The Dark Road A Novel

KEYWORDS: uprising, nits, untamed rivers, financial loss, humble disciple, suicide bombers.

MEILI WAKES ABRUPTLY in the middle of the night, having rolled onto a cold bicycle pump. She hears the ducks padding about and squawking, as though someone were shooing them out of the enclosure. As she crawls out onto the deck, she sees a long shadow flit across the path and disappear. She leans back into the cabin and shakes Kongzi awake. ‘Quick! Get up! Someone’s stolen our ducks!’

Kongzi grabs his torch, shines it over the enclosure and sees that the wooden hutch has been smashed open and all the ducks are gone.

‘I can hear him shooing them on! Quick! That way!’ Meili hurries to the bow and points into the darkness.

Kongzi jumps ashore, grabs a sack and a wooden stick and sets off up the hill, following the man’s voice. Ten minutes later he returns dragging a large sack of ducks. He takes out the birds and counts them one by one. ‘We’re eight short,’ he says. ‘When the thief saw me, he grabbed two ducks by the neck and bolted off into the hills.’ They search the bushes, find another six ducks, then return the birds to the hutch, bolt the enclosure gate and go to check the bamboo hut. The two crates of ducklings and bags of birdfeed are still there, but the radio is gone. Kongzi runs outside and curses the village: ‘Evil bastards! The ancients were right: “Barren hills and untamed rivers spawn wicked men!”’

‘Be quiet,’ Meili says. ‘The villagers have let us “dwell beneath their hedge”. Don’t antagonise them . . . Oh God! It looks like he stole the cash we buried. What if he comes back to murder us? Who would bury our bodies?’

‘He can’t have found it. I’ll dig a little deeper.’ Since they set up home here, Kongzi has been stashing their cash in a hole he dug beside the hut. ‘Don’t be silly. No one will kill us. During his thirteen years in exile, Confucius toured the nine provinces and never once came to harm . . . You’re right, the cash has definitely gone.’ Kongzi rubs the mud from his hands, tramps back to the boat, sits down at the bow and lights a cigarette. ‘We must view this setback as a blessing,’ he says, watching Meili climb back onto the boat. ‘As the ancients said, “Today’s financial loss prevents tomorrow’s disaster.” Our cash has been stolen so that Waterborn can be granted a safe birth.’

‘Touring the country, you say? Hah! We’re not tourists, we’re fugitives, you idiot. I’m fed up of this vagabond life, Kongzi. You think of yourself as some great philosopher, roaming the country, contemplating the troubles of the world, with me tagging along as your humble disciple. Well, I’ve had enough, I’m telling you! What if that man was from the family planning team? What if he sends his colleagues down to arrest us?’

‘No, he was just a simple village thief. I’ve told you – the family planning officers here don’t care about illegal births. They’re happy for the villagers to have as many children as they want, so long as they pay the fines. The more maimed children are sold, the richer everyone gets. No one wants to kill the golden goose. So stop worrying.’

‘If we can’t return to your village, let’s go back to mine. I want to live in a house with a tiled roof. Nannan should be going to school now. This rootless life isn’t good for us. Let’s sell the boat and go home.’ Meili squashes two mosquitoes on her arm then wipes the blood on the cabin’s canopy.

‘Officers have told your parents to report us to the police if we turn up,’ Kongzi says. ‘So we’ve nowhere to return to now.’

‘But I’m tired of traipsing behind you,’ Meili says, folding an empty plastic bag and placing it under the bamboo mat to use later.

‘You’re tired of me? But I’m a model husband. I don’t play mahjong. The moment I wake up, I make breakfast for us. Didn’t you say you wanted to live in Heaven Township? Once the baby’s born, we’ll sell this batch of ducks and sail south.’

‘I still have another month to go. I heard that in Guangxi Province, family planning teams with metal helmets and shields have been storming into villages to carry out forced abortions. A village priest who tried to take away the aborted fetuses and give them a proper burial was beaten up and put in jail.’

‘This is Guangdong Province – it’s much more relaxed than Guangxi.’ Kongzi turns off the torch and lights another cigarette. ‘Do you remember, in Kong Village, how we’d hear frogs croak until dawn, just like that poem by Han Yu? But at night this filthy creek is as silent as death.’

‘What about the buzzing of the mosquitoes?’

‘Huh! Where’s the poetry in that? Just now, you used the phrase “dwell beneath their hedge”. Do you know which poem that comes from?’

