Part 4 (1/2)

KEYWORDS: watermelon, dirt poor, purple lines, osmanthus branches, blush, p.o.r.n 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.

Meili brushes mosquitoes from Nannan's sleeping face and looks out into the darkness. She remembers how sometimes when she stepped outside at night back in Kong Village their yard would look frozen, silver, dead. Now, she can see the same eerie and sombre light falling on a distant bend of the river.

'What's troubling you?' Kongzi asks her as she walks out onto the deck. 'Relax. Just look out at this wide-open s.p.a.ce. It's strange I knew nothing about boats before, but now I feel I belong on the river. Life is so much better here than it was in the village.' He's lying across the bow, his head propped up on a folded jacket, swigging from a bottle of beer. He's just had a dip, and his wet underpants are clinging to his skin. Meili and Nannan haven't learned to swim yet, but are confident enough to wade about at the edge of the river, wearing inflatable rings. This afternoon, Meili floated in the river until sunset, enjoying feeling the water wash the sweat from her skin and her body become weightless. She could tell that Happiness was comfortable as well as it swirled around her womb, trailing its hands through her amniotic fluid.

'How soon you're ready to forget your own home!' Meili says, rinsing Kongzi's muddy sandals in the river then placing them neatly outside the cabin. 'Kong Village is beautiful, too. Dark Water River is almost as broad as the Yangtze, and the reservoir is larger than any lake I've seen here.' In her mouth she can still taste the sweet watermelon they ate a few minutes ago.

'Confucius said, ”The n.o.ble man embraces virtue while the petty man thinks only of his home,”' Kongzi replies defensively. When he's not wearing his thick gla.s.ses, his features seem to protrude more. His hands and face are covered in plasters. For the past week his team has been demolis.h.i.+ng Sanxia's Cultural Centre. He's brought back many books and magazines he rescued from the shelves.

'Last year, when I suggested we should leave Nannan with my mother and go south to find work, you said: No, we can't leave home because Confucius said, ”While your parents are alive do not travel afar.” You're always contradicting yourself.'

Kongzi gets up and drives the boat back to the bank. Above the wharf, a single light bulb s.h.i.+nes down on three bare-chested men who are leaning on a green billiard table smoking cigarettes. 'You know very well that if we returned to the village now, we'd be finished,' he says. He manoeuvres the boat into its mooring then sits down and takes another gulp of beer. 'Half of these houseboats are occupied by family planning fugitives like us. We're safe. The authorities won't bother us. Next week I'll find you a midwife.'

'There's no need. That pregnant woman who has three daughters told me she's attended many births, and has offered to help me when my time comes . . . Stop drinking that cheap beer. If it's fake, you're going to get very sick.' She turns down the radio Kongzi salvaged from the Cultural Centre, then leans over to scratch the mosquito bites covering his legs. 'If we had a fridge, we'd be able to save the rest of the watermelon for tomorrow,' she sighs.

'As soon as I get my next wage, I'll buy a mini generator and an electric heater,' Kongzi says, proud that he's now able to provide for his family. Yesterday, he bought four ducks and put them in the bamboo cage. This dilapidated boat has offered them the possibility of a better future.

'No, let's buy a television first. It's so quiet here at night, I can hear every thought pa.s.sing through my head.' Meili lies down on her back next to Kongzi and stares at her bulge. 'What if it's a girl?' she says. 'I warn you, I won't get pregnant a third time.' Feeling her circulation become restricted, she turns onto her side and rests her swollen feet on Kongzi's legs.

'If it's a girl, we'll keep her. Then, when I've made enough money, we'll buy a bigger boat, with two cabins, sail downriver and try again for a boy. No one will be able to stop us.'

'You really think so? The land is controlled by the land police and the rivers by the river police. We can never escape the government's claws.' A smell of duck s.h.i.+t wafts up from the cage below and she wrinkles her nose in disgust.

'The river police only collect navigation fees and check licences. They don't deal with family planning crimes.'

'But we can't live like this for ever. Your parents need us. They shouldn't be having to chase pigs around the yard and rake up chicken s.h.i.+t at their age.' Under the bamboo stool beside her is a bag containing a towel, two muslin cloths, and a tiny vest and pair of shorts, ready for Happiness's arrival. Knowing that she'll be preoccupied after the birth, she has already made the small quilt Happiness will need in the winter. She'd like to light a candle now and begin sewing a baby jacket, but fears it might attract more mosquitoes.

'All I miss about the village is the school,' Kongzi says. 'I miss standing in front of my cla.s.s and delivering a lesson. My throat is dry from lack of use.'

