The Dark Road A Novel

KEYWORDS: Ming Dynasty theatre, face shape, toffee apple, swaddled, jewel-encrusted, sensitive.

AT THE END of the dancing policemen act, Nannan weaves her way back through the crowd of spectators with three bottles of Coca-Cola, and reaches her seat just as the curtains rise again. The instrumental prelude of a Cantonese opera begins to pour from the large loudspeakers flanking the stage. Meili, Kongzi and Nannan are sitting at the back. A group of scruffy workers who’ve wandered out from their nearby dormitory house in shorts and flip-flops are standing behind them, smoking. Local officials are seated on the front rows, dressed in freshly pressed trousers and short-sleeved shirts. ‘We’re in the birthplace of Cantonese opera,’ Kongzi shouts over the din. ‘This theatre is even older than the Confucius Temple and the Town God Temple. It’s the perfect place to watch The Seventh Fairy Delivers her Son to Earth!’

‘Is the opera based on the weaver girl and the cowherd story?’ Meili asks, putting her arm around Nannan. She cracks a sunflower seed between her teeth and spits the shell onto her bulge. ‘Here,’ she says, offering some seeds to Nannan.

‘You know I don’t like them,’ Nannan says, pushing them away.

‘But these ones are freshly roasted, just try one – they’re delicious,’ Meili says, wishing Nannan would overcome her irrational dislike of seeds. The drums are so loud now, she has to raise her voice to be heard.

‘Yes, the Seventh Fairy is the weaver girl, the seventh daughter of the Jade Emperor and the Mother of the West. When she fell pregnant with the cowherd’s child, her mother was furious and commanded her to return to Heaven. Now that it’s born, she has to hand it over to the father.’

Gongs, violins, drums and guitars all sound out at once, drawing the audience’s attention to the brightly lit stage, where two men with hoses are filling the air with white smoke in preparation of the fairy’s descent to earth.

‘Look, there she is!’ Nannan cries out, jumping to her feet. A canvas backdrop is lowered, revealing the green landscape of terraced tea plantations beneath a clear blue sky. The sea of heads, hats and paper fans below wave about in anticipation.

A woman in a jewel-encrusted headdress and a long red robe wafts down from the sky with a baby in her arm, singing: ‘The Seventh Fairy cradles her swaddled baby son, and looks down at the Nine Regions and weeps, her tears flowing like a river . . .’

‘This is boring,’ Nannan moans. ‘I much preferred the moon-dancing policemen just now.’ This free show has been staged by the Foshan Song and Dance Troupe and the Shenxian County Cantonese Opera Company to celebrate 1 August Army Day. Meili, Kongzi and Nannan arrived at the theatre at five o’clock to make sure they’d get seats.

‘Shut up!’ Kongzi says, tapping Nannan’s leg.

‘My darling son is too young to know the meaning of grief, to know how my heart breaks at the thought of leaving him . . .’ the fairy sings. The cowherd walks onto the stage wearing a headdress decorated with pompoms and tassels, a thick-belted tunic and padded boots. To a melancholy strain from the violins, he twirls around the fairy and takes her in his arms.

‘Feel how fast my heart is beating, Kongzi,’ Meili says, pressing his hand against her chest. The sunflower seeds on her belly scatter to the floor. ‘The baby reminds me of Waterborn. She was no bigger than that when you sold her. I was still producing milk six months after she was gone. My body was yearning for her to come back.’

Kongzi pulls his hand away and takes a swig of Coca-Cola. Nannan sees a classmate in the crowd and waves to her. The sweltering, muggy air smells of cigarette smoke, sweat and sulphur. The open-air Ming Dynasty theatre is on the north shore of Womb Lake. Its ornate stage resembles the entrance to the Confucius Temple, with a golden roof supported by large red pillars. Lights pointing at the upturned eaves illuminate strange carved beasts glaring at the audience with mouths agape.

‘Forget your sorrow for a moment,’ the cowherd sings to the fairy. ‘Let me wipe the hot tears from your face, and hold my son in my arms.’ He takes the baby from the fairy and, gazing down at him, dances about the stage, the drums beating in time with his rhythmic steps.