‘Stop testing me. Let’s go back to sleep. You must go into the village in the morning and track the thief down. He’ll probably be roasting the ducks by then, so the smell should lead you to his house.’ Meili lies back down on the bamboo mat, turns onto her side and feels the taut skin of her large belly relax. ‘Oh God, Kongzi! I just realised we left our tricycle cart on the sand island! How could we have forgotten it?’

‘Didn’t I tell you? Someone stole it while we took Weiwei up to Yinluo. All I found when we got back was a single wheel chained to the tree . . .’

‘“Summer wildfires cannot destroy the grass, / For in spring, soft winds will restore it to life . . .”’ Father recites his favourite line of poetry and flicks his cigarette butt into the creek. Then he returns to the cabin, squeezes down next to Mother, drapes his leg over hers and unhooks her bra. ‘Bet the mosquitoes haven’t got to these two soft dumplings yet.’

‘Get your hands off me!’

‘What are they for, if not for me to fondle?’

‘It must be nearly four o’clock. You’ll wake the rooster.’

‘Until the baby’s born, these belong to me.’ Father leans over and moves his lips towards Mother’s nipple.

‘Those weighing scales take up too much space. Let’s throw them away.’

‘But I use them to prepare the feed.’

Mother pushes the scales out of the way, then folds her arms over her chest as Father coils around her and buries his face in her hair. ‘I warn you, I have nits! Don’t bite me . . . Get off! Stop pressing on my belly . . .’ Nannan opens her eyes. Mother quickly covers them with her hand and says, ‘Close your eyes, Nannan, and go back to sleep!’

Overlapping this scene, the infant spirit sees Father, a few days later, sitting in the cabin, listening to a man say, ‘We grew up together, Kongzi. You’re a brilliant strategist. Without your help, we’ll get nowhere.’

Father puts down his glass and says, ‘Kong Qing, you’re like a brother to me. I admire you for wanting to stand up for the Chinese people and protect the Kong family line. But the rebellion you’re planning is doomed to fail. This country has changed since the Tiananmen Massacre. The people have lost their fighting spirit. Where would you base your stronghold?’

‘In Wild Man Mountain. It’s easy to defend. Armies with heavy artillery wouldn’t be able to climb it.’ The two men are cross-legged on the cabin floor, smoking. The kerosene lamp illuminates the blue notebook, ashtray and carton of deep-fried broad beans on the cardboard box between them.

‘I admit, if you demanded the repeal of the One Child Policy, every peasant in China would support you. But what would you do next? Overthrow the Communist Party? Challenge the People’s Liberation Army? You say you want to take over every family planning office in the country, but you must understand that once you’ve occupied them, you’ll become an easy target. It’s a game of chess. You might take their knight, but if they nab your queen in the next move, you’re finished.’

‘All right, forget about the Fertility Freedom Party, then. Let’s form a suicide squad instead! Like those Muslim suicide bombers, we’ll storm government offices, detonate ourselves, and take the whole corrupt lot of them with us!’ Kong Qing punches his fist onto the bamboo mat. Although this scene took place years ago, his punch still judders down to the base of the boat and sends ripples through the moon’s pale reflection.

‘I’m not afraid of death,’ Father says. ‘I’m sure you and I would have the balls to storm every family planning office in China. But we’d just be letting off steam. We wouldn’t achieve anything.’

‘I want to fight, Kongzi, not only to avenge the abortion of my son, but to ensure the survival of the Kong clan and Chinese family traditions. These are causes for which I’m willing to sacrifice my life. Did you know that in the Cultural Revolution, after the Red Guards smashed the Tomb of Confucius, they dug up the corpses of a seventy-sixth generation descendant, Kong Lingyi, and his wife, and thrashed them with spades? It was a declaration of war against the Chinese nation.’

‘I know. They dug up and destroyed two thousand ancestral graves. Corpses were pulled out, stripped and hung from trees. I agree we must avenge our family honour, but not by launching a rebellion. The time isn’t right. Historically, popular revolts have erupted in times of hardship. But the Party has allowed people to get rich. Who would want to join the revolution now?’

‘What destruction Mao unleashed . . .’

‘Yes, but Mao’s dead, and faith in Communism is dead. The Party has no ideology to legitimise itself now, so it’s bringing back capitalism and Confucianism to fill the void. Go into any bookshop, and you’ll see that in official publications Confucius is no longer referred to as “Evil Kong, the Second Son” . . . All right, I’ll help draw up a constitution for your Fertility Freedom Party, but I tell you now, I won’t join any uprising.’ Some of their rice wine has spilt on the mat, filling the cabin with a sweet, heady smell.

