The Boat to Redemption

Haircut

IN MY eleven years aboard the barge I never posted a letter of my own. But I stopped by the post office every time I went ashore to post letters for my father. I was his postman.

A large wooden box had been nailed to the wall outside the Milltown Post Office, put there for the use of the boat people. Year in and year out, it remained empty, which is understandable when you consider that most of the boat people were illiterate. When their sons and daughters reached adulthood and started their own families, they continued their lives aboard the barges. If they didn’t meet on the Golden Sparrow River, they met on the piers, and so asking someone to write a letter and attach an eight-fen postage stamp was more than merely a matter of dropping one’s pants to fart, it was a waste of money and energy. For a long time, the only users of the fleet postbox were the occupants of barge number seven. Once every month or two I received a letter from Mother. In it she urged me to study hard, reminding me that though I was living in less than ideal circumstances it was my duty to work hard. She insisted that I set up long-term goals, the mere thought of which gave me a headache. Sure, I had goals, all of them were related to Huixian, but I couldn’t say so. If I did, I’d either become the butt of people’s jokes or a sinner in their eyes. How could I tell Mother? I couldn’t, so I didn’t reply to her letters, which came less and less frequently. Eventually Father’s letters were the only things that ever showed up in the postbox, where they waited for me to go ashore. Everyone knew that my father was an orphan with no siblings, no relatives and no friends. At first he wrote to the leadership of the County Party Committee, but kept going higher, to district Party and governmental offices: the civil administration, the organization bureau, the commission for inspecting discipline, the history office, the office for complaint letters and calls, even the family-planning commission. Throughout my eleven years on the barge, Father sent appeals to leading Party bureaus and offices regarding his status as the son of a martyr, demanding a definitive ruling and an official certificate that recognized his martyr-family status. Unfortunately, the red-lined envelopes I received in reply were invariably thin and light, and I never saw one of those certificates, which Father had described to me as being red with gold print. Instead they were standard-issue letters with a series of dotted lines. Sometimes Father’s name was filled in, sometimes not. ‘Comrade so-andso,’ they read, ‘your request is very important to us. At a future date we will give it careful attention and scrutiny. Revolutionary greetings to you.’

More than once he told me that the only inheritance he could leave me was one of those martyr-family certificates. I was no fool, I knew the value of one of those things, and on this matter we were in rare agreement. He diligently wrote his letters aboard the barge, and I diligently posted them for him. I never went into Milltown without performing the same task: I went into the post office, bought a stamp, pasted it on to the envelope, and dropped it into the big green postbox. It became as mechanical and as fruitless a routine as scooping ladlefuls of water into the river — not even a tiny splash was made.

On my way to the post office one day I saw a scowling, uniformed man emerge with a drawerful of keys, which clattered as he walked. He dropped the drawer on the ground in front of the green postbox, which he opened with one of the keys, releasing an avalanche of white envelopes into the drawer. I stepped up and looked at the drawer, but all I saw were envelopes piled on top of one another, with no discernible names or addresses, and, of course, no return addresses. I instinctively followed the drawer on its trip back, until the man became aware of my presence. He spun around and shouted angrily, ‘What the hell are you up to?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I’m just posting a letter.’

He looked at me suspiciously. ‘You’re from the Sunnyside Fleet, aren’t you? Aren’t you Ku Wenxuan’s son?’ He shook the drawer in his hands. ‘You came at the right time. Toss your letter in here.’

I took another look at the drawer, then glanced back at him, with his gloomy face and crafty eyes, and wondered if I was being taken in. Why should I trust him, or that drawer of his? I waved him off and walked back to the postbox, whose dark, gaping mouth seemed to draw me to it. The lock on its side was still swinging back and forth. Was it taking me in too? Why should I trust that postbox? It was, after all, Milltown’s postbox, in a town where people said even the sky belonged to Zhao Chuntang. That had to include the postbox. Be careful, I told myself, be very careful. So I stuck Father’s letter into my bag; better to forgo the one close at hand in favour of the more distant one. I could go to Wufu to post my letter, or, for that matter, Phoenix. It didn’t matter where I went, but I knew I wasn’t going to commit my father’s future to the Milltown postbox.

After that, on my trips to Milltown, in addition to buying provisions, there was another thing I needed to do — some might have seen it as important, others might not have. It was something I did for myself, something I couldn’t talk about.

I went to the People’s Barbershop, where the walls on both sides of the entrance had been opened to install display windows. Three plastic mannequin heads were arrayed in the window to the left, each adorned with a woman’s wig, and each with a sign in front that stated the wave length: long, medium and short. That threw me. This wasn’t the Golden Sparrow River, and there was no wind, so why did women want waves in their hair? I stepped over to the other window, where illustrations torn out of magazines were displayed. The print quality was poor, but good enough to see city girls from somewhere or other trying to outdo each other with their bizarre new hair-styles. One of the illustrations was both clear and familiar. It was Huixian. She did not shy from showing herself to her best advantage, letting herself be seen with the others. She was turned sideways and looking off at an angle, her eyes bright, and she wore her hair coiled weirdly on top of her head, so that it looked to me like a stack of oil fritters.

I looked at her hair-do from every angle, and didn’t like what I saw, though I wouldn’t say it was ugly. I was reminded of something my father had said: when a sunflower turns away from the sun, it droops, bringing an end to its future. I knew that Huixian, my own sunflower, had turned away from the sun. By leaving the General Affairs Building, she was, I felt, closer to me. But that didn’t mean I’d been given a chance to get closer to her. She was now a barber, yet people continued to treat her as if she were the moon and the stars aligned around her. Local girls who wanted to look as pretty as possible were allowed to get close to her, Old Cui and Little Chen ate and worked alongside her every day, and drooling, audacious boys around town never missed a chance to draw up near her. I wasn’t that brazen, nor was I that audacious, and if I didn’t need a haircut, I couldn’t force myself to go inside.

My hair, which grew slowly, still wasn’t long enough, and that was a nuisance. So I sat in the doorway of a cotton-fluffing workshop across the street from the People’s Barbershop, laying my bag next to me so people would think I was taking a rest, open and above board. The people inside were hard at work on the cotton; the clamour of the wires fluffing cotton — peng, peng, peng — echoed my heartbeat. I couldn’t pace back and forth in front of the barbershop, since that would attract the attention of the people inside, and I definitely couldn’t press my face up against one of the windows to get a good look; only an idiot would do something like that. No, I had to sit across the street and watch the people come and go, creating pangs of jealousy, whether I knew them or not.

Xiaogai from the security group went in several times, with obvious evil intentions towards Huixian. He had a special talent for looking respectable when he walked through the door, even when he was harbouring those evil intentions. He walked out again, talking and laughing.

Among the boat people, Desheng’s wife was the shop’s most frequent client. Her appearance was especially important to her, and her husband doted on her. The other boat people, more money conscious, had their hair done by street vendors. But for Desheng’s wife money wasn’t as important as having the latest hair-style, and she and Huixian were closer than ever. She’d sit in her chair and chat away while she was having her hair done, looking around at the local girls’ fashionable hair-styles. With so much to see and do, it’d be a while before she left. On those days when she came by, I went inside the workshop to watch the cotton being fluffed, not knowing what I’d say if the woman, a notorious busybody, asked me why I spent my days sitting outside doing nothing.

At times my body felt hot all over as I sat there guarding my secret, and at other times I turned cold and stiff. The barbershop was open to the public, so why couldn’t I saunter in like everybody else? I had no answer. I was sitting there because of Huixian, gentler than anyone could imagine, but also gloomier. For eleven years I’d fallen under the constant scrutiny of my father, and the shore was the only place where I could escape his radar-like vision. These were the times when I tasted true freedom, and I put this precious time to good use, keeping a supervisory eye on Huixian — no, supervisory isn’t the right word. ‘Guarding’ is more like it, or, even better, ‘watching over’. Neither job, of course, was by rights mine, but for some strange reason it had become second nature.

Men were always entering and leaving the barbershop, and I could easily spot those who had something other than a haircut in mind. But was I any different? Maybe not. Probably not. I’d started going ashore wearing two pairs of underwear as a hedge against an ill-timed erection. That proves that I did have something in mind, and it was a worrisome thought. Wearing two pairs of underwear was proof of my sinful nature, and timidity and restlessness were a by-product of impure thoughts. Sometimes I got a fortuitous glance through the display window of Huixian standing behind her barber’s chair. More frequently, all I saw was her white moving image. Near her, I yet remained far away, and that was an ideal distance to lure me into dreaming up scenarios which frightened me yet brought me great pleasure: I imagined the conversations she had with the people in the shop, what made her frown and what made her smile; I imagined why she treated X with such warmth and Y with such aloofness; when she was at rest, I imagined what she was thinking; on those occasions when she was moving, I imagined the shape of her legs and buttocks; and when she was working on a client’s hair, I imagined the swift, agile movements of her fingers on the clippers. The one thing I would not let myself imagine was her body, though that was sometimes beyond my control, and then I limited my visualizations to the areas above her neck and below her knees. When even that was impossible, I forced myself to go over and stare at a dustbin on which someone had written the word kongpi. Could that have been a warning to me? If so, it was an effective sign. I read the word aloud three times — kongpi, kongpi, kongpi — lowering the temperature of my sex organ. An embarrassing sense of excitement mysteriously evaporated.

Spring arrived in May, with warm temperatures and flowers blooming at the base of the walls that lined the streets: Chinese roses, cockscombs and evening primrose. Even the sunflowers by the entrance to the People’s Barbershop were in full bloom. As I walked past the entrance, one of the big golden flowers actually struck me in the leg — lightly, to be sure, but it got me thinking about the past; since it was a sunflower, I had to believe this was either a hint or an invitation. How could I be unmoved? Unprecedented courage dropped on to me out of the sky. I got up, picked up my bag and decisively pushed open the glass door.

Every seat in the barbershop was taken, and no one took any notice of my entrance. The men cutting hair were too busy to greet me. Huixian, whose back was to me, was washing a client’s hair. But I could see her face in the mirror, and there our eyes met. A light flashed in her eyes, but only for an instant before they darkened again; she turned slightly, as if to see me clearly, but didn’t follow through as she slowly turned back again. She might have seen it was me, but she might also have thought she was mistaken.

I spotted a newspaper rack by the door, where a days-old copy of the People’s Daily hung crumpled, dog-eared and enervated. Just what I needed to keep anyone from seeing my face. I sat in a corner, trying to arrange the angle and distance between my head and the newspaper, but failed miserably. It seemed to me that Huixian kept looking at me in the mirror, and the stronger my feelings became, the more uncomfortable they made me. To be honest, I had no idea how to go about establishing a friendship with Huixian. I hadn’t known back then, and I still didn’t know. Hell, I didn’t even know what I should call her. Back on the boat I’d never called her by her name, and I’d never used the word ‘sunflower’. It was always ‘hey’. I’d yell ‘hey’ and she’d come running, expecting to get something good to eat. But she’d changed; so had I, and I couldn’t figure out how to talk to her. I thought hard about that, finally deciding to let nature take its course. If she spoke to me first, I’d count myself lucky. If she chose not to speak to me, it was no big deal, since I wasn’t there to chat her up. I was there to keep watch over her.

Women love to talk, and that was especially true of the women who came to have their hair done. Curious about Huixian’s stylistic talents, they were even more curious about her precipitous fall from grace. Dressed in a white smock, like a doctor, and wearing rubber medical gloves, she was washing the hair of Wintersweet, the female member of the security group. Buried in the sink, Wintersweet’s head was covered with soapy water, but that did not stop her from asking questions. ‘Huixian,’ she said, ‘I thought you were supposed to be studying in the provincial capital. What’s our famous Little Tiemei doing in a barbershop?’

By this time, Huixian had a ready answer for such questions. ‘I’m afraid that Little Tiemei has become Old Tiemei. What’s wrong with a barbershop? Do you think that someone working in a barbershop is inferior to other people? Aren’t we all serving the people?’

With a worldly look, Wintersweet snorted contemptuously and said, ‘You so-called artistes don’t know how to give an honest answer to anything. But I’m on to you people, don’t think I’m not. All you do is dance and sing and wear stage make-up. Have you planted a rice seedling or made a single screw nut even once in your life? Serve the people, you say? The people are serving you!’

‘Go and make that speech to somebody else,’ Huixian said. ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree with me. I gave up that life long ago. I’m washing your hair now, aren’t I? You’re sitting and I’m standing, so who’s serving whom? Tell me that.’

That shut up Wintersweet, but just for a moment. Suddenly her eyes flashed as she looked up at Huixian. ‘Those are fine-sounding words, Little Tiemei, but you’ll never be happy serving people like us. I know why you’re working in the barbershop, you’re practising for the day when they send you to cut the hair of high-ranking officials.’

Huixian had been getting angry, but she had to laugh at this last comment. ‘You certainly do know how to say stupid things,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen my share of high-ranking officials, with their cooks, their bodyguards and their secretaries. But I’ve never heard of one having his own barber.’

Another snort from Wintersweet. ‘Don’t get it into your head that you’re a woman of the world. You’re still a novice, and I’m telling you that a woman who survives by working with her hands is fated to live on gruel, but a woman who gets by thanks to her good looks or who has a powerful backer will eat and drink well.’

‘Now you’re making sense,’ Huixian said. ‘I’m not good-looking and I don’t have a backer, which is why I’m serving you.’

Making clicking sounds with her tongue, Wintersweet thought for a moment before replying, ‘That’s strange, I heard you had lots of backers. There’s Zhao Chuntang in town, Secretary He at the county level, and Bureau Chief Liu in the district government. Don’t tell me they’ve all suddenly stopped backing you.’

Clearly annoyed, Huixian said with a sneer, ‘Are you here to have your hair done or to cook up stories? Front or back, I’ve got nobody, not even a mother and father. Where would I get a backer? People like you may yearn for a backer, but not me.’

That rebuff silenced Wintersweet, but her mind kept racing. In the end, she was incapable of controlling her tongue. ‘I know why you’re here, Little Tiemei. You’ve been hung out at the grass-roots level. For how long? Six months? A year or two? I advise you to ask the leadership for a timescale. Listen to me when I say that even a young girl grows old one day, like a pearl that turns yellow, and there’s no future for anyone who’s old and ugly.’

Huixian’s tolerance ended at that moment. I saw anger and loathing in her eyes. She dug her fingers into Wintersweet’s scalp, snatched a towel off the rack and jammed it down on the woman’s head. ‘I’ll hang out as long as it takes — until the day I die if necessary. Don’t you worry about me. I’ve been hung out all my life, I’m used to it by now.’

I don’t know why, but I couldn’t hide my head any longer. I lowered the newspaper and cast a ferocious glare Wintersweet’s way. ‘If you can’t hold your tongue, you cunt, I hope you choke to death!’ I spoke so softly the target of my curse could not possibly have heard me as she followed Huixian back to the chair, her hair dripping wet.

‘Why get mad at me, Little Tiemei?’ she said. ‘I’m just giving you advice. It’s for your own good.’

But Little Chen had heard what I’d said. He turned and glared at me. ‘Who are you calling a cunt? And who’s supposed to choke to death? What’s a big boy like you doing sounding off just because a couple of women are bickering?’

‘I didn’t say anything,’ I said. ‘I’m reading the paper.’

‘What are you here for?’ he said. ‘Why squeeze your way into a busy shop just to read the paper? This is a barbershop, not a reading room.’

‘I’m waiting for a haircut, what’s wrong with that?’

‘Are you sure you didn’t come to read the paper? I’ll bet you’re not interested in reading the paper or getting a haircut. You’re sneaking around like a US Chiang Kai-shek agent. Who are you and where are you from?’

Now the people took notice of me, and I saw Huixian glance my way. She hadn’t got over her anger, not completely; it was a lazy, casual glance. But then her eyes lit up. She recognized me, I could tell. Pointing her comb at me, she said, ‘It’s you, you’re that … something Liang.’

She smiled, and I saw in her smile that she was pleasantly surprised, if somewhat puzzled, racking her brains to come up with a name. How depressing. How could she have forgotten my name? Ku Dongliang would have worked, or Elder Brother Dongliang, or even my nickname, Kongpi. She pointed at me, then dropped her hand and said with obvious embarrassment, ‘What a rotten memory I’ve got. It’s on the tip of my tongue, but it won’t come out. It’s something Liang. You’re from one of the barges of the Sunnyside Fleet, aren’t you? Now I remember — there’s a sofa on yours.’

That was the sum total of her memories, the sofa on our boat, and I was reminded of how Yingtao had tried to stir up trouble between Huixian and me after they’d had an argument. Yingtao had come looking for me and said, ‘Go on, be her lackey if that makes you feel good. But I’m telling you, Huixian doesn’t like you, she likes your sofa and the treats your mother sends. She’s bourgeois through and through, a girl who wants the good life.’