Meili feels a pang of sympathy for him. To protect their family, he's had to give up his vocation. Scratching his bitten calves with her toes, she says, 'Let me sing you a song to cheer you up, then. Darling husband, we shared our home and the household expenses, trod the same floorboards, slept in the same bed. My head next to yours on the pillow how happy I was! Now, alone under my single sheet, I roll to the left and weep, then roll to the right and sigh . . .'

'Don't sing me a funeral lament!' Kongzi says, flicking his cigarette stub into the river. 'It'll bring us bad luck. Besides, your grandmother's songs belong to the past.'

'It's supposed to be bad luck to bring a woman on board a boat, so why not throw me into the river if you're so superst.i.tious!' Meili's grandmother is a small, fragile woman whose forehead is pockmarked from childhood measles. When she was thirteen, and Nuwa County was gripped by famine, her dest.i.tute parents sold her for just half a bag of rice and a bamboo lute to the aged caretaker of Nuwa Temple. A year later, the old man married her. He taught her traditional opera and let her sing at every temple ceremony. At twenty, she learned the art of funeral wailing from a singer called Old Lady Wu, and became so proficient that her fame spread throughout the county. Meili remembers watching her stand before crowds of grievers wearing a turban of white mourning cloth, and unleash agonised high-pitched laments with tears streaming down her face. It was considered a mark of prestige for a family to have her sing at a wake. 'The songs my grandmother taught me are beautiful,' Meili says to Kongzi. 'Her voice has cracked, so I'm the only one in my family who can sing them now. All right, if you don't want a funeral song, here's a Deng Lijun ballad instead: If I forget him, I'll lose my way. I'll sink into misery . . .' When she finishes the ballad, she rolls onto her back again, bends her knees and waves a fan over her face. 'I blush with shame when I have to tell people you work on a demolition site. When you were a teacher, I could hold my head up high.'

'It wasn't such a great job. The salary was pitiful.'

'But I was the wife of a teacher. I had status. I didn't care how much you earned.'

'Before we married you said you'd love me even if I were dirt poor. I was manager of the Sky Beyond the Sky Hotel at the time. Is that what impressed you?'

'That miserable job? Ha! One day, I'll set up my own business and show you what a real manager is. I never did understand why Teacher Zhou closed the hotel in the end.'

'He couldn't attract enough people. I advised him to start breeding crabs in the hotel pond to make some money on the side, but he said if we did, the guests wouldn't be able to swim in it.'

They fall silent. The only sound they can hear is the rumble of trucks on a distant mountain road, transporting cement to the construction site of the Three Gorges Dam.

'I do still love you, Kongzi,' Meili says at last. 'But when you changed my name from ”Beautiful and Pretty” to ”Beautiful Dawn” you promised that our marriage would be the beginning of a wonderful new life.'

'You regret me changing your name? But it's so much more poetic. I promise you, Meili, a beautiful dawn is waiting for us.'

'I never imagined that being pregnant could be so terrifying. Last night I dreamed that the baby had become frozen solid. I put it under a light bulb to warm it up, then I was afraid someone might see it, so I wrapped it in toilet paper and hid it in a drawer. I walked away and forgot all about it, and when I next opened the drawer I discovered it had suffocated to death.' Meili's eyes fill with tears.

'Don't cry, my dear wife. Everything will be all right. I give you my word: if this one's a boy, we won't try for a third. Let me feel your belly. My goodness. It's so large now. So hard.'

'I'm sure the baby is bigger than Nannan was at this stage. Stronger, too. Look at all the purple lines around my tummy b.u.t.ton. Let's not have a third, even if Happiness is a girl. We need to get on with our lives.' Kongzi slides his hand down between her legs and she slaps it hard with the tip of her fan. 'Don't touch me! I'm boiling.'

When Kongzi came back late last night he confessed that he'd been to see a p.o.r.n movie in the video parlour boat docked near the wharf. He said he couldn't help himself because she hadn't let him touch her for weeks. Meili knows that those films feature men and women making love in the nude. She'd always considered Kongzi to be a respectable man, and the knowledge that he'd watched p.o.r.n movies in a grubby video parlour lowered him in her estimation.

'All right, my turn to sing a song, then,' Kongzi says, sitting up and tossing the fly-encrusted remains of the watermelon into the river. 'In the village, is a girl called Xiao Fang. She's pretty and kind, has big dark eyes and wears her hair in bunches-'

'Agh! So out of tune . . .' Meili groans. Sensing he wants to make love to her, she pulls the peony-printed sheet over her thighs and tries to change the mood. 'You must phone home tomorrow, Kongzi. Find out what the situation is.'

