Ma Jian - The Dark Road

‘Nonsense, don’t lie: I’d never say such a thing!’

‘I heard you say it countless times!’ Meili retorts. ‘Kongzi, there’s something I’ve never told you before: Waterborn was born with a sixth finger on her left hand. Sister Mao chopped it off in the delivery room.’

‘So that’s why her hand was bandaged!’ Kongzi says. ‘You told me Sister Mao accidentally cut her with the forceps.’

‘Dad, why did you call me Nannan? It sounds like “boy-boy”. My classmates said you chose the name because you wished you’d had a son.’

‘No, what I’ve always wanted is a son and a daughter: one of each.’

‘Don’t lie to me. You two are always arguing about wanting a son. Now I’m older I understand. It’s because of me that those family planning officers killed Happiness and that you gave Waterborn away. The government only allows parents to have one child living with them.’

‘That may be the rule, Nannan,’ Kongzi says. ‘But still, your mother and I are doing our best to make sure you have a little sibling to keep you company once we’re gone.’

‘If you wanted me to have a sibling, why did you sell Waterborn?’ A fly darts off Nannan’s hand and settles on the table.

‘Don’t touch the fly — it’s filthy!’ Meili says to Kongzi, as he’s about to swat it, then she turns to Nannan and says: ‘Your father, he — he just wasn’t thinking straight that day. He and I are working hard, saving up money so that you can go to university when you’re older. Kongzi, I’m still hungry. Order a yellow croaker steamed with salted vegetables.’

‘No, you’re saving up money to buy little Heaven a residence permit,’ Nannan says.

‘Yes, that too,’ Kongzi says. ‘We want our family to have a bright future, Nannan. That’s why we came here: to make money and give you a better life… A yellow croaker, please, waitress, and… mm, let’s see, a “chicken of the immortals” as well.’ Kongzi closes the menu and pushes it to the centre of the table.

‘No, you came here to escape the family planning officers. All my classmates’ parents are on the run from them. I understand everything now. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have left the village. If I hadn’t been born, Happiness would be alive today. I hate myself.’ Nannan stands up and leaves the table.

‘Mere mortal that I am, I can’t join you in the sky. The Heavens weep in sympathy, but are powerless to end my thousand autumns of longing…’ Kongzi warbles, then thanks the waitress as she puts another dish onto the table.

‘Stop singing, Kongzi,’ Meili says. ‘Listen, Nannan is growing up. Her body’s starting to develop, and she’s become very sensitive. We must be careful what we say in front of her. You must stop making her recite the Three Character Classic and Standards for Being a Good Pupil and Child . You’re putting too much pressure on her.’ She rests her elbows on the table and rubs her throbbing temples. Last night she took Tang and six members of their staff to the Princess Karaoke Bar to celebrate his birthday, and she had far too much to drink.

‘I read Nannan’s diary,’ Kongzi confesses. ‘She wrote that she doesn’t have a home to go back to and that she’s like a stream flowing to nowhere.’

‘The other day she asked me what “despair” means. I said it’s when you feel there’s no hope.’

‘Don’t talk to her about matters you don’t understand. The Confucian Doctrine of the Mean says that we should neither cling to life nor throw it away, and should avoid extreme emotions of joy and despair. We should learn to be happy with our lot.’

‘You just want an easy life. Where’s your ambition gone? When my brother’s released from the labour camp, I’m going to ask him to come and work for my company.’ Meili looks down at her left hand and rubs the shiny scar tissue on the stump of her index finger. The nails of the four remaining fingers are painted with sparkling red varnish.

Kongzi picks up a slice of pork smothered in sticky rice. ‘But your brother has no skills. What would he do?’

‘I didn’t have any skills either, but I still managed to help set up a company and become general manager, didn’t I?’

‘Yes, but you and he have different personalities,’ Kongzi says, pouring himself some more beer. The restaurant is only half full. On the next table a man wearing a wig and a smart grey suit is serving himself and his elegant guest some vintage Five Grain Liquor.

‘Did Nannan go to the toilet?’ Meili says. ‘This toffee apple should be eaten hot.’ She looks up at the laminated menu of Hunanese food on the wall: CHILLI-STUFFED PEPPERS, HOT-SOUR DOG MEAT, CRISPY DUCK IN SESAME SAUCE… then stares at the goldfish swimming about in a dirty fish tank on the counter, next to a ceramic fortune cat that is continually raising and lowering its left paw.

‘How I’d love to eat one of my grandmother’s sticky rice cakes right now,’ Mother says, gazing into her pocket mirror as she retouches her lipstick, ‘or one of those deep-fried sesame twirls she used to make… I wasn’t always this confident. All those years you made me travel across the country with you, barefoot and pregnant, my personality was crushed. It’s only here, in this electronic dump of a town, that I’ve finally gained a sense of direction. Once Heaven is born, I want to open a chain of shops across the country, then buy ourselves a Foshan apartment and resident permits so that Nannan can go to a government middle school. My parents have no income now. They hired someone to help out on the fields, but the price of fertilisers and seeds has risen so much that they didn’t make any profit. The five thousand yuan I sent them this year kept them afloat, but it wasn’t enough to cover all my mother’s medical bills. Who knows how much more treatment she’ll need?’

When they have both eaten their fill, the conversation peters out. Father cleans his teeth with a toothpick while Mother checks the messages on her phone. The infant spirit watches the fetus shift position inside Mother’s womb. Nannan still hasn’t returned to the table.

‘Where has Nannan gone to?’ Mother says. She and Father look over their shoulders at the dark doorway.

‘Look, she’s over there, by the lake, under the willows…’ Father says.

‘Stop kicking me, little one — a family planning officer might see you!’ Mother says, rubbing her belly.

‘Don’t speak to the fetus like that — you’ll frighten it to death,’ Father says, wiping his glasses with a paper napkin.

‘Fetus? The baby’s four and a half years old. By the time it comes out it will be able to recite the Analects to you.’

KEYWORDS: Spring Festival, ghostly figures, firecrackers, Sacred Father of the Sky, stone baby, yellow mud.

SEEING MEILI STRUGGLE to stuff dumplings with her maimed hand, Kongzi puts down his chopsticks and offers to take over. The table is already laden with dishes of sliced pork tongue, braised trotters, stir-fried chilli prawns and drunken chicken.

‘I wish we still kept ducks, but the Heaven rivers are just too polluted,’ Meili says. ‘Those birds you reared in our last place tasted foul. Do you remember how wonderful it was back on the sand island when we could eat roast duck every day?’

‘Yes, it doesn’t feel right not being able to kill our own bird at Spring Festival.’

‘Don’t say the word “kill” on the eve of Chinese New Year. It’ll bring us bad luck. Here, have some of this Five Grain Liquor my assistant gave me. Let’s hurry up with these dumplings, or the food will get cold. Nannan, turn down the television and join us at the table.’