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she said. ‘I’ve forgotten your name, but only for the moment.’ Seeing how disappointed I was, she cast a guilty smile my way before turning to the people in the shop. ‘What’s his name? Remind me, someone. All I need is one word to jog my memory.’

A young man in a checked sports shirt, a crane operator, knew me. He was standing there with a peculiar smile. In a pinched voice he said, ‘Kong. You know, Empty.’

‘What do you mean, Kong? Stop playing around. Empty isn’t a family name,’ Huixian said. ‘Who are you, Mr Full?’

‘I thought you said all you needed was one word. I know his nickname, it’s Kongpi.’

Aha! Now she had it. Either she was embarrassed or she was oversensitive, but I saw a change come over her. Her cheeks reddened as she rolled up her client’s smock and hit me on the shoulder with it. Then she covered her face and giggled. ‘Me and my rotten memory! You’re Ku Dongliang, aren’t you? I pretty much survived on the snacks you gave me when we were kids.’

What could I say? I heard a whispering sound as a gentle breeze redolent with the smell of Glory soap swept past my ear. She was shaking the barber’s smock in my direction. ‘Ku Dongliang,’ she said in a pretend commanding voice, ‘come on, I’ll cut your hair.’

Quickly putting my hands on top of my head, I said, ‘It’s not long enough to cut today. Besides, I have to get back to the barge.’

‘You’ll have to get it cut some time, if not today.’ She inspected my hair. ‘What do you use on it, a comb or a broom? That’s not a head of hair, it’s a bird’s nest. Are you waiting for a bird to lay an egg in that?’ Putting her smock to work flicking loose hair off the chair, she said, ‘What are you waiting for? Quit stalling and sit down.’

Now what? I couldn’t make up my mind. Huixian nudged the chair with her foot, swivelling it around towards me and creating a gust of wind that made the hem of her smock flutter enough to let me see that she was wearing a blue knee-length skirt underneath. It too was caught by the gust of wind, revealing her knees, her knees, those knees, two lovable little bun-like mounds, two alluring, fruit-fresh knees. The scene had a dream-like quality. Be careful, I heard a voice whisper sternly, be very careful. It sounded like my father, but could have been my own voice. I didn’t move and didn’t know which way to look. A person’s gaze can be dangerous, it can give away your secrets. Whenever I sensed this danger in the air, I reminded myself: Above the neck and below the knees. But I didn’t have the nerve to look at her neck or her knees, so I kept my eyes on the floor, where there were clumps of dark hair, some long, some short, like an archipelago of dark islands. Huixian was standing on one of those dirty islands with her white half-heeled shoes and flesh-coloured nylons, on which a tuft of hair — man’s or woman’s, no way to tell — hung precariously.

‘What’s wrong with you? You look like a frightened criminal.’ She studied me, as doubt crept into her eyes. ‘Ku Dongliang,’ she said playfully, ‘you haven’t changed. You’re as peculiar as ever. Why did you come to a barbershop if you don’t want a haircut?’

What could I tell her? Nothing. ‘Not today,’ I stammered. ‘Maybe next time. It’s getting late. My dad’s in poor health, so I have to go and get dinner ready for him.’

She uttered a gasp, probably reminded of my father and his famous genital mutilation. She clearly felt like laughing, but not wanting to embarrass me, she covered her mouth. When she saw what I was gazing at, she looked down and spotted the tuft of hair on her stocking. ‘Damn,’ she said, ‘no wonder I felt an itch. So that’s why you’re looking down there.’ With a stamp of her foot, the hair fell to the floor, then she looked up at me and, out of the blue, asked, ‘How are my surrogate parents? I asked Desheng’s wife to invite them to come and see me, but they never have. They must be unhappy with me.’

She had a cold side, but she also had her impulsive moments, and I could tell she wanted me to smooth things over for her with Sun Ximing and his wife. ‘Why would they be unhappy with you?’ I said. ‘They think a haircut here costs too much. They don’t part with their money easily.’

‘Costs too much? How much can a haircut cost at the People’s Barbershop? Go and tell them to bring the whole family. I’ll shampoo, cut, blow-dry and perm, and I won’t charge them anything. I’m here to serve the people.’

I told her I would, then went over to retrieve my bag from the corner, with a roomful of curious eyes on me. Their expressions varied, but you could hear the wheels turning in their heads. I had no idea what they were thinking, but Huixian’s display of friendliness towards me had upset them, especially the fellow in the checked sports shirt, who was sitting in one of the chairs. He stuck out his foot and kicked my bag. ‘What are you hiding in there, Kongpi?’ he said. ‘You bring it with you every time you come ashore. If I was in that security group, you can bet I’d want to search it.’

I glared at him and unzipped my bag. ‘You want to search it? Go ahead, I dare you.’

He gave it a quick glance, but before he could say another word, Little Chen nudged me on the shoulder. ‘Go on, get out of here,’ he said. ‘This is no place for you to be showing off. Don’t come back unless you need a haircut. This is a barbershop, not a public park.’

If he hadn’t been one of Huixian’s fellow barbers, I wouldn’t have stood for that kind of nasty treatment. I turned and walked to the door. Huixian came up and patted my bag. ‘You can’t blame people for being suspicious. Why do you have to bring a big bag like that with you when you come ashore?’ She squeezed it once, then a second time, a habit I knew well. Ever since she was a little girl she had been in the habit of squeezing people’s bags. Mine was obviously filled with cans and other stuff which was of no interest to her. She pulled her hand back, reached into the pocket of her smock and brought out a stick of chewing gum, which she handed to me. ‘Give this to Xiaofu for me, would you? He asked me for a stick of gum when we met on the street once. I told him I’d get one for him, and a promise is a promise.’

I tossed the gum into my bag.

‘How’s Yingtao doing? Thinking of getting married?’

She’d forgotten my name, but not Yingtao, her mortal enemy, and that really made me mad. ‘How should I know? Who cares if she’s getting married or not?’

‘I just asked. What are you so stressed about?’ Then, with a hint of mischief, she pointed at me and said, ‘I’m not trying to be your matchmaker or anything.’

Apparently, her animosity towards Yingtao hadn’t faded, and I waited to hear what she’d say next. I didn’t have long to wait. ‘When you get back, tell her to stop talking behind my back. I’m a nobody now, a barber, so there’s nothing for her to be envious about, and nothing to talk about.’

It was not a welcome assignment, and as I walked out of the barbershop, my mind was a welter of confused thoughts. After not seeing her for so long, I’d had a friendlier reception than I’d imagined. She seemed open and approachable, which gave me a warm feeling. But even more, I felt a sense of loss. How could she have forgotten my name? Or had it all been an act? Not finding an answer, my mood soured. She had asked me about everyone but me, and maybe all she could recall about me was that I was Kongpi. I walked quickly out on to the street, then turned for another look at the barbershop. The sunflower by the door had opened happily to greet the bright sun. What a great thing a sunflower is! As I stared at the flower, I could imagine Huixian wishfully planting a seed outside the barbershop door and watering it each morning. That made me feel better.

Now that I’d left the barbershop and Huixian, my imagination took hold, and my enthusiasm returned with a vengeance. I imagined a conversation with Huixian. She was interested in me. ‘How old are you, Ku Dongliang, twenty something? How come you’re still single? Can’t get a girl?’ What do I say to that? ‘Don’t look at me like you’re unworthy, like you’re seeing me through a crack in the door. I could get one if I wanted. Six-Fingers Wang’s oldest daughter could come into my cabin on her own, but I wouldn’t thump her. I don’t want to thump anybody, believe it or not. Didn’t you once say that Chunsheng’s little sister will change into a beauty when she’s eighteen? Well, she flirts with me day in and day out, but believe me, she’s wasting her time. I’m not one of those guys who’ll say anything to make himself look good. Have I ever lied to you? If you want to know, there’s a girl on shore who likes me too. You know Li Juhua, who runs the oil pump on the pier, don’t you? Well, the only thing that mars her good looks is that white patch of skin on her neck. I came ashore in the rain one day, and she offered me an umbrella without my having to ask for it. I don’t need to tell you why she did that, do I? Nor do I have to tell you what it meant when I turned her offer down.’ I imagined Huixian’s reaction to hearing this: ‘You have high standards,’ she’d say. ‘So what kind of girl do you like? Want me to introduce you to someone?’ How do I answer that? That’s my deepest, darkest secret, and I have to be prepared to reveal it. It would take considerable skill to do it right. I definitely wouldn’t say, ‘My standards aren’t all that high. Someone like you would do just fine.’ That would be humbling myself. And I definitely wouldn’t say, ‘I’m waiting for the right person. I won’t marry anybody but her.’ However veiled this comment might be, it could easily earn me a strong rebuff: ‘You’re waiting for the right person, but what if she’s not waiting for you? Wouldn’t you just be wasting your time?’ If forced to say something, the safest solution would be to hide my meaning behind code words, like I did in my diary: ‘The water gourd loves only the sunflower. The water gourd is waiting for the sunflower.’

Water gourd. Sunflower. I’m sure she forgot that agreement long ago. I can imagine the belly laugh with which she’d greet this explanation. ‘You’re weird, Ku Dongliang,’ she’d say. ‘That’s a stupid limerick, it doesn’t make sense, like a fart in the wind. A water gourd loves water, a sunflower loves the sun. Not only that, but a water gourd lives on the river, a sunflower lives on the shore, so how could they ever come together?’

I’d stand there and take her mockery. Would it anger me? Sure. But mainly it would break my heart, the sadness emanating from both my rational nature and my inferiority complex. Only a deranged water gourd would fall in love with a sunflower. A water gourd that waits for a sunflower has lost its grip on reality. For me, this was the final pipe dream of my youth. My ruminations concealed my timidity, my obstinacy obscured my despair. I, Ku Dongliang, was a twenty-six-year-old man of average intelligence, with a well-developed body, a decent appearance and a fiery libido, yet I lacked the courage to tell a girl I was waiting for her. Kongpi, Kongpi, Kongpi, Kongpi! My life was enshrouded by that nickname, and I needed no one to waken me from that dream of mine. I was alert to the fact that waiting was, for me, kongpi.

Having grown used to that pointless waiting, I had gone to the barbershop to see a girl with love and sadness in my heart. That love and that sadness were simply kongpi. So too was my secret, since it could not be revealed. I certainly didn’t have the right to reveal it, but kongpi has the right to drift along. And it was this incredibly base right that I exercised on shore in the People’s Barbershop, waiting for and watching over Huixian.

I wasn’t conscious of my abnormal behaviour until one day when Desheng’s wife quietly summoned me to the stern of our barge. From where she stood on the bow of barge number eight, she said, giving me a strange look, ‘Did you go to the barbershop again today?’

‘I’m no counter-revolutionary,’ I said, ‘so I can go where I want. Is going to a barbershop against the law?’

With a grim smile, she said, ‘It’s not against the law, it’s just repugnant!’ Then she blasted me: ‘What crazy thoughts are running through that head of yours, Dongliang? What is Huixian to you? And what are you to her? As soon as you go ashore you run over to spy on her. Why?’

I was speechless. Spy? Yes, I was spying on her. Desheng’s wife had laid bare my secret with a single remark. Though I was in no mood to admit she was right, I realized the nature of the right that I had been exercising. It was to spy, that and only that. There was nothing false about her accusation. I’d been spying on Huixian.

Everyone said that Huixian had a secret, and I longed to find out what it was. My waiting may well have been kongpi, but I wanted to know the nature of hers; who was she waiting for? The fleet was a hotbed of rumours regarding her marriage prospects. Some views were based on gossip overheard on the shore, others sprang from the rumour-mongers’ own baseless thoughts. Some of what I heard was fine-sounding and utterly fantastic talk: Huixian was waiting for a singer in Beijing who had been her voice coach when she was with the district artistic propaganda team. Their relationship had developed to the point where the artist was waiting for Huixian’s twentieth birthday, when he would return and take her back to Beijing.

One of the other stories seemed credible. It also happened to be vulgar and sordid. Bureau Chief Liu’s grandson, the story went, had returned to Milltown and gone to see Huixian at the barbershop. A life of luxury had fattened him up and turned him so sluggish that she did not recognize him until halfway through the haircut she was giving him. How? Not visually, and not by smell, but with her breasts. All the time she was cutting his hair he kept brushing his arm against her full breasts. Finally, she grabbed his arm and said, ‘I know who you are. Everyone else may have forgotten me after all these years, but not you. You haven’t given up your desire for my breasts.’

Realizing what was happening, the people waiting their turn jumped up and surrounded Little Liu. ‘Chief Liu has been dead a long time,’ Old Cui said, grabbing Little Liu by the collar, ‘so there’s no reason to worry about offending him. The last time Chief Liu came to town, I gave him a shave, and not only did he refuse to exploit his authority, but he gave me a cigarette in thanks. How could a wonderful leader like him have a prick like you for a grandson?’ Together they hustled him out of the barbershop.

But before he was out of the door, his head half shaved, he apologized to Huixian and pleaded with them to let her finish the job. ‘I can’t go out looking like this,’ he said.

But Huixian stood by the door and said, ‘That’s exactly how you’re going out! Now you’ll know how it feels to be outside with half your head shaved. You people never gave me a thought when you treated me the same way — my life was in the same disarray as your head. Didn’t I go out into the world and keep on living?’

I recorded every rumour about Huixian in my diary. But rumours are just rumours. So I wrote them down in pencil, and rewrote them in pen and ink only when they proved to be true. Dark pencil, blue ink, even an occasional entry in red — a mix of colours that enhanced each other’s beauty. But that wasn’t why I did it. I owed it to Huixian, and I owed it to myself.

What I needed was facts, the truth. But I lived on a barge and she lived on the shore. How could a ship’s mast observe flowing water? And how could flowing water keep watch over the banks of a river?

I continued to observe Huixian, but I did not learn any of her secrets.

Secrets

BECAUSE OF Huixian, though I lived on a boat, my heart was on the shore.

I refused to let Father witness my suffering, half of which came from the secret buried in my soul, the other half from the secret my body held. As far back as my youth, erections had been a constant worry. Maybe it was the enduring loneliness of being aboard a barge, or maybe I was simply oversexed, but my genitals were like a volcano about to erupt. Day or night, it made no difference: if I let down my guard even for a moment, the volcano erupted. I had observed Chunsheng and Dayong when they were looking at girls on the shore. Their eyes blazed as unhealthy thoughts ran through their minds, but the front of their trousers stayed flat. Not me. I dreaded the summer, when Huixian dressed in skirts that exposed her knees; one look and I lost control. I wondered if I had a sickness. I know Father thought so. But he did not think it was physical; as he saw it, it was a character flaw.

Was my character flawed? I didn’t know. But for years I fought off the erections, for my benefit and for Father’s. By now everyone knew how he had suffered over his erections, and how he’d come up with a unique way of dealing with the problem — in essence, cut the weeds and dig up the roots. With one snip of his scissors, he had eradicated the evil at its source, thus atoning for his sins. It had also afforded him plenty of moral capital. By overseeing what went on in my head and how that affected my crotch, he was able to exercise control over me. He considered this to be a lifelong mission.

I was stuck. Why did he have to be my father? He forced me to study Marxist-Leninist texts, believing it was for my own good. Guarding against and forbidding erections was also for my own good. I knew that he was not like other people, and that his rules of discipline differed from theirs. Sometimes I humoured him, as if I were the father. If he told me to read something, I pretended to read it, even though it was all an act and I was actually doing something else as I held the book in my hands. I’d become very good at that. But what angered and shamed me was his scrutiny of the front of my trousers. No matter where or when he did this, it put me on edge. If, on a sunny day, Chunsheng called me over to his barge to play cards, I’d only make it halfway there before I heard my father shout, ‘You should know better. Don’t go over there in shorts. Come back and change your clothes.’ Or I’d wake up on a cold night to discover that he’d pulled back my quilt and, by the light of a lantern in his hand, was examining my face and my crotch. ‘What were you dreaming? That’s all you think about, day and night. Look at you, and look at this mess on your quilt! Don’t tell me you weren’t having one of your sordid dreams.’