'I told you, my father asked me not to get in touch until the baby's born. All right, I'll phone them, if you insist, but if the line is tapped and the police track us down, don't blame me.' He pinches her arm playfully.

Meili hunches her shoulders and crosses her legs. 'Just make sure you don't tell them we're in Sanxia,' she says. In the breeze blowing across her face she can smell the scent of the osmanthus branches she put on the canopy. The smell always transports her back to her parents' house and her grandmother, who planted an osmanthus tree in the garden the day Meili was born. She remembers how her grandmother always likes to rub the blossom between her fingers and dab the scent behind her ears.

'So black and smooth,' Kongzi says, stroking Meili's hair that glistens like the skin of an eel.

'At least it's easy for me to wash my hair on this boat,' she says, tucking a stray lock behind her ear. Every morning, she leans overboard and dunks her head in the river.

'And such slender legs,' Kongzi continues, running his hand up to her thighs.

'Careful of the money!' Meili gasps, and quickly presses the sachet of cash she sewed into the lining of her knickers to check that it's still there. As he strokes her thigh she feels her face begin to flush. 'If I weren't pregnant, I'd have a slender waist as well,' she whispers, nuzzling her head into the nape of his neck.

'You're beautiful from top to toe, but your best part is . . . here.' He leans down and pulls her knickers off.

'Can't you even say ”I love you” first? Since you watched that p.o.r.n movie, you think you can just ram yourself inside me and tell me to moan.' She cranes her neck round to check that Nannan is still asleep in the cabin, then closes her eyes and waits for Kongzi to repeat what he did last night.

'No, my darling wife, all I want is to make you happy,' he whispers into her ear. 'That's why I work so hard every day. I want to give our family a better life.' Then he mounts her belly and pushes himself inside her.

'No!' Meili cries, knocking him off. 'You know I black out when you go on top.' She rolls onto her side, letting her belly rest on the deck, then reaches for an inflatable safety ring and wedges it under her head. Kongzi puts his arm around her and enters her from behind. Their breaths smell of the fried fishwort they ate for breakfast. Meili's forehead and cleavage perspire and the blue veins on her belly pulsate. A stench of dead fish rises through the cracks in the wooden deck. The boat rocks from side to side as Kongzi moves in and out of her. A sense of well-being spreads through her soft ample body. 'Careful of my belly. Gently, gently . . .' Her head pressed against the bow, she raises her hips and clenches her thighs. With a loud groan, Kongzi releases a river of sperm into her and sinks back down onto the deck.

Suddenly Meili sees the infant spirit flit before her eyes, laughing inanely. Waking from her daze, she pushes Kongzi back. 'Get out of me,' she cries. 'I don't want to give birth to a dead child.'

'Stop worrying! Everything will be fine. We're living on the river now. We're free! Look at the beautiful view . . . ”The distant shadow of the lonely sail vanishes into a blue-green void. / All that can be seen is the Yangtze River flowing to the edge of the sky.”' He fumbles for his matches and lights another cigarette.

'I just saw the infant spirit again,' says Meili, still catching her breath. The moon has become hidden behind clouds and the scent of osmanthus in the air seems to be flowing from her skin.

'You were dizzy. Your mind must have been playing tricks on you. I always follow Confucius's advice: respect the G.o.ds and the spirits of the dead, but keep your distance from them.'

'But I saw the spirit. It flickered right in front of me like a candle flame, then drifted to my belly b.u.t.ton and vanished. It must have returned to Happiness's body.' She sits up and brushes off the insects that have settled on her b.u.mp. Then she looks out at the river glimmering in the darkness and sees a white polystyrene lunch box float by. A few days ago, she saw a dead baby with thick black hair float by just as slowly. As it pa.s.sed, children climbed onto a rocky outcrop and prodded it with long twigs.

'Happiness is punching me again,' she says. 'Look, you can see its little fists poking out! It wants me to give birth to it on the river so it can float to the sea and travel the world. It won't be long now. Just another week or two.'

Kongzi puts his hand on hers and exhales a cloud of smoke. Inside the cabin, Nannan coughs in her sleep. Meili looks up at the broken town. The ancient houses at the base of the mountain are flattened now, while the jagged edges of the unfinished structures above seem like the ramparts of a ruined city. On this single mountainside the past, present and future appear to have merged. Meili senses that her own future is hovering in the air above her, swirling about like the millions of sperm that are now entering her cervix.