Ma Jian - The Dark Road

‘What about that sweet garlic you pickled?’ Kongzi says. ‘I’d love to try some.’

The room is clouded with cigarette and incense smoke. On a side table, three fat incense sticks are propped up in a bowl of rice, in front of three small paper tombstones on which Kongzi has inscribed the names of his father and his father’s parents. Around the bowl are offerings of cigarettes, boiled sweets and king prawns. Nannan ignores Meili and stays on her small bed, smiling and frowning at the televised Spring Festival Gala. She’s wearing the red nylon jacket and white scarf Meili bought her yesterday. Nannan had wanted a purple jacket but Meili managed to persuade her, after a heated argument, that red suited her better. On the studio stage, a Han Chinese woman is belting out a love song while girls in Tibetan and Uighur costumes dance around her in a circle. Nannan is only eleven years old, but this morning she got her first period. Meili was sitting in the yard plucking hairs from the pigs’ trotters when Nannan rushed out from the toilet pit with blood running down her leg. Meili presumed she’d cut herself, but when she removed her stained skirt and underwear, she discovered she was menstruating. She placed plastic bags and towels over her bed and made her lie down. She told her not to worry, that this is what happens to every girl when they become a woman. But it was no use. Nannan was inconsolable. She burst into tears and said she didn’t want to be a woman, and that she hated Meili for making her a girl. Kongzi went out to sweep the yard, came back to make Nannan a cup of brown-sugar tea and then went out again to buy her a hot-water bottle. Before the television gala started this evening, she burst into tears again, saying she wished little Heaven would come out so that she could go away and die. Afraid that Nannan might do something rash, Kongzi has decided to stay in all night. Every couple of hours, Meili gives her a glass of water and a fresh sanitary towel.

Meili looks at the dumplings Kongzi has made. Each one is long and thin, just like him.

‘Oh yes, I haven’t told you yet,’ he says. ‘I bumped into the manager of the Hunan restaurant the other day, and we fell into conversation. When I told him my name, he said a guy went to his restaurant some time ago, asking for us. A tall guy, well spoken, with round glasses. Do you think it could have been Weiwei — you know, that man who lost his mother?’

‘When did this happen?’ Meili asks, her heart pounding, certain that it was her who Weiwei wanted to see.

‘Two years ago, just after Spring Festival.’

That was around the time my shop was ransacked by the inspectors, Meili thinks to herself as she drops the stuffed dumplings into a pot of boiling water. And when I had lunch at the Hunan restaurant with Tang that day, I saw a man who looked just like Weiwei. No wonder my eye kept twitching.

‘Daddy, what is happiness?’ Nannan asks, after watching a man in a white suit sing ‘ Your happiness is my joy …’

‘Happiness is when you forget yourself,’ Meili says, watching the dumplings bob to the surface of the boiling water, holding a slotted spoon in mid-air.

‘Happiness, my daughter, is you coming back from school with a good mark. It’s the nation at peace, our family united.’

‘Here, come and have your dumplings, Nannan,’ Meili says, spooning some onto a plate for her. ‘And I’ll pour out some vinegar for you to dip them in.’

‘I hate dumplings. Mum, I want to go home.’ Nannan leans back against the small headrest. Beside her pillow is an opened packet of rice cakes.

‘But this is your home, and your bed,’ Kongzi says, pointing to the large collection of dolls lying by her feet. Cha Na has given Nannan almost every doll that’s sold in the shop, but Nannan’s favourite is still the plastic doll with the red dress that Kongzi gave her many years ago, even though it’s old and dirty, and the red paint on its mouth has chipped. To her great sadness, however, she hasn’t seen it since they moved into this tin shack.

‘No, what I mean is I want to go back to Kong Village,’ Nannan says. ‘This place doesn’t feel like home. I miss Grandma.’ On her crumb-strewn quilt is a copy of the school textbook, Cultivating a Moral Character and Forging a Successful Life , and a spiral-bound songbook. Since the beginning of winter, Nannan has become moody and withdrawn. In a lunch break last week, she pushed Lulu onto the ground, and since then none of the children in her class will play with her.

‘You were only two when we left — how can you miss her?’ Meili says, as she and Kongzi stare at the television screen and tuck into the hot dumplings.

‘Besides, your home is wherever your parents are, so right now, this is your home,’ Kongzi says. He takes a sip of Five Grain Liquor and smiles contentedly. As well as being deputy head of the migrant school, he’s also been given a two-year contract to work as a supply teacher at Red Flag Primary, thanks to Tang putting in a word for him with the Education Department.

‘I can’t remember what Grandma looks like but you told me she was always nice to me,’ Nannan says. ‘Why didn’t you bring any photographs of her, or of our old house? I want to phone Grandma and Grandpa and wish them Happy New Year.’

Nannan still hasn’t been told that Kongzi’s father has died. As soon as she mentions him, the contented smile vanishes from his face.

Noticing his distress, Meili turns to Nannan and says, ‘If you miss them, go and prostrate yourself before the altar over there.’

‘Prostrating is feudalistic,’ Nannan replies.

On hearing this, Kongzi jumps up from his seat and grabs Nannan by her collar. Meili pushes him away and puts her arms around her, saying, ‘She’s only eleven! You can’t expect her to understand about filial piety!’ Kongzi flings his chopsticks on the floor to release his anger, then turns up the volume of the television. A woman in a green police uniform is singing: ‘ You angel in a white coat, when I came into this world, yours was the first face I saw. You picked me up in your soft hands and wrapped me in a blanket. With this song, I give you my thanks… ’ On the street outside, a string of firecrackers explodes.

Nannan snuggles into Meili’s embrace and says, ‘Can I have some Coca-Cola, Mum?’

‘You shouldn’t drink cold fluids in your condition.’

‘But I want some.’

‘All right. Kongzi, fetch her a bottle from the fridge.’ They’ve had the fridge for only two days, but it’s already packed with food. Meili’s placed her severed index finger on the bottom shelf and Kongzi has hidden their cash in the freezer compartment.

‘There’s not so much blood coming out now, is there?’ Meili whispers to Nannan. ‘Tomorrow there’ll be even less.’

‘You said this will happen to me every month from now on. Well, I don’t want to go to school any more. How come it hasn’t happened to the other girls in my class?’

‘I’m sure it has, they just haven’t told you. Before I fell pregnant, I had them too every month, but I could still carry on as usual and wear pretty dresses and nice shoes. You’ll see, it’s no big deal, I promise…’ Meili looks down and sees that Nannan has fallen asleep on her shoulder.

‘I’m completely stuffed,’ Meili says, as the Spring Festival Gala draws to an end. She rests her maimed hand on her belly and feels Heaven’s heart thud below her skin.

‘Me too,’ Kongzi says, taking off his glasses. During the traditional comedy double act a few minutes ago, he roared with laughter. After a long silence he says: ‘At Spring Festival people go to the temples to give offerings to the Jade Emperor, the Bodhisattva of Mercy and the God of Prosperity, but no one thinks of giving offerings to Confucius.’