‘Look at all the people who’ve signed up: Kong Guo, Scarface, Wang Wu . . . I’ve got a hundred names already. We’ll hold our first party congress soon and elect a chair. I hope you’ll accept the position of secretary general.’

‘No, count me out. Meili’s going to give birth next month – so I’ll be doing my part to ensure the survival of the Kong clan! But I have three points to make. First: if you do launch a rebellion, you must be aware that you will receive no international backing. America and the UN have given full support to China’s population control policies. Second: if you want to get rid of the One Child Policy, you must get rid of the Communist Party first, and that won’t happen without a military coup. Tens of thousands of protests flare up across China every year, and in the end each one is crushed by the army. So, my third point is: bide your time and focus on building a network of contacts. Then, when a national uprising similar to the 1989 protests breaks out, you’ll be able to take advantage of the chaos and launch your attack.’

Mother walks out of the bamboo hut, leans against a tree beside the creek and pisses into the water. Noticing the lamp still shining in the cabin, she shouts, ‘Kongzi, go to sleep! The sun’s almost up.’





KEYWORDS: chrysalids, crow’s nest, motherwort, spindly tree, pelvic inflammatory disease.

MEILI HERDS THE ducks up the muddy path that curls through the lychee grove towards the terraced hill. She wanted them to stay on the lower terrace, but the duck at the front catches a scent and climbs a steep track, and the whole flock soon follows behind, shaking their snow-white tails. There are thirty-two of them. The remaining ten are roosting in the hutch or are too sick to come out. Meili wants them to forage for earthworms and snails while she looks for the water chickweed flowers she likes to add to egg soup.

The July sunlight has softened the earth. Steam is rising from the clumps of willows and eucalyptus trees and bags of rubbish scattered over the fallow field. The heat seeps into Meili’s flesh. Inside her belly, the fetus extends its legs and excretes fluids into the amniotic sac. As she crosses the field, her pulse racing and her head dizzy from the heat, she feels as though the ground beneath her feet is supporting her like a strong and dependable man. She sees a peony bush, buries her nose in a pink bloom, and inhales. The subtle, mysterious scent makes her lose her balance. She undoes the lower buttons of her shirt, and, breathing deeply, lowers herself onto the grass. As her pulse returns to a slow, steady pace, a Tang poem drifts into her mind: ‘Idly I sit while osmanthus flowers fall. / Tranquil is the spring night on the deserted hill. / The moon rises, startling the mountain birds. / All night they call out from the ravine.’ Kongzi once copied this poem for her on bamboo paper in graceful ‘grass style’ calligraphy, and she put it in the wooden box containing the jade earrings her grandmother gave her . . . For an instant, time seems to lose all meaning. She stares at a pink flower in the grass below and tries to remember its name, then looks at the ducks foraging for food in the irrigation ditches, their necks stretching out and shrinking back again. A drake mounts a female duck and waggles its tail as it ejaculates. She saw that pair mate two days ago. As soon as the egg is laid, she’ll have to collect it and place it in the hutch for the duck to incubate. Thinking of the eggs makes Meili’s belly tighten. As she rubs her bamboo herding pole, she remembers Kongzi making love to her on their honeymoon in Beijing, while Teacher Zhou was out at work. The bed had a soft, sprung mattress. He shook her about in a sweaty fervour for hours. By the end, she was drenched and listless, and her groin was scorched and inflamed. For the rest of the honeymoon, the burning between her legs made it painful for her to walk. When she stepped onto Tiananmen Square on their last day, it hurt so much that she had to sit down and rest on the concrete paving stones. As soon as Weiwei gripped her hand on the boat, the memory of that pain came back to her. She hates thinking of Weiwei now, and still hasn’t taken a look at the tortoiseshell glasses she snatched from him . . . She glances up and sees hanging down from the leaves of a shrub, three grey butterfly chrysalids. She hopes that one day she too will be able to break out of her shell and fly. During these last nine months, she’s barely had a moment to think of her own future. Sharp spikes of motherwort prick into her ankles. On the broad Huai River far away, boats are docked below a petrol station and large cargos are being unloaded. One boat has a triangular flag, indicating it can sail on foreign waters. Last week, Kongzi transported cargos of security doors and glass panels. He was paid thirty-five yuan a day, but after the cost of fuel was deducted, he was left with only twenty. He spent two hundred yuan when Kong Qing visited, taking him out for meals at the village restaurant. Meili was excluded from their secret discussions, but from the little she overheard she gathered they’re planning to set up a company to provide family planning information. Meili asked Kong Qing whether his wife suffered any after-effects from the forced abortion, and he said she contracted a pelvic inflammatory disease which has left her infertile. He said that women subjected to such abortions often develop this disease, and even if they do manage to conceive later, the babies are either miscarried or born with birth defects. He said the government deliberately chooses to perform forced abortions and IUD insertions in primitive places such as village schools, so that women will contract illnesses that will render them barren. Meili is relieved that although she suffered from cramps and heavy bleeding for a while after her abortion, she didn’t develop any serious complications. She runs her hands through the grass, searching for her favourite bitter-tasting wolfberry leaves, and for snails to feed to her ducks. For the first time in months, she feels safe and at peace.