My genitals were a constant worry. Genitals have no brain, no knowledge and no ability to pretend. God, how I hated my hand! Its assistance was the reason why I left evidence of my genital crimes on my quilt. I tried everything. I made it a point not to let my hand come into contact with my genitals. They had to be kept apart, and the best way to do that was to give up some of the comforts of sleep. So I began wearing long trousers and a belt to bed; I got into the habit of slipping under the covers each night wearing a pair of work trousers over my underpants, and prayed to the image of Deng Shaoxiang to help me get through the night without incident. I lay stiffly on my army cot, not relaxing until I heard the martyr’s stern command — Come down, come down — and fell asleep. The habit served me well. Granted, the stink of sweat rose from my bedding, but my dreams were clean and pure. All I had was an infrequent nightmare. I’d wake up out of fright, drenched in sweat. I had one particular bad dream I never told my father about. In it I saw Huixian standing on the shore, calling my name over and over again. I stayed in the cabin, unable to move, since many people had conspired to tie me up and get Father to repeat a ritual over me. He was crying as he snipped off half my penis with a pair of scissors. As he wiped the blood off the scissors he said to me with fatherly concern, ‘Try to bear the pain, Dongliang, it’s for your own good. Now you’re just like me, we’re the same, and I don’t have to worry about you any longer.’

On the river and on the shore, I was a captive of Father’s shadow. My trips ashore were tightly controlled, my freedom severely restricted. He limited the time I could spend off the boat to two hours, one of which was for buying provisions, taking a bath, getting a haircut and visiting the public toilet. The remaining hour was to be devoted to carrying out his instructions: checking the fleet postbox, and going to the General Affairs Building to see if any political work teams were coming to town from the district headquarters. The arrival of one of those teams was a special occasion that required special arrangements, and I was to head back to the barge and tell him without delay if one came. He would then break his own rule by going ashore. If a team arrived in Milltown, he’d hand over eleven years’ worth of reports on his ideological progress and detail the unjust treatment and misfortunes he’d suffered during that period.

Before going ashore I’d put whatever I needed in my bag, then take pains to make myself as presentable as possible. Father reminded me to wear my wristwatch. ‘I see you’ve polished your shoes. Well, keep your eyes off your shoes and on your wristwatch.’ Then he pointed to the alarm clock in the cabin and re-stated his rule. ‘I’ll be watching that clock,’ he said. ‘Two hours, no more. Last time you were fifteen minutes late coming back. Don’t let it happen again.’ I climbed out of the cabin, bag in hand, but stopped in the hatchway and turned for one more instruction: ‘Let me see you,’ he said.

I knew what he meant by that. Sucking in my gut, I shook my trousers and said, ‘OK, take a good look. See anything out of order?’

With concern in his eyes, he looked at my crotch. ‘What kind of attitude is that? It’s for your own good. Be careful out there. Don’t go anywhere you’re not supposed to go or do anything you shouldn’t.’ That left only the final ritual. I raised my eyes towards the image of the martyr hanging on the wall, as he said in a sombre voice, ‘Whatever you do, always remember your lineage. Shaming me doesn’t count for much, but don’t you dare besmirch the reputation of Deng Shaoxiang!’

Over our eleven years on that barge, people — me included — had pretty much forgotten Father’s and my status. Except for on River Day, the twenty-seventh of September each year, and the infrequent occasions when I walked past Milltown’s chess pavilion, I had all but forgotten that I’d once had the honour of being Deng Shaoxiang’s grandson and that we’d enjoyed the status of being a revolutionary martyr’s descendants. Father defended his glorious bloodline like a drowning man vainly clutching a leaky life-raft. I was baffled by my bloodline. Father had been registering appeals over the bloodline issue for eleven years, but I had no place to appeal to. I was Ku Dongliang, and Ku Dongliang was Ku Wenxuan’s son. If he was not Deng Shaoxiang’s son, then I was not her grandson. And if somebody like me was not the descendant of a martyr, I was a kongpi. And if I was a kongpi, what relationship could I ever have with Deng Shaoxiang? That being the case, what could I possibly do to vilify her name?

My bloodline held no fascination for me. I was too caught up in my concern for Huixian, and that constituted the greatest betrayal of my father’s wishes from my youth onwards. That betrayal brought me no rewards. Huixian’s attitude towards me bounced back and forth from cold to hot. Maybe she wasn’t interested in me — I could deal with that. But I had to know who she was interested in.

As I was going ashore I saw Six-Fingers Wang’s daughters Big and Little Phoenix on the deck of their barge, drying mustard plants. Big Phoenix was standing with an armload of plants and looking at me with fire in her eyes. ‘Look at you, all dressed up. Off to find a bride?’

Regardless of how bold Six-Fingers’s daughters were, or what they said to sound me out, or whether they were wearing shorts and revealing vests, you have my word that I would never have given either of them a second look. Big Phoenix took being ignored in her stride, but Little Phoenix felt a need to take up the fight on behalf of her sister. ‘If you haven’t got anything to do,’ she said, ‘go and talk to the river, but don’t waste your breath on him. Everybody knows what he does over there. He hangs out at the barbershop like a moron waiting to snag a wife, or like a toad wanting to feast on swan!’

No question about it, Desheng’s wife had not been able to keep her mouth shut, and my secret was now public knowledge. Sooner or later it was bound to reach Father’s ears, and maybe sooner than I imagined, if he was within earshot of Little Phoenix’s shouts.

Suddenly laden with worries, I walked faster, in case Father came out and called me back. I hustled past the piers, where I heard Li Juhua reciting poems inside the oil-pumping station. ‘Youth, ah, youth, you are a flame that burns for Communism! Burn on!’ On my way past, she burst through the door, just like a flame, and nearly crashed into me. ‘What’s your hurry?’ she said. Where’s the fire?’

I smiled. ‘You’re reciting poetry. Is there going to be a theatrical festival?’

Apparently, she didn’t want me to know why she was reciting poetry, so she shook her head, sending her pigtails in motion, and said, ‘Ku Dongliang, how about going to the general store and buying a couple of rubber bands for me. Mine are about to snap.’

‘No time,’ I said, ‘can’t do it.’

She snorted. ‘No time? You, Ku Dongliang? Except to spend a couple of hours sitting in the barbershop. You ought to take advantage of your trip to read a paper or shoot some hoops, do something healthy for a change. Is there a circus troupe living in the barbershop? Aren’t you afraid people will talk if that’s the only place you ever go?’

Though that bothered me, I kept my cool and said, ‘People will talk? What do you think I do there? I get a haircut. That’s not against the law, is it?’

I went to the People’s Barbershop for a haircut, but I wouldn’t let Huixian do it. Old Cui cut my hair, and in his chair I felt as if I were the sunflower and Huixian the sun. I turned to face her, wherever she was. ‘Sit still,’ Old Cui would say as he turned my head back, ‘and quit looking where you’re not supposed to. Keep your eyes on the mirror.’ So I looked at the mirror, and my gaze was transformed into a sunflower that struggled to turn to the sun, usually squinting at Huixian out of the corner of my eye, which gave me a strange, ugly appearance. When Old Cui glanced in the mirror and saw what I was looking at, he thumped me on the shoulder. ‘Watch out, Kongpi, or your eyes will fall out of their sockets.’

Ah, the mirror had revealed my secret, so I went over to get a newspaper and covered my eyes with it. Running short of patience, Cui tore the paper out of my hands and tossed it to the floor. ‘High officials can read the newspaper when they’re getting their hair cut, not you.’ Knowing what was on my mind, he didn’t like it one bit, and he took his disgust out on my scalp. He cut everybody else’s hair with tender concern, but not mine. To him my head was a dark, bleak patch of ground, which he attacked with scissors in one hand and clippers in the other, like a reaping machine. And there was nothing I could do about it, because when I complained that it hurt, he stopped, turned to Huixian, and said, ‘Here, take over. The people from the Sunnyside Fleet are too much trouble. I’m turning them all over to you.’

Huixian would shoot me a quick glance before smiling ambiguously at Old Cui and saying, deftly masking her attempt to get out of it, ‘You’re a model worker, Old Cui. No one can compete with you, so you go ahead. Besides, he won’t let me work on him anyway.’

Why wouldn’t I? She should have been curious, should have wondered what that was all about, but she wasn’t curious about an eccentric like me, and not interested in asking. I actually felt OK about that, since I didn’t have to make up a story. But disappointment took over as I tried to imagine what place, if any, I held in her heart. Maybe to her I was a kongpi, and the thoughts of a kongpi are kongpi, as are the eccentricities of a kongpi, so there was no need to give me another thought.

At the People’s Barbershop I was able to probe the rumours I’d heard about Huixian. Given the infrequency of my trips ashore, the accuracy of my research was about one in ten thousand. There were times when I wished I were one of those swivelling chairs, so I could be with Huixian morning, noon and night. Or I wished I were her scissors, always in the vicinity of people’s heads, wondering who they were and if they’d really come for a haircut, or were just pretending. Why did some people keep dawdling until they could get her to cut their hair? They talked about anything and everything, and they could well have been flirting. I needed to keep a close eye on them. My eyes were a camera focused only on Huixian. My ears were a phonograph, with the same intent. Too bad my time ashore was so limited, and my camera and phonograph had such restricted functions. When I was there, Huixian was so close, but still I was unable to glean any secrets of her heart.

The women who came to the barbershop talked mostly of romance and marriage. I found their wagging tongues valuable, but they could never stay on one topic long enough. They were eager to pry into her private life. Did she have a mate picked out, they wondered aloud. Is the boy you’ve chosen really in Beijing? That’d get my antennae twitching. But when they saw she wasn’t interested in talking to them, they’d switch to the weather, or ask about the latest hair-styles. What would look best for my face, Huixian? I had to bite my tongue to keep from reminding them that no hair-style could improve their looks. Ask more questions, go on, ask her who the boy is. They couldn’t hear me, of course, and they only wanted to talk about hair-styles. The camera in my eyes was secretly aimed at Huixian, the phonograph in my ears went on strike, and I angrily shut it down.

I once ran into Zhao Chunmei at the barbershop. She was wearing white high-heels and holding a white handbag as she sat in one of the barber’s chairs, waiting for Old Cui to do her hair. She’d aged a bit, but had lost neither her charm nor her spite and resentment. I didn’t recognize her at first, but she knew who I was right away. ‘What’s he doing here?’ she demanded.

Before Old Cui could reply, Huixian laughed. ‘What’s he doing here? Good question. This is the People’s Barbershop. He counts as “people”, and he’s here to have his hair cut.’

Zhao Chunmei snorted. ‘The people — him? If he is, then there are no class enemies. Do you know that he writes counter-revolutionary slogans? Mostly targeting my brother!’

Enemies are bound to meet on narrow roads. It was an awkward encounter. Coming face to face with women who’d had relationships with my father not only made me blush, but threw my heart into turmoil. I still recalled their names, those few people who had been instrumental in my sexual initiation. Now those ageing faces, thickening waists and limbs, and cellulite-laden buttocks brought shame on those wonderful, moving, desirable, tantalizing names. I was ashamed to let my mind dwell on thoughts of their sexual encounters with Father, but then his reminder was confirmed: my crotch underwent an unexpected occurrence, as my wayward organ broke loose from my underwear and subtle changes appeared in the creases of my trousers. All of a sudden, I had trouble breathing. I thought I could see my father’s bizarre penis; after surgery, it had sort of regained its original appearance, but it was still ugly, comical even. Why had this mark of shame been transplanted on to my body? Crushed by unimaginable terror, I held tightly to the smock and could not hold up my head. I heard Huixian’s voice — she was defending me. ‘Don’t get involved in class struggle and political issues,’ she was saying. ‘Opposing Chairman Mao or the Communist Party, now that’s counter-revolutionary. He was opposing Secretary Zhao, an ordinary section chief, so nothing written about him can be considered counter-revolutionary.’

With a click of her tongue, Zhao Chunmei turned and attacked Huixian. ‘What are you to him?’ she demanded. ‘Who are you to defend him? An official? What sort of political stance do you call that? Writing about my brother isn’t counter-revolutionary, is that what you’re saying? Are you trying to stir up the masses in opposition to leaders of the Party?’

‘Don’t try to stick that label on to me! Your brother is not the Party, and opposing him is not opposing the Party.’ There was anger in Huixian’s voice as she picked up a brush and began tapping it against the back of her chair. ‘Why take your anger out on me? Who am I to him? Who is he to me? I’ve got no mother and no father, so who is anybody to me? Nobody! But you can’t stop me from saying what’s fair. Chairman Mao has said the masses have the right to state their opinions, so who is Secretary Zhao to keep the masses from voicing theirs?’

‘That’s not opinion, that’s rumour!’ Knowing she was not going to win an argument with Huixian, Zhao Chunmei turned back to me. ‘No, it wasn’t a rumour,’ she shouted, ‘it was a venomous attack. All the time, that’s what he did, write lies all over the place, like: “Zhao Chuntang is an alien class element”, which had a widespread pernicious effect. Even grammar-school children were asking, “What’s an alien class element?”’

The shop went quiet, as people pondered the meaning of alien class element.

I saw that slogan everywhere too, but still didn’t know what it meant. Little Chen was the first to voice his confusion. ‘What does alien mean?’ he asked me. ‘How about explaining it to us.’

I refused his request. ‘Who am I to explain anything? Besides, I didn’t write it, so why should I be the one to explain?’

‘If you didn’t write it, who did?’ Zhao Chunmei bellowed. ‘You haven’t got the guts to own up to your own deeds! You’re like your father, hiding in dark corners to spread rumours, sling mud and act like a hooligan.’

I sat there affecting the ‘a real man doesn’t fight with a woman’ pose. Old Cui considered alien class elements on a par with morally bankrupt elements, while Teacher Qian from the Milltown high school announced authoritatively that alien class elements were the same as degenerates. You could have heard a pin drop. But Little Chen wasn’t quite finished. ‘What do you say, Kongpi? Does it mean the same as degenerate?’

‘Sort of,’ I replied ambiguously, ‘but not quite. Alien class element is a more serious label, I think.’

Before I could elaborate on my vague comment, Zhao Chunmei jumped out of her chair and rushed over, blind with anger. ‘What do you mean, morally bankrupt and degenerate? My brother is a good and decent man and an upright official. Your father is the morally bankrupt and degenerate one. Go back and tell him that cutting off half his dick means nothing, and even if he’d cut it all off and turned himself into a eunuch, that wouldn’t mean anything either. He’s a sex fiend, a liar, a bastard, and a criminal who will never hold his head up in society again! Listen, everyone, here’s the latest news. Ku Wenxuan palmed himself off as the descendant of a martyr for decades, but now we know that he is not Deng Shaoxiang’s son, he’s the son of the river pirate Old Qiu. The woman they call Rotten Rapeseed was his mother, not Deng Shaoxiang. Before Liberation she was a riverboat prostitute.’

Silence settled over the shop. Customers and barbers alike were tongue-tied. But only momentarily. Like oil popping in a pan, one person spun around in his swivel chair, while others tried but failed to stifle giggles as a frenzy of whispering began. Huixian was the first to come to my defence. ‘Have you gone mad, Zhao Chunmei?’ she demanded. ‘Your mouth is going to get you into trouble. Even if their whole family are your mortal enemies, you still don’t have the right to say whatever you want about their ancestors. You could bring the wrath of the heavens down on your head.’

‘Did I say anything about their ancestors?’ Zhao shot back. ‘I don’t have time to waste on that, even if could. I’m telling you, people, it’s confidential information, but my brother says that the next time Ku tries to file an appeal, my brother will go public with it.’

It took Old Cui and Little Chen, plus some of the customers, to keep me from charging at Zhao Chunmei. ‘Calm down,’ they said. ‘Don’t fly off the handle. Don’t demean yourself by reacting to a woman’s empty-headed talk. If it’s confidential information, it could be true, it could be false. We’re the only ones who heard it, and it won’t go any further. You’re OK with that, aren’t you?’

Working together, they managed to bundle me out of the shop, followed by Zhao Chunmei’s shrewish comments. ‘Where are you taking him?’ she said. ‘Bring him back in here. I want him here, so I can settle things with him once and for all. And if he lays a hand on me, I’ll see him punished by law.’

There was no calming me down. I fired off a stream of filthy, almost hysterical curses, which drew the attention of passers-by on the street. Holding my arm with all his might, Old Cui shouted to Huixian, ‘Come out here, I can’t hold him. He’ll listen to you.’

She ran out and glared at me. ‘Do you think that kind of filthy talk makes you a man? Why provoke her? You can’t win with a woman like that, especially with what your father owes her. So leave now before a crowd starts to gather and she goes into broadcast mode, blaring the news to anyone who’ll listen. Put yourself in your father’s position. Do you think he could stand it if this news reached him?’

Huixian’s advice calmed me down, and I decided to avoid further conflict. I walked across the street to the cotton-fluffing shop to wait for Zhao Chunmei to come outside. I hated her with a passion. The shop’s proprietor came out to ask what was going on, but the look in my eyes sent her scurrying back inside, afraid of what I might do.

