she wants him to carry her.
‘Me tired. Carry me.’
‘I told you, I haven’t brought my energy,’ he says, squeezing her hand. ‘Keep climbing. Don’t look up.’
Halfway up they reach a narrow lane. Kongzi leads them to the left and stops outside a dark entrance. Rows of rusty letter boxes are nailed to the cement walls inside. Some have been smashed open, others are stuffed with flyers offering to buy unwanted television sets.
‘Look at that slogan on the wall,’ says Meili, still catching her breath.
Kongzi turns to the crumbling wall and reads out loud: ‘“After the first child: an IUD. After the second child: sterilisation. Pregnant with a third or a fourth? Then the fetus will be killed, killed, killed!” Don’t worry. That’s an old one. Look, the paint is flaking off. Yes, this is definitely the right place. Here’s his letter box. Flat 121.’ He dumps his plastic bag on the ground and opens the door to the communal stairwell.
‘Daddy, careful, big bad wolf in there,’ Nannan whispers.
‘I’ll wait here with Nannan,’ Meili says. As he disappears, a smell of boiled mutton blows out from the stairwell and makes her stomach churn. She falls to her knees and vomits. Nannan jumps back in disgust.
‘Quick: cover it with some of that rubbish,’ Meili tells her, pointing to the dusty newspapers and orange peel in the corner.
Kongzi returns a few minutes later. ‘He’s not there. The woman in the flat next door said he moved to another town two months ago.’
‘I need to pee,’ Meili says in a panic.
‘You can’t do it here – we’re not in the countryside any more. Let’s go back down to the wharf and find you a toilet.’
So they pick up their bags, tramp back down the steep steps and book into the stationary barge hotel.
At night, the newly built apartment blocks jutting from the mountain top resemble featureless planks of wood. A few have lights on, but most are still dark.
‘Look at that block up there: it must be twelve storeys high,’ Meili says. ‘If the top windows were opened, birds could fly straight in.’ Now that Nannan is asleep, she and Kongzi have come out to sit on the barge’s open deck. The hotel is mostly occupied by migrant workers. The cabins reek of mould and the toilets are so squalid no one dares to use them.
Kongzi wraps his down jacket over his shoulders and looks out at the river. ‘What a fine view! It reminds me of that Tang Dynasty poem: “In spring the river swells to the height of the sea. / The bright moon lifts from the surface of the water and rises with the tide.”’ He takes a drag on his cigarette then exhales slowly, clouding his thick glasses.
‘I’d like to go up one of those blocks and see the view from the top,’ Meili says, still staring at the lights twinkling on the mountain.
‘What a philistine you are! How can you look at apartment blocks when we have the eternal Yangtze to gaze upon? Our greatest poet, Li Bai, sailed down this river a thousand years ago and immortalised it in his verse. The Yangtze is our nation’s artery of life. It’s by these banks that the Chinese people first settled and cultivated the arts of civilisation.’
‘You think I haven’t heard of Li Bai? “I bid farewell to Baidi Town in the rosy clouds of dawn. / By nightfall, I’ll be back in Jiangling, a thousand miles away. / On both sides of the gorge, apes cry unceasingly. / My light raft has already passed through ten thousand mountain folds.”’ Meili smiles proudly, then, as she always does when Kongzi accuses her of being uncultured, says, ‘I can’t be too much of a philistine, or you wouldn’t have married me, would you?’
‘I taught you that poem,’ says Kongzi, his white teeth gleaming in his thin, dark face.
‘Nonsense! I learned it at primary school.’
Kongzi takes another long drag. ‘What a crime it is to destroy this beautiful ancient town!’ he says, and after a long sigh recites: ‘“Against the river’s jade waters, the birds appear whiter. / Against the blue mountains, the flowers appear aflame. / Yet another spring ends. / How many more will pass before I can return home?”’ Then taking Meili’s hand, which she’s been keeping warm in the sleeve of his down jacket, he says, ‘I’d love to hear the “Fishing Boat Lullaby” now. It’s an ancient zither song. Do you know the words?’
‘Stop testing me,’ she