Ma Jian - The Noodle Maker

She followed him closely, refusing to fall behind. ‘I’m not afraid of them.’

‘Go away, will you, just go away!’ he hissed through his teeth.

She stood still for a moment, but he kept walking.

When he heard her catching up with him, he said: ‘If I see you again, I’ll kill you!’ As he was about to run away, he heard something that made him stop dead in his tracks. He had clearly heard her utter the words: ‘I’m pregnant!’

These words filled him with a mixture of grief and anger. ‘Walk in front of me,’ he said, without looking back. ‘I’ll meet you in our place behind the chemical plant.’ Then he slowed down and watched her lumpish body overtake him then waddle away through the crowd towards the sea. His heart jumped. In the editorial department today, he had sensed that something was not right. He had recently taken a shine to a young student from a provincial university who attended his literary study classes at the Municipal Cultural Department. She had a large bottom, and a big round face that smiled all the time like a clay doll. When he’d telephoned the Cultural Department that morning to ask her out for a date, the official who picked up the phone said she wasn’t there. When he asked him to tell her to bring him the manuscript of her novel, the officer slammed the phone down. At the time, he just swore at the officer for being so rude, but now he realised that someone had been spreading rumours.

When his wife had informed the textile worker’s leaders of the situation, they had promised to treat the case in confidence, but news had obviously leaked out. The bastards. Now everyone knew. As he trailed at a distance behind the textile worker’s motherly frame, his legs seemed to grow weaker and weaker.

‘So you want a baby now do you? Bitch!’ he cursed under his breath, watching the textile worker advance through the crowd. His stomach felt heavy and swollen. He followed her down an alley and saw her disappear through a hole in the wall. He continued a few paces, deliberately passing the cavity, then turned back again and jumped in.

Standing inside the crumbling carcass of the abandoned factory, he could hear the waves of the sea bash against the cement embankment below. Sometimes when he came here, he could smell the rancid effluent that poured from the chemical plant behind, especially at dusk when the stench evaporated from the damp earth or was carried over in the evening breeze. In the sweltering heat of summer, the textile worker always brought a tin of tiger balm and gently rubbed the ointment onto Old Hep’s wizened legs to keep the insects away. He could now hear her walking towards him, treading over the loose tiles that lay scattered on the ground. He liked this secret spot. Although it was infested with mosquitoes, the place was usually empty. Trucks from the suburbs would drive past on the road outside from time to time, and people occasionally jumped through the hole in the wall to have a piss in the yard, but no one ventured inside the ruined building. He and the textile worker always met in a room in the middle that had probably served as the factory’s control centre. The three walls that were still standing reached slightly above their heads, and the floor was covered with a smooth layer of cement. When the diesel engine in the chemical plant next door shut down for the day, they would sit back and breathe the salty breeze, and imagine themselves in some beautiful seaside villa. He saw that the textile worker had pulled out the plastic sheet they kept in the corner under a brick, and was now sitting on it. On the crumbling wall behind her, a faded Maoist slogan read: WE MARCH FORWARD, FIRED BY OUR COMMON REVOLUTIONARY GOAL.

‘Come and sit down,’ she said to him softly.

‘Sit down, you say!’ Old Hep knew that the chemical plant hadn’t yet closed for the day, so he was careful to keep his voice down. ‘How did you manage to get pregnant? I haven’t touched you for three months.’

‘Well I am,’ she said defiantly. ‘It happened ages ago.’

They both set out their demands. Old Hep promised to find her a backstreet clinic that provided quick abortions for unmarried women. The textile worker said she would only agree to an abortion on condition that he continue to see her afterwards.

By the time dusk fell, they were still locked in argument. Old Hep’s eyes glowered with rage. He leaned over and snarled, ‘If you don’t stop clinging to me, I can’t be held responsible for my actions.’

The textile worker looked up at him calmly from the plastic sheet. Her body was scarred with the wounds he’d inflicted on her in the past. A few months before, he had kicked her abdomen so hard she lost control of her bowels. She was still having to take medicine for it. Her stomach was also affected, and whenever she ate anything cold she suffered terrible cramps.

‘Please sit down,’ she said. ‘I want to talk to you.’ Her eyes looked sore. Today was her nineteenth birthday. She calculated that she had been with him for two years and seven months. Their love story had reached its 940 thday. ‘I wanted you to take me out to a restaurant tonight.’ She stroked Old Hep’s shoe and, sensing no resistance, proceeded to move her hands up his calf. She knew how to win him over. When he was in a bad mood, she only had to touch his flies and he would calm down and apologise to her. Because she was taller than him, she always made sure she was sitting down before she touched him, to give him a sense of superiority. Today, she crouched at his feet, then slowly climbed onto her knees. She looked up at him, offering her lips to his, but he pushed her head down to his opened flies, then grabbed her hair and thrust her head back and forth over his groin. Her stomach clenched, her throat was so filled with his engorged flesh she could barely breathe. At last his hands loosened their grip. She slumped to the ground, curled herself up on the plastic sheet and choked on the fluid in her mouth.

‘Don’t cough so loudly!’ the editor yelled, pulling his trousers up.

Night had fallen by now. The white plastic sheet reflected the pale moonlight and scattered it softly over the girl’s body. She tried hard not to vomit. Her puffed eyelids became even more swollen.

‘You bitch!’ the editor swore from the back of his throat. He seemed as though he were about to collapse. ‘Are you satisfied now?’ Ever since he had first slapped her on the face, he’d stopped whispering sweet words in her ear, or buying her collections of poetry. Instead, he’d taken to biting and pinching her, and when he saw her mouth contort with pain, he felt pleased and light-headed. She put up with his tortures, as though she were enduring some trial of love. Sometimes, if she was lucky, Old Hep would give her a quick cuddle afterwards to cheer her up. Tonight she was still waiting for this longed-for embrace.

The editor crouched down beside her and said: ‘So you’re getting an abortion. Is that settled then?’

‘No,’ she said, wiping the sperm from her face. ‘I want you to take me out to a restaurant. It’s my birthday today.’

‘To hell with your birthday! Are you having that abortion?’ He leaped to his feet and kicked her shins. ‘Tell met — are you getting that abortion, or not?’

The textile worker remained silent and refused to surrender.

‘Open your legs!’ he shouted. The textile worker turned round and looked up at him. Her face was even paler than the moonlight. The editor kicked her in the stomach. She shuddered with pain, and pressed her hands over her abdomen. A howl roared from the pit of her stomach, but emerged from her throat as a timid hiss. Gasping for air, she retreated to the wall that bore Chairman Mao’s slogan. The editor walked over to her and pinched her tear-drenched face.