‘That baby’s not real,’ Nannan says, brushing a mosquito off her arm. ‘See, it’s not moving at all.’

‘I am a celestial being and you a mere mortal,’ the fairy sings. ‘Our love defies the Laws of Heaven. For giving you a male heir, I have been berated and humiliated . . .’ As the fairy bursts into tears on the stage, in the unlit darkness at the back of the theatre, Meili weeps as well. Although she can remain on the earth, she has to live like an escaped convict, searching in vain for a place where she can legally give birth to her child. At least no one has tried to harm the fairy’s son. As soon as her own son was born, he was killed and condemned to another reincarnation.

When Meili returns her tear-filled eyes to the stage, suddenly the fairy looks identical to her, and the cowherd to Kongzi.

‘What miseries you’ve had to endure to produce a child for me!’ the cowherd sings.

‘I have no regrets,’ the fairy sings back to him. ‘The hundred days we spent together could vanquish a lifetime of sadness.’

‘Yes, for one hundred days, we were as happy as two fish in a lake. And now, as I hold my son in my arms, my sorrows melt away . . .’

‘My dear love, we’re not fated to remain together. Now that I have delivered our son to you, I must return to the Celestial Palace. I in the sky and you on the earth, with the Milky Way between us: it won’t be easy to meet again . . .’

Meili pats her belly and whispers, Don’t worry, little Heaven, I’ll make sure that this incarnation will be successful. The family planning laws won’t last much longer. Just wait patiently in my womb a few more years until it’s legal for you to come out. And when that time comes, if you still refuse to budge, I’ll dig into my tummy button and pull you out with my bare hands! On the stage, the heartbroken fairy circles the cowherd, tossing her head back and flicking her long sleeves in despair. Meili strokes Nannan’s ponytail, and feels her tears slowly dry up.

‘Why were you crying, Mum?’ Nannan asks. ‘That baby won’t die. I understand Cantonese. The daddy said he’d look after him.’

‘I was just thinking about Waterborn,’ Meili says, wiping her eyes carefully, trying not to smudge her eyeliner.

‘If I died and came back as a boy, you and Daddy would be so happy! I hate myself. I hate being a girl . . .’

‘Stop muttering and look at the opera,’ Kongzi says impatiently. Nannan leans over Meili and taps her empty Coca-Cola bottle on his head.

‘How sad that you must leave us!’ the cowherd cries. He is stifling in his thick costume, and sweat flies from his face whenever he moves his head. ‘My love for you is like a river. Not even the sharpest sword can sever its flow. Farewell, sweet fairy . . .’

‘My heart is dying, but we mustn’t cry. Goodbye, husband, goodbye, child . . .’ Meili watches the fairy step onto a cloud and rise into the blue sky, and feels a part of herself rise to the heavens with her.

By the time they squeeze their way out of the departing crowd, Meili’s dress is drenched in sweat. Halfway home, Kongzi takes her hand and says, ‘Let’s go to a restaurant. My treat.’

‘Your treat?’ Meili says, taken aback. ‘OK then, follow me.’ She decides to take them to the Hunan restaurant Tang introduced her to. She loves its homely atmosphere and rich, spicy food.

After Kongzi pours himself a glass of beer, Nannan challenges him to an arm wrestle. She grasps his fist and forces it onto the table. Kongzi retaliates, slamming hers down with greater force. ‘Calm down, Kongzi,’ Meili says, ‘and serve out this steamed pork.’

‘I thought you’d given up meat,’ Kongzi says.

‘I had, but I think I should eat some for the baby’s sake. The pickles and raw vegetables I’ve been living on this week can’t have provided much nutrition.’ Meili downloaded a vegetarian diet drawn up by a Taiwanese nutritionist, hoping it would help her lose weight.

‘I don’t like meat, either, Mum,’ Nannan whines. ‘I want a toffee apple.’

‘Why didn’t we ever take a photograph of Waterborn?’ Meili asks Kongzi. ‘Who did she look like?’

‘She had my face shape and your features,’ Kongzi says. He fumbles in his pockets for his cigarettes, then remembers he’s given up, and wraps his hands around his glass of beer instead.

