and we’ll talk about this later.’ Meili feels anxious. She’s afraid the authorities will drag her off to have an abortion. She’s afraid the IUD is imbedded in the fetus, and has caused severe deformities. She’s also afraid that when Kongzi sees the IUD poking out of the baby’s body, he will fly into a violent rage.
Waterborn has settled into a routine. As soon as the rooster cries at dawn, it stretches its legs and wiggles its toes. At noon, it stays still for two hours, then, after supper, it turns somersaults, kicking into her ribs, its tiny elbows and toes poking through her skin. During this pregnancy, Meili’s hair and nails have been growing much faster than usual. As she can no longer reach her feet, Kongzi has to clip her toenails for her.
‘You remember Kong Qing?’ Kongzi says as he watches Meili plait her hair, the sunlight falling on her bulge. She’s sitting next to the smoking fire pit inside the hut. Soon she will add more twigs to the fire and start cooking a potato gruel flavoured with pickles and preserved egg.
‘No, remind me,’ she says. Although she lived in Kong Village for three years, she was more familiar with the actors she saw on television than the confusing array of neighbours who shared the surname Kong.
‘He’s my second cousin, the ex-artillery soldier. You know, the man who came to our house that night, carrying his aborted son in a plastic basin.’
‘Oh yes, Shasha’s husband. So what’s happened to him?’ Meili joins Kongzi outside and sits on a rickety cane chair propped against a wooden box. A swarm of rice skippers fly past, leaving a scent of paddy fields.
‘Well, after we left the village, their house was demolished and Kong Qing was sent to prison. Shasha travelled to the county headquarters with her daughters every week to complain to the authorities, but was eventually declared mentally ill. Once you’ve got that label stuck on you, you might as well be dead. You lose your residence permit, work permit and every other document that proves you exist. No official will listen to your complaints. Kong Qing was released from prison last month, but Shasha has now been locked up in a mental asylum and no one’s allowed to visit her. Poor Kong Qing’s in despair. His parents are having to look after the daughters now. He told me he wants to come and visit us next week.’
‘But how does he know where we are?’
‘I phoned Kong Zhaobo, and Kong Qing picked up the phone. He said I should come out of hiding and take command of his battle.’
‘What battle?’ Meili asks, then seeing Nannan rub a potato very slowly against a tree says, ‘That’s enough, Nannan. I’ll do the rest.’ Nannan brings the potatoes over and Meili begins to scrape them swiftly with a shard of glass she picks up from the ground.
‘No idea what he’s planning. But it turns out we’re not far from Kong Village. The road to Dexian continues all the way to Hubei Province. He could reach us by long-distance bus in one day.’
‘I don’t think it’s a good idea for him to come. It seems like most of the Kongs in the village have been arrested or jailed at some point. It would be safer if you kept your distance.’ Meili stares out at the ducks on the pond, and at the public road far behind that winds towards the distant hills like a long umbilical cord.
MEILI WAKES ABRUPTLY in the middle of the night, having rolled onto a cold bicycle pump. She hears the ducks padding about and squawking, as though someone were shooing them out of the enclosure. As she crawls out onto the deck, she sees a long shadow flit across the path and disappear. She leans back into the cabin and shakes Kongzi awake. ‘Quick! Get up! Someone’s stolen our ducks!’
Kongzi grabs his torch, shines it over the enclosure and sees that the wooden hutch has been smashed open and all the ducks are gone.
‘I can hear him shooing them on! Quick! That way!’ Meili hurries to the bow and points into the darkness.
Kongzi jumps ashore, grabs a sack and a wooden stick and sets off up the hill, following the man’s voice. Ten minutes later he returns dragging a large sack of ducks. He takes out the birds and counts them one by one. ‘We’re eight short,’ he