pushes her nipple back into Waterborn’s mouth. ‘What does your husband do, Hua?’ she asks.
‘He works at the Radiance Hair Factory. I believe your husband’s delivered some stock to them.’
‘What do they do with the hair?’ Meili asks, coiling her own hair into a bun then securing it with a twig.
‘If it’s long, they make wigs out of it. If it’s short, they ferment it.’ The two sisters are now sitting down on the beer crate, cooling themselves with the paper fans Nannan has just made.
‘Ferment it? To make shampoo?’ Meili closes her eyes briefly and imagines sailing upstream to a clean stretch of the Xi River, then jumping in and washing herself with soap. Although according to custom she is allowed to bathe now that her confinement is over, she still wouldn’t dare enter the filthy creek. Kongzi brings back bottles of clean river water from his trips, but never enough to wash more than her hands and face.
‘See that brand of soy sauce you have there?’ says Hua, pointing her fan at the bottle. ‘It’s made from fermented hair. Hair is amazing stuff: it’s full of nutritious protein and amino acids, and it never rots. A corpse’s hair can survive thousands of years.’
Waterborn frowns nervously. She has very little hair on her scalp, and small scratches on her eyelids and forehead. Although she’s in the shade, she doesn’t dare open her eyes. Her damp face glistens like a peeled lychee.
‘I’ve heard that parents in the village mutilate their babies then rent them out to illegal gangs,’ Meili blurts, unable to restrain her curiosity.
‘Nonsense!’ exclaims Hua, the gold wedding ring glinting on her chubby finger. ‘Only a couple of families have done that. They may have nice houses now, but no one will speak to them. They’ve ruined the reputation of the village.’
‘She’s got your ears, I see,’ says Gu, ‘and your upward-slanting eyes.’
‘Thank goodness the family planning officers are relaxed here, or I would have got into deep trouble,’ Meili says.
‘They used to be much stricter,’ Hua replies. ‘When the Fujian couple’s third daughter was just three days old, the officers came down here and drowned her in the pond.’
‘No!’ gasps Meili, her eyes moving to the pond’s still surface. The drake is floating in the middle, his beak in the air, while the ducks drift slowly around him with bowed heads.
‘No, they didn’t drown the baby – they kicked her to death up there,’ Gu says, pointing to the terraced hill behind. A dog’s black tail darts down a path running between the overgrown fields.
‘I heard someone’s offered you seven thousand yuan for her already,’ Hua whispers to Meili.
‘If you wait any longer, the price will go down,’ Gu says softly.
‘So, you’re agents?’ Meili asks, staring at the crate lying at the edge of the creek, which she uses as a rubbish bin to keep the flies away from the hut.
‘It can’t be cheap, rearing ducks. Look, it’s not as if you’re paying Sister Mao to break her legs. You’ll be selling her to an orphanage who will export her to a foreign country where there are no mosquitoes in summer, no flies in winter, and medical care is free. She’ll be in Heaven!’
‘Your baby’s retarded, no doubt about it. So do it for her sake. If not for her sake, then do it for your husband and your elder daughter.’
‘But I heard that if orphanages can’t get the children adopted, they sell them to child traffickers who break their limbs and force them to beg on the streets,’ Meili says testily.
‘No, no, that’s complete nonsense,’ Gu says, flicking a fly away from her bottle of fizzy orange.
‘Trust us, egg lady, we wouldn’t lie to you,’ Hua says. The drake on the pond puffs out his chest and grunts.
‘My name is Meili – so don’t call me “egg lady”!’ Meili says, staring down angrily at the plantain leaves on the ground.
‘But that’s what we call people who live on boats. Perhaps you northerners use a different term.’
‘We’re not from the north, and we’re not from the south – we’re from the very centre, just like this!’ Meili says, pointing to her crotch, then laughing triumphantly. The sisters roll their eyes, not knowing where to look. ‘Yes, I was born in the birthplace of Nuwa, the goddess of fertility and the founder of the Chinese race. So don’t patronise me.’
Gu pulls out a box from her bag. ‘Try one of these, my dear. I made them myself. You’ve