Waterborn, Waterborn, she whispers, looking down at her bulge. Whether you’re a boy or a girl, you’re my flesh and blood, and I will love and protect you. Although the last thing I wanted was another child, now that you’re here, it all seems right. I have everything ready: scissors, antiseptic, muslin sheets, a plastic basin, nappies – the expensive disposable ones. I’ll give birth to you on the boat. You may not know this now, but in this country having a child can be a crime. That’s why we’ve had to hide in this wretched place. Your brother Happiness was about the same size as you are now when he was torn from me . . . In the centre of a vast field far below stands a frail, spindly tree that no one would notice were it not for the large crow’s nest in its upper branches. Indistinct figures are burning paper offerings on a grave mound in its shade. Meili thinks of her mother and grandmother. When she lived in Nuwa Village, she always longed to leave her family, but now that she’s so far from home, she wishes she could be with them. She’d like to comb her mother’s hair now, or scratch her back for her. She’d like to carry her frail grandmother into the garden and let her sit in the sun, or find a wheelchair and push her along the banks of Dark Water River or up to the temple on Nuwa Mountain. She forgets how many times she went up there on her grandmother’s back, clinging to her neck and bumping up and down as her grandmother struggled up the hundreds of stone stairs and finally stepped over the high threshold of the temple entrance.

Meili sees the ducks waddle downhill and head into a swathe of tall reeds. She pushes herself up onto her feet and chases after them, as fast as she can. At the foot of the hill the ground becomes soft and boggy. Through a gap in the reeds she glimpses a sparkling pond, with a cloud of white termites hovering above it. Termites, Meili whispers. That means a storm is brewing. The ducks at the front of the flock have already jumped into the water. Meili pushes through the reeds and tries to drive them out, but when her herding pole approaches their heads, they dive out of the way. What if I can’t get them out, or worse still: what if a farmer breeds fish in this pond? She picks two ducks up by the neck, but the rest of the flock are in the pond now, squawking, diving, splashing. She stands rooted to the ground, paralysed by fear. What if the farmer turns up and demands I pay compensation? The flock drifts towards the centre of the pond, beyond her pole’s reach. Waterborn swirls in the amniotic fluid. Meili’s belly contracts; she breaks into a sweat. Then the ground beneath her judders, and although the sky above is a brilliant blue, suddenly everything around her goes black. She senses someone staring down at her exposed belly. She wants to sink into the water and hide . . .





KEYWORDS: hot draught, umbilical cord, fetal grease, windless swamp, jellified residue, red cable.

THE VILLAGE DELIVERY room is in Sister Mao’s house. Her brother is a family planning officer, and for five hundred yuan, which she splits with him, she is willing to deliver unauthorised babies. For a supplementary fee she will also break the baby’s limbs, if the parents wish. As soon as the farmer came to the hut yesterday to say that Meili had fainted near his pond, Kongzi rushed to her side and carried her straight here. When she woke in the delivery room, in the early stages of labour, she said she wanted to give birth in the boat, but by then Kongzi had already paid Sister Mao’s fee.

