Ma Jian - The Dark Road

Meili combs Suya’s hair and braids it into plaits. Since her milk began to dry up, her maternal feelings have grown stronger. She yearns to hold Waterborn and Nannan in her arms, and can’t bring herself to contemplate where Waterborn might be now.

‘How pretty you are,’ Meili says, stroking Suya’s face. ‘Such large eyes — you could almost be mistaken for a foreigner.’

‘To tell you the truth, I belong to the Wei Minority, so I suppose I am a bit foreign. Beauty can make a woman rich, but if she relies solely on her looks to get by, she’ll always remain under a man’s thumb. I believe that every woman should strive to achieve something. Self-respect can only be gained through hard work.’

‘Well, as it happens, I’m not pure Chinese either. My mother told me that my grandfather had light brown hair and a big nose. A rumour has passed down that, after he was born and the umbilical cord was cut, his mother smashed a bowl onto the ground, grabbed a shard and slit her throat with it. Apparently, she’d been raped by a foreign missionary and was terrified her parents would beat her for bringing shame on the family. I’ve never dared tell anyone that before — not even my husband.’

‘You’ve no need to tell him. Now that I look closely, there is a foreign air about you. You have the wholesome look of a peasant girl, but in your eyes, there’s a wildness. They slant upwards in the Chinese phoenix style, but the pupils are so black and shiny they almost look blue. If you educated yourself and read widely, you could become a formidable woman. And with just a little grooming and sprucing up, you’d have men falling at your feet.’

Feeling her cheeks colour, Meili lowers her head and says, ‘How can you bear making love to strangers?’

‘Don’t be so childish, big sister! As far as I’m concerned, I’m simply renting out a part of my body that doesn’t even belong to me. I don’t make love to them, I just allow them to ejaculate inside me. The only man I’ll ever love is my boyfriend. When I’ve got my life in order, I’ll visit him and make him sorry he left me. I’ll be his lover until the day I die.’

‘Lover? I’ve only heard that word used in soap operas.’ Meili thinks of Kongzi, and feels a pang. He’s a talented calligrapher and is good with words. All the villagers used to ask him to choose names for their children. If he didn’t have such a reactionary, Confucian outlook on life, he’d be the perfect husband.

‘In this cut-throat age, women are on the ascendency, and men are being left floundering at the side,’ Suya says. ‘But there are still only three roles we women can choose: girlfriend, wife or single woman. Which one will you go for?’

‘All I want is to be a good wife and for my family to be happy and safe.’ An image of Weiwei’s face suddenly appears in Meili’s mind. To dispel it, she glances around the barn. A woman is standing at the door, begging to be let out to use the latrines.

‘A good wife, you say?’ Suya says, smiling. ‘Do good wives run away from home? Before I turn thirty, I will have been a lover, a single woman and will have made a lot of money. After that I will get married and be a good wife. So in one lifetime, I will have experienced it all.’

Meili is speechless. She never knew it was possible for a woman to lead such a varied existence. She is twenty-four years old now, but still feels shamefully naive. She wonders whether, if she’d had Weiwei’s number on her in Changsha and had given him a call, they would now be lovers. Her stomach churns noisily as it has done repeatedly since she ate the turnip soup they were served at lunch.

A woman in a quilted jerkin walks over and says: ‘Can you lend me a sanitary towel, sister? I’ve run out.’

‘Go to the latrines, and if anyone walks in ask them for some toilet paper,’ Meili replies.

‘I know that woman over there has got her period,’ Suya says. ‘Ask her.’

‘No, her period has finished now. She gave me her last towel this morning. She pulled it out from her knickers. Luckily, there wasn’t too much blood on it.’

Suya tucks her blanket tightly around her body. She got so cold out in the fields in her thin cotton skirt and blouse that she bought a long-sleeved vest from an inmate before he was released two days ago, but she still gets cold at night. She opens her handbag and takes out her red journal again.

‘What do you write in that journal?’ Meili asks.

‘Everything that happens to me. One day I’ll give it to my boyfriend, and he’ll be able to see how much I’ve suffered. If you don’t write things down, the past becomes a blank page. Everything is forgotten. All great people keep records of their lives. Will you promise that if anything happens to me, you’ll give the journal to him? I promise that if anything happens to you, I’ll tell your husband. I don’t know how I’ll find that little bamboo hut of yours, but I’ll do my best.’

‘Don’t say such inauspicious things! When we’re released, I’ll take you to the hut myself, and make you some duck stew.’

‘No way! You’re not dragging me off to that mosquito-infested swamp! When we’re released, you’ll come with me. I’ll open a shop and you can work behind the counter. We’ll learn English at night school together, and when I have a child you can be its nanny.’

‘I’m not sure if I could look after someone else’s child, but I can definitely work in a shop. I can sell vegetables, baby formula, anything…’

‘That’s settled then! Here, I want to give this English dictionary to you. Every day you must learn a new word. The more knowledge you acquire the more paths open before you.’

‘After we’re released, I’ll take you in my boat to a stretch of the river where the water is crystal clear. When you swim in it, all your troubles will float away.’ As she leans back, she catches a smell on Suya’s skin which seems to offer her an intimation of her own future.

‘No, I don’t want to swim in a river. I want to go to a spa. I’ll soak for hours in a warm pool of gurgling water, sipping green tea from a porcelain cup. Then I’ll have a foot massage and a back rub, I’ll go to a salon for a haircut and manicure, then finish the day off with a dinner date at a nice restaurant…’

‘How much would all that cost?’ Meili asks, seeing Suya’s eyes start to droop. In Changsha, she stared in wonder at Suya’s long manicured fingernails, with the tiny garlands of flowers painted along the sides. But after just two hours of work on the fields, they all snapped off. Meili feels embarrassed that in her entire life she has never once stepped inside a hair salon.

‘Who cares how much it costs? Money exists to buy happiness and comfort, and to pay servants to look after you. What other purpose does it serve?’

Meili tries to think of the last time she felt comfortable, pampered or cared for. She often washed Kongzi’s feet but he never once washed hers. She had a hot bath once, in the Golden Age Hotel when she was travelling round the county with the Nuwa International Arts Troupe. After soaking in the bath for half an hour, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and saw that she looked like a nymph from a Tang Dynasty painting, rising from a steaming pond. But she doesn’t want to think about the past now. All she wants is to be free. She has eighty-six more days left to endure in the camp. Suya said that when they reach the sixtieth day, she’ll buy some beer and biscuits to celebrate.

‘But even when I’m released, will I ever be free, or be able to take control of my life?’ Meili thinks aloud. ‘The government aborted my second child, my husband has given away my third. I don’t want to live in the countryside, and I’m banned from living in the cities. So where can I go now? What can I do?’