I waited a long time, but no Zhao Chunmei. Huixian came out with a kettle. ‘Still here? What fiendish plan are you cooking up? Are you going to confront her alone out here? I tell you, calm down. A real man would not fight with a woman. So what does that make you?’

I shook my head. ‘You water your flowers and don’t worry about me.’ To be honest, I wasn’t sure why I was waiting for Zhao Chunmei. What was I going to say to her? I hadn’t decided. What did I plan to do to her? Nothing, given my timid nature. I watched Huixian water her plants; a new sunflower bloomed, its golden petals having burst open so it could stand tall, fresh and tender. It was velvety soft and immature, and I saw Huixian smile as she looked at it.

My gaze was fixed on a young woman and a single sunflower, so when Zhao Chunmei came out of the barbershop, I didn’t know what to do. She was several metres away when she turned and spat on the ground. For me that was like waking from a dream.

I made up my mind to follow her. Not to retaliate or scare her — the loathing I felt for her took a new direction. I resolved to make her tell me everything, so I could learn the true secret of Father’s legacy once and for all.

It didn’t take long for Zhao Chunmei to realize that I was following her, and she took that as a threat. At first she kept turning around and rolling her eyes at me, a sign of contempt, but as the distance between us narrowed, fear crept in, and she grabbed a mop that was drying in the sun outside a house and pointed it at me. ‘What’s made you so bold all of a sudden? Why are you following me in broad daylight? Come on,’ she said, ‘I don’t care what you’re planning, just come on.’

I gestured for her to calm down. ‘What’s got you so worked up? I just want to ask you something.’

‘I’ve seen lots of people like you,’ she said. ‘I’m not worked up. If you’ve got something to say, spit it out; if you’ve got gas, let it out.’

‘Not here,’ I said. ‘Let’s go somewhere where there aren’t so many people.’

Once again she got the wrong idea. Her eyes blazed as she raised the dripping mop over her head and was about to hit me in the face. ‘Somewhere where there aren’t so many people? It’ll still belong to the Communist Party, even if there’s nobody there. You think I’m afraid you’ll try to kill me?’

I had to keep moving to stay out of range of the mop. ‘Why don’t you put that down? Don’t worry, I won’t touch you. I just want to clarify something. You said my father is Rotten Rapeseed’s son. Where’s your proof?’

‘I don’t need proof, my brother is Zhao Chuntang, a Party leader. Whatever he says is all the proof anyone needs.’

‘Maybe, maybe not,’ I said. ‘If he spouts nonsense in his sleep, is that proof? I’m asking you, how does Zhao Chuntang know that my father is Rotten Rapeseed’s son? Can he prove it?’

She blinked and pondered my question for a moment before laughing smugly and saying, ‘He’s a leading official, so of course he can prove it. He read it in a top-secret document.’

Zhao Chunmei’s expression told me everything I needed to know: that what she said was not an empty rumour. My heart fell as I imagined Zhao Chuntang opening a manila envelope with ‘Top Secret’ stamped mysteriously in red. I imagined what the document said: Upon investigation, it has been revealed that Ku Wenxuan is the son of the river pirate Old Qiu and the prostitute Rotten Rapeseed. Effective immediately, make appropriate changes in all the materials in Ku Wenxuan’s dossier and terminate all financial benefits for a martyr’s family member. Then an almost paralysing fear and boiling anger hit me, and I began to quake. Top-secret document? That’s not what it was; it was a death-dealing document, and I didn’t believe it. Could they change an orphan’s parentage so easily? — a martyr one day and a prostitute or a bandit the next? I didn’t believe a ridiculous document like that existed. At that moment I was reminded of the birthmark on Father’s backside. Maybe it had never been a mark of glory, but of sin! Could he ever atone for his sin? My poor father, my self-confident father, my atoning father, all that remained to him in this world was a single barge. He had gone into hiding on the river, and if this shameful news were ever to reach him, where could he hide then?

I despaired for my father and, lacking any other course of action, decided to negotiate with Zhao Chunmei. ‘Aunty Zhao —’ Hearing my own voice, soft, supplicating, ingratiating, I was incredulous. Was that me?

She looked as surprised as I was, her eyes big and round. ‘So now you’re calling me Aunty, are you? Sounds strange to my ears.’ She snorted and produced a little sarcastic smile. ‘Well, it won’t do you any good. I can’t save your father, and wouldn’t if I could.’

‘I’m begging you, Aunty Zhao. You have to leave him a reason to live. You’re driving him to his death.’

‘Who is? Don’t you put that on me! You never heard me say that pretending to be a martyr’s son or being the son of Rotten Rapeseed was a death sentence. Take my word for it, the organization has treated him as well as he deserves, and my brother has showered him with kindness. Even after committing a crime of that magnitude, he still draws his pay and receives his food rations. And don’t forget, he has a barge, so you have no reason to be dissatisfied with your lot.’

‘I’m begging you, Aunty Zhao, please don’t lump Old Qiu and Rotten Rapeseed together with my father, and please don’t go spreading this around.’

‘I’ve spread nothing. It’s confidential information, and if you hadn’t forced me, I wouldn’t have brought it up.’

‘Please, Aunty Zhao, go to Zhao Chuntang and, if this top-secret document really exists, ask him not to go public with it.’

‘I can’t do that. I’m not my brother’s superior. What makes you think he’d listen to me?’ She rested the mop against the wall, enjoying the taste of victory. I heard her breathe a sigh. ‘I hear you’re a dutiful son,’ she said. ‘Too bad you have to be dutiful to a father like him!’

She walked away and I fell in behind her. She wasn’t getting rid of me that easily, and was obviously growing anxious. She turned into Cotton Print Lane and sort of jogged in the direction of the Milltown police station. ‘You’re worse than your father,’ she said without slowing down. ‘Come on, follow me — I’ll even let you catch up — all the way to the police station, where we’ll see what they have to say about all this.’

That worked. The last place I wanted to be was a police station, so I stopped following her. Standing in the entrance to Cotton Print Lane, I saw several old men sitting on stools at a table they’d set up in the sunlight next to a water-boiling tiger oven. They were drinking tea and passing the time of day. Spotting me and knowing at once who I was, they began talking in hushed voices. ‘That’s Ku’s son,’ one of them said. ‘He used to swagger around town, but no longer. Now he walks with his tail between his legs.’ The other oldster, who gossiped like a woman, was passing judgement on my appearance. ‘As a boy he looked like Qiao Limin, but the older he gets, the more he takes after Ku Wenxuan, with that hang-dog look.’ I’d forgotten their names, but I knew who their sons and daughters were. The one with the bulging growth on his neck was Scabby Five’s father. A retired blacksmith, he kept spitting on the ground and smearing his spit with the sole of his shoe. The other man was the father of Little Chen, the barber. He’d worked at the public baths, where he was in charge of cleaning bathers’ ears and trimming their corns, until he managed to pull the right strings to get a transfer to the piers as a longshoreman, although he still plied his old trade, clearing the ears and trimming the corns of high officials after hours. I recalled the days when he’d show up at our place with a little wooden box to perform his services on my father.

I took a good hard look at them, trying to guess how old they were and see if they were ageing faster than my father. But then it hit me — they were the winners in this drama. They might have been old and slovenly, but they were more carefree than my father. There were no crimes or sins associated with their names, so they were spared the need to reform themselves. Ordinary citizens all their lives, they’d never had much of anything, which meant they had nothing to lose. They were in good shape; so were their sons. A bizarre thought struck me: wouldn’t it be interesting if everyone’s lineage was as easy to change as my father’s? And if I hadn’t been the son of Ku Wenxuan, but instead called the old blacksmith or the professional ear-cleaner father, would I have turned out like Scabby Five or Little Chen? How would I feel about that? I stood there thinking for a long time, until I was brought up short by the beating of my own heart. I was actually envious of that bastard Scabby Five, actually willing to trade places with Little Chen the barber. I had answered my own question: I’d be just fine with that.

It was noon, and Father’s going-ashore plan called for me to be at the clinic by one thirty and then return to the barge to make lunch. As I passed by the tiger oven, golden flecks of rice chaff fell from its ledge on to my shoes. There were piles of the stuff up there. The operator of the stove, Old Mu, stripped to the waist, was shovelling it into the oven. I couldn’t see the flames, but I heard them crackle. Pop! Pop! Burn, burn, burn. My heart echoed the beat of the flames, and I suddenly felt hot all over. There was a stabbing pain in my foot, and when I bent down to look, I saw a rice husk embedded in the space between two toes. I picked it out and saw that it had the world’s tiniest and most abject little face; the inevitable progression from a piece of grain to fuel for a fire gave it a fearful and terribly sad expression. I rolled it around in the palm of my hand. The rice paddy had been plundered until there was nothing left. The next thing I felt was the hot sun on my scalp, and then I saw my father’s face in the shrivelled rice husk, his look of fear and sadness greater even than the solitary husk in my hand. I heard the subdued sound of his pleas: Save me, please save me!

I knew I had to save Father.

But who could I find to help me?

All of Milltown, in my mind a great metropolis, had once been my playground; now it was alien territory. There was no one on whom I could rely; then I thought of someone — Huixian. She owed us, and she remained a celebrity. I placed my hopes on her, but what could I say to convince her to come to my father’s aid? I couldn’t begin to guess if she’d be willing to do so. I passed a bakery stall on the eastern edge of town, its fragrance reminding me that I was hungry. I bought a baked flatbread and immediately sank my teeth into it. Just then I heard my name shouted in a crisp voice. It was Desheng’s wife, who was gaping at me in complete surprise. ‘Why aren’t you back on the barge, Dongliang? Your father is waiting for his lunch.’

‘So what? I’m not his personal servant, you know. He’s got two hands, and there’s a pot in the kitchen and rice in the pantry. What’s keeping him from making his own lunch?’

She gave me a bewildered look. ‘Why is a dutiful son like you saying things like that? Have you fought with your father again?’

I waved her off and started walking. I hadn’t fought with my father. It was the rest of the world that was fighting with him.

I returned to the barbershop, where, amid the smells of food and Glory soap, the barbers were eating on a makeshift table made of two stools pulled together. Their surprise at seeing me again was matched by my surprise at what I saw: since when had Wang Xiaogai of the security group started eating with this lot? There he was, sitting in the middle, stuffing a fried egg into his mouth.

Old Cui stared at me uncertainly. ‘What are you doing here? You’ve had your haircut.’

I’d come to help my father, after pondering what I’d say to Huixian on the way over. But one look at Wang Xiaogai drove that thought out of my mind. What was he doing, enjoying a meal with the barbers? I glared at him — his hair, his new grey jacket, and the area around his crotch — and was immediately reminded of the talk I’d been hearing about Huixian, especially the rumour that Xiaogai had the hots for her. I’d laughed it off as crazy talk. Could it possibly be true?

Huixian laid down her bowl and looked me up and down. ‘Did you fight it out with Zhao Chunmei? How come you look like you’ve lost your best friend?’ She could see I was staring at Xiaogai. ‘Who are you looking for? Wang Xiaogai?’

I knew what I must have looked like, so I turned away from Xiaogai and said to her, ‘I want to talk to you about something. Can you come outside?’

‘Why do we have to talk outside?’ There was a guarded look in her eyes. ‘I don’t like that sneaky expression of yours. Who do you want to talk about? You? Me?’

‘N — neither,’ I stammered, beginning to lose my composure. ‘What’s got you so uppity?’ I said. ‘All I’m asking is for you to step outside. It won’t take long. What do you say?’

‘I say no.’ She shook her head, showing she meant what she said. ‘I’m not afraid to step outside, but I’m not a girl who shares sweet nothings with just anybody.’

The men around the table exchanged knowing looks. With a grin, Little Chen smacked his chopsticks against his lunch box. ‘You heard her. She doesn’t go for that kind of talk. If you’ve brought a love letter along, read it for us. We’d love to hear it.’

Wang Xiaogai hadn’t taken his eyes off me. I was his enemy, and he was ready for anything. But then he sneered and pointed to the mirror. ‘If you’ve written a love letter, go and take a look at yourself and see if you’re fit to read it.’

I sneered back. ‘That’s enough of that talk, Xiaogai,’ I said. ‘I may not be fit to read a love letter, but you’re not even fit to write one. You’re not educated enough to write one even if you wanted to.’

Being put down in front of his friends infuriated him. He threw his spoon at me. ‘Kongpi,’ he snarled, ‘maybe you can write love letters, but you’re still a kongpi. I may be dumb, but I’m a hell of a lot better than you!’ He stood up and pointed to me threateningly, his eyes blazing. ‘I told you to take a look in the mirror, but since you won’t, I’ll tell you what you look like: you look like a parasite. Who’ve you come here to feast upon, that’s what I want to know. Who is Huixian to you? And what does she owe you? Do you think you own her just because she had a few meals on your boat? What do you want to talk to her about? Everybody knows what’s on your mind. You’re like the toad that wants to feast on a swan.’

I responded to the thrown spoon by picking up a pair of clippers and throwing them at him, hitting him on the leg. ‘My new clippers!’ Old Cui shouted. ‘You’ll buy a new pair if you’ve broken them. Now get out, all of you! I’m not going to have you two fighting over a woman in my shop!’

The veil of motives was broken by that shout. No one in the shop spoke. Boiling with rage, I glared at Xiaogai. My anger stemmed in part from his aggressive behaviour, but also because the words had hit home. I glanced at Huixian, hoping she’d come to my aid, but she bent over to pick up the clippers, her expression giving away nothing of what she felt. The hint of a vacant smile appeared on her lips. She tested the clippers. ‘Do me a favour,’ she said. ‘I don’t want you fighting over me here. If word got out, people would be thrilled to place the blame squarely on me.’ She walked over to the washbasin, then turned and beckoned me over. ‘Come on, Ku Dongliang, I’ll wash your hair for you. Since you don’t want them to hear what you say, come here and let me wash your hair, and they won’t hear a word.’

I hesitated as I saw Huixian turn on the water and test the temperature on the back of her hand. ‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘You said there’s something you want to talk about. Well, everything’s open and above board here. You can talk while I run the water, then stop and leave after I’ve turned it off.’

As they say, riding a tiger is easy, getting off is hard. So, under the mocking gazes of Xiaogai and the others, I stumbled nervously over to the washbasin. ‘Put your bag down,’ she said. I didn’t. Instead, I laid it on my knees after I’d sat down on the stool. ‘What do you have in there, gold ingots? No one’s going to steal your stuff.’ She took it from me and laid it to one side.

Warm water flowed from the hose, and I was encircled by an unfamiliar but rich fragrance, one I couldn’t begin to describe. It came not only from Huixian’s jasmine face powder, but drifted over from somewhere else as well, and I wondered if it might be her natural smell, the faint aroma of sunflowers. I know it sounds far-fetched, but her body gave off the aroma of sunflowers. ‘My dad … my dad, he …’ I couldn’t say what I wanted to say and felt as if I were suffocating.

‘What about your dad?’ she said. ‘Is that what you want to talk about, your dad?’

‘I mean, you helped my dad …’ I felt her fingers moving between my scalp and the tap and swallowed the rest of the words. ‘I mean, my dad … he’s actually a good man, someone who’s suffered a lot.’

‘That’s something you should talk to the authorities about. Why tell me?’ She kept massaging my scalp. ‘What’s wrong with your head, why’s it so stiff? Lower it for me.’

I did, and I felt her push it down further, her fingers gently massaging. Then she put one finger into each of my ears and made two full circles. My memory is clear on that, two full circles, and my old problem returned: I forgot what it was I wanted to talk to her about as a mysterious current shot down from the top of my head through my body, all the way to my crotch, where an erection sprang up. Now the feeling of suffocation intensified. Danger! Danger! My brain was sending a warning, stronger and stronger. The tap was turned off and no more water ran through the hose. The sound was replaced by my father’s raspy shout: ‘Leave, get out of there, come back to the boat!’

I jumped down off the stool, flustered, picked up my bag and held it in front of me to hide the bulge in my trousers. I fled from the People’s Barbershop before anyone knew what was happening. ‘What got into him?’ someone shouted. ‘Did he say something?’

I looked behind me. Huixian had run to the door. I’d really offended her this time. Her face was flushed. She raised her fist; she was still holding the bar of soap. ‘Ku Dongliang!’ she shouted. ‘You’re crazy. People kept telling me you were, but I didn’t believe them. Now I do! And you said you wanted to talk! I tell you, go to Horsebridge, that’s where the lunatic asylum is!’

