russia he carefully measured Lenin’s tomb. The coffin is precisely one-tenth the size of Lenin’s tomb. Chief Liu said that the tomb was long and narrow—twenty-two and a half steps long. Three of Chief Liu’s steps are precisely ten feet, and therefore those twenty-two and a half steps are equivalent to seventy-five feet, ten percent of which is seven and a half feet. Lenin’s tomb was twenty-nine feet wide, and therefore the head of the coffin is two-point-nine feet wide. Lenin’s tomb is fifteen feet tall, and consequently the crystal coffin is one and a half feet tall.”
He said, “Lenin’s Mausoleum contains countless marvelous details, and enough stories to fill a book.” He said, “Do you know why the portrait of Lenin you see when you walk in is five feet one inch tall? Or why the portrait’s base is two feet one inch wide, three feet eight inches long, and three inches high? That is because Chief Liu had been intimately familiar with all of Lenin’s works ever since he was a young boy in the soc-school. The reason he said Lenin’s portrait should be five feet one inch tall is because this is equivalent to one-point-seven meters, and Lenin’s collected works is comprised of seventeen volumes. The reason why the portrait’s base width is two feet one inch is because that is equivalent to seventy centimeters, and Lenin’s selected works are comprised of his most influential seventy essays. The reason why the portrait’s base is three-point-eight feet long is because in China there happen to be thirty-eight different editions of Lenin’s works. Finally, the reason why the base of the portrait is six feet off the ground is because if Lenin’s books were all stacked up one on top of the other, they too would be six feet tall.”
That person stood in front of the back door of the memorial hall, rambling on as people crowded around him. The more people crowded around him, the more extravagant his descriptions became, until eventually it seemed as though every single brick in the memorial hall had its own story, and every stone was directly linked in some way to Lenin’s life. He said, “When you initially walked in, you probably didn’t notice that the stones in the floor of the memorial hall form a semicircular image, in which there appear countless crickets and grasshoppers. This is because in the courtyard of Lenin’s former residence, there was also a semicircular pond, and when Lenin was a child he would often go to the edge of the pond to catch grasshoppers for cricket fights. This image on the floor of the memorial hall symbolizes the notion that when Lenin’s corpse arrives it will be as if he has finally returned home, while also returning to his own childhood.”
He added, “When great people age, it is as though they are returning to their childhood, which amounts to their receiving a new life. In the great hall there are six large columns, on three of which appear engraved images of Chinese dragons, together with images of Tiananmen Gate and Tiananmen Square. On the other three, there are engravings of various foreign churches, foreign architecture, and scenes of laboring masses, together with images of Lenin’s own books. There are also images of our own sickles, axes, Chairman Mao’s works, and a chronology of the Revolution, as well as pictures of that other country’s October Revolution, the overthrow of the czar, people cheering the defeat of Hitler during World War Two, and so forth.”
With the sun about to set, the white-haired person had been speaking until he was hoarse, until the mausoleum was full of allusions and significance. Finally, he concluded, “This illustrates the principle that those who are able to observe will see things the way they are, while those who can’t observe will instead see everything in confusion. Given that it is still early, I urge you to go back inside the memorial hall and examine it all again. Otherwise, you will have wasted a trip, because once Lenin’s corpse is installed, you will have to purchase a ticket each time you want to go in.”
When he finished, he set off toward the area below the mausoleum. At this point, it suddenly occurred to someone that the speaker was in fact the Boshuzi township chief, and he remarked in amazement that whereas the township chief had originally been a coarse fellow, now that the memorial hall had been constructed he’d suddenly become a learned intellectual. The person had wanted to ask the township chief a few more questions, but someone else had called him over. So the township chief had walked away, leaving villagers who’d originally felt as though they had gained nothing from visiting the memorial hall staring at his departing shadow as they praised his knowledge and experience, while lamenting their own ignorance and shortsightedness.
By this point, the mountain ridge had turned crimson. The sun was about to go down, and under the setting sun the memorial hall appeared calm and serene. Because the sun was about to set, some people hurried back to enter the hall a second time, while others decided that it would be dark soon and there was still a lot more to see on the mountain.
Most important, none of them had had a chance to see Liven’s special-skills troupe perform. If they weren’t able to see that performance, they would truly have come to Balou for nothing,
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and would truly have climbed Spirit Mountain for nothing.
Further Reading:
1)
Kowtow steps.
In old times Buddhist temples always had steps in front of them. When people entered a temple they had to kowtow, and therefore the people of Balou call these steps “kowtow” steps.