grant the Chinese people the right to decide how many children they have.’
‘Oh, Kong Qing?’ says Father, glancing nervously at Meili. ‘I don’t know him very well. He was an artillery soldier, I think. His wife was given a forced abortion before we left, and she never got over it. Who knows, if we hadn’t escaped the village when we did, perhaps I too would have started an uprising.’
KEYWORDS: dark road, waste channel, semicircle, river dragon, Heaven Township.
‘ARE WE THERE yet?’ Meili calls out from the bow. She stands up, takes a deep breath and feels the tart, bitter, sour night air slip down her throat like a foul medicinal brew. Yes, this is just the kind of air that could kill sperm, she thinks to herself. ‘So, this must be Heaven Township, where no woman need ever worry about falling pregnant!’ she says out loud. Afraid that Kongzi might have heard her, she closes her mouth, then inhales deeply through her nose, expels the air through pursed lips and feels the toxins stream into her blood. With a rush of excitement, she gazes out at the ragged river that is leading them to their new home.
‘Careful of that wreck!’ she shouts. The crumbling frame of a boat lying half-beached among the reeds on the right looks like the skeleton of some mythical river dragon. Above it stand two dilapidated, roofless houses. Kongzi proceeds cautiously downstream, his hand over his mouth to block out the chemical stench. The river narrows sharply. There are recently built tiled villas on both sides now, interspersed with ancient grey houses. A few tall pine trees stab into the night sky like masts of a ship.
‘No, this can’t be right,’ Kongzi says. ‘This isn’t a river, it’s a waste channel. We must ask for directions before we go any further. I’ll try to stop over there.’ He turns off the engine, crouches down and shines his torch over the bank.
A girl is squatting in the mud, scrubbing clothes on a stone slab. There’s a red plastic bucket beside her. A semicircle of river in front of her has been cleared of floating rubbish.
‘Is this Heaven Township?’ Kongzi shouts out, his torchlight falling on her yellow rubber gloves. She lifts her face and lowers it again. Her gloved hands continue to dunk the clothes in the dark water and rub them against the stone.
‘This must be it,’ says Meili. ‘Look how peaceful it is – almost other-worldly.’ She takes the torch from Kongzi, lets the beam wander over the buildings then rest on a whitewashed wall with a blue notice that says: USING THE LATEST TECHNOLOGY, OUR DEVICES MAKE YOUR ENERGY METER TURN BACKWARDS INSTEAD OF FORWARDS.
‘Well, I can’t moor here, there’s too much rubbish in the way,’ Kongzi says. He starts the engine again and keeps going, leaning over the side of the boat to check that the hull isn’t scraping against the riverbed.
A stone bridge appears ahead, with two boats tethered beside it. At one end of the bridge is a kiosk lit by a naked bulb. Meili sighs with relief. This must be the River of Forgetting, she says to herself, and that is the Bridge of Helplessness. Old Lady Meng is probably waiting beside it with her five-flavoured Broth of Amnesia.
Once they’ve sailed under the bridge a vast lake spreads out before them. Lights twinkle on buildings reflected around the margins. The water is as tranquil as a womb. As they breathe the sulphurous stench, Meili and Kongzi feel they’ve been banished from the sky and the earth and have slipped into an underworld city, a peaceful haven where they can safely settle down and put an end to their floating life. Meili’s face glows with joy. She coughs into her sleeve and hugs Kongzi’s thigh. ‘We’re in Heaven at last – we’ve found it!’ she cries. ‘The only place in China where women can never fall pregnant!’ As soon as these words come out, she bites her lip, taken aback by her daring.
‘Women can’t fall pregnant here?’ Kongzi says. ‘What nonsense! Let’s prove that wrong straight away.’ He takes his hands off the steering wheel and places them on her breasts. The boat turns in circles over the still water. But they don’t need to drop anchor now. This isn’t a river they have to follow upstream or downstream. They’ve reached the end: a place where Meili hopes she can rest, gather strength and live in peace.