‘No, Waterborn was my sister, so she must have looked like me,’ says Nannan. ‘I remember when you came back after giving her away, Daddy. You said: “Don’t be sad, Nannan. From now on, I’ll only love you.”’

‘Nonsense, don’t lie: I’d never say such a thing!’

‘I heard you say it countless times!’ Meili retorts. ‘Kongzi, there’s something I’ve never told you before: Waterborn was born with a sixth finger on her left hand. Sister Mao chopped it off in the delivery room.’

‘So that’s why her hand was bandaged!’ Kongzi says. ‘You told me Sister Mao accidentally cut her with the forceps.’

‘Dad, why did you call me Nannan? It sounds like “boy-boy”. My classmates said you chose the name because you wished you’d had a son.’

‘No, what I’ve always wanted is a son and a daughter: one of each.’

‘Don’t lie to me. You two are always arguing about wanting a son. Now I’m older I understand. It’s because of me that those family planning officers killed Happiness and that you gave Waterborn away. The government only allows parents to have one child living with them.’

‘That may be the rule, Nannan,’ Kongzi says. ‘But still, your mother and I are doing our best to make sure you have a little sibling to keep you company once we’re gone.’

‘If you wanted me to have a sibling, why did you sell Waterborn?’ A fly darts off Nannan’s hand and settles on the table.

‘Don’t touch the fly – it’s filthy!’ Meili says to Kongzi, as he’s about to swat it, then she turns to Nannan and says: ‘Your father, he – he just wasn’t thinking straight that day. He and I are working hard, saving up money so that you can go to university when you’re older. Kongzi, I’m still hungry. Order a yellow croaker steamed with salted vegetables.’

‘No, you’re saving up money to buy little Heaven a residence permit,’ Nannan says.

‘Yes, that too,’ Kongzi says. ‘We want our family to have a bright future, Nannan. That’s why we came here: to make money and give you a better life . . . A yellow croaker, please, waitress, and . . . mm, let’s see, a “chicken of the immortals” as well.’ Kongzi closes the menu and pushes it to the centre of the table.

‘No, you came here to escape the family planning officers. All my classmates’ parents are on the run from them. I understand everything now. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have left the village. If I hadn’t been born, Happiness would be alive today. I hate myself.’ Nannan stands up and leaves the table.

‘Mere mortal that I am, I can’t join you in the sky. The Heavens weep in sympathy, but are powerless to end my thousand autumns of longing . . .’ Kongzi warbles, then thanks the waitress as she puts another dish onto the table.

‘Stop singing, Kongzi,’ Meili says. ‘Listen, Nannan is growing up. Her body’s starting to develop, and she’s become very sensitive. We must be careful what we say in front of her. You must stop making her recite the Three Character Classic and Standards for Being a Good Pupil and Child. You’re putting too much pressure on her.’ She rests her elbows on the table and rubs her throbbing temples. Last night she took Tang and six members of their staff to the Princess Karaoke Bar to celebrate his birthday, and she had far too much to drink.

‘I read Nannan’s diary,’ Kongzi confesses. ‘She wrote that she doesn’t have a home to go back to and that she’s like a stream flowing to nowhere.’

‘The other day she asked me what “despair” means. I said it’s when you feel there’s no hope.’

‘Don’t talk to her about matters you don’t understand. The Confucian Doctrine of the Mean says that we should neither cling to life nor throw it away, and should avoid extreme emotions of joy and despair. We should learn to be happy with our lot.’

‘You just want an easy life. Where’s your ambition gone? When my brother’s released from the labour camp, I’m going to ask him to come and work for my company.’ Meili looks down at her left hand and rubs the shiny scar tissue on the stump of her index finger. The nails of the four remaining fingers are painted with sparkling red varnish.

Kongzi picks up a slice of pork smothered in sticky rice. ‘But your brother has no skills. What would he do?’

‘I didn’t have any skills either, but I still managed to help set up a company and become general manager, didn’t I?’

‘Yes, but you and he have different personalities,’ Kongzi says, pouring himself some more beer. The restaurant is only half full. On the next table a man wearing a wig and a smart grey suit is serving himself and his elegant guest some vintage Five Grain Liquor.

