Ma Jian - The Dark Road

‘You can barely read — what use would a computer be to you?’ Father says. ‘Just stick to dismantling them.’

‘I can type words using Roman script. Once I learn all twenty-six letters, I’ll be able to go online by myself and travel the world. We’ll be able to send our relatives electronic messages and photographs which they’ll receive in seconds. I dismantled computers for two years, but I’ve only just understood what they’re used for…’ Mother sees Father smear green tea and ink over the exercise books Nannan has written in, and sandpaper the corners of the forms. The floor is strewn with pencils and balls of cotton wool. ‘What’s going on here?’ she asks.

‘Inspectors are visiting Red Flag Primary next week. We have two hundred pupils, but to get a larger government subsidy we need to tell them we have two hundred and fifty. So I’m having to fabricate fifty students. Help me fill some exercise books. If they’re all in Nannan’s handwriting, it’ll look suspicious.’

‘I’ve finished twelve literacy homework books,’ Nannan says. ‘Daddy said he’d buy me some candyfloss as a reward.’

‘You can do Year 3 homework, Nannan?’ Mother says. ‘Clever girl!’

‘She knows more characters than you do now, and she can write out each of the three hundred Tang poems from memory. She will be a worthy descendant of Confucius!’

‘Daddy, Confucius was an evil man. I wish we didn’t share his surname.’

‘Who told you he was evil?’ Father says. ‘Confucius was a great sage. You should feel proud to have him as an ancestor.’

‘If he was so great, why don’t they mention him in our textbooks? Lulu keeps singing “Down with Kong the Second Son!” but I pretend not to hear her.’

‘I assure you, Nannan: Confucius was a great philosopher and teacher. He taught us to respect learning, honour our parents and care for our young, and lead a virtuous life, even in times of turmoil. He said that people should obey their leaders, but only so long as their leaders rule with compassion. For two thousand years, his words formed the bedrock of Chinese culture. The Communist Party may have cursed him, vilified him, dug up his grave, but his ideas live on. You’re almost nine years old now, Nannan. You must study hard and build up the knowledge that will help you carve a path through this difficult world. Tell me how that saying goes?’ Father puts down the forged exercise book he’s holding and stares into Nannan’s eyes.

‘“Children who don’t read books, don’t know the treasures they contain. If they knew…” blah, blah, blah.’

‘That’s right. But listen to me, Nannan. The tide is changing. Confucius’s name is being mentioned in the newspapers. One day he’ll be rehabilitated, and those evil cadres who spat on his corpse thirty years ago will light incense sticks in his temple and beg forgiveness.’

‘Don’t talk to your classmates about any of this, Nannan,’ Mother says. ‘Your school may not teach you about Confucius, but it will teach you Tang poetry, so I’m sure you’ll rise to the top of the class. Remember: learning is a joy, not a burden.’ Mother turns on the electric fan and takes off her dress. ‘Kongzi, I want to open my own shop. I only need twenty thousand yuan to get started.’

‘I’m too busy to talk about that now,’ Father says. ‘Fill up this homework book for me. Use your left hand. No, come to think of it, you write like a child with your right hand so just stick to that.’

‘I want to open a baby shop that sells milk powder, toys, cots,’ Mother says dreamily. ‘When mothers see me stand at the counter with my pregnant bulge, they’ll come flocking in. Or I could sell refurbished computers. This town has mountains of scrap components but no one’s thought of reassembling them to make functioning machines. I’m sure we could earn more money assembling computers than these workshops do taking them apart. We could sell them to people in the countryside. The market for cheap second-hand computers there must be enormous.’

Nannan completes an exercise book then starts writing on the first page of another, her long hair dangling over the desk.

Meili walks barefoot over the white vinyl mat. A large black spider crawls behind her. Kongzi has become very close to Nannan, she says to herself. Perhaps by the time the baby’s born, he’ll come round to the idea of having another daughter and everything will be fine. I’ll find a nanny for little Heaven, set up my own business, then return to Nuwa County and open a chain of second-hand computer shops.

Three hours later, Kongzi is still crouched on the floor, scribbling in the exercise books. Meili has nodded off on the chair, her ink-stained hands resting on her belly. In her dream she sees her future self galloping up a hill, her hair and the grass blowing in the wind. When she reaches the top she takes flight. From a heap of computers below the infant spirit shouts out to her, ‘Keep flying, keep flying. You’re crossing the border. If the soldiers see you, they’ll gun you down…’

KEYWORDS: clam dance, zero protein, sticky rice, banana tree, steel tower, rainbow.

WHEN MEILI OPENS the door in the morning, she has to drag the children’s bicycles and baby-walkers onto the pavement before she can make her way to the counter. This shop may be small and cramped, but it has given her a foothold in society. With a look of calm contentment, she plugs her mobile phone into the charger and gazes out of the window. The shop belongs to Tang’s family. She pays them two hundred yuan a month in rent, and buys the stock herself. In her spare moments, she surfs the internet on the computer Tang has lent her. He’s taught her to breach the firewall and access the BBC Chinese-language website, so she now knows that Chinese illegal immigrants in America can earn more in one year than their families back home earn in a lifetime. She has also researched the local component trade and worked out the cost of reassembling a computer. Tang has told her she has a good business brain.

It was Hong’s first birthday yesterday. Meili phones Tang and asks how the party went. She was sacked from her job as nanny because while she was changing Hong’s nappy on the ironing board, Hong burned her hand on a hot iron. Jun was furious, and banned Meili from ever setting foot in the house again. Meili still feels terrible about the accident. A couple of days ago, she chose the most expensive baby-walker from her shop and asked Tang to give it to Hong for her birthday.

‘Your present’s a great success!’ Tang tells her down the phone. ‘Hong’s walking around the sitting room with it. She loves the music and flashing lights.’

‘Make sure she doesn’t push it anywhere near the stairs. And remind Jun to tidy all the electric cables away. At twelve months, babies start chewing everything in sight.’

‘No chance of Hong doing that. She has a dummy stuffed in her mouth all day.’

‘Really? I may sell dummies in the shop, but don’t let Hong use one — they make babies’ teeth stick out.’ Meili bites her lip, afraid that the buck-toothed Tang might have taken offence.

‘I need to answer some emails,’ Tang says. ‘I’ll pop by at lunchtime.’

‘To collect the rent? But it’s not due until Monday… Well, if you’re coming, you can fix the electricity meter for me — it keeps tripping. Fine. See you later.’ Meili puts the phone down and goes online. Last month she searched the name Wang Suya, and it produced 4 million results. Adding the keyword ‘university’ returned 6,500 results. Remembering that Suya studied English and was from Chengdu, she narrowed the results down to twelve and managed to send each of these Wang Suyas a letter. Although she still hasn’t found the Suya she’s looking for, she has struck up online friendships with two of the Suyas who replied. She’s also visited chat rooms where other women like her lament the babies they’ve lost through forced abortions. The babies’ ghosts haunt the conversations, making the website feel like a graveyard. The women are planning to set up a virtual memorial garden to give the aborted fetuses a safe resting place. Meili has learned that 13 million abortions are performed in China each year, an average of 35,000 per day.