only recently finished your confinement. You need to build up your strength.’
Meili takes the box and lifts the lid. ‘How pretty! Nannan, come and look! I’ve never seen sticky rice cakes as green as this before.’
‘It’s a local speciality,’ Hua says. ‘We colour glutinous rice with crushed motherwort, then divide it into small balls which we steam then roll in shredded coconut.’
‘Would you like to buy today’s batch of eggs?’ Meili asks, trying to steer the conversation further away from Waterborn. ‘I’ll sell them to you for three mao each and you can sell them on for five. Pay me later, if you don’t have cash on you.’
‘All right,’ Gu says. ‘I’ll take some and see how I do. If they don’t sell, I’ll preserve them in salt and eat them myself. Those bananas up there look ripe. Feel free to chop some off.’ Most of the banana trees have died; only two are still producing fruit. A swarm of flies are now circling the sisters, attracted perhaps by the smell of warm rice rising from their clothes. They stand up and get ready to leave.
‘You’re so clever, you family planning violators – you’ve realised you can make far more money having babies than you could raising pigs!’ Hua says conspiratorially. ‘How many more do you plan to have?’
‘I’m finished now!’ Meili says, getting up and brushing off the coconut shreds that have fallen onto her breasts. ‘My husband’s desperate for a son, but I refuse to have any more.’
‘I only ever wanted one,’ says Gu. ‘I read in the papers that if a woman eats tadpoles on a regular basis, she’ll never get pregnant. So after I had my first child, I scooped some from a pond every week and swallowed them. Fine lot of good it did! I was pregnant again within two months!’ Gu laughs loudly, revealing her long yellow teeth.
‘But who can afford to have more than one child these days, the way school fees and medical fees keep rising?’ Hua says.
‘So how many children do you have, Hua?’ Meili asks, glancing down at the braised duck simmering on the stove.
‘Four. Only two of them are legally registered, though.’
‘I’ve told you, Hua, you must hurry up and buy permits for the other two or they won’t be able to go to school,’ Gu says.
‘If you do decide you want to go ahead with the sale, come and speak to us,’ Hua says to Meili. ‘Don’t go to that guy who runs the scrapyard. He’s a nasty crook. If the babies are alive, he sells them to traffickers, and if they’re dead he sells them to restaurants.’
‘I would never sell my own child,’ Meili says, softly rocking Waterborn as she starts to cry again. ‘If she does turn out to be mentally handicapped, I won’t mind – I’d be happy to look after her for the rest of my life.’
‘We just want to help you secure a good future for your daughter, and for your family as well,’ Gu says. ‘If you sell her, everyone will benefit.’
‘Yes, it will be a win–win situation, just like President Jiang Zemin said to the US in the international trade discussions last week,’ Hua says. ‘Come on now, let’s go and choose our eggs.’
When the sisters walk past her, they seem to give off more heat than the scorching pot on the stove.
KEYWORDS: flea-ridden, magnet, scum, beautification fee, gangsters, Custody and Repatriation Centre.
RETURNING TO THE hut and seeing Nannan sitting alone under the porch and the boat gone, Meili knows at once that Kongzi has gone to give Waterborn away.
‘Where’s Daddy, Nannan?’ she shouts.
‘He said he’s taking Waterborn on a trip. He said he’ll be back very soon, and when he comes back I’ll be his only daughter and he’ll only love me.’
‘The evil bastard! I know what he’s done – he’s gone to sell her to a Welfare Office! Kongzi, you monster! You force me to get pregnant, then you take my baby from me. You’re worse than the Communist Party. I despise you. I never want to set eyes on you again!’ Shaking with rage and howling curses, she kicks out at the wok and bowls on the ground, stamps on the peanut oil and mosquito coils she just bought in the village, then turns round and marches away into the fields. The ducks in the pond flap their wings and take flight.
‘Mummy, come back, I’m frightened . . .’ Nannan cries out, but Meili is so delirious with