‘Did Nannan go to the toilet?’ Meili says. ‘This toffee apple should be eaten hot.’ She looks up at the laminated menu of Hunanese food on the wall: CHILLI-STUFFED PEPPERS, HOT-SOUR DOG MEAT, CRISPY DUCK IN SESAME SAUCE . . . then stares at the goldfish swimming about in a dirty fish tank on the counter, next to a ceramic fortune cat that is continually raising and lowering its left paw.

‘How I’d love to eat one of my grandmother’s sticky rice cakes right now,’ Mother says, gazing into her pocket mirror as she retouches her lipstick, ‘or one of those deep-fried sesame twirls she used to make . . . I wasn’t always this confident. All those years you made me travel across the country with you, barefoot and pregnant, my personality was crushed. It’s only here, in this electronic dump of a town, that I’ve finally gained a sense of direction. Once Heaven is born, I want to open a chain of shops across the country, then buy ourselves a Foshan apartment and resident permits so that Nannan can go to a government middle school. My parents have no income now. They hired someone to help out on the fields, but the price of fertilisers and seeds has risen so much that they didn’t make any profit. The five thousand yuan I sent them this year kept them afloat, but it wasn’t enough to cover all my mother’s medical bills. Who knows how much more treatment she’ll need?’

When they have both eaten their fill, the conversation peters out. Father cleans his teeth with a toothpick while Mother checks the messages on her phone. The infant spirit watches the fetus shift position inside Mother’s womb. Nannan still hasn’t returned to the table.

‘Where has Nannan gone to?’ Mother says. She and Father look over their shoulders at the dark doorway.

‘Look, she’s over there, by the lake, under the willows . . .’ Father says.

‘Stop kicking me, little one – a family planning officer might see you!’ Mother says, rubbing her belly.

‘Don’t speak to the fetus like that – you’ll frighten it to death,’ Father says, wiping his glasses with a paper napkin.

‘Fetus? The baby’s four and a half years old. By the time it comes out it will be able to recite the Analects to you.’





KEYWORDS: Spring Festival, ghostly figures, firecrackers, Sacred Father of the Sky, stone baby, yellow mud.

SEEING MEILI STRUGGLE to stuff dumplings with her maimed hand, Kongzi puts down his chopsticks and offers to take over. The table is already laden with dishes of sliced pork tongue, braised trotters, stir-fried chilli prawns and drunken chicken.

‘I wish we still kept ducks, but the Heaven rivers are just too polluted,’ Meili says. ‘Those birds you reared in our last place tasted foul. Do you remember how wonderful it was back on the sand island when we could eat roast duck every day?’

‘Yes, it doesn’t feel right not being able to kill our own bird at Spring Festival.’

‘Don’t say the word “kill” on the eve of Chinese New Year. It’ll bring us bad luck. Here, have some of this Five Grain Liquor my assistant gave me. Let’s hurry up with these dumplings, or the food will get cold. Nannan, turn down the television and join us at the table.’

‘What about that sweet garlic you pickled?’ Kongzi says. ‘I’d love to try some.’

The room is clouded with cigarette and incense smoke. On a side table, three fat incense sticks are propped up in a bowl of rice, in front of three small paper tombstones on which Kongzi has inscribed the names of his father and his father’s parents. Around the bowl are offerings of cigarettes, boiled sweets and king prawns. Nannan ignores Meili and stays on her small bed, smiling and frowning at the televised Spring Festival Gala. She’s wearing the red nylon jacket and white scarf Meili bought her yesterday. Nannan had wanted a purple jacket but Meili managed to persuade her, after a heated argument, that red suited her better. On the studio stage, a Han Chinese woman is belting out a love song while girls in Tibetan and Uighur costumes dance around her in a circle. Nannan is only eleven years old, but this morning she got her first period. Meili was sitting in the yard plucking hairs from the pigs’ trotters when Nannan rushed out from the toilet pit with blood running down her leg. Meili presumed she’d cut herself, but when she removed her stained skirt and underwear, she discovered she was menstruating. She placed plastic bags and towels over her bed and made her lie down. She told her not to worry, that this is what happens to every girl when they become a woman. But it was no use. Nannan was inconsolable. She burst into tears and said she didn’t want to be a woman, and that she hated Meili for making her a girl. Kongzi went out to sweep the yard, came back to make Nannan a cup of brown-sugar tea and then went out again to buy her a hot-water bottle. Before the television gala started this evening, she burst into tears again, saying she wished little Heaven would come out so that she could go away and die. Afraid that Nannan might do something rash, Kongzi has decided to stay in all night. Every couple of hours, Meili gives her a glass of water and a fresh sanitary towel.

