at the rows of granite tombstones and the funeral offerings arranged below them: oranges, apples, sodden cardboard cars and paper women labelled MISTRESS in black ink that has blurred in the rain. She presses the bony stump of her finger and a sharp jolt of pain races straight to her heart, then blood begins to pour from it again like water from a tap. She rips off her sleeve and wraps it tightly around the wound to stem the flow . . . My life is dripping away from me. This is where I will say goodbye to the world . . . When she married Kongzi she persuaded herself that although he might not be rich, he was descended from an educated and illustrious family, and that together they could lead a contented life. She never asked for much. She agreed to abandon their village and live as vagrants in order to give him the male heir he yearned for. But over the years, his obsessive desire for a son has blinded and warped him, and he sees her now only as a creature of reproduction. She’d hoped that once little Heaven was born, she could return to Kong Village, open a shop, look after her mother and live in peace. But this hope has vanished. Yes, she should walk straight to the end of her life and step over the edge . . .
Glancing down at her feet, she sees an imitation wedding certificate with a magazine snapshot of the beautiful film star Gong Li pasted next to a photograph of a wizened old man. Didn’t Kongzi once say that when he reaches the netherworld, he too would like to marry Gong Li? Perhaps in that faraway land, all dreams really can be fulfilled. This isn’t the burial place she’d imagined for herself, but what does it matter? In the end, we must all return to the earth, and one patch of soil is no different from another. She remembers, aged seventeen, sitting in a black car on the way to her wedding, her face caked in thick, itchy make-up. Attached to the roof were gifts of folded bedcovers and a warm, musty-smelling basket of ducklings. Kongzi turned to her and said, ‘Once we’re married, you’ll belong to me, and I’ll be making all the decisions in the family. Don’t even think of spreading your pink blossom over the garden walls.’ He put his hand on hers and she felt sick with shyness. As a child, she loved to hear her grandmother tell her the story of the cowherd and the celestial weaver girl, who crossed the Milky Way once a year on a bridge of magpies just to spend one night together, and she hoped that one day she would experience a love as passionate as theirs. Meili walks to a tree and leans against it. She has no idea what it’s called. It has leaves as large as her hands and smooth, snake-like branches. All she needs to do now is pull her belt off and strap her neck to a branch . . . Although Tang and Weiwei showed her affection, she has never been unfaithful to Kongzi. To save him distress, she never told him about the rape, and avenged the crime herself. Glancing at her feet, she sees a fat-bellied frog crawling through the grass and feels an urge to stamp on it. Her left hand has gone numb. Blood is dripping from the wound onto the wet, corpse-filled earth. She regrets that her efforts to help Kongzi preserve his family line prevented her fulfilling her duties towards her parents. For years, she’s denied herself luxuries, scrimping and saving so that they can send money home, but most of it goes to Kongzi’s family. She knows her mother would never contemplate drowning herself, as Weiwei’s mother did. She remembers how her mother hugged her with trembling arms the day her friend jumped into a deep well with her four-year-old daughter strapped to her back after finding out that her husband had slept with another woman. Am I afraid of death? Meili wonders, reminding herself that in a few minutes’ time she’ll be hanging from the tree. No, I’m not afraid. I shake with terror at the sight of a family planning officer, but when I look death in the eye, I feel perfectly calm. She pulls off her leather belt. Perhaps she really does have foreign blood in her veins. She remembers hearing