the banks.’
‘The river’s become so polluted, there are hardly any fish left. Most of the fishermen round here have abandoned their nets and gone to find jobs in the cities. Ah! What a beautiful stretch of the river this is. It brings to mind that Song Dynasty poem: “Clouds appear to drift beneath the moving boat / The empty water is clear—”’
‘“—I gaze up, gaze down, and wonder whether / Beneath the lake’s surface, another Heaven exists,”’ Weiwei interrupts, completing the quatrain. He looks to the right and points to a mountain peak. ‘See that white sculpture at the top? That’s the mythical Dragon Mother.’
‘She’s so beautiful,’ Meili gasps. ‘But she looks like an angel or a goddess, not a mother.’
‘But mothers can be beautiful as well – just look at you!’ Weiwei says with a smile. Meili looks away bashfully and blurts out the first thing that enters her mind. ‘So, is the Dragon Mother a dragon herself, or a human being who’s a mother of dragons?’
‘She’s a local deity,’ Weiwei replies, ‘a goddess of rain, mothers and children. The legend goes that as a baby she was put on a wooden tray and cast off by her parents into the Xi River, then found and raised by a fisherman. When she grew up, she was able to control the floods. The people in this area call anyone with supernatural powers a dragon.’
Meili feels sick at the thought of a mother abandoning her baby. She imagines waves rolling over the baby’s head and its tiny body sinking to the riverbed. She looks up again at the Dragon Mother’s sparkling white figure, and the golden temple and bamboo grove behind it. Tourists appear to be crawling up the narrow path to the summit like an army of wriggling maggots.
As the boat approaches Yinluo, the river widens and divides, with a backwater branching off to the right. The dark water appears stagnant, but plastic bottles and polystyrene boxes are moving sluggishly across its surface. Shacks built from broken doors and plastic sheeting are dotted among the long grass at the far end. The warm evening breeze smells of rot and decay.
‘This must be the place I was told about,’ Weiwei says, gripping the canopy.
Meili steers to the right and advances with care. The water grows shallower and the engine begins to rumble and spew blue smoke into the air. Kongzi moves to the bow and darts from side to side, prodding his bamboo pole into the riverbed to check the depth. When they reach an expanse of floating rubbish that seems impassable, Meili slows the boat to a crawl. She tries veering to the right but Kongzi shouts out, ‘No, we’ll never make it to the bank this way,’ so she steers in the other direction and, after a while, finds a cleared channel that leads to the shore. A man walks out of one of the shelters and stares at them. Clouds of crows and mosquitoes hover overhead, making the grey sky look dark and soiled.
‘Are you a corpse fisher, my friend?’ Weiwei shouts to the man as they draw closer. ‘I’m looking for my mother.’
‘When did she drown?’ the man asks, walking to the shore. He’s wearing black trousers and a white vest, and is fanning his face with a straw hat.
‘Ten days ago,’ Weiwei answers, rubbing his goatee anxiously.
‘Only three women have washed up here this week. How old was your mother?’
‘Sixty-five.’
‘Those three are much younger than that. One is naked from the waist down. Her hands and feet are bound with rope and her toenails are painted red.’
‘And the other two?’ Weiwei asks plaintively.
‘The oldest looks no more than forty. Dark blue trousers, purple jacket, bare feet.’
‘Purple jacket? Let me see her.’
Meili turns off the engine and Kongzi punts the boat to the shore.
‘I must warn you, comrade, it will cost you 150 yuan to look at the corpse, and three thousand if you want me to dredge it out and arrange for a van to deliver it to your home. My fees are the lowest, though. That guy up there will charge you two hundred to look at the corpse. But he’s a crook. Unlike me, he can read, so he scans the newspapers’ missing persons notices, phones the families and tells them to come here, knowing very well he doesn’t have the bodies they’re looking for. I’d never do that. I have principles.’
‘You must make a fortune!’ Kongzi says. ‘A hundred and fifty yuan just