Meili looks at the dumplings Kongzi has made. Each one is long and thin, just like him.

‘Oh yes, I haven’t told you yet,’ he says. ‘I bumped into the manager of the Hunan restaurant the other day, and we fell into conversation. When I told him my name, he said a guy went to his restaurant some time ago, asking for us. A tall guy, well spoken, with round glasses. Do you think it could have been Weiwei – you know, that man who lost his mother?’

‘When did this happen?’ Meili asks, her heart pounding, certain that it was her who Weiwei wanted to see.

‘Two years ago, just after Spring Festival.’

That was around the time my shop was ransacked by the inspectors, Meili thinks to herself as she drops the stuffed dumplings into a pot of boiling water. And when I had lunch at the Hunan restaurant with Tang that day, I saw a man who looked just like Weiwei. No wonder my eye kept twitching.

‘Daddy, what is happiness?’ Nannan asks, after watching a man in a white suit sing ‘Your happiness is my joy . . .’

‘Happiness is when you forget yourself,’ Meili says, watching the dumplings bob to the surface of the boiling water, holding a slotted spoon in mid-air.

‘Happiness, my daughter, is you coming back from school with a good mark. It’s the nation at peace, our family united.’

‘Here, come and have your dumplings, Nannan,’ Meili says, spooning some onto a plate for her. ‘And I’ll pour out some vinegar for you to dip them in.’

‘I hate dumplings. Mum, I want to go home.’ Nannan leans back against the small headrest. Beside her pillow is an opened packet of rice cakes.

‘But this is your home, and your bed,’ Kongzi says, pointing to the large collection of dolls lying by her feet. Cha Na has given Nannan almost every doll that’s sold in the shop, but Nannan’s favourite is still the plastic doll with the red dress that Kongzi gave her many years ago, even though it’s old and dirty, and the red paint on its mouth has chipped. To her great sadness, however, she hasn’t seen it since they moved into this tin shack.

‘No, what I mean is I want to go back to Kong Village,’ Nannan says. ‘This place doesn’t feel like home. I miss Grandma.’ On her crumb-strewn quilt is a copy of the school textbook, Cultivating a Moral Character and Forging a Successful Life, and a spiral-bound songbook. Since the beginning of winter, Nannan has become moody and withdrawn. In a lunch break last week, she pushed Lulu onto the ground, and since then none of the children in her class will play with her.

‘You were only two when we left – how can you miss her?’ Meili says, as she and Kongzi stare at the television screen and tuck into the hot dumplings.

‘Besides, your home is wherever your parents are, so right now, this is your home,’ Kongzi says. He takes a sip of Five Grain Liquor and smiles contentedly. As well as being deputy head of the migrant school, he’s also been given a two-year contract to work as a supply teacher at Red Flag Primary, thanks to Tang putting in a word for him with the Education Department.

‘I can’t remember what Grandma looks like but you told me she was always nice to me,’ Nannan says. ‘Why didn’t you bring any photographs of her, or of our old house? I want to phone Grandma and Grandpa and wish them Happy New Year.’

Nannan still hasn’t been told that Kongzi’s father has died. As soon as she mentions him, the contented smile vanishes from his face.

Noticing his distress, Meili turns to Nannan and says, ‘If you miss them, go and prostrate yourself before the altar over there.’

‘Prostrating is feudalistic,’ Nannan replies.

On hearing this, Kongzi jumps up from his seat and grabs Nannan by her collar. Meili pushes him away and puts her arms around her, saying, ‘She’s only eleven! You can’t expect her to understand about filial piety!’ Kongzi flings his chopsticks on the floor to release his anger, then turns up the volume of the television. A woman in a green police uniform is singing: ‘You angel in a white coat, when I came into this world, yours was the first face I saw. You picked me up in your soft hands and wrapped me in a blanket. With this song, I give you my thanks . . .’ On the street outside, a string of firecrackers explodes.