Her waters have broken and the contractions are coming faster. As another wave of pain approaches, she passes out and sees Happiness’s face hover before her, one eye closed, the other staring at her impassively. She lifts her head and looks at herself lying on the metal table, her hands gripping the sides. From the blood-filled hole below her black pubic hair she notices a small arm reach out. A human life is struggling to emerge. The moment has come. This time, the baby will not be murdered upon arrival, though. She will make sure of that. As soon as it’s born, she’ll grab hold of it and kick anyone who tries to come near. All she needs to do now is go down on all fours, push as hard as she can, and everything will be fine . . . But like the jellied residue of a fish stew heated in a pan, she liquefies and evaporates, and finds herself drifting up to the ceiling and looking down on her body below. She sees her face contort and turn purple, her teeth bite into her lower lip. At last, she hears a slithery plop and sees a mass of human flesh slipping out from between her legs in a stream of fluid that becomes soiled with pubic hair and dirty tissues . . . Echoing voices slowly drag her back into her body . . . ‘A good size. Chubby, even.’ The room is stiflingly hot now; the wrinkles on Sister Mao’s face are filled with sweat. A whirring electric fan in the corner blows a hot draught into the stuffy air. Sister Mao’s assistant, Ying, opens the baby’s legs and sighs. ‘A girl! What bad luck! That’s the second we’ve had today. Ugh, the placenta smells disgusting . . .’

‘Quick! Cut the umbilical cord. And bung those sheets in the washing machine. Don’t touch the cloth – there’s shit on it. Just flick it into the bin.’

Once her senses have fully returned, Meili opens her eyes and scans the foul-smelling room. During the final stage of labour, Sister Mao pressed a cloth-covered brick against Meili’s anus, but the last push was so strong that her shit still sprayed out onto the wall.

‘Look, she’s opening her eyes,’ Ying says, wrapping the baby in a towel and wiping her little red face. ‘She still hasn’t cried yet, though.’

‘Slap her bottom, then!’ Sister Mao is the only plump woman in the village. When she looks down, the fat beneath her chin bulges out in thick folds.

Meili watches Ying unwrap the baby, swaddle her in white muslin and mutter into her ear. At last, the baby opens her mouth and lets out a feeble wail. You’re alive! Meili says silently. We can go back to Kong Village now – your rightful birthplace! She is certain that she’s not dreaming any more: she has given birth. After nine months of living in her womb – no, the government’s womb – Waterborn has finally come out into the world, and Meili is now a mother of two.

The delivery room has a dropped ceiling with a round fluorescent light that is as bright as a full moon. The curtain hanging over the door has an image of a red crane flying across a blue sky. A red cable dangling from the ceiling sways in the draught from the fan.

Meili feels limp and sapped of energy. She remembers that when she gave birth to Nannan at home she squeezed the metal bars of her bed frame so hard during the final push that they became twisted together. But the excruciating labour pains she endured just now, the splitting of bones and tearing of flesh as Waterborn’s head pushed through her pelvis, have already been forgotten and reabsorbed into her flesh. Immersed in a peaceful numbness, she watches the baby who was once part of her body adapt to her new surroundings. She senses that although the umbilical cord has been severed, an invisible thread still binds her to her daughter. They can never become one again, but neither can they ever be truly apart.

‘The arm came out first, the waters broke early, the labour was long and arduous: everything was pointing to a male birth,’ Ying sighs. During Meili’s labour, she said she was convinced the baby was a boy, and is clearly annoyed to have been proved wrong.

‘My daughter!’ Meili croaks, gesturing for the baby to be brought to her. She tries to think how she’d feel if the baby had been a boy, but just like her amniotic fluid, her imaginative faculties seem to have slipped out of her. I don’t mind what sex the baby is. She’s mine, and I’ll look after her just as I do Nannan. ‘Waterborn,’ she whispers, taking hold of the baby, a proud glow spreading across her damp face. Waterborn’s hands tremble and her head droops to the side. Her fine hair is caked with creamy white fetal grease.

‘Boy or girl, it’s still one more pair of hands to help out on the fields,’ Sister Mao says. ‘The placenta has been fully ejected. Scoop it up, Ying.’

Waterborn struggles floppily up Meili’s breast, as though searching for the warm wetness from which she’s been expelled. When at last her mouth becomes filled with Meili’s engorged nipple, her tiny body twitches with relief. ‘Drink my milk, little one. Keep sucking. That’s right.’ Meili’s tear-drenched cheeks flush a deep red.

‘Now that the baby’s born, you should return to your husband’s village,’ Sister Mao says. ‘I’ve seen that windless swamp where you’ve been camping. There are mosquitoes everywhere. It’s no place to bring up children.’

‘But we haven’t a home to return to,’ Meili says. ‘A family planning squad pulled down our house. Besides, my husband said we can only go home if the baby’s a boy.’ Meili sees her placenta lying in a plastic bowl on top of the washing machine. Flies swoop down and perch on the surface. Ying coils up the severed umbilical cord and places it beside the bowl.

‘So, is it a boy or a girl?’ Kongzi bellows, charging into the room, reeking of diesel. His legs and arms are lacerated from the glass panels he delivered last week. This morning he transported boxes of human hair to an illegal soy sauce factory. He’s brought four packets of instant noodles with him and a tin of processed ham.

