Ma Jian - The Dark Road

‘You’re right. We only bought the boat a week ago. I haven’t got used to the constant movement. I feel as though I’m rocking on a swing the whole time. You have a television and an electric fan, I see. What luxury.’

‘We’ve lived on this boat for ten years. I still get seasick, though. Summers are tolerable, but in winter, if you don’t have an electric heater it’s as cold as the grave. Before the frost sets in, tell your husband to buy a mini generator and a heater or you’ll freeze to death.’

‘What do you use for a toilet?’ asks Meili, watching an army of weevils scuttle across the scorching deck and fall into the river.

‘When we’re anchored here, I just do it on the bank.’ Then she crawls to the bow and lifts a square panel from the deck. ‘And when we’re sailing, I can do it straight into the river!’

‘You’re family planning fugitives too, aren’t you?’ Meili says, seeing the baby strapped to the woman’s back focus her triangular eyes on her. ‘What’s your name, little one?’ she asks, realising suddenly that other people’s children are of little interest to her.

‘She’s called Little Third. A third girl. What bad luck! This one in my belly will be my last. I’m fed up with this drifting life. I want to live in a brick house with a front door I can lock, a wardrobe to store my clothes in, a big fridge to keep all my food fresh and a comfortable armchair I can sit on.’

‘But this boat is so much better than ours. It has everything you could need.’

‘The river may be nice to look at, but I don’t want to spend my life on it. I have parents back home. Fallen leaves must return to their roots, as the saying goes. Besides, this vagrant life is not good for men. My husband seldom sleeps here at night.’

‘Yes, like crops in the fields we all need roots to survive.’ Meili feels her belly expand. She wants to lie on her side and breathe deeply. Little Third peeps over her mother’s shoulder again and smiles. She has two upper and two lower teeth. Meili pretends not to see her.

‘I’ve seen your husband on the boat in the evenings,’ the woman says, ‘sitting out on the deck smoking while you cook supper. How lucky you are!’ Then she turns to the bank and shouts to her two older daughters, ‘Come and have your lunch, girls.’ They’re standing on a field of cabbages near an abandoned barge that’s being used as a chicken hutch. A rooster digging at the muddy bank spots a cabbage leaf out of the corner of its eye and scuttles over to it.

‘But your husband has done so well, setting up his cargo business,’ Meili says. ‘Mine just works on a demolition site. He used to be a teacher, though. Men — if you don’t keep them on a tight rein, their eyes are bound to wander.’ She glances into her boat and sees Nannan is still asleep. Her sweat-soaked hair is stuck to her face, and below her rucked-up skirt insects are crawling over her chubby thighs.

‘He’s grown tired of me,’ the woman says, snapping the garlic shoots in half. ‘You know what they say: the song of the wild duck in the fields always sounds more melodious than the clucking of the hen at home.’ Her T-shirt has large damp patches over her breasts.

Meili watches the woman move about the deck — sallow cheeks, lined forehead, hunched, twig-like frame — and imagines how a man would feel lying on top of her at night. She thinks how, in ten years, she will be thirty and by then she too may have three or four children. The thought terrifies her. Whatever happens, she won’t confine herself to the role of housewife like this woman. Once Happiness is born, she will find a job, train as a beautician and dress her children in the finest clothes. The woman’s elder daughters jump aboard and the boat tips to the side. Their faces are grimy and their bare feet covered in mud.

‘I’ll leave you to have lunch,’ Meili says, stepping back onto her boat and unfastening the rope. ‘It’s time for my daughter to wake up.’

The noon sun scorches the tarpaulin canopy and the wooden deck at the bow and stern. Even the shade inside the cabin is swelteringly hot. Meili wants to sail downriver to pick up a breeze, but isn’t confident using the outboard motor yet. Kongzi has said he’d like to pick up some work hauling cargo, but doesn’t know who to approach. There are thirty or so families living in the houseboats moored here. Most of the men work in factories or on demolition sites; only a few have managed to make a living transporting goods. When the men return at dusk, they come laden with vegetables, deep-fried dough sticks and packets of instant noodles, and the wharf area becomes filled with the smell of chemical flavourings and the squealing and cursing of children.

KEYWORDS: watermelon, dirt poor, purple lines, osmanthus branches, blush, porn movie, I love you.

SITTING OUTSIDE THE cabin with his knees drawn up to his chest, Kongzi looks into the night sky and recites a Tang poem: ‘“Beside my bed, bright moonlight sparkles on the ground like frost. / I raise my head and gaze at the moon, then lower it and think of home…” Look how golden the moon is tonight. No wonder it’s inspired so much beautiful poetry.’

Meili remains silent, queasy from the heavy rocking of the boat. Every evening at this time, as mosquitoes start to swarm above the banks, they sail to the middle of the river to hide from the police patrol boat, and the waves are always much stronger here. Last night, Kongzi came home late, so Meili sailed herself and Nannan into the moon’s reflection which spanned almost the entire breadth of the river. When they reached the middle, she dropped anchor and watched the splintering moonlight on the water’s surface quiver and embrace, just as she and Kongzi did the night they first kissed behind the Sky Beyond the Sky Hotel. Although it was a squat concrete building with faded paint, its neat brick paths, circular doorways, trimmed lawns and white fences brought an air of the city to Kong Village. That night four years ago, when the moon hung high overhead, Kongzi pressed her against a tree, kissed her on the lips, then pulled her knickers off.

Meili brushes mosquitoes from Nannan’s sleeping face and looks out into the darkness. She remembers how sometimes when she stepped outside at night back in Kong Village their yard would look frozen, silver, dead. Now, she can see the same eerie and sombre light falling on a distant bend of the river.

‘What’s troubling you?’ Kongzi asks her as she walks out onto the deck. ‘Relax. Just look out at this wide-open space. It’s strange — I knew nothing about boats before, but now I feel I belong on the river. Life is so much better here than it was in the village.’ He’s lying across the bow, his head propped up on a folded jacket, swigging from a bottle of beer. He’s just had a dip, and his wet underpants are clinging to his skin. Meili and Nannan haven’t learned to swim yet, but are confident enough to wade about at the edge of the river, wearing inflatable rings. This afternoon, Meili floated in the river until sunset, enjoying feeling the water wash the sweat from her skin and her body become weightless. She could tell that Happiness was comfortable as well as it swirled around her womb, trailing its hands through her amniotic fluid.

‘How soon you’re ready to forget your own home!’ Meili says, rinsing Kongzi’s muddy sandals in the river then placing them neatly outside the cabin. ‘Kong Village is beautiful, too. Dark Water River is almost as broad as the Yangtze, and the reservoir is larger than any lake I’ve seen here.’ In her mouth she can still taste the sweet watermelon they ate a few minutes ago.

‘Confucius said, “The noble man embraces virtue while the petty man thinks only of his home,”’ Kongzi replies defensively. When he’s not wearing his thick glasses, his features seem to protrude more. His hands and face are covered in plasters. For the past week his team has been demolishing Sanxia’s Cultural Centre. He’s brought back many books and magazines he rescued from the shelves.