Nannan snuggles into Meili’s embrace and says, ‘Can I have some Coca-Cola, Mum?’

‘You shouldn’t drink cold fluids in your condition.’

‘But I want some.’

‘All right. Kongzi, fetch her a bottle from the fridge.’ They’ve had the fridge for only two days, but it’s already packed with food. Meili’s placed her severed index finger on the bottom shelf and Kongzi has hidden their cash in the freezer compartment.

‘There’s not so much blood coming out now, is there?’ Meili whispers to Nannan. ‘Tomorrow there’ll be even less.’

‘You said this will happen to me every month from now on. Well, I don’t want to go to school any more. How come it hasn’t happened to the other girls in my class?’

‘I’m sure it has, they just haven’t told you. Before I fell pregnant, I had them too every month, but I could still carry on as usual and wear pretty dresses and nice shoes. You’ll see, it’s no big deal, I promise . . .’ Meili looks down and sees that Nannan has fallen asleep on her shoulder.

‘I’m completely stuffed,’ Meili says, as the Spring Festival Gala draws to an end. She rests her maimed hand on her belly and feels Heaven’s heart thud below her skin.

‘Me too,’ Kongzi says, taking off his glasses. During the traditional comedy double act a few minutes ago, he roared with laughter. After a long silence he says: ‘At Spring Festival people go to the temples to give offerings to the Jade Emperor, the Bodhisattva of Mercy and the God of Prosperity, but no one thinks of giving offerings to Confucius.’

‘It won’t be long now. I read on the internet that the government said that Confucian thought still has a lot to teach us. They’re even publishing books explaining how we can use his philosophy in our daily lives.’

‘That was just for the Olympic bid. The Party wanted to give the impression that China still has a strong traditional culture, even though thirty years ago it ripped Confucianism to shreds and replaced it with the foreign creed of Marxism–Leninism.’

‘Who cares what the Party’s motives are? Confucius is officially back in favour, so perhaps little Heaven will be less afraid to come out now . . . You must stop buying Nannan sweets all the time. She already has two rotten molars. Poor girl. It is strange she’s started menstruating so young. I didn’t have my first period until I was fourteen.’

‘It must be the chemicals in the water.’

‘Let’s leave her to sleep and go for a walk.’ Meili tucks a quilt around Nannan then changes into her favourite pale blue jeans. She saw a picture on the internet the other day of a woman in stonewashed jeans and a white shirt knotted at the waist, and liked it so much she used it as the background for her computer screen . . . Won’t you come out, little one? she whispers, glancing down at her bulge. Tomorrow, you’ll have been inside me for five years. Give your poor mother a break.

Since the migrant school broke up for the Spring Festival holiday, everything has quietened down. In the moonlight, the concrete yard, durian tree and aluminium warehouse appear as scratched and blurred as an old black-and-white photograph. Along the road that follows the river, ghostly figures drift through the darkness with lanterns swinging from their hands. Light from a street stall reveals a woman carrying vegetables on a shoulder pole and a man wearing a large baby’s head made out of papier mâché. Fireworks explode in the sky, and the outline of distant buildings becomes briefly visible. When Kongzi and Meili reach the end of the road, they follow the crowds to the bustling forecourt of the Town God Temple. Pink and red paper lanterns hang down from the surrounding trees and the temple’s pointed eaves. Food stalls decorated with festive red banners are selling steamed buns, sesame rolls and peach-shaped rice cakes. The stalls nearer the entrance sell imitation paper money and bundles of incense sticks.

‘Are those two supposed to be married?’ Meili asks, pointing at the painting on the entrance door of a beautiful girl and a white-bearded old man.

Kongzi has no idea who those two deities are supposed to be. He takes Meili’s hand and leads her inside, saying, ‘Let’s light some incense and ask Sacred Father of the Sky to grant us good fortune in the new year.’

‘Our accountant comes to this temple every day after work. She said she’s going to pray to the God of Wealth on the fourth day of Spring Festival, the Golden Flower Mother on the sixth, then she’ll visit the Shrine of the King of Medicine and the Temple of Lady Wang. She never stops . . .’

