a feeble wail. You’re alive! Meili says silently. We can go back to Kong Village now – your rightful birthplace! She is certain that she’s not dreaming any more: she has given birth. After nine months of living in her womb – no, the government’s womb – Waterborn has finally come out into the world, and Meili is now a mother of two.
The delivery room has a dropped ceiling with a round fluorescent light that is as bright as a full moon. The curtain hanging over the door has an image of a red crane flying across a blue sky. A red cable dangling from the ceiling sways in the draught from the fan.
Meili feels limp and sapped of energy. She remembers that when she gave birth to Nannan at home she squeezed the metal bars of her bed frame so hard during the final push that they became twisted together. But the excruciating labour pains she endured just now, the splitting of bones and tearing of flesh as Waterborn’s head pushed through her pelvis, have already been forgotten and reabsorbed into her flesh. Immersed in a peaceful numbness, she watches the baby who was once part of her body adapt to her new surroundings. She senses that although the umbilical cord has been severed, an invisible thread still binds her to her daughter. They can never become one again, but neither can they ever be truly apart.
‘The arm came out first, the waters broke early, the labour was long and arduous: everything was pointing to a male birth,’ Ying sighs. During Meili’s labour, she said she was convinced the baby was a boy, and is clearly annoyed to have been proved wrong.
‘My daughter!’ Meili croaks, gesturing for the baby to be brought to her. She tries to think how she’d feel if the baby had been a boy, but just like her amniotic fluid, her imaginative faculties seem to have slipped out of her. I don’t mind what sex the baby is. She’s mine, and I’ll look after her just as I do Nannan. ‘Waterborn,’ she whispers, taking hold of the baby, a proud glow spreading across her damp face. Waterborn’s hands tremble and her head droops to the side. Her fine hair is caked with creamy white fetal grease.
‘Boy or girl, it’s still one more pair of hands to help out on the fields,’ Sister Mao says. ‘The placenta has been fully ejected. Scoop it up, Ying.’
Waterborn struggles floppily up Meili’s breast, as though searching for the warm wetness from which she’s been expelled. When at last her mouth becomes filled with Meili’s engorged nipple, her tiny body twitches with relief. ‘Drink my milk, little one. Keep sucking. That’s right.’ Meili’s tear-drenched cheeks flush a deep red.
‘Now that the baby’s born, you should return to your husband’s village,’ Sister Mao says. ‘I’ve seen that windless swamp where you’ve been camping. There are mosquitoes everywhere. It’s no place to bring up children.’
‘But we haven’t a home to return to,’ Meili says. ‘A family planning squad pulled down our house. Besides, my husband said we can only go home if the baby’s a boy.’ Meili sees her placenta lying in a plastic bowl on top of the washing machine. Flies swoop down and perch on the surface. Ying coils up the severed umbilical cord and places it beside the bowl.
‘So, is it a boy or a girl?’ Kongzi bellows, charging into the room, reeking of diesel. His legs and arms are lacerated from the glass panels he delivered last week. This morning he transported boxes of human hair to an illegal soy sauce factory. He’s brought four packets of instant noodles with him and a tin of processed ham.
‘A girl,’ Meili answers, trying to sound offhand as she squeezes her nipple back into Waterborn’s mouth.
Kongzi walks over to her, lifts the swaddling cloth and examines the baby for himself. His face scrunches in anger. ‘So I paid five hundred yuan for you to give birth to that!’ he shouts, then storms outside and lights a cigarette. Meili breathes a sigh of relief. The government and her husband are powerless now. Her baby will live. Looking down again, she catches sight of Waterborn’s left hand and cries out, ‘My God! Sister Mao, come and look! She’s got six fingers!’
‘Yes, there is one too many,’ Sister Mao concurs. ‘Let me check her right hand. Fine. And her feet. Normal too, thank goodness. Don’t worry. One extra finger isn’t a calamity. You know