I ran like an escaped convict, all the way to the public toilet on People’s Avenue. I’d shamed myself, and every time I did that on the shore, that’s where I went. I was a sick young man, and this was my remedy. But, just my luck, the toilet offered no aid this time, had no place for me. A skinny monkey of a man was standing in front of the only cubicle, impatiently trying to undo a knot in his trouser sash. I couldn’t get him to hurry, and was forced to stand there and wait. And as I watched him getting ready to urinate, I found myself envying him. What a good life people like him had, with a home to return to when the need to vent his desire came upon him, able to relieve himself in the toilet, pull up his pants, and leave without a care, unlike me, who had a different need for a public toilet. The stink inside got stronger, so I edged closer to the urinals. But the smell was strong there too, forcing me to hold my nose.

Outside, either a gust of wind or a passer-by kicked up the sand on the ground and called out to me. ‘Danger, Dongliang, danger!’ It sounded so familiar. It was my mother’s voice. I went out and looked around, but there was not a trace of Qiao Limin, who had been gone from Milltown for years. I was puzzled. What special talents did she have? After all this time, being so far away, how and why had she returned now to interfere with my private life? I was in control of my own body, and yet her voice could come on the wind to remind me that I was twenty-six years old and ought to have a sense of shame and propriety, that I must keep up the struggle against erections and must not continually seek that remedy; I must stop acting rashly and find a new solution. A determination to mend my ways arose as I headed back inside and stood in front of the urinals, head down. I could sense Qiao Limin’s shadow floating in the air outside, forcing me to develop a new remedy, but nothing suggested itself. And so I shouted my nickname to myself — ‘Kongpi, Kongpi, Kongpi’ — seven or eight times, and a small miracle occurred: my erection finally listened to me and subsided. With some difficulty, I pissed into the urinal, feeling a great sense of accomplishment, and then, like all the local residents, strode guiltlessly out of the toilet.

I felt suddenly weary. I checked my watch; it was already gone one o’clock, well past the time my father had told me to be back onboard. Time to leave. I took a shortcut behind the steel warehouse and headed to the piers. It was a secluded path. I didn’t know if I should count myself lucky or unlucky, but I spotted several kids from the barges under the rear window of the warehouse; Sun Ximing’s younger son, Xiaofu, had climbed up on to the ledge and was prising the window open with a piece of wood. I knew they were up to no good. ‘What are you doing?’ I shouted.

With a wink, Xiaofu said, ‘Stealing iron to sell for scrap.’

‘I’m going to tell your father,’ I said. ‘You and your stealing! You little bastards are ruining the fleet’s good name.’

But my threat went in one ear and out the other, as he made a contemptuous gesture and said, ‘Mind your own business, Kongpi. What have you been up to? Ku Wenxuan is waiting for you with a rolling pin. You’re going to get a beating!’

Now I realized the trouble I was in. He wasn’t lying. I knew my father well enough to realize that coming home so late meant big trouble. So I left the kids to their own devices and turned back towards the piers, head down, my steps heavier than usual. But I hadn’t gone far before I turned and went back, thinking, I’m twenty-six years old, too old to stand on the bow of our barge and get a beating from my father. No way was I going to lose face in front of all those people. I’d be punished whether I got home an hour late or three hours late, so why not go ahead and smash the cracked pot — hang out ashore for as long as I wanted to?

The boat people went ashore for a haircut about once a month. I went to the People’s Barbershop every day. If the barge people had known that, they’d have said I’d lost my head over Huixian and that I deserved to be driven away by her.

I was the last person to understand what possessed me, but I knew that I’d lost my soul in the barbershop. When I was hurrying there, I sometimes heard the things in my bag bang against each other; those objects had more self-respect than I did, as they voiced their resistance. Don’t go, they said, don’t go. What do you plan to do? Who are you to her? Her brother? Her father? Her intended? No, you’re nothing, just a kongpi, that’s exactly what you are in her eyes.

That’s right, I was nothing but a kongpi, and that made me unhappy. There was so much I wanted to say to her, so why did nothing come out of my mouth the minute I laid eyes on her? I didn’t want that to be so. Why was I filled with affection each time I stepped into the barbershop, but left feeling angry and resentful? How could love so easily turn into hate? I didn’t want that to be so. And since I didn’t, I kept returning to the People’s Barbershop like a moth to a flame.

Thoughts thronged my mind as I walked along, including memories of the time years before when I had helped poor little Huixian put up posters in Milltown looking for her mother. I passed the general store, where the intersection was flooded with sunlight, and I was taken back in time. I conjured up an image of a little girl carrying a jar of glue and heard her childish voice as she said urgently, ‘Over here, Brother Dongliang. Come here!’ I felt myself being pushed along, despite my weariness. It might have been the wind propelling me on, but probably it was my memories. My gaze wandered to the wall across the street from the general store; a large blackboard, recently mounted on the wall, was filled with drawings and clippings promoting family planning. A coloured propaganda image in the centre caught my eye with the words

BOYS OR GIRLS, IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE:

JUST HAVE ONE CHILD!

printed above a drawing of a young mother standing in a bed of flowers, a baby girl in her arms. Possibly because the artist wasn’t particularly talented, the smile on the face of the rosy-cheeked mother was stiff and unnatural. As for her baby, either the elements or the mischievous actions of some child had reduced her head to a pair of pigtails — the face was gone. The poster alarmed me. Could that be Huixian? Fanciful thoughts swirled in my head. Was that her missing mother? What a strange day it had been, with all these missing mothers suddenly returning. The memory of a name I’d all but forgotten formed in my head: Cui Xia. Was Cui Xia her name? The woman who had paced the shore in the rain way back then, now hidden among the crowds in the town’s streets, her dripping-wet spirit now bright and dry, with no hope of being set free. She poured out her heart to me from the blackboard, nudging me to go and look for her daughter. My daughter has forgotten her mother. My daughter, she’s lost. My attention was focused on a water mark running down the blackboard, unbroken tears from a mother’s departed spirit. Don’t forget that my daughter is an orphan. She has grown into a beautiful, alluring young woman, but she remains an orphan. She is like a precious gem, picked up, discarded and picked up again; but she’ll wind up being discarded again, and I ask one of you kind-hearted people to come to her aid!

I received a flash of mystical inspiration there in front of the general store, which rocked me to my core and made my feet feel as if they were made of lead.

The sound of cotton-fluffing filled the air around the barbershop — peng, peng, peng — a happy, monotonous sound that reminded me to see if I had enough money to buy Father new cotton stuffing for his quilt, since that would give me an excuse for staying away so long. So I went into the cotton-fluffing shop and told the proprietor what I wanted. ‘New cotton is very expensive,’ she said. ‘You’re better off bringing in your own used cotton.’

‘I don’t have any.’

‘How about making some out of your lightest and cheapest cotton?’ They asked how soon I needed it.

‘Not too soon, but not too late either. I’ll wait in front of the barbershop.’

She gave me an ambiguous look. ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she blurted out. ‘Were you and that Huixian across the street betrothed as children?’

That shocked me. ‘Where did you hear that?’

‘I didn’t hear it, I guessed it. You were together on one of those barges, weren’t you? That’s something you boat people do all the time.’

The man in the shop stopped beating cotton and brushed off the fluff that nearly covered his body. With a silly grin, he said, ‘Child engagements don’t count, and I suggest you put those thoughts out of your head. That Huixian is a lovely flower that blooms on a high branch, way beyond the reach of any lowly boat person.’

Struck with a sudden panic attack, I blurted out what was in my heart: ‘I don’t want to pluck the flower, I want to protect it.’

* * *

My heart had been in my mouth the last time I’d visited the People’s Barbershop. I pushed open the glass door, but stopped before going in. ‘Kongpi!’ they shouted as I stood in the doorway. ‘Kongpi’s back!’ It was immediately obvious that the barbers had begun to see me as a strange creature, and I noticed the look in Huixian’s eyes, both fear and disgust, mixed with a degree of pity.

After a brief, whispered exchange with Little Chen, Old Cui jumped down off his stool, came to the doorway and gave me a shove. ‘What the hell do you want, Kongpi?’ he asked, using uncouth Milltown slang. ‘You’re here every day. Do your balls itch or something? You look like a damned debt collector, and I want to know what the hell Huixian owes you. Is it money? Food? How much? Give me a number.’

I was stunned that Huixian would ask him to settle up with me. What did she take me for? I pushed him away and said, ‘It’s none of your damned business! If she wants to settle accounts, let her tell me to my face.’

‘You make her sick. If it’s money you want, she’ll give it to you. Or food. But if it’s anything else, dream on.’

I saw Huixian’s reflection in the glass; she was clearly agitated. She moved from one chair to the next, then went into the boiler room. I felt like shouting to her, ‘Go over to the general store, your mother’s waiting there, she’s looking for you!’ But in the end, that was a secret I had to keep to myself. If it was disclosed it would become laughable, and I’d become a lunatic in her eyes. I can’t describe the dejection I felt. I set down my bag, pointed across the street, and said, ‘You’ve got it all wrong. I’m waiting for them to make the cotton stuffing for a quilt.’

‘Then wait for it over there. Why come here? Every day you come here to cause trouble.’

‘He hasn’t got the guts. He’s like a bitch in heat.’ A man walked out of the boiler room. It was Wang Xiaogai. What a shock! He picked up a pair of scissors to trim his nose hair. ‘You can fool other people, Kongpi, but not me. I know what’s on your mind. The next time you come here like a bitch in heat, you’ll wind up exactly like your old man.’ He sneered and pointed at my crotch with his scissors. ‘That thing of yours likes to act up, and you don’t know how to control it, right? Well, I can take care of that. I’ll take half of it for you!’

This time my lungs felt as if they were about to explode. I stormed into the shop and headed straight for Xiaogai. Seeing trouble, Little Chen and Old Cui intercepted me, one holding my arm, the other wrapping his arms around my waist to stop me. ‘He was just kidding, it was a joke. He didn’t mean it, Kongpi.’ But Xiaogai, who was holding a stool in front of himself as protection, was not finished. ‘Cutting that off would remove a scourge to the people. Don’t think I wouldn’t do it. I’d be helping you out. With half a dick, you could stand in for your old man!’

The blood rushed to my head. Spoiling for a fight, I started to take off my belt. ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘you and your scissors. If you don’t you’re a fucking coward. Just you try, and see if I don’t cut off your dog dick!’

Our anger had a comical effect. Little Chen let go of me and bent over in side-splitting laughter. Old Cui grabbed my hand to stop me from taking off my belt. ‘Leave that alone!’ he demanded. ‘I’m telling you to cool down, Kongpi. If you don’t stop taking off your trousers, we’ll treat you like a common hooligan.’

Huixian came out of the boiler room. ‘What’s all the fighting about?’ The sight of my trousers on their way down gave her a momentary fright. But then she rolled her eyes and said, ‘You ugly clown, you’re disgusting!’ I couldn’t blame her for calling me that, given the way things must have looked. I’d have felt the same way, but it was all Xiaogai’s fault. I hitched up my trousers, waiting for her to work out what was going on, but then I saw the cold look in her eyes and watched as she banged a comb against the table. ‘Haven’t you disgraced yourself enough?’ she said. ‘If you have, then get out of here. Just get out!’

Nothing could have hurt me more than that demand. She should have been able to see that it hadn’t been my fault, so why was she telling me to get out? I lost control. ‘I’ve disgraced myself for over twenty years!’ I bellowed. ‘So what! I’m not leaving until he comes over and cuts off my dick!’

That stopped her. ‘If he won’t go, Xiaogai, you leave. It’s time for you to go to work, anyway.’

But Xiaogai surprised us all by staying put. ‘I’m not leaving till he does,’ he said. ‘I’m responsible for keeping order, and it’s my job to watch him.’

With her hands on her hips and a frown on her face, Huixian sized up me and Xiaogai in turn before turning on her heel and saying, ‘This makes me sick. If neither of you will leave, I will.’

Everyone watched silently as she took off her white smock and hung it on a peg. Underneath she was as fashionable as ever, in a cream-coloured turtleneck sweater over a pair of black bell-bottomed trousers. A string of pearls completed the outfit. Even though she had suffered setbacks in her life, there was no denying that she had a lovely figure, with full breasts, a slim waist and nice long legs. My gaze slid timidly down and down, stopping just above her knees. But of course I couldn’t see those lovely, alluring knees, the mere thought of which gave me a case of the nerves. Lowering my head, I had a feeling that her flaring trouser legs had floated over to me, just as I heard her say in a flat tone of voice, ‘Wait here for me, Ku Dongliang. I’ll be right back.’

What was that all about? Even Xiaogai and the others gave her a puzzled look. Xiaogai broke the silence. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Huixian ignored the question. She pushed open the door and walked out. I watched as she paused by the flowerbed and gently brushed the sunflowers with her hand. Then she walked off without a backward glance.

Xiaogai started after her, but I wasn’t going to let that happen. I picked up the scissors and blocked his way. Unfortunately, Old Cui and Little Chen were on his side, and I was outnumbered. I could only stand and watch Xiaogai walk outside. He turned, pointed at me threateningly and said, ‘Just you wait, Kongpi. Don’t think I won’t use those things on you. And if I don’t, somebody else will. Get ready to go into mourning for that dick of yours. You’re full of big talk now, but you’ll be begging for mercy before long.’

I stayed in the barbershop, waiting for Huixian to return. Waiting, too, for Xiaogai to return, and that made me uncomfortable. I sat in the corner from two in the afternoon, reading a newspaper. It was a new edition, but the contents hardly differed from days before: ‘News of victories on the labour front continue to pour in’ or ‘Unprecedented harvests in the agricultural, forestry, and fishery industries,’ stuff like that. All I had to do was read the first paragraph to know what the entire article said. Old Cui and Little Chen left me alone, and I ignored them.

Customers started showing up before long, under my watchful eye. A middle-aged woman with a youthful, seductive voice came in and sat down. She and Old Cui seemed to be on close terms. The flirting between barber and customer began. I didn’t like what I was seeing. Didn’t he know that this work environment had a bad influence on Huixian? Next through the door was a young dandy in fancy clothes, an official at the General Affairs Building called Little Zheng. He was obviously looking for Huixian, since he glanced around and poked his head in the boiler room. When he saw that she wasn’t there, he patted Little Chen on the shoulder and left. He hadn’t said a word the whole time. That put me on my guard. ‘What did Little Zheng want?’ I asked Little Chen.

He just looked at me out of the corner of his eye and snorted contemptuously. ‘That’s funny, you asking about other people. What is it you want?’

What could I say? ‘I’m waiting for Huixian,’ I said once I’d gathered my wits. ‘She told me to.’

‘You think she likes you, don’t you? She says wait, and you wait. Maybe she wants you to take in a movie. Or maybe have a wedding picture taken at the photographer’s shop. Dream on!’

‘Say what you like, I’m not leaving. I’m waiting for Xiaogai to come back and cut off my dick.’

He sneered. ‘This is no place for you to be showing off, Kongpi. We know all about you. You’re no match for Wang Xiaogai, so I’d steer clear of trouble, if I were you, and head back to the fleet now, before it’s too late.’

The clock on the wall said it was nearly four o’clock. It was beginning to get dark outside. I spotted Chunsheng and his sister walking past the barbershop shouldering a bag of rice. Fortunately, they didn’t see me on the other side of the glass door; that would have meant trouble for sure. The waiting was beginning to get to me, and in my mind’s eye I could see Father, eyes glued to the shore, rolling pin in hand, and his worry had turned to anger; he was willing me to return to the barge. Tired of sulking, I decided to go across the street to pick up the quilt stuffing, but I’d only made it as far as the door when a familiar figure appeared. It was Huixian; she’d come back.

She was loaded down with purchases, and I wondered what that was all about. A green nylon mesh bag over her shoulder was crammed full of sweets, biscuits and bottles of orange soda, while in her hands she was holding a thermos flask and a sack of apples. I stepped aside and held the door open for her. She smiled; I returned the smile. As we looked at each other, her smile froze. One after the other, she laid her purchases on the floor by my feet. Not sure what was coming, I stepped over the vacuum bottle and bag, but she grabbed hold of my shirt to stop me.

‘Let’s settle our accounts.’ It sounded like a casual comment, but the look in her eyes was anything but casual. ‘You said you didn’t want money or ration chits, right? Well, I broke one of your thermos flasks when I was a little girl, and I ate a lot of your food — biscuits, sweets, orange soda, things like that. I’m paying you back now. These are the only things I remember, but if I’ve forgotten anything, just tell me.’

Who’d have thought this would be how she’d decided to call it quits with me? I was on the verge of tears as I looked down at all those things. What could I say?

‘I know I’m acting like a spoiled child. Go ahead, take this home with you. Now we’re even.’ She walked away, heading towards the boiler room, but stopped after a couple of steps and said, ‘Are we quits now, or aren’t we? I don’t want to make you mad, Ku Dongliang. I haven’t forgotten where I came from. You may not care about the future, but I do, so please stop coming here to pester me. If word gets out, it’ll look bad for me.’