‘A girl,’ Meili answers, trying to sound offhand as she squeezes her nipple back into Waterborn’s mouth.

Kongzi walks over to her, lifts the swaddling cloth and examines the baby for himself. His face scrunches in anger. ‘So I paid five hundred yuan for you to give birth to that!’ he shouts, then storms outside and lights a cigarette. Meili breathes a sigh of relief. The government and her husband are powerless now. Her baby will live. Looking down again, she catches sight of Waterborn’s left hand and cries out, ‘My God! Sister Mao, come and look! She’s got six fingers!’

‘Yes, there is one too many,’ Sister Mao concurs. ‘Let me check her right hand. Fine. And her feet. Normal too, thank goodness. Don’t worry. One extra finger isn’t a calamity. You know what they say: a sixth finger signifies a sixth talent. But if it bothers you, I can chop it off. No extra cost.’

Meili shudders at the thought, and feels the little finger of her own left hand begin to throb. ‘No, no, it’s fine,’ she blurts.

‘But the baby does seem a little slow to me. Take her to the district hospital in a month to have her checked. And keep a record of how much milk she drinks, the colour and frequency of her stools. These days there are so many pesticides on our crops, so much formaldehyde in our homes, it’s rare to see a baby born without a brain defect, cleft palate or other deformity. Make sure you regularly clear the duck shit from your enclosure. That sixth finger suggests to me that you caught toxoplasmosis during your pregnancy – it’s a disease caused by a parasite that lives in animal dung. A baby I helped deliver last week was born with no nose and no limbs, so you should consider yourself lucky.’

Meili’s heartbeat returns to normal and a rosy glow suffuses her face. She can’t find the strength to close her legs. Her womb feels like an opened cellar, with hot air wafting in and cold blood streaming out. ‘Sister Mao,’ she says, ‘I’ve changed my mind. Babies don’t remember pain, do they? So can you get it over and done with, please, and chop off the sixth finger now?’





KEYWORDS: paralysis, water on the brain, fishing net, male chauvinism, good by nature, soft spot.

THE EVENING SUN turns the papaya tree and dead banana trees behind the hut golden green. Moths swirl around the hut’s doorway. Kongzi sits on a cracked enamel washbasin, his head in his hands. By his feet, a line of yellow ants are marching across an opened tin of lychees. Since the sluice gates were raised last week, foamy floodwaters have engulfed the creek, risen to the pond and are lapping at the base of the willows a few metres from the hut. Half the ducks have died. Kongzi said the pollution in the floodwater must have killed them, but Meili thinks they were poisoned by the contaminated rice he’s been adding to their feed. Each time they swallow a grain, their heads jerk back in discomfort. When Meili steams the rice for supper, it turns yellow and gives off the smell of rotten tree roots.

Nannan is standing barefoot among towering water weeds, singing, ‘Four, six, seven, eight. The farmer stands by the gate. Too many ducks to count. For dinner he’ll be late . . .’ A white fishing net hangs over the boat’s bow like a bridal veil. Last week, when Kongzi saw that the flooded creek was teeming with dead fish, he bought the net so that he could scoop them out and sell them in the village. He’d heard that once the poisoned fish are gutted, salted and dried, the chemical taste is barely noticeable.

The stink of pollution and decay in the sweltering August air makes Nannan’s eyes water. When Waterborn is unable to latch on to Meili’s engorged nipples, she cries herself into a purple frenzy. Kongzi has noticed her eyelids are swollen, her mouth hangs open, and that she has a blood-filled lump on her crown, and suspects she might be mentally handicapped. He couldn’t afford the 800-yuan cost of a check-up at the district hospital, but with the help of a contact at the Radiance Hair Company, he was able to bribe one of the hospital’s doctors a hundred yuan to visit them at the hut. The doctor was a recent graduate and looked no more than twenty-two. After examining the lump on Waterborn’s crown and palpating the soft spot above her forehead, he said, ‘Her skull shouldn’t be this big. She might have a tumour, or water on the brain. If the head grows any larger, she could suffer paralysis and severe brain damage.’

Ever since then, Kongzi and Meili have been quarrelling over what to do with her. Kongzi wants to sell her, but Meili won’t hear of it. He raises the subject again now, and Meili charges out of the hut holding a greasy wok lid in one hand and Waterborn in the other, and shouts, ‘Over my dead body! She’s my flesh and blood. I’ll never let you take her away from me.’ Nannan, who’s sitting on a plastic crate eating a banana, kicks her legs about, sending the mud on her bare feet flying into the air.

