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.’
‘How come?’ Meili asks, her eyes darting from her taut, slippery belly to the grainy image on the screen.
‘Because boys have two testicles, of course! Hah! The baby’s laughing!’ A pregnant woman walks in through the door. Dr Wang looks over her shoulder and says, ‘You’ll have to wait a minute, I’m afraid. Sit by the electric fan over there.’ Meili glances at the woman’s huge bump and muddy shoes then returns her eyes to the screen. ‘But it’s just a tiny skeleton – are you sure you saw it laugh?’ she says to the doctor. She moves her face closer to the screen. ‘You’re tricking me, aren’t you? That’s not my baby. It’s just an image stored on your computer. I dismantle machines like that every day. When I open the memory cards, all sorts of moving images pop up.’
‘But look, when your belly moves, the image moves as well. Are you a complete fool?’
‘I may not be well educated, but my husband is a schoolteacher,’ Meili says indignantly, wiping her damp face.
‘Well, hold the probe and slide it around. See how the image changes?’
‘All right,’ Meili says, reassured. ‘Just tell me if it’s a boy or a girl.’
‘A girl! No doubt about it. But I can put that it’s a boy on the form, if you want. Just don’t tell anyone I filled it out.’ She turns to the other woman and says, ‘If you’ve decided to have the abortion, I can do it straight away,’ then pulls down her face mask and whispers to Meili, ‘That woman’s expecting twins. She’s booked for an induction next week.’ Without her face mask, she looks ten years older.
‘Are they boys or girls?’ Meili asks the woman, sitting up on the bed.
‘One of each,’ the woman answers proudly. ‘Is this your first pregnancy?’
‘No, my fourth. And you?’
‘My third. I used to have two girls, then I got pregnant with twins as soon as I arrived in Heaven.’
‘What happened to the girls?’ Meili asks in the condescending tone she reserves for peasants less sophisticated than her.
‘The eldest lives with my parents, and Dr Wang helped get the second one adopted. We can’t afford to bring up daughters.’
Dr Wang looks down at Meili and says, ‘If you don’t want your baby, I can arrange for her to be adopted as well. They’ll pay you four thousand yuan.’
‘How much do I owe you for the scan?’ Meili answers, wanting to leave at once. ‘Please write that it’s a boy on the form.’
On the way home, Meili feels her belly become heavier and the small of her back begin to throb. When I give birth to the baby girl, Kongzi might sell her to a Welfare Office, she says to herself. And if I tell him now that it’s a girl, he’ll force me to have an abortion. The only safe option is for me to keep quiet and for the baby to stay exactly where it is. She remembers how her belly shuddered when the needle pierced her skin and entered Happiness’s skull. She remembers the smile on Happiness’s face as he lay dead in the plastic bag below her. She remembers Waterborn staring at a lock of her hair as she suckled at her breast. My womb is your refuge, little Heaven, she whispers softly. As long as I’m alive, I will protect you. As she approaches the front gate, she hears barking and quacking, and knows the neighbour’s Labrador must be attacking the duck pen again. Mayflies are hovering outside their front door. A few dead ones are lying on the ground, being devoured by beetles. Kongzi has raised seven ducks. He never lets them out on the river, because except for the plastic rubbish and rotten leaves, there’s nothing in the polluted water for them to eat.
‘It’s a boy,’ Meili announces, surprised by her nerve. Her legs tense as she imagines Kongzi flying into a rage when the baby is born and he sees it’s a girl.
‘A boy!’ he cries out with joy. ‘Wonderful news! My darling wife, everything is in order now! This is the