becomes too dark to see a thing, he lowers his head and lets out a guttural cry of misery. ‘My son, my son! Make your way back to us. “Summer wildfires cannot destroy the grass, For in spring, soft winds will restore it to life . . .” I cannot believe that in this immense country there is no space for my male descendant.’
Kongzi’s brother, three years his senior, also has one daughter, but didn’t register her in Kong Village in case they had a second child before she turned five. But a fellow villager who worked on his construction team in Wuhan reported him to the village police, so now neither his daughter nor any second child they might have will be granted a residence permit. Kongzi and his brother look almost identical. The brother left home ten years ago to work in Wuhan, and when he returned every Spring Festival with bundles of cash, Kongzi, the poorly paid school teacher, always felt inferior. The village school had so little money that parents had to buy the children’s desks and Kongzi had to provide his own. His brother paid for their wedding, spending five thousand yuan on a banquet for eighty guests and entertainment provided by the local song-and-dance troupe. He doesn’t enjoy conversation or reading books. When he returns to the village, he sits in front of the television all day, chain-smoking. Kongzi would love to talk to him now, but knows that if he mentioned the family’s need to produce a male heir, he’d be met with a blank silence. Kongzi is still convinced that only a son will bring him happiness. If his brother fails to produce one, the responsibility to continue the family line will fall on him. His brother’s wife is almost forty, so time is running out. Kongzi hasn’t dared phone his father and tell him that Meili was subjected to a forced abortion, and that the baby was a boy. Nor has he dared tell Meili that after they fled the village, his father was arrested and locked up for a week, and that because Meili didn’t turn up for her mandatory IUD insertion, his mother was forcefully fitted with one instead.
Nannan rouses from her sleep, kicks off her blanket and crawls blindly onto Kongzi’s lap.
‘Go back to your mat, Nannan,’ Kongzi says, pushing her away.
‘I frightened of Sea Dragon – he hiding here,’ Nannan says, pointing to her head. Before she went to sleep, Kongzi told her a story about a fairy called Flower Girl who was imprisoned by the Sea Dragon and rescued by the Bodhisattva of Mercy.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Kongzi replies. ‘The Sea Dragon died a long time ago.’
‘You said after my brother dead, he wake up again.’
‘Come and sleep next to me,’ Meili says. She pulls her down onto her mattress. The boat rocks from side to side. ‘Didn’t you hear me, Kongzi? Lower the curtains – I’m shivering. Now go back to sleep, Nannan.’
‘I like sleeping next to daddies, not mummies,’ Nannan says, rolling back towards Kongzi who’s lying on a folded blanket, his head resting on three magazines.
‘The nights are so cold now,’ Meili says, tucking a jumper around Nannan. ‘If we don’t withdraw some cash from the bank tomorrow and buy a generator and an electric heater, Nannan will come down with a terrible illness. We can’t live like animals any longer.’
MEILI IS WOKEN by distant voices shouting, ‘There’s a man in the town who’s threatening to leap from a five-storey building. Quick, everyone, go and have a look!’ As Meili sits up, a stream of Kongzi’s sperm leaks out from her and runs down her thigh. Grimacing with anger and disgust, she pulls some tissues from a box and stuffs them inside her knickers. That bloody condom must have split last night, she says to herself. If I fall pregnant, I’ll become an enemy of the Party again. During the eight months since the abortion she has fended off Kongzi, but last night she relented, and let him push his way inside her.
Kongzi rolls over and says, ‘If you’re going over to take a look, buy me a deep-fried dough stick. I’m starving.’
‘Why would I want to watch a stranger jump to his death?’ Meili says. ‘I’m not far off from jumping into the river myself. You want a dough stick? What about those noodles left over from yesterday?’ Kongzi’s cigarette smoke rises