‘Just think things through, Meili!’ Kongzi says, wiping his wet face on his T-shirt. ‘The brain surgery alone would cost thirty thousand yuan. And even if it’s successful, she’ll still need full-time care for the rest of her life.’ He flinches as his tongue touches the two large ulcers on his gums, which cause him so much pain he hasn’t dared have a cigarette all day.

‘You love Nannan, so there’s no reason you can’t learn to love Waterborn as well. I’m sick of your male chauvinism. No wonder Confucius wasn’t welcomed during his travels – jabbering on about male superiority all the time!’ Meili stares out at the heat haze above the pond, and at the large banyan tree on a hill far behind that is blotting out the setting sun. Then she goes to the stove and puts some water on to boil.

‘She needs the operation,’ Kongzi continues. ‘The doctor said she might have a brain tumour.’

Meili wonders if the IUD did indeed become embedded in Waterborn’s brain, and is the cause for all the problems. She decides to get Waterborn’s head X-rayed, no matter how much it costs.

Kongzi pulls a cigarette from his pocket and sniffs it longingly. ‘It’s nothing to do with her being a girl. We just don’t have the resources to look after her.’

‘I don’t trust that doctor. We should get a second opinion. If she does have a tumour, we’ll have it removed.’ Meili has rolled her white vest up to her neck. When she bends over, her bare breasts hang down like two long gourds.

‘Huh – women: long hair, small brains,’ Kongzi mutters under his breath. He turns to Nannan. ‘You haven’t recited the Three Character Classic for days. Come on, give me the first lines.’

‘“People at birth. Good by nature. Mother of Mencius. Chose good home. Son didn’t study. Broke loom’s shuttle . . .”’ Nannan walks towards him, swinging her hips in time with the chant.

‘Stop – you missed at least six lines,’ Kongzi says, then blows out a long stream of air in a useless attempt to cool himself. The hills surrounding this swampy marsh block off all the wind, so in summer the heat is unbearable.

‘Ugh, your mouth farted, Dad,’ Nannan says, catching a whiff of Kongzi’s rancid breath. She turns and runs off into the reeds to look for grasshoppers and cockroaches to feed to the ducks.

‘If Confucius came back to life now and discovered that it’s illegal to set up unofficial schools, he’d die of despair.’ Kongzi still dreams of returning to teaching. Sweat is streaming down his suntanned neck onto his pale chest. He’s built a small porch for the hut out of bamboo and plastic sheeting, and laid plantain leaves on the ground underneath, hoping it would provide a refuge from the heat. At midday, it does offer some shade, but when the sun shines obliquely in the late afternoon it turns into a heat trap.

Waterborn is lying naked between Meili’s breasts, panting for breath like a wawa fish freshly scooped from a river. When the sun’s rays hit her red swollen eyes, she turns her head and wails. Nannan rushes up and says, ‘Stop crying, you naughty girl!’ then, just as Kongzi used to do to her, she raises a palm and shouts, ‘If you don’t shut up, I’ll hit you!’

‘Waterborn will get heatstroke if we don’t cool her down,’ Meili says. ‘I can’t bathe her in that filthy creek. Let’s take some towels and sail to the Xi River.’

‘You need a permit to sail during a flood. If the river police caught us, we’d get a huge fine.’ The truth is, Kongzi sailed along the Xi River all morning without being stopped once. He just doesn’t want to have to go out on the boat again. He looks at Meili and says, ‘If we don’t pay off the 4,000-yuan fine for Waterborn’s birth soon, we’ll be in deep trouble.’

‘But now that she’s born, we’re safe,’ Meili replies. Seeing that the water in the pan hasn’t come to the boil yet, she goes to crouch in the shade of a willow and pushes her nipple into Waterborn’s mouth. ‘The officers are rolling in money – they won’t bother trekking down here just to collect our miserable cash.’

‘Didn’t you hear about that woman called Cui who lives at the edge of the village? When she couldn’t pay the illegal birth fine, the officers drowned her six-month-old baby in a pigs’ water trough. It’s true – I promise.’

‘That was years ago. You weren’t afraid of the officers when I was pregnant. If you’re so terrified of them now, why don’t you dig yourself a deep hole under the hut and hide from them?’

‘Confucius lay in a deep hole for two thousand years, but the Communists still yanked him out in the end. I tell you, these days, there’s nowhere left to hide.’