The temple’s interior is brightly lit with candles, and thick smoke is rising from an incense column that is taller than Meili. People rush past, carrying roasted swine heads, fried fish and deep-fried chickens to place on the altars of their chosen deities.

Kongzi points to the small statue of the Golden Flower Mother, who is flanked by the God of Grain and the God of Landowners, and says, ‘Look, there she is. The Goddess of Fertility and Childbirth. You should pray to her, and beg for a safe delivery.’

‘Little Heaven is afraid of coming out into this hell – there’s nothing the goddess can do about it,’ Meili says, crossing her arms protectively over her belly. ‘It’s too crowded in here. All those firecrackers going off outside frighten me. What if this place caught fire? Let’s go home. We can come back in the morning.’

‘Don’t say the word “hell” on New Year’s Day!’ Kongzi says angrily.

‘Well, I’m leaving – are you coming with me or not?’ Meili says, her heart racing as images of the burning nightclub flash through her mind.

‘Firecrackers can’t cause fires. Listen, we’ve come all this way, we might as well light some incense while we’re here.’ Then looking up and seeing the terror in Meili’s eyes, he changes his mind. ‘All right, all right, let’s go then.’ They turn round and head for the door, two downcast figures pushing their way through the excited crowd.

Later that night, Meili is woken by another thunderous burst of firecrackers. She wishes she could seal the window and door to keep the noise out. Without peace and quiet, her thoughts cannot rise to the surface. During these past nine years, the only chances she’s had for quiet reflection have been when she’s woken in the middle of the night. At such moments, she’s able to think quietly about her born and still unborn children, and about all the various Meilis: the woman, the mother, the young girl who loved to laugh and sing, the labour camp inmate, the escapee, the businesswoman. She lay awake like this, her mind deep in thought, on the terrible summer night when she felt herself sink to the riverbed with Happiness’s corpse; the autumn nights after Waterborn was taken from her; those muggy nights after Weiwei left and his tortoiseshell glasses lay under her pillow; and this winter night on which she’s learned that Weiwei came all the way to Heaven to look for her. Although the first day of the new year has not yet dawned, she already senses that the past has been brushed away and the new is being ushered in. She knows that if Kongzi is unfaithful to her one more time, she will leave him and make a new life for herself with Tang. To be fair, as far as she knows, Kongzi has only strayed once, and that was only after they arrived in Heaven. Compared to the many men they’ve come across during their travels – powerful cadres who are always surrounded by attractive young women, scruffy peasants who sleep with hair-salon girls several times a week – he’s relatively upright and loyal. Still, when she’s with him, she is never more than a pregnant wife. With Tang, she is a complete person. Over these nine years, she has transformed herself from a shy peasant girl to a strong capable woman. She could never return to those muddle-headed days when Kongzi would boss her about imperiously and she’d obey without question. She thinks of the child that has lived inside her now for five years, untroubled by thoughts of what to eat or drink or fears of what the future might hold. She doesn’t dare contemplate what calamities might have befallen her had they not found refuge in Heaven Township, how many times her belly might have been carved open. The Communist Party has no humanity. For them, killing a baby is no different from swatting a fly. She doesn’t know when Heaven will finally decide to emerge, but when it does, she will gently lower the drawbridge of her castle and let it travel down her dark road into this hell . . . Yes, it’s time you came out and tested your mettle, little one, she says silently. I can’t protect you for ever. But don’t worry, I won’t force you out before you’re ready. My womb may have been assaulted and abused, but it’s still intact, and allows us to coexist with a certain grace. She smiles to herself, proud of being both a woman and a mother: two identities seamlessly fused into one body. Tomorrow she will sign up for prenatal yoga classes with a teacher trained in Hong Kong. She’s heard the exercises help soften the pelvic bones, making childbirth no more painful than laying an egg. She will also go to Foshan to prostrate before the huge Golden Flower Mother statue, and ask her to protect little Heaven and grant it a safe birth. She knows that once the infant spirit leaves her womb, she and Heaven will have to end their symbiotic existence. She understands as well that although life is a long and arduous trek, with sufficient effort, a degree of comfort can be achieved at the end. Little Heaven will come into the world as an illegal outcast who has no right to an education or a job. Meili will try to earn as much money as she can to create a small path to happiness for this unauthorised child, even though she is still uncertain in which direction happiness lies.

