Ma Jian - The Dark Road

‘I admit, it’s not great timing,’ Meili says. ‘After four years of aimless travelling, we’ve finally got our lives in order and moved into a proper brick house. I wanted to open my own shop — I know I could have made a success of it. I hoped that in a few years’ time we could buy a car and drive home bathed in glory. But once this child is born, none of that will be possible. I wanted to be a modern woman with a briefcase full of documents and one of those credit cards that you swipe over machines.’ Meili is lying down on the bed again, staring at her swollen feet.

‘Have you forgotten that we’re family planning fugitives? Our residence permits have been annulled. When the whole country becomes linked by computers, every institution will be able to see our criminal records, and no one will issue you with a credit card or a shop licence. So you’d better give up your pipe dream of living a modern life.’

‘I’ll buy fake licences then. In Hong Kong Road, you can buy any fake document you want: ID cards, birth permits, shop licences, degree certificates.’

‘You think I don’t dream of achieving something great, of returning home with my head held high? I’ve always hoped that one day I could open Confucian primary schools in every town and city in China. But no ambition is more important to me than producing a male heir. Once our son is born, we can do whatever we like.’

‘Have you lost your mind? Not content with breaking the family planning laws, you now want to spread Confucianism around the country!’ Meili glances at Nannan again to check that she’s still asleep. ‘Fine, I’ll have a scan. But whether it’s a girl or a boy, it’s my flesh and blood and I will give birth to it. I tell you now, though: this one will be my last.’ She sits back against the pillow, drapes a nightie over her legs and looks Kongzi in the eye. ‘I need to ask you,’ she says gravely. ‘Where did you take Waterborn? I’m her mother. I have a right to know.’

Kongzi throws his hands in the air. ‘Huh! Confucius was right! Of all people, women are the hardest to deal with! You have a “right to know”, you say? There you go again: spitting out words you don’t understand, like a mouse chewing through a dictionary! All right, I’ll tell you. I gave her to the Welfare Office in Dexian. When I went back a week later, they told me a man from Hunan had taken her away.’

‘So she’s still in China. As soon as the One Child Policy is repealed, you must go to Hunan and bring her back…’

Rain splatters on the tiled roof and mosquitoes flutter around the ceiling. The infant spirit watches the echoes from the house shake raindrops from the cobwebs in the yard.

‘Congratulations, Kongzi!’ Mother says loudly. ‘For a few grubby coins, you consigned our baby daughter to a life of begging! You know very well that those child traffickers break children’s limbs! You evil bastard! One day you will have to find her. You will have to search for her high and low and bring her back to me.’ Mother puts on a black nightdress and takes a red journal from under her pillow.

‘Write down the Welfare Office’s address and telephone number in here,’ Meili says, handing Kongzi the red journal.

‘So you think the One Child Policy will be repealed soon? Are you planning to start a revolution with Kong Qing? Well, he’s still in prison with three other Kongs from our village. We’re lucky we left when we did.’

‘What other news is there from the village?’ Meili asks, staring at a gecko crawling across the ceiling. A few months ago, Kongzi learned that his sister had married a Pakistani trader she’d met in Tibet, and was so angry he said he’d never speak to her again. He didn’t even send any money to her for the wedding. Since then, Meili hasn’t dared ask him about his family.

‘Kong Wen’s been sacked from the village family planning team, apparently, and has returned to Guangzhou to set up her own business. And that spindly woman, the mother of my old pupil Xiang, has contracted a serious illness. Her husband’s sold all their possessions to try to pay for the medical treatment. Xiang’s dowry wasn’t enough to cover the cost.’

‘What, Xiang’s got married? But she’s only twelve years old. No, of course, we’ve been away so long, she must be sixteen now. Still, that’s very young.’

‘You were only sixteen when you married me,’ Kongzi says proudly.

‘Seventeen,’ Meili corrects him. She remembers the colour photograph of herself aged sixteen, standing arm in arm with her friends Qiu and Yang in the municipal park. All three had their hair in neat ponytails, and she was wearing a cream-coloured jacket and red headscarf, Qiu a blue jumper and Yang a long yellow coat. Meili hadn’t joined the Nuwa International Arts Troupe then, but was already dreaming of being a famous singer. She and her friends had travelled to the county town with a group of Nuwa villagers to take part in the 1 May Workers’ Day Procession. In the evening, the three of them wore lipstick for the first time, and went to a karaoke hall with the village Party Secretary. Meili never saw Qiu again after that night — apparently she stayed on in the town and found a job as a backing singer in another karaoke hall. A year later, she returned to Nuwa Village with ten thousand yuan and bought a house and fifty pigs, but by then Meili had left home and started work at the Sky Beyond the Sky Hotel.

The rain is still falling. It streams over the bowed heads of the birds in the straw nest on the roof, runs down the tiles and gushes over the eaves. Inside the four small houses around the yard, everyone is asleep. The infant spirit watches Mother lying on the bed, her hands resting on her belly, and little Heaven floating in the amniotic fluid inside. For a moment, the silence is broken as Nannan’s electronic toy sings out, ‘I’m a beautiful angel, a beautiful angel…’ Then everything goes quiet again until all that can be heard is the sound of falling rain.

KEYWORDS: dismantle, frightened and sick, bitter-sweet, ultrasound, twins, tenderisers, gel.

WITH AN ENVELOPE of cash in her small backpack, Meili leaves the workshop and on her way home returns to the lane filled with makeshift shelters and rumbling machines where the illegal clinics are located. In her white shirt, low-cut jeans and sandals, she picks her way over piles of scrap computer monitors. Bare-chested men smeared in black ash stare blankly at her breasts, belly and thighs. Beyond a parked truck loaded with broken printers, she sees the street stall her workmate told her about. She walks around the crates of soft drinks and enters the small house behind. The doctor sitting at the desk is wearing a face mask. At first glance, she looks just like Suya. ‘Your surname isn’t Wang, is it?’ Meili asks her, before she’s even sat down.

‘Yes, it’s Wang, spelt with the water radical.’

‘You look just like a friend of mine — same large eyes and high forehead. She’s from Chengdu in Sichuan. Her surname is Wang, but it’s spelt the usual way.’

‘I’m from Sichuan too, but from Fengjie, on the Yangtze River.’

‘I travelled down there a few years ago. I suppose most of the towns have been demolished by now.’ Meili’s feet are sweating in her tight sandals.

‘Yes, they’ve all been torn down. We could see the Yangtze from the backyard of our old house. Now we’ve been relocated to a village high in the mountains. It’s in the back of beyond and there’s nothing to do… So, you’ve come for an ultrasound? How many months gone are you?’

‘About six, I think. But I didn’t have any symptoms during the first three months.’

Dr Wang opens a cupboard and brings out a computer, a probe and a tube of gel, then she lifts Meili’s shirt, lubricates her belly and slides the probe over it. ‘Look, that’s the head,’ she says, pointing at the image on the computer. ‘The eyes. The spine. If there’s one dot here, it’s a girl. If there are two, it’s a boy.’