The tension in the shop was palpable. The twisted expression on my face must have frightened them. I picked up the flask and flung it to the floor; the glass lining shattered with a bang, sending the plastic case rolling on the floor as broken glass spread quickly. Then I picked up a soft-drink bottle and aimed it at Huixian. ‘Don’t you dare!’ she shrieked.

That stopped me, but only for a moment. I spun around and aimed it first at Old Cui and the woman he was working on, then at Little Chen. They’d never shown me any respect, but none of this was their fault, so I turned again and flung the bottle at the shop’s mirror. ‘We’re quits!’ I shouted. ‘That makes us quits!’ The mirror shattered. Then I aimed at the second mirror, which merely cracked. So I threw a third bottle. ‘We’re quits!’ I was crying by the time the third bottle was in the air. Hot tears ran down my face. Old Cui and Little Chen rushed up to grab me. Raising another bottle over my head, I swung at Old Cui’s face. Little Chen grabbed my left hand, so I hit him in the head with a bottle in my other hand.

Chaos ensued. Huixian and the woman in the chair screamed, blood and orange soda stained Old Cui’s face, who glared at me with disbelieving pain in his eyes.

‘Are you out of your mind, Kongpi?’ A trickle of blood oozed from Little Chen’s scalp. Boiling with rage, he picked the last bottle of soda out of the nylon bag and flung it at me. Dropping whatever was in my hand, I turned and ran, but too late. I’d barely made it to the door before I was stopped by people who had quietly sealed off my escape route. I felt like a ball that had banged into a wall, as fists and feet slammed into me, driving me back inside the shop.

A trio of young men surrounded me like three gloomy bombs. One was a powerful fellow with a goatee who went by the name of Old Seven of Li Village; a distant relative of Wang Xiaogai, he’d killed a man during his youth. I knew that Xiaogai had sent them to the barbershop; what I didn’t know was what they planned to do.

At first I just stood there to get a good look at them. They were all younger than me, in their late teens, and were dressed alike, with white bell-bottomed trousers and similar checked shirts. They wore fashionable digital watches, and Old Seven had a leather pouch hanging from his belt; something gleaming was sticking out of the top — an electrician’s knife. I wasn’t scared, not at first, because they merely had mischievous looks in their eyes; I even saw them wink at the barbers. But then Old Seven did something that put me on my guard: he spat in his hand and reached down towards my crotch. I jumped back and shoved him. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

He responded with a sinister grin. ‘What am I doing? I hear you’ve been a bad boy, letting that thing act up in public. Well, we’re here to see it doesn’t happen any more.’ Now I knew what they had in mind, and I broke for the door, but again not in time. One of them grabbed me around the waist, another held my legs, and I heard Old Seven shout, ‘Pull his trousers off!’ All three bombs exploded at once. They were stronger than I’d given them credit for. Suddenly, I felt like a sack of rubbish being thrown to the floor.

As they were taking off my belt, I looked through their legs and saw Old Cui standing against the wall, covering his face with a towel. I wanted to yell for him to come and help me, but I couldn’t, not after hitting him in the face with a bottle. Besides, it wouldn’t have done any good, not with those three ganging up on me. So I sought out Little Chen, who was sitting to one side, enjoying the show. When our eyes met, he jerked his head away and I saw the blood where my bottle had hit him. As I lay there, the person I really wanted to help me was Huixian, but I couldn’t see her anywhere. Someone was choking me, so I couldn’t even call out her name. I lay there, unable to move. I was like a pig under the butcher’s knife.

I saw a glint from Old Seven’s electrician’s knife, which was moving back and forth in front of my privates. ‘Get hard! Stick up! Hurry up, so we can carry out the procedure!’ There in front of everyone in the barbershop he began teasing my genitals with his knife. I felt a sharp, cold pain. I forgot that I was lying on the floor, and saw myself lying in my bed on the boat. The faces of my three tormenters swayed in front of my eyes, all a blur, but the face of my father appeared in the space behind them, the crows’ feet at the corners of his eyes and the age spots on his cheeks clearly discernible. There were tears in his eyes, but the trace of a smile floated on to his aged face. ‘Go ahead and cut it. Then I won’t have to worry any more.’

I was paralysed with fear. Who were these men? And who had sent them? Was it Wang Xiaogai? Or was it my father? With my eyes opened wide in despair, I waited for my salvation. Now it was all up to Fate. I couldn’t stop them from molesting me, couldn’t keep them from humiliating me. ‘Can’t get it up, is that it? You can’t get it up when you ought to and can’t keep it down when should. Without a hard-on, you lose big time. If we can’t get a good measure, we might remove the whole thing, and then you’ll be worse off than your old man, who at least has half a dick.’ Then, with rising excitement, he said, ‘Bring Little Tiemei over here. That’ll give him a hard-on for sure!’

A hush fell over the barbershop. The hands and legs that were pinning me to the floor went slack as Huixian emerged from somewhere, angry as a hen. I heard a string of vile curses burst from her mouth, mixed with tearful howls. ‘Here I am! I’ll give you all a hard-on! Get it up, get it up!’ She swung a hairdryer at Old Seven’s head. He ducked, and the dryer hit one of the other men in the arm. ‘What do you think I am, a sow, a bitch, a whore? Don’t you dare think I’ve fallen so low that the likes of you can take advantage of me! The person who can do that hasn’t been born. I know who you are. You might feel like hot shit today, but tomorrow I’ll call Commander Wang at Division Headquarters and have him send a squad of riflemen to take care of all three of you!’

Huixian’s anger stunned Old Seven and his friends. They backed off, grinning, and said, ‘What’s got into our Little Tiemei to make her so mad? We’re doing this for you. Once we take care of him, he won’t come around to bother you ever again.’

‘Don’t you try to toss me on to a manure pile. I don’t even know you. If you want to do something for me, then get the hell out of here!’ Then she turned and hit me with her hairdryer. ‘Why are you still lying there, stupid? Nobody on the shore likes you or wants to help you. For that you need the people in the fleet, so get yourself back on your boat.’

I tried to get up, but couldn’t, so she reached down, took my hand and pulled me to my feet. Old Seven came over to stop her. ‘Little Tiemei, you’re a miserable little bitch,’ he cursed. ‘We come to your aid, just so you can help him. He’s not the good little boy you think he is. How’d you like him to rape you?’

Huixian spat in his face, then spun around and said, ‘Old Cui, Little Chen, are you men or aren’t you? How can you stand there watching at a time like this. Get over here and help him. Help me!’

I took advantage of the confusion to run out of the door. Old Seven ran after me and kicked me on the hip. I couldn’t get out of the way fast enough. One of his friends picked up a cut-throat razor and ran outside, then threw it at me; luckily, it whizzed past my ear. By then I was in the middle of the street. The old man and woman from across the street were standing in front of their shop. ‘Three against one, what kind of—’ she swallowed the rest, clearly frightened by the looks of the men. Then I heard the old man trying to get them to stop. ‘Let him go,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to get involved with the likes of him, he’s not right in the head.’

I still hadn’t got over my terrible fright, but there was nothing wrong with my head, which was clear enough to recall the adage that a wise man doesn’t fight against impossible odds. But strange as it may sound, in the midst of the fix I had found myself in, I had suddenly longed to see my mother. I’d be safe if she were here. I ran through the intersection and past the general store, followed by curious stares from everyone who saw me. Some even attempted to stop me. ‘What’s wrong, Ku Dongliang? What are you running from?’ Kongpi. All those voices at once, just a jumble of noise. I turned and saw the propaganda poster on a wall and conjured up the image of another mother, a deeply anxious mother holding a faceless child. As I passed the public toilet on People’s Avenue, I caught a glimpse of my mother, Qiao Limin, standing beneath a parasol tree, which she was hitting with the sole of a plastic sandal. ‘You useless son, you see what’s happened to you? You’re just like your father. Why aren’t you running? Run as fast as you can, and come home!’

I ran down the path behind the steel warehouse and instinctively headed for the piers. And when I looked up again, my mother appeared on the path ahead. She had emerged abruptly from the dark recesses of the warehouse gateway. ‘Where are you going?’ she demanded, shaking her sandal in my face. ‘Don’t go back to the boat, not after disobeying him and causing all that trouble. He’ll kill you if he lays hands on you. Go home instead! Go home!’

I stumbled to a stop, and, strangely, my mother faded away. Go home instead! Go home! I wanted nothing more. But where was home? I had no home on the Milltown shore. After eleven years on the river, no home remained on land. All those familiar streets and houses and gates and windows belonged to other people; they had homes, I didn’t.

This was the first time I was willing to do as Mother wanted. Too bad I couldn’t make sense of what she was saying. With nowhere to go, I loitered in the warehouse area until I heard the sound of a bell off to the northwest, telling me that school had finished, and that sound triggered a memory of my childhood and the path I’d taken home at the end of the school day. With no clear purpose in mind, I headed for the scrap-metal heap beside the warehouse. That had been my shortcut. I walked past stacks of prefabricated concrete slabs and wove my way in and around piles of discarded sheet metal and oil drums, until the path opened up on to a familiar street. There it was, Number 9 Workers and Peasants Avenue, my childhood home.

Twilight accentuated the most peaceful street in the heart of Milltown. Workers and Peasants Avenue was no longer worthy of the name. Ordinary residents had moved away, effectively handing the street over to officials. A Jeep and a Shanghai sedan parked in front of houses were testimony to the neighbourhood’s exclusive nature. The cobblestone road had been paved over, and the tightly shut doors were accentuated by the shade of parasol trees, a sign of the elite families inside. The roof and walls of Number 9, my childhood home, had been refurbished — no more birds’ nests and mossy eaves. The red roof tiles were brand new, the walls had recently been whitewashed and were covered by lush loofah gourd vines. The roses my mother had planted were gone.

My childhood home had changed hands several times. The new occupant, I knew, was Director Ji of the General Affairs Building. He had been transferred from the military, where it was said he’d been a regiment vice-commander. He was the head of a large, prosperous and flourishing family. There was a small plaque nailed to the green gate: ‘Five Good Family’, it read, referring to the family virtues of respect for the old and concern for the young, gender equality, marital harmony, household economy and neighbourly solidarity. Was Director Ji’s family really that wonderful? I couldn’t say if the plaque gave me a warm feeling or made me feel hostile. The date tree still standing in the yard dropped a leaf on my head, and when I shook it off, it landed on my shoulder. The leaf alone knew who I was and was welcoming me back. I hadn’t set foot on the street in years. I felt like a stray dog lingering in the ruins of a former dog house.

A youngster rolling an iron hoop came walking by. ‘Did you bring a gift for Director Ji?’ he asked me. ‘There’s no one at home, they’re all at work.’

‘No, I didn’t bring a gift,’ I said. ‘I’m from the Housing Office. Just looking the place over.’

After eleven years on the river, my childhood home was just a reminder of the past. I walked alongside the wall and I spotted the rabbit warren I’d built back then. The Ji family was using it as a rubbish dump. I went up to the window on the eastern wall. It was protected by an iron grille. A curtain on the other side kept out all the light; I couldn’t see inside, but that had been my room. My metal-framed cot had been placed right under the window. I’d like to have seen if it was still there, but I could only pace back and forth outside. I did notice a paper-cut window decoration, a pair of butterflies, so maybe that was now the bedroom of Director Ji’s daughter. I purposefully turned and walked off.

A tall parasol tree stood on the other side of the street, and as I gazed at the shade it provided, I had an idea: that would be an ideal hiding place, a safe spot for me to keep an eye on my childhood home. I started climbing, and the view opened up in front of me. The date tree was still growing; the shade from its canopy covered half the yard. Drying racks had been set up all over the other half, and I was shocked to see all the duck and chicken and fish and meat drying in the sun, more than most families could ever consume. Preserved chicken and duck, pigs’ heads and fish, all in separate groups in the sunlight. I remembered the flowerbed beneath the date tree, where Mother had tended her Chinese rose bushes for years. But unlike other people’s gardens, her roses hadn’t bloomed until the spring we moved away; several flowers, scrawny pink buds, appeared that year for the first time. I’d got up in the middle of the night to relieve myself and had seen her sitting by the flowerbed in the moonlight, reflecting upon her life. ‘This is my fate,’ she’d said. ‘The sins of your father. The roses are about to bloom, just when I’m leaving. I won’t be around to see them.’

But today my mother’s image followed me relentlessly. It reappeared at Number 9 Workers and Peasants Avenue, and beneath the date tree. Her indignant gaze crossed the wall and glared at me, filled with disappointment that I hadn’t improved over the years. ‘I don’t want you climbing that tree. Get down here and come home. Come home!’ I was clear-headed, and knew I could not do as she wanted. The home was within reach, but, unhappily, it was no longer mine. I couldn’t go back.

As I sat in the tree, my hip began to ache, the effect of Old Seven’s vicious kick. It could turn out to be a permanent injury. I rubbed and rubbed, and suddenly a flood of unconnected thoughts came together. For the first time I was actually thinking about my life. Father and Mother: why had I chosen him over her? If I hadn’t fled from her side, would my future have been brighter? Who would have offered me the better education? By staying with her I’d have missed out on the barge and the river, but at least I’d have had a home on the shore. The shore or the river: which life would have been better? Then I heard myself reply forlornly, It’s all kongpi, yes, kongpi. Neither life offered anything good. The shore, the river — both bad. I’d be better off staying here, up a tree.

The higher I climbed, the more entranced I became with the branches and leaves. A brown dog spotted me and walked to the base of the tree, where it barked ferociously, startling me and disturbing the stillness on Workers and Peasants Avenue. I thought that Old Seven and his pals had caught up with me, so I climbed even higher. When I looked down, I saw someone open his door and stick his grey head out to see where the noise was coming from. Seeing nothing, he pulled his head back and closed the door.

The dog’s barking had also attracted the attention of the boy with the iron hoop, who stopped at the foot of the tree, looked up and spotted me. ‘What’s somebody your age doing climbing a tree?’ he shouted, surprised by what he saw.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I was tired, so I came up here to get some sleep.’

‘Liar,’ he said. ‘Only birds sleep in trees. You’re no bird.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m worse off than a bird, because I don’t have a home on the shore and must sleep in trees.’

He didn’t know whether to believe me or not. But then he shouted, ‘You’re lying. You said you were from the Housing Office. You people fix houses, not trees, so what are you doing up there? Planning a burglary?’

‘Is that what you think people who climb trees do? Who do you think you are, you little bastard? You listen to me — when I lived here you were still in your mama’s belly!’

The boy picked up his hoop and dashed over to a nearby gate. I knew he’d gone to fetch an adult, so I scrambled down the tree. I couldn’t keep hiding up a tree. It dawned on me as I jumped down that my hands were empty. I didn’t have my bag; I must have left it in the barbershop. Also, my quilt stuffing should be ready by now.

Keeping my eyes peeled the whole time, I made my way back to the barbershop door, where I carefully surveyed the surrounding area. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, except for glinting shards of glass on a rubbish pile. All my doing. I could distinguish the pieces of mirror from the shattered soft-drink bottles. The shop had closed early. The barber’s pole had been turned off, and the sunflowers, seemingly shaken by what had happened, were hiding behind their big leaves, no longer interested in showing their faces. The front door was closed and locked, and there was no one inside. A sign stuck up on the glass door piqued my curiosity, so I went over to see what it said. It took my breath away. Every word slammed into my chest like a bullet.

STARTING TODAY, KU DONGLIANG OF THE SUNNYSIDE FLEET

IS BANNED FROM THIS SHOP.

SIGNED: EMPLOYEES OF THE PEOPLE’S BARBERSHOP, MAY 1977

Banned! They’d banned me from the barbershop! What right did they have to keep me from entering a public establishment? I pounded on the door. There was no one inside, but the noise brought out the cotton-fluffing couple across the street, who were covered from head to toe with cotton fuzz. The man had my bag in his hand, his wife was holding the rolled-up quilt stuffing. ‘You ran off just in time,’ said the old man, smacking his lips at my good fortune. ‘There were actually four of them, but the one called Yama went to buy cigarettes. If he’d stuck around, you’d have been in worse trouble. You’ve heard of him, haven’t you? He’s cut the arms off five men in Phoenix. I personally witnessed two of them.’

The woman stopped her husband from saying more and handed me my bag and the cotton stuffing. ‘You’ve read that announcement,’ she said, pointing to the barbershop. ‘They asked me to tell you to stay away from now on. They don’t want you in there any more.’