In the darkness, she sees Weiwei walk towards her. She goes up to him and says, I can’t leave Kongzi. We have raised a daughter together, we share the same bed and the same pillow. I can’t abandon this path. And besides, you are not in my heart . . . After daring to imagine this scene, she feels her cheeks grow hot and a sense of calm descend on her. She gives Kongzi a prod and whispers, ‘Wake up! It’s nearly six. It’s unlucky not to watch the sun rise on the first day of the new year.’

‘Yes, pour me another one,’ Kongzi mumbles under his breath, then rolls over and falls back to sleep. Meili gazes at the Kongzi who ten years ago she worshipped and admired, and feels a pang of regret. The past seems to her as drained of colour as wilting lotuses on the bottom of a dry lake.

‘Let’s open that bottle of French claret my client sent me,’ she says, getting out of bed and slipping into her flip-flops. The jubilant crowds, fireworks and singers in red dresses flashing across the silent television screen fill the dark room with festive light.

‘I dreamed of our son just now,’ says Kongzi. ‘He looked just like me when I was a child. He was standing on a street corner, flicking marbles into a hoop, like I used to do. What fun I had as a kid. I’d come home at the end of the day beaming with pride, my pockets stuffed with the Romance of the Three Kingdoms cards I’d won playing snap with my friends. I wonder where I put my card collection. I’m sure Heaven would like to play with them when he’s older.’

‘Huh! Little Heaven won’t be interested in those cards. You’ll have to buy him a computer game, or an electronic doll, if he’s a girl.’ Meili occasionally raises the possibility that Heaven might be a girl, to test Kongzi’s reaction.

‘If you let Heaven stay inside you any longer, he might very well change into a girl. Or he might calcify like that stone baby – the one I read about in the papers, that a ninety-year-old woman gave birth to after carrying him in her belly for sixty years.’ Kongzi takes a sip of the French claret and frowns. ‘Ugh! So sickly sweet. Chinese liquor has much more of a kick to it.’

‘I haven’t tried to stop Heaven from coming out. She’s probably afraid to leave the womb because she knows you don’t want a daughter. If she is a girl, you must promise to be kind to her.’

Kongzi remains silent. Relieved by his subdued reaction, Meili continues. ‘Someone from my family should go to Nuwa Cave tomorrow to pray for a speedy delivery. I wish I could give my parents a call. My brother’s due to be released from the camp this month. And I’d like to make sure they received the money I sent last month. I transferred it to my uncle’s account – the one who lives in the county town. When I phoned him last month he promised me he’d give it to my father.’ From this phone call, Meili found out that after her brother was jailed, her father travelled to the county town to complain about the miscarriage of justice. When the authorities refused to listen to him, he stood outside the County Party Committee Hall singing the ‘Internationale’, with a big placard around his neck that said FREE MY SON. Within ten minutes, the police arrived, and he was bundled into their van and locked up for a week. She pictures her parents’ home, the three-room house with the tiled roof and the osmanthus tree in the garden, and remembers how her grandmother would sit with her beneath the tree, brushing her hair and telling her stories of Goddess Nuwa, the deity with the face of a woman and the body of a snake who created the world and humankind. She told her that near Nuwa Mountain is a magic lake that can catch the moon’s reflection, and that at the beginning of time, this lake pulled Nuwa down from Heaven. After months of walking around the lake by herself, Nuwa felt lonely, so she sat on the shore, scooped up clods of yellow mud, moulded them into human beings and gave them life. After a while, she became frustrated by her slow progress, so she pressed a rope down into a pool of mud then flicked it from side to side, and when the flecks of mud fell onto the ground they were transformed into a mass of people.

‘Turn up the volume,’ Father says, ‘they’re talking about share prices. I bought some stocks in Shenzhen TV the other day . . .’

Mother holds the remote control and stares blankly at the screen. A spiral of incense smoke rises to the ceiling and escapes into the night through a hole in the roof. The infant spirit leaves the house and slips off towards Womb Lake, continuing its journey back in time.