flying into the air.
‘Just think things through, Meili!’ Kongzi says, wiping his wet face on his T-shirt. ‘The brain surgery alone would cost thirty thousand yuan. And even if it’s successful, she’ll still need full-time care for the rest of her life.’ He flinches as his tongue touches the two large ulcers on his gums, which cause him so much pain he hasn’t dared have a cigarette all day.
‘You love Nannan, so there’s no reason you can’t learn to love Waterborn as well. I’m sick of your male chauvinism. No wonder Confucius wasn’t welcomed during his travels – jabbering on about male superiority all the time!’ Meili stares out at the heat haze above the pond, and at the large banyan tree on a hill far behind that is blotting out the setting sun. Then she goes to the stove and puts some water on to boil.
‘She needs the operation,’ Kongzi continues. ‘The doctor said she might have a brain tumour.’
Meili wonders if the IUD did indeed become embedded in Waterborn’s brain, and is the cause for all the problems. She decides to get Waterborn’s head X-rayed, no matter how much it costs.
Kongzi pulls a cigarette from his pocket and sniffs it longingly. ‘It’s nothing to do with her being a girl. We just don’t have the resources to look after her.’
‘I don’t trust that doctor. We should get a second opinion. If she does have a tumour, we’ll have it removed.’ Meili has rolled her white vest up to her neck. When she bends over, her bare breasts hang down like two long gourds.
‘Huh – women: long hair, small brains,’ Kongzi mutters under his breath. He turns to Nannan. ‘You haven’t recited the Three Character Classic for days. Come on, give me the first lines.’
‘“People at birth. Good by nature. Mother of Mencius. Chose good home. Son didn’t study. Broke loom’s shuttle . . .”’ Nannan walks towards him, swinging her hips in time with the chant.
‘Stop – you missed at least six lines,’ Kongzi says, then blows out a long stream of air in a useless attempt to cool himself. The hills surrounding this swampy marsh block off all the wind, so in summer the heat is unbearable.
‘Ugh, your mouth farted, Dad,’ Nannan says, catching a whiff of Kongzi’s rancid breath. She turns and runs off into the reeds to look for grasshoppers and cockroaches to feed to the ducks.
‘If Confucius came back to life now and discovered that it’s illegal to set up unofficial schools, he’d die of despair.’ Kongzi still dreams of returning to teaching. Sweat is streaming down his suntanned neck onto his pale chest. He’s built a small porch for the hut out of bamboo and plastic sheeting, and laid plantain leaves on the ground underneath, hoping it would provide a refuge from the heat. At midday, it does offer some shade, but when the sun shines obliquely in the late afternoon it turns into a heat trap.
Waterborn is lying naked between Meili’s breasts, panting for breath like a wawa fish freshly scooped from a river. When the sun’s rays hit her red swollen eyes, she turns her head and wails. Nannan rushes up and says, ‘Stop crying, you naughty girl!’ then, just as Kongzi used to do to her, she raises a palm and shouts, ‘If you don’t shut up, I’ll hit you!’
‘Waterborn will get heatstroke if we don’t cool her down,’ Meili says. ‘I can’t bathe her in that filthy creek. Let’s take some towels and sail to the Xi River.’
‘You need a permit to sail during a flood. If the river police caught us, we’d get a huge fine.’ The truth is, Kongzi sailed along the Xi River all morning without being stopped once. He just doesn’t want to have to go out on the boat again. He looks at Meili and says, ‘If we don’t pay off the 4,000-yuan fine for Waterborn’s birth soon, we’ll be in deep trouble.’
‘But now that she’s born, we’re safe,’ Meili replies. Seeing that the water in the pan hasn’t come to the boil yet, she goes to crouch in the shade of a willow and pushes her nipple into Waterborn’s mouth. ‘The officers are rolling in money – they won’t bother trekking down here just to collect our miserable cash.’
‘Didn’t you hear about that woman called Cui who lives at the edge of the village? When she couldn’t pay the illegal birth fine, the officers drowned her six-month-old baby in a pigs’ water trough.