‘You were desperate to have a second child, and now, because she’s a girl, you want to get rid of her. Has a dog eaten your conscience?’ Meili goes back to the stove, drops some dried pulses into the boiling water and kicks an empty liquor box lying at her feet.

‘I don’t care what you say – I’m still determined to have a son . . . We must lie low next week. Dexian leaders are coming to inspect the flood zone, and they’re bound to bring family planning officials with them.’ This morning, the village Party Secretary paid Kongzi thirty yuan to take the tramp who loiters outside the village restaurant downriver and drop him in a neighbouring county. He also asked Kongzi to stay away during the leaders’ visit, as he’ll need to assure them that there are no illegal migrants in the village.

Nannan comes running up with a can of insect killer, points the nozzle at Kongzi and says, ‘Waterborn’s my sister! You can’t sell her!’

‘The ground’s burning hot, Nannan, put those on,’ Kongzi says, pointing at the two, unmatched flip-flops he found in the floodwater today. The sun starts to sink below the distant mountain and the ducks on the pond begin to squawk.

‘See, you are able to feel compassion for a daughter!’ Meili says with a sarcastic sneer. She pulls off her wet vest and turns off the stove. Then she sits down beneath the porch, squeezes both nipples, and crams the one that produces most milk into Waterborn’s mouth. ‘Don’t touch those filthy flip-flops, Nannan,’ she says. ‘After I sell the eggs at the market tomorrow, I’ll buy you a new pair.’

‘If we give Waterborn to the Welfare Office, we’ll get four thousand yuan to pay her illegal birth fine,’ Kongzi says.

‘That’s not giving, it’s selling! I tell you, Kongzi, if you try to get rid of her, I’ll leave you and I’ll never come back . . . Look how bad her heat rash has become. You said you’d buy some powder for it in Dexian.’ Meili wipes the sweat from Waterborn’s face. The blood-filled bulge on her crown is now as large as a shallot, and its purple stain has spread down over her forehead and right eye. In the sunset’s rosy light, her skin has turned the colour of a rotten mango. She lifts her tiny hands and rests them on the breast she’s sucking.

‘We’ve hardly any money left. If we don’t sell her, what will we live on?’ Kongzi says, staring with bloodshot eyes at the stubborn flood. He once said that his aim in life was to own a motorbike, a fridge, a rice cooker and a colour television. But now, as he looks at the filthy waters and the new baby, this goal seems like a distant dream.

As the last strip of pale light at the horizon is pressed into the earth, the infant spirit sees Waterborn open her eyes. Father goes into the bamboo hut to light a mosquito coil.

‘I’m fed up with this useless junk you keep bringing back, Kongzi,’ Mother says, stroking Waterborn’s cheek. ‘Look: scraps of timber, plastic buckets, broken shoes. This is supposed to be a home, not a rubbish tip. If we were back in the village now, I would have spent the last month confined to my bed, with nutritious food brought to me on a tray. But since the baby was born, you haven’t bothered to make one nice meal for me.’

‘You’re right. You should be drinking chicken soup to build up your milk supply. I’ve no money to buy a chicken, but I’ll make some duck stew for you instead. Once we give Waterborn away we’ll be able to eat whatever we want.’

‘Even if I were dying of hunger and my milk had run dry, I wouldn’t let you take her from me!’ Mother says, squashing a mosquito that’s sucking Waterborn’s arm. ‘Come on. Let’s get on the boat and sail to the Xi River for some fresh air. My one-month confinement would end tomorrow. I want to wash myself with clean water and soap.’

‘The doctor said she’s not mentally handicapped – she just has something inside her brain that needs to be removed,’ Father says into the dark.

The light from the lamp inside the hut splays through the bamboo wall onto Mother’s face. Smells of soy sauce and spring onion briefly veil the stench of duck shit drifting from the enclosure. At night, everything melts into the darkness and becomes equal: water and earth, father and mother, ducks and disposable nappies. On that night many years ago, Waterborn stares at the black sky, or at her strange birthplace, and with all the strength that her four-week-old life can muster, lets out a piercing cry.

‘She needs her nappy changed,’ Mother says.

‘We’ve run out of clean water,’ Father replies, rubbing an unlit cigarette.

‘I want to cuddle Waterborn, like you cuddle Mummy,’ Nannan says to Father, skipping about restlessly.

Along the distant public road, a few lights twinkle in the concrete houses while closer by the fluorescent strips of the village restaurant and night stalls shine through the dust raised by passing trucks.