over her mother’s shoulder again and smiles. She has two upper and two lower teeth. Meili pretends not to see her.
‘I’ve seen your husband on the boat in the evenings,’ the woman says, ‘sitting out on the deck smoking while you cook supper. How lucky you are!’ Then she turns to the bank and shouts to her two older daughters, ‘Come and have your lunch, girls.’ They’re standing on a field of cabbages near an abandoned barge that’s being used as a chicken hutch. A rooster digging at the muddy bank spots a cabbage leaf out of the corner of its eye and scuttles over to it.
‘But your husband has done so well, setting up his cargo business,’ Meili says. ‘Mine just works on a demolition site. He used to be a teacher, though. Men – if you don’t keep them on a tight rein, their eyes are bound to wander.’ She glances into her boat and sees Nannan is still asleep. Her sweat-soaked hair is stuck to her face, and below her rucked-up skirt insects are crawling over her chubby thighs.
‘He’s grown tired of me,’ the woman says, snapping the garlic shoots in half. ‘You know what they say: the song of the wild duck in the fields always sounds more melodious than the clucking of the hen at home.’ Her T-shirt has large damp patches over her breasts.
Meili watches the woman move about the deck – sallow cheeks, lined forehead, hunched, twig-like frame – and imagines how a man would feel lying on top of her at night. She thinks how, in ten years, she will be thirty and by then she too may have three or four children. The thought terrifies her. Whatever happens, she won’t confine herself to the role of housewife like this woman. Once Happiness is born, she will find a job, train as a beautician and dress her children in the finest clothes. The woman’s elder daughters jump aboard and the boat tips to the side. Their faces are grimy and their bare feet covered in mud.
‘I’ll leave you to have lunch,’ Meili says, stepping back onto her boat and unfastening the rope. ‘It’s time for my daughter to wake up.’
The noon sun scorches the tarpaulin canopy and the wooden deck at the bow and stern. Even the shade inside the cabin is swelteringly hot. Meili wants to sail downriver to pick up a breeze, but isn’t confident using the outboard motor yet. Kongzi has said he’d like to pick up some work hauling cargo, but doesn’t know who to approach. There are thirty or so families living in the houseboats moored here. Most of the men work in factories or on demolition sites; only a few have managed to make a living transporting goods. When the men return at dusk, they come laden with vegetables, deep-fried dough sticks and packets of instant noodles, and the wharf area becomes filled with the smell of chemical flavourings and the squealing and cursing of children.
KEYWORDS: watermelon, dirt poor, purple lines, osmanthus branches, blush, porn movie, I love you.
SITTING OUTSIDE THE cabin with his knees drawn up to his chest, Kongzi looks into the night sky and recites a Tang poem: ‘“Beside my bed, bright moonlight sparkles on the ground like frost. / I raise my head and gaze at the moon, then lower it and think of home . . .” Look how golden the moon is tonight. No wonder it’s inspired so much beautiful poetry.’
Meili remains silent, queasy from the heavy rocking of the boat. Every evening at this time, as mosquitoes start to swarm above the banks, they sail to the middle of the river to hide from the police patrol boat, and the waves are always much stronger here. Last night, Kongzi came home late, so Meili sailed herself and Nannan into the moon’s reflection which spanned almost the entire breadth of the river. When they reached the middle, she dropped anchor and watched the splintering moonlight on the water’s surface quiver and embrace, just as she and Kongzi did the night they first kissed behind the Sky Beyond the Sky Hotel. Although it was a squat concrete building with faded paint, its neat brick paths, circular doorways, trimmed lawns and white fences brought an air of the city to Kong Village. That night four years ago, when the moon hung high overhead, Kongzi pressed her against a tree, kissed her on the lips, then pulled her knickers off.