I took my bag and felt around inside. My diary was missing, which proved something my father often said: You’re sure to lose anything you don’t want to lose. All the jars and cans were still there, everything but my diary. ‘Where’s my diary?’ I blurted out in alarm. ‘Who took my diary?’

My panicky shout gave them a fright. The man crouched down to help me rummage through the bag, while his wife, obviously upset, frowned and headed back into the shop, muttering unhappily, ‘This town’s full of bad people. We were being nice, keeping your bag for you, just so you can accuse us of stealing your stuff. We may be poor, but we’re not so poor we’d take your diary!’

Punishment

FATHER’S PUNISHMENT was unavoidable.

Someone in the fleet must have heard about the scandal I’d caused in the barbershop or had seen the announcement on the door. Either way, they couldn’t keep it to themselves and just had to tell my father. Standing on the bow, rolling pin in one hand and a coil of rope in the other, he was waiting for me.

Everyone could see that he was fuming. ‘What’s the rope for, Old Ku?’ someone asked, probably already knowing the answer.

‘I’m waiting for Dongliang. Have you seen him?’ No one had. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Father said. ‘I think I know where he is.’

‘But what’s the rope for?’ they asked. He was about to say something, but stopped, reluctant to publicize a family scandal.

Sun Ximing, having heard that Father hadn’t had anything to eat, brought over some food. ‘Dongliang will be back soon to make dinner,’ he said to comfort Father. ‘This will tide you over for now.’

Father rejected the overture. ‘I’ve got too much anger in me to eat. I’m not waiting here for lunch. The audacity of that boy — he’s five hours late.’

‘Dongliang’s not a boy any more,’ Sun said. ‘Something must have come up to keep him ashore. Maybe he had a date. He’ll be back sooner or later, so what’s the problem? You’re not thinking of tying him up, are you?’

‘You may not know this, Old Sun, but minor errors often grow into major ones. There are rules for a country and rules for a family. His thinking and his moral character are flawed, and if national laws don’t apply, domestic law has to. He must be tied up!’

Bag and cotton stuffing in hand, I arrived at the piers where the barges were moored. The first thing I saw was Father standing on the bow with the coil of rope in his hand. Some people on the other barges had gloating looks on their faces, others were waving to keep me from going aboard. Father was fuming. I’d done the one thing he could not tolerate: I’d defied his authority. I was five and a half hours late, and I knew I was in for a punishment. Five slaps in the face, maybe, or five hours on my knees. Maybe he’d make me write a five-thousand-word self-criticism. It all depended on my degree of contrition. I’d never even considered the possibility that he’d actually be planning to tie me up. I was twenty-six years old. Six-Fingers Wang’s daughters were watching me, so was Chunsheng’s sister. Li Juhua could have been peeking at me out of the oil-pumping station for all I knew. My hip was sore, I was tired, and he was planning to tie me up! If I let him do that in front of all those people, I’d be ashamed to show my face anywhere after that. I’d be better off tying myself to a rock and jumping into the river.

I decided to stay where I was until he’d cooled down enough to put down the rope. I called Xiaofu over to take the quilt stuffing on to our barge. But then I changed my mind. What if he wouldn’t let me come aboard? The stuffing would come in handy. So I decided to hand him my bag instead. But then I thought, what if he wouldn’t let me go aboard ever again, and I had to start a new life on the shore? I’d need the bag on my travels, by train or bus, so I decided to keep it with me for the time being.

My abnormally hesitant behaviour began to unnerve Xiaofu, who complained, ‘What do you want me to help you with? You’re driving me crazy.’ So I took the jars and cans out of the bag for him. He picked up the soy sauce and vinegar bottles and took them up on to the barge, laying them at my father’s feet.

‘Thank you, Xiaofu,’ Father said politely. ‘You’re a good boy.’ He didn’t seem so angry, after all, but the moment Xiaofu turned back to me, Father picked up the bottles and flung them back on the shore. ‘You coward!’ he shouted. ‘What is it you don’t have — legs or guts? Why don’t you come aboard instead of having somebody else act as your porter?’

The soy-sauce bottle shattered at my feet, spilling its contents on the ground and splattering my trouser legs. Now I was the angry one, as I wiped it off. ‘You’ve got legs, haven’t you? If you want to tie me up, come over here and do it if you can!’

I regretted the provocation the moment the words were out of my mouth. It only made things worse. Father’s face turned almost green with rage. ‘You think I won’t come after you, is that it? I haven’t turned into a fish, not yet, so dry land doesn’t scare me. I’ll come down there, all right, and I’ll tie you up.’

He’d been on the barge so long he’d forgotten how to use the gangplank. He rested one foot tentatively on the edge to see how springy it was, then the other foot. But that’s as far as he dared go. He stood there, looking strangely awkward as the gangplank bounced up and down. ‘Careful!’ I shouted. Straining to keep his balance, and gasping for breath, he pointed at me. ‘Don’t give me that,’ he said. ‘If I fell into the river and drowned, you’d be free. Too bad for you, I’m not going to die that easily. I’m still your father.’

Desheng jumped aboard our barge and pulled my father off the gangplank. ‘Don’t get worked up, Old Ku. Don’t try it. You’re not used to it any more. If you try walking on it, you’ll be in the river for sure.’

‘What do you mean, not used to it? I used to walk on it all the time, even carrying a sack of rice.’

‘I know that,’ Desheng said, ‘but you haven’t done it in years. Even if you made it across, you’d get motion sickness on land.’

The fear in Father’s eyes was unmistakable as he looked nervously at Desheng. ‘What do you mean by that? You’re making that up. Why would I be unsteady on land?’

Desheng began to sway, holding his head in his hands and rocking it back and forth. ‘Being unsteady on land and on the water are the same. People not used to being on a boat get motion sickness on water, just like people who aren’t used to walking on land are unsteady on the riverbank. You’ve been on the river so long the barge is your land and the land is your barge. That’s why you won’t be able to walk on the shore.’

I could see that Father’s mind had begun to wander. He cast a wary eye to the shore, blinking rapidly as he pondered what Desheng said. But then his gaze bounced back to where I was standing. ‘Are you coming here or not? Are you waiting for me to wobble on the gangplank or on the ground?’ He twisted the rope around his hand and shouted, ‘You’re acting awfully brave, putting up a desperate struggle with your back to the wall.’

‘And I’ll keep struggling if you’re set on tying me up,’ I said. ‘Hand the rope to Desheng, and I’ll come up.’

‘Why should I? He doesn’t represent the government, and he’s not your dad. I am. You’ve done a terrible thing today, and I’m going to punish you by tying you up.’

While the two of us, father and son, faced each other, one on the river, the other on the shore, Desheng’s wife joined her husband on our barge and asked Father to give her the rope. ‘You two are causing a scene. Dongliang’s a grown man,’ she said, ‘old enough to be a father himself. He’s stronger than you, and you can’t tie him up unless he lets you. And even if he did, because he’s a dutiful son, it’d be such a loss of face for him he’d never be able to live it down.’ She was right. The people who were watching us nodded in agreement.

But not Father. He shook his head. ‘I don’t want him to be dutiful, I want him to be better than he is. You don’t understand how hard it is to get him to improve himself. I teach him, but he doesn’t get any better. But if I stop teaching him, he’ll just get worse. And if I simply leave him alone, he’ll break every rule there is. He’s a disgrace, and I have to treat him like a little tyrant, because that’s the only thing he responds to.’

‘All this talk about getting better or worse doesn’t mean anything aboard these barges,’ Desheng’s wife said with a scowl. ‘All we want is to get by and live a peaceful life. I’ll talk to him, tell him to come up and admit he was wrong. I’ll make him promise to stop doing things that make you angry.’

‘Who cares if he admits he was wrong or not?’ Father said. ‘He’s the type who refuses to mend his ways.’

Desheng’s wife was first to notice the pained look on my face. She pointed to me. ‘Take a good look at Dongliang,’ she said. ‘His face is as white as a sheet. He can’t stand the way he makes you mad. Put the rope down, Old Ku, or take it into the cabin. You can use what you want, national laws or family law, there’s no loss of face if no one sees. But you can start by letting Dongliang come aboard.’

Desheng and his wife both tried to take the rope away from Father, but he tightened his grip and refused to let go. But he looked a bit less angry, which Desheng noticed. This time he gave the rope a hard tug and wrenched it out of Father’s hand.

Now that he was no longer holding the rope, Father’s face showed how weary he was. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’m not going to tie you up. Don’t come aboard today, stay where you are. Lead as degenerate a life as you want. Go ahead, stir up plenty of trouble and break all the rules. I won’t need to use family law; I’ll let national laws do their job. Sooner or later you’ll be handed over to the dictatorship of the proletariat.’

Thinking he was beginning to give in, I started up the gangplank, and barely avoided getting hit by a flying rolling pin. ‘Who said you could come up here?’ he shouted. ‘Get your ass back on the shore!’

My hip really hurt from twisting my body to get out of the way of the rolling pin, and that only fuelled my anger. ‘Are you going to let me come aboard today or aren’t you?’ I gave him my final ultimatum. ‘If you won’t, then I’ll never step foot on that barge again.’

‘Is that a threat? Do you think I’m afraid of your threats? Go on,’ he said with a wave of his hand, ‘get back on the shore. From this day on I have no son!’

‘Who wants to be your son anyway? Who needs a father like you?’ The blood had rushed to my head and stoked my courage. A stream of ugly curses gushed from my mouth, washing over Father like a raging torrent. ‘Take off your trousers, Ku Wenxuan, and show everybody. Who wants a father like you? Everybody else’s father has a whole dick. How come you only have half of one? Where do you get the nerve to try to educate me with only half a dick? And you wanted to tie me up! Half a dick. I tell you, I’m like I am today all because of that dick of yours!’

My cries hit the boat people within earshot like a thunderclap and provoked more shouting. ‘Ku Dongliang is rebelling, he’s rebelling!’ My father blanched and began to sway. The gaze in his eyes was very peculiar. What I saw wasn’t panic or terror, it was despair. A glob of phlegm caught in his throat, and when he tried to bring it up to spit it out, he was racked by a coughing fit.

Desheng and his wife, who were still aboard our barge, rushed up to help him into the cabin. Desheng glared at me as he propped my father up. ‘Dongliang, are you possessed by a demon or something? Your father isn’t a class enemy, but you might as well kill him as talk to him that way.’

His wife patted Father on the shoulder. ‘Don’t let it get to you,’ she said to him. ‘Someone in town ran into a demon recently, in broad daylight. It scared them out of their wits. I’m sure that’s what has happened to Dongliang.’

‘No, it didn’t!’ I shouted. ‘I’ve suffered for eleven years, and I’ve had enough. Now I’m rebelling!’

On the barges and on the shore, people were looking at me, shocked. ‘I’m rebelling!’ I yelled. ‘I’m rebelling!’ Tossing the quilt stuffing over my back and slinging my bag over my shoulder, I turned and headed back down the pier.

Sun Ximing and his wife ran after me; one of them grabbed my bag, the other held on to the cotton. ‘Where are you going, Dongliang?’ Sun asked. ‘What makes you think you can just leave? Where will you go?’

With a wave of my hand, I said, ‘Where I go is none of your business. It’s a big world, and there has to be a place for me in it.’

‘The world may be big,’ Sun said, ‘but it doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to the Party and to socialism.’

‘What’s wrong with you today, Dongliang?’ Sun’s wife said, stamping her foot and waving her arms. ‘Everybody’s always talking about your bad points, but you’re a dutiful son. I told my husband that when the fleet chooses its most civilized family this year, it has to be barge number seven.’

‘Our barge isn’t civilized,’ I said, ‘but you choose whatever barge you want, I don’t care.’

Sun grabbed hold of my bag again and said, ‘Dongliang, you can’t abandon your father. How’s he going to live if you leave?’

‘He’s got arms and legs,’ I said. ‘He can take care of himself.’

‘OK,’ Sun said, ‘forget about him if you want, that’s your business. But shipping goods is my business, and how is your barge going to keep working if you leave? Tomorrow we’re taking on a load of oilseed. Your father doesn’t know a thing about how these barges work, and I can’t let you affect production.’

‘What do I care about oilseed? Or about production? From now on, the only thing I care about is me. I’m a free man!’

I started running, and didn’t stop till I’d left Sun Ximing and his wife far behind. But a couple of kids from other barges quickly overtook me. ‘They’re saying you almost lost your dick today,’ Xiaofu said. ‘Is that true?’

Chungeng sneaked a look down at my crotch. ‘Are you running away to keep from getting punished?’ he asked. ‘Wang Xiaogai says you go to the barbershop in town every day, and that you went there to harass Huixian. Have you already thumped her? Have you?’ Their questions pissed me off, but I was in no mood to wrangle with a bunch of kids, so I kicked Chungeng and started running again. He grabbed his knee where I’d kicked him, and started to scream, ‘You’re a moron, Dongliang, an ugly toad that wants to thump a swan. You deserve to have your dick cut off!’

As I was passing the oil-pumping station, a crumpled piece of paper flew in the air and landed at my feet. Li Juhua was standing in the doorway in her blue work clothes, watching me, her severe demeanour mocking me.

‘What have I ever done to offend you, Li Juhua?’ I said. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

‘You’ve never offended me,’ she said. ‘It’s just that I’ve been thinking that you know everything about someone except what’s in his heart. On the surface you look all right, so how could you have such a filthy mind?’

I just stared at her, stunned by her comment. ‘What do you mean, a filthy mind?’

She brushed some dust off her sleeve and said, ‘I don’t have an appetite for such things. Why do I need to tell you what you’ve done?’ Seeing the blank look on my face, she sneered, ‘Don’t act dumb with me. Do I have to remind you what you did to Little Tiemei in the barbershop?’

Now I understood. A frightful rumour about me had already begun to spread, thanks to Wang Xiaogai — the guilty one taking a bite out of the victim. I stood there in front of the oil-pumping station in a daze, so angry my limbs felt cold. Li Juhua’s words buzzed in my ears. ‘Go ahead, be as decadent as you want, it’s none of my business. You and I have nothing in common, and I don’t care if you wind up in prison.’

I had no desire to engage Li Juhua in a debate about the false accusation. Instead, I headed angrily to the security-group office to settle scores with Xiaogai. But when I got there, I could see through the window that he was out; Baldy Chen and Scabby Five were in the cluttered office playing a game of chess, head to head and cursing up a storm. A blackboard on the wall above them read: ‘Current security situation report.’ My name appeared below the heading: ‘Ku Dongliang of the Sunnyside Fleet took liberties with a woman at the People’s Barbershop.’ The sight of those scrawled words nearly blew the top off my head. Ignoring the door, I pushed open the window and all but jumped through it. ‘Erase that!’ I shouted. ‘Erase my name!’

Jerking their heads up, they both screamed. Wasting no time, Scabby Five picked his truncheon up off the table and dashed over to me. ‘Well, Kongpi, we don’t have the time to take care of you, so you are on your own!’

I flung my quilt stuffing at Wulaizi, but he ducked, and Baldy Chen rushed up. He was holding a rifle with a glinting bayonet fixed to the barrel. Blinking ferociously, he charged at me. I jumped down off the window ledge and ran all the way to the cotton warehouse, where I stopped and looked back to see Baldy Chen and Scabby Five in the doorway, yelling something I couldn’t hear. Maybe they had decided not to chase me so they could continue with their game of chess. After a quick survey of my surroundings, I picked up an enamel tea cup left on a stool by the gate watchman and took a drink, then wiped my face with a tattered towel. Since I couldn’t hang around here, I decided to go to the chess pavilion.

The area around the pavilion was like a black-market communication hub, where oil truckers pulled off the highway to unload and rest and pick up hitchhikers, taking them as far as Horsebridge or Wufu for fifty or sixty cents. It was an open secret.

I went up to the pavilion, my first visit in years, and was shocked by what I saw. The hexagonal structure now had only three sides, the swallow-tail eaves were gone, and striped plastic sheeting was wrapped around the six stone pillars, their tips peeking through the top to remind passers-by that this had once been Milltown’s grandest spot. This was possibly the most significant event on the banks of the river, and I knew nothing about it. Who was responsible? It had to be Zhao Chuntang. But why? My attention shifted from the pavilion to a slovenly worker crouching on the ground drinking tea and eating a steamed bun; a sledgehammer lay at his feet. I ran over to confront him.

‘Who authorized you to tear down the pavilion? Was it Zhao Chuntang?’ In between bites, he said, ‘It’s not my call, and not Zhao Chuntang’s. The order came from above.’

‘Why would anyone want to tear it down?’ I asked.

‘This is valuable property,’ he said, and I hear they’re going to build a car park. There are so many vehicles in Milltown these days — oil trucks, agricultural transports, even military vehicles — so parking is at a premium.’

