poke out from between smashed printer cartridges and scraps of burnt fibreglass, signalling the arrival of spring. Last night, Meili said she must give birth on a boat because if Heaven were to be born on the land it would share the same sad fate as Happiness. Before they left, she placed a pair of scissors inside the plastic bag that contains baby clothes, towels and muslin cloths and the digital camera she’s been saving for this day.
‘If we go any further we’ll reach the sea,’ Kongzi says. The large sack swung over his shoulder is stuffed with pillows, blankets and plastic sheets. A passage he read from Nannan’s diary last night flashes into his mind: ‘Daddy slept with a prostitute. I pulled the quilt over my head and cried. After Mummy ran off in a temper, Daddy gave me ten yuan and told me to go and buy him some cigarettes. The horrible beast! I can never love him again . . .’
‘No, the sea’s still far away, beyond that distant line of trees,’ Meili says. ‘But look down there, Kongzi! It’s our boat! It must be. I can hear the ducks quacking. I can even smell their rotten eggs.’ The truth is, Meili can’t see the sea. The sky is still too dark, and besides, the unfinished buildings in the mid-distance block out most of the view.
Rejected scrap from the workshops of Heaven is brought to this stretch of the river and incinerated on the banks, as it’s considered far enough away from the township’s residential area. The camphor and coconut trees along the side of the path are coated in a black ash, and emit a smell that reminds Kongzi of burnt gunpowder. He looks down at the wreck Meili is pointing to, and remembers coming across their boat somewhere else, but can’t remember where.
‘Are you sure you’ve gone into labour?’ he asks.
‘Yes, my belly is definitely tightening,’ Meili replies. ‘Very soon, we’ll be able to meet little Heaven. Let’s go down and climb onto our boat. It may not be sturdy enough to take us out to sea, but at least it can shelter me while I give birth to our child. The boat is on the water, and the water is moving. No family planning officers would dare come to this wretched place. I will give birth to Heaven, for the sake of our lost Happiness. Weiwei couldn’t find his mother. We can’t find Nannan. This is what fate has decreed. But after one child disappears, another will arrive. Oh, Golden Flower Mother, I haven’t exceeded my quota. My only child will be a legal citizen, and will be granted a residence permit when we return home. So I beg you, make sure that it arrives safely into the world today.’
Kongzi helps Meili descend the garbage-strewn bank and tells her to sit down while he gets the boat ready. The wreck is half in the water and half out, its bow resting on water reeds and a heap of mobile-phone batteries. The planks wobble and creak as he steps aboard. He climbs carefully into the cabin, spreads the plastic sheets over the deck and lays out the pillows and blankets. Then he treads onto a pile of crushed transformers on the bank, pulls a tarpaulin off a mound of ash and wedges it under the bow to stabilise the deck. ‘It’s ready now,’ he says. Meili steps aboard and crawls into the cabin. She pulls off her trousers, lies down on the blankets, places a pillow between her thighs and stares out at the dark blue sky. ‘When it gets a little lighter, I’ll be able to see straight up into Heaven,’ she says with a smile. ‘Will you shift the boat round a little, Kongzi, so that the baby will come out facing north, towards its rightful place of birth? All that’s missing now is the date tree in the yard.’
‘The stern is rotten. If I try to move it, the whole boat will fall apart.’ Kongzi’s face is perspiring heavily and his legs are caked in mud and ash. He closes his eyes and sees another page from Nannan’s diary: ‘I have felt happiness a few times, but it has always been tinged with sadness. My parents think I’m just a naughty child. I don’t think much of myself either. Mum hates me. I hate Dad – I wish I wasn’t his daughter . . .’