Ma Jian - The Dark Road

When she returns to consciousness, the bulb is still shining and the electric fan still whirring. She remembers the image of Kongzi being forced onto the deck and handcuffed. The girl on night duty is curled up on the desk, fast asleep. Empty intravenous bags hang from a nail next to a clock with stationary hands. The room smells like rotten fish. Suddenly aware that she’s lying on the surgical table naked from the waist down, she lifts her limp hands to shield herself and discovers the ropes have been removed. She tries to sit up but can’t summon the energy. Her womb feels utterly empty. A jolt of pain shoots through her lower abdomen. Her legs are still leaden and numb. From a radio further down the corridor, a man’s voice sings, ‘ I’ve just met a beautiful woman with soft arms and dewy eyes… ’

The girl gets off the desk and rubs her eyes. ‘You’ve woken up, then,’ she says to Meili. ‘Here — once you’ve signed this form and paid the bill, you can leave.’ She takes Meili’s pillow and pulls off the case. Meili’s left arm is so swollen from the injection that she can’t bend it. ‘This bag is for you, too,’ the girl says. ‘There’s a free bottle of mineral water inside, four packs of condoms and a contraceptive handbook. Now, please get off the table. I need to wash it.’

After carefully shifting her legs to the side, Meili leans on the girl and lowers her feet to the ground, but as soon as she puts weight on them, her knees buckle. She collapses back onto the table and pulls her dress over her belly. The girl mops up the blood and amniotic fluid that has dripped onto the floor then helps Meili put on her knickers. Meili rolls onto her side, looks down and sees Happiness lying in the plastic bag below. His tiny corpse reminds her of the chickens she used to buy freshly plucked and slaughtered from the village market. He’s floating in a shallow pool of fetal and maternal blood, his eyes and mouth wide open.

‘Yes, that’s your baby,’ the girl says, glancing down. ‘If you want me to get rid of it, you’ll have to sign the form and settle the bill.’

‘He’s my son. I want to take him with me.’

Suddenly the door swings open and Kongzi charges in, pushing back the officer escorting him. When he sees the blood on Meili’s legs he explodes with rage. ‘Fucking bastard! May your family line perish! You bastard, you fucking bastard—’

‘Swear at me again and I’ll strangle you,’ the officer barks.

The girl hands Kongzi the bill. ‘It’s all itemised,’ she says. ‘Two hundred and ten yuan for the intrauterine injection, 160 for the anaesthetic, 190 for miscellaneous expenses — which is the fee for disposing of the corpse — then there’s laundry, labour. It comes to a total of 775 yuan. The usual fee for an eighth-month termination is 1,400 yuan, so you’ve been given a 50 per cent discount. I’d pay up and leave, if I were you. If you haven’t gone by midnight, you’ll be charged an extra thirty yuan for the room. You can take the form home and fill it out later. Just sign here, agreeing that you, Comrade so-and-so, willingly consented to terminate the pregnancy in accordance with state guidelines, and in so doing have made a glorious contribution to China’s population control efforts.’

‘You’ve killed our baby,’ Kongzi says, red with anger. ‘And now you want us to give you money and sign forms?’

‘Forget about the form if you want,’ says the officer, ‘but next time the Family Planning Commission arrests you, you’ll be sorry.’

‘Let’s pay the money and leave, Kongzi,’ Meili says, leaning down and picking up the plastic bag with both hands.

‘You can’t take the baby with you,’ the officer says. ‘It’s against the rules. Throw it in the bin. What do you want a dead baby for, anyway?’

‘We have a right to take our child away,’ Kongzi says. He takes a wad of cash from his trouser pocket, hands it to the girl and signs the form.

‘I warn you,’ says the officer. ‘We’re in the Three Gorges Epidemic Prevention Zone. If you dare bury that baby anywhere around here, you’ll be arrested and fined.’

‘Arrest me then, arrest me!’ Kongzi shouts. Two security guards appear, seize Kongzi by the arms and fling him out onto the street. Clutching the plastic bag, Meili carefully dismounts the table and hobbles out of the room, leaning against the walls for support. As soon as she leaves the main entrance, she crumples to her knees. Kongzi rushes over and pulls her up.

‘Get lost now, you vagrant scum!’ the officer shouts as they walk away.

A man on a motorbike pulls up and says, ‘Five yuan a trip. I’ll take you anywhere. Are you coming?’

Kongzi tries to help Meili onto the back seat. ‘I can’t get on,’ she cries. The blood clots clogging her vagina have begun to harden, and she’s terrified she’ll haemorrhage if she opens her legs. Gently, Kongzi lifts her left leg and moves it over the back seat. Squealing softly, Meili lowers herself onto the seat. Her face turns deathly white. ‘Does it hurt?’ Kongzi asks, sitting down behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist. ‘No, no,’ she hisses through her teeth. ‘Let’s go back to the boat.’ She closes her eyes and rests her head on the driver’s back. ‘Did you leave Nannan alone?’ she asks Kongzi. ‘What if she’s fallen overboard?’ The motorbike drives down the broken mountain road. No matter how hard Meili is jolted, her hand remains fiercely clamped around the plastic bag on her lap.

KEYWORDS: newly hatched carp, water heaven, red dress, frozen blood, funeral song.

KONGZI STARES AT an object floating down the river, wondering whether it’s a dead fish, a piece of straw or a chopstick. He’s turned off the ignition and allowed the boat to be dragged downstream by the current. Grassy embankments and scatterings of mud houses slide swiftly by. The side winds nudging the boat off course smell of the factory effluent flowing into the river from large waste pipes.

Meili is lying on her front on the side deck, staring at the passing hills and bamboo forests, her left leg trailing in the water. The deep still river is as blue and transparent as the sky. Nannan splashes some water onto Meili’s head and cries, ‘Look, Mum! You have flowers on your hair!’ Then she ties a piece of string around her plastic doll and lets it trail in the water as well. The doll’s red dress fans out like a pool of blood. Meili closes her eyes and hears her grandmother wailing a funeral song: ‘ My darling child, like a newly hatched carp that leaps from its pond for the first time only to fall into the jaws of a cat, you have entered the netherworld before your first tooth has appeared. The mother and father you’ve left behind weep in misery… ’ Meili grew up listening to her grandmother’s grief-stricken wails. They planted inside her a seed which has grown into a tree that supports her spine, pelvis, ribs and every fibre of her flesh. She wants to sing a line from the lament, but all she can do is cry: ‘Mother, Mother, oh Mother…’ She puts her arms around Nannan and, unable to cry out, breaks into sobs, her back rising and falling, rising and falling, like a rag tumbling over a wave.

‘Your face has too much crying, Mummy,’ Nannan says, edging away. Against the green shorts she’s wearing, her tanned legs look as dark as soy sauce.

A long time later, Kongzi puts on his black vest, steers towards the middle of the river and drops anchor. Then he picks up the plastic bag containing Happiness’s corpse, places a brick inside and ties the top with string.

‘Wait!’ Meili says. She opens her cloth bag and takes out the little hat, vest and pair of shorts she knitted for Happiness. ‘Put these inside too,’ she says to Kongzi, handing them to him.