‘What’s more important,’ I demanded, ‘a car park or a memorial to a revolutionary martyr?’ It was a delicate question, but I was asking the wrong person. So I softened my tone and asked, ‘What about the memorial stone? Where did they tell you to move it to?’

‘It’s only a stone marker,’ he said, ‘and a tomb with some personal effects. Easy to move. I’m told it’s going to the revolutionary museum in Phoenix.’

My distress mystified the worker. He looked me over carefully, taking in my bag, my clothes and my leather shoes, but he couldn’t figure out who I might be. ‘Who are you, anyway?’ he asked.

I nearly blurted out, ‘I’m the martyr Deng Shaoxiang’s grandson!’ But I bit my tongue. The river flows east for thirty years, then west for thirty more. Now I couldn’t say whose grandson I was. With a sigh I said, ‘I’m nobody, nobody at all. Just a rank-and-file citizen. I was curious, that’s all.’

‘After raising such a stink, now you tell me.’ The worker breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Why’d you get so angry with me? We’re both rank-and-file citizens, so you shouldn’t be asking me questions like that. Go and ask one of the big shots.’

He was right, this was a matter for the big shots. That excluded me, and I had no reason to make trouble for an ordinary worker. I walked back to the pavilion and pulled back part of the plastic to look inside. The smell of alcohol hit me in the face. The man wasn’t alone. Two other workers were asleep on the floor. The remains of a meal lay on an old newspaper, and a pair of geese were picking their way through the lunch boxes and drink bottles. Then I caught sight of a man watching the geese — it was the idiot Bianjin, sitting in a corner, holding a baby goose in his arms as he gnawed on a pig’s foot.

The sight of Bianjin called to mind his backside, and that reminded me of my father’s backside, with its fish-shaped birthmark. He had to contend for his birthright with an idiot, a bizarre struggle that had gone on for years and that could only be classified as humiliation. I had no interest in being around Bianjin. My fear of being subjected to comparative scrutiny was like a conditioned reflex. There were plenty of muddle-headed people on the shore and on the barges who would be thrilled at the prospect of discussing our relative appearance and bloodlines if they saw me together with Bianjin. Who were the real descendants of Deng Shaoxiang — Ku Wenxuan and his son, or the idiot Bianjin? Most of the boat people leaned towards us, while people on the shore tended to favour the underdog by insisting that the idiot’s birthmark more closely resembled a fish. And there were even people who passionately argued that they’d prefer an idiot to be the martyr’s descendant than the degenerate Ku Wenxuan, who would smear the legacy of Deng Shaoxiang.

I stood outside the pavilion observing Bianjin, while several townspeople watched me from a nearby tea stall. The sight of me and the idiot in the same place had them virtually jumping for joy. ‘Look!’ they said. ‘There’s the idiot, and there’s Ku Dongliang!’ They were all talking at once, the topic of discussion, believe it or not, my backside. Some of them were unable to contain their desire to have a peek; their eyes were nearly burning a hole in the seat of my pants. Baldy Chen’s cousin, Four-Eyes Chen, who wore glasses, appeared to be cultured and educated, but he came up, grabbed my arm and made a presumptuous request: ‘Ku Dongliang, your father never comes down off his barge, so his backside is off limits. Why don’t you show what you’re made of by dropping your pants and letting us compare your birthmark with the idiot’s? That way the masses can fairly judge whether you are Deng Shaoxiang’s grandson.’

Four-Eyes was courting disaster. He was no match for me in an argument or in a fight, but I had no desire to get tangled up with this bunch. ‘Get the hell out of here, Four-Eyes, and send your wife over. I’ll give her a look, front and back. She can tell you what she sees.’ My parting shot. A foreboding chill swirling in the early-evening air above Milltown gave me the feeling that this was not the place for me. I had to leave, and leave fast.

A number of oil transports were parked by the side of the road, one of which had just started up. The driver, assuming I was looking for a ride, waved at me from the cab. ‘Where you headed? Hurry up, jump in.’ I ran over and jumped on to the running board. ‘I’m going to Xingfu,’ the driver said. ‘I can drop you off on the way if that’s where you’re headed. It’ll cost you fifty cents.’

I didn’t know exactly where Xingfu was, whether it was a rural village or a market town. But so what! Xingfu — Happiness — a nice name. ‘Xingfu it is. Let’s go.’

The driver opened the passenger door and stretched out his hand. ‘Fifty cents, up front.’

I was digging in my pocket for the money when a strange voice whistled past my ear. There was a commotion at the intersection, with several people calling my name. ‘Stay there, Ku Dongliang! Don’t leave, don’t go anywhere!’ Some kids who’d come running over from the Sunnyside Fleet were calling my name, and they surrounded me like a swarm of hornets. One of them wrapped his arms around my legs, another grabbed my bag. Xiaofu stamped his foot and yelled at me, ‘Ku Dongliang, while you’ve been having a carefree time out here, your dad swallowed some pesticide. They’ve taken him to hospital.’

I had a dim image of Baldy Chen and his rifle, a delayed bullet emerging from the barrel and hitting me in the chest, the bad news arriving mercilessly. I shuddered, jumped down off the running board and ran as fast as I could towards the hospital, arms flailing. I thought I was flying down the road, but then my hip started aching, my legs felt rubbery and I started gasping for breath. I slowed down in spite of myself.

Xiaofu, who was off to my left, yelled, ‘Come on, run! Your dad’s in hospital fighting for his life, and you’re moving like a fat old pig.’

Chungeng, to my right, joined in. ‘It’s all your fault. A real man has the guts to take the heat for what he’s done. What kind of man are you? Are you scared now? You drove your own dad to suicide, but you’re like a turtle that pulls in its head. A turtle runs faster than you!’

Six-Fingers Wang’s youngest daughter, Little Four, was urging me on from behind by smacking my rear end with a switch, as if she was whipping a horse. ‘Get moving!’ she said. ‘You have to do something to atone for your crimes.’ She was panting and cursing at the same time. ‘Ku Dongliang, no matter what you think of him, he’s still your dad. People only have one father and one mother, and when they’re gone, they’re gone. But you abandoned your dad and ran off! If my mother hadn’t swallowed pesticide once and my father didn’t have such a good nose, your dad would have died in his cabin without anybody knowing anything about it.’

Her words hit me hard. I was crying like a baby as I ran. Those kids had never seen me cry, and it stopped them in their tracks. I covered my face with my hands so they wouldn’t see my tears. They thought it was their scolding and pressure that had brought on the tears, so they stopped. ‘Don’t cry,’ Little Four said, ‘we won’t say any more. So you were wrong this time. Next time you’ll do better.’

With a frown, Chungeng said, ‘What good does it do to cry? The harder you cry, the slower you run.’

People out on the street gaped curiously at this contingent on the run. ‘Hey!’ they said. ‘What’s the hurry? Has someone in the fleet died?’

‘People are dying in town all the time,’ Little Four shrieked, ‘but not in the fleet.’

Xiaofu shoved the busybodies out of the way as he pushed me along. ‘What business is it of yours if we run? Go ahead, get an eyeful, we’re training for a long-distance race. Haven’t you ever seen one of those?’

Desheng and Sun Ximing’s wives were waiting for me at the hospital entrance. They exchanged relieved looks. ‘Dongliang, you didn’t leave after all, that’s good,’ one of them said.

‘My Xiaofu knows how to get things done,’ said the other. ‘He managed to bring Dongliang here.’

I was on the verge of collapse. ‘My dad, is he OK?’ I managed to shout before falling at their feet. I couldn’t stand up; I felt the women try to pull me to my feet by my arms. I didn’t resist, but my body and my soul lay fearfully on the ground, refusing to get up. I was shaking uncontrollably.

‘There’s nothing to be afraid of,’ Desheng’s wife said. ‘Your dad’s going to be OK. He’s got us to take care of him. Now stand up, come on, stand up.’

But Sun Ximing’s wife kept pointing to my head and giving me a good scolding. ‘Now you know what it means to be afraid. Why didn’t you listen to us earlier? It’s OK not to trust the people on the shore, but have you stopped trusting us too? You call yourself a rebel. Well, you nearly rebelled your father to death!’

They walked me into the hospital’s intensive-care unit. I have no recollection of the hospital’s layout or facilities, but I’ll never forget the smell of the room he was in. It stank of dirty feet and blood, along with the acrid smell of iodine and the aroma of food. Father had forced me into a relationship with that place: the first time as a result of his severed penis, and this time in an effort to save his life. I couldn’t escape a measure of responsibility for either. Standing in the doorway, I suddenly felt as if my stomach was about to betray me. Afraid that I was going to throw up, I crouched down in front of a spittoon.

‘What’s wrong with you, Dongliang?’ Sun’s wife said. ‘Your father’s lying there in the corner, what are you doing down there?’

I rubbed my belly. ‘Hold on,’ I said, ‘wait a minute.’

When she saw my ashen face, Desheng’s wife said, ‘Yes, let’s wait a minute. He looks as if he’s going to throw up, probably from hunger, or fright.’

I strained to raise my head from the spittoon to search for Father. Most of the beds in Intensive Care were occupied. He was lying on a bench in the corner, surrounded by oxygen tanks, IV racks and lots of people. It was obvious that his condition was critical from the way two nurses were bouncing around beside him and the doctor was pumping his stomach. It looked like a slaughterhouse or meat-processing plant. Father was a feeble but stubborn old ox that refused to be led to the slaughter, and was upsetting the nurses.

Since they didn’t dare vent their frustrations on him, they took them out on the people standing nearby. ‘How can you be so inept? You men, with all that strength, and you can’t even hold an old man down. Look how he’s thrown up all over me!’

The boat people shuttled back and forth beside the bench until they finally settled into place. Six-Fingers Wang pressed down on Father’s body, with Sun Ximing and Desheng in position on either side of the bench, one holding a spittoon, the other holding up an IV bottle. That was when Sun Ximing saw me. He glowered. ‘What are you standing around for? Get over here and help Six-Fingers hold him down. Your stubborn dad refuses to let them pump his stomach.’

So I rushed across and pushed down on my father’s midsection. He looked up at me and tried to say something, but the tube in his mouth made that impossible. Next best was to push me away, but Six-Fingers was holding his arms down at his sides. Obviously he wanted me out of there, and that was probably a good idea, since my stomach was churning and I felt like throwing up. But I had to force it down. He was the one who needed to throw up. I pushed down hard. ‘Throw up, Dad, get rid of it.’ But he was determined not to. He was breathing as hard as he could, trying to expel the tube from his throat. ‘Empty your stomach, Dad, forget about the tube. Get rid of the pesticide and you’ll be fine.’

I looked into his eyes and saw that the anger had given way to torment, just before a geyser of foul liquid burst from his mouth and hit me full in the face. I didn’t even try to get out of the way, strangely enough. I just emptied the contents of my stomach right after he did.

An Orphaned Barge

THE FLEET had left town by the time Father got out of hospital.

I carried him on my back down to the piers, from where we could see barge number seven tied up beside the embankment some distance away, an abandoned vessel seemingly floating at the edge of the world. In my eleven years on the river this was the first time our barge had not been part of the fleet, and it seemed quite alien, as did the shore and even the Golden Sparrow River. Normally, the river flowed so rapidly it could be heard at a distance, with floating objects just about everywhere you looked: brightly coloured or steel-grey patches of grease, dead branches and leaves, and the rotting corpses of drowned animals. But that afternoon the river was so implausibly unspoiled that it spread out before me like a timeworn piece of dark-blue satin, perfectly still and beautiful. Yes, beautiful, but bleakly so.

Father stank after three days in the hospital. I smelled his fetid breath, the dried sweat in his hair and the acrid stench of his clothing. All combined, he gave off a strong fishy odour. Why, I wondered, did he smell like that? Bringing him back that way was like carrying a large marinated fish.

Father was wide awake the whole time, but he refused to speak to me — his last remaining display of authority. He was mired in silence, the only punishment he could think of. Except for an occasional glimpse of his swaying feet, he was hidden from me, especially his eyes, but I knew that the hostility was gone, and that, except for glimmers of suffering, only a blank, empty gaze remained — fish eyes. As we were leaving the hospital, a doctor had recommended that I talk to Father more often, telling me that it was common among rescued suicides, especially older ones, to descend into dementia.

I wanted to talk to Father, but didn’t know what to say, how to start or end a conversation with him. His shrivelled body rested against me, but I knew that our hearts and minds were miles apart. While I couldn’t see his mouth, that was not the case with the frothy bubbles that emerged from it. I don’t know if they were caused by the treatment he had received or by what his body had experienced, but the result of the stomach-pumping was dark-and light-brown bubbles at first, followed by transparent and, I must admit, enticing bubbles.

Sunlight glinted off the river as we approached the piers, with a light breeze caressing Father’s face to dislodge the last of the bubbles, which first landed on my shoulder and then fell to the ground at my feet. I was surprised to see them change colour to a glistening rainbow of hues, and the sight made me laugh for the first time in ages. Unfortunately but predictably, Father misinterpreted my laughter. I felt him move and heard him speak for the first time: ‘Go ahead, laugh, I know why you’re laughing. I’m going to die soon, and you’ll get your freedom.’

A trio of longshoremen stood on the pier smoking. ‘What’s the story with number seven barge?’ Master Liu shouted. ‘The others have all left, so what are you doing strolling around here?’ Then they spotted Father on my back, and that got them animated. The local labourers had long been curious about my father, and this was a rare opportunity to get some answers. They crowded around to get a good look at Father’s face and body, before retreating to a nearby crane to exchange opinions. I heard one of them say, ‘He’s as strange as they say. He’s blowing bubbles like a fish.’ I detected a sympathetic note in Master Liu’s voice as he said with a sigh, ‘It’s only been ten years or so since I saw him last. How did he get so old so fast? He’s had a tough life.’ I didn’t like what I heard from the third man, who was younger than the others; he contrasted my father’s appearance with what he’d heard of the life of Deng Shaoxiang, and, thinking himself quite clever, concluded, ‘No, this old-timer can’t be the one, he has to be a fraud. No way he’s Deng Shaoxiang’s son. Think back to when Deng Shaoxiang was martyred, and the baby was in her basket. He wouldn’t be this old, not now.’

I felt Father stir on my back and was hit by a dose of foul breath; he’d opened his mouth, probably to defend himself by giving his age. But the second thing he said was also directed at me. ‘Just keep walking a bit further, and you can deposit me on the barge. Then you can leave. I haven’t got long to live, and I won’t be around to run your life any more. You can have your freedom.’

A stray cat that had prowled around the piers for years was crouched on the bow of our barge, watching the river flow past. It might have recognized me. Seeing its master return, it jumped on to the gangplank and skittered past my legs to the shore.

The first thing I saw after carrying Father on deck was a gift the cat had left us: its droppings. Then I noticed that someone had pulled back the hatch of the forward hold, which was now empty, half in sunlight and half in darkness. Echoes of the flowing river emerged, now that there was nothing in there for us to ship. I was remarkably sensitive to the sound of the river, and that afternoon I distinctly heard the faithful echo of its call in the forward hold: Come down, come down. There was no question that Father heard it too, for I felt his head rise weakly from my shoulder. ‘What’s that sound?’ he asked. ‘Are they shipping oilseed?’

‘It’s too late for that, Dad, the hold is empty. There’s nothing on our barge except some cat droppings.’

We went aft into the cabin, where I put him down on the sofa. He collapsed with a contented sigh. ‘We’re home, Dad,’ I said. ‘Everything’s going to be all right.’

‘I’m fine now,’ he said. ‘You can go.’ I asked him if he wanted to take a bath. After a brief hesitation, he said, ‘Yes, that’s what I need. After that you can go.’ So I got up and started to boil some water, accompanied by his mutterings. ‘Don’t worry about me, and I won’t worry about you.’

‘You might not worry about me,’ I said loudly, ‘but I’m worried about you. Not because I want to be, but because you’re my father and I’m your son.’

Everyone in the fleet knew it was a chore for my father to take a bath, and you had to be on your toes. I moved our wooden tub into the cabin and made sure the window was closed to keep nosy people from peeking in at us. He may well have been the most unique man on either bank of the Golden Sparrow River. Other men wouldn’t bat an eye if they were asked to do the sorcerer’s dance nude, but my father’s naked body was a true curiosity for almost everyone. If the front was exposed, he was deeply shamed by his restored penis, but the rear view, with its fish-shaped birthmark, was a source of great pride to him, and both were of considerable interest to all sorts of people. I knew that he had struggled for years to avoid exposing himself to the shame or horror of public viewing. Even I had had no opportunity to see his uncovered penis. In the past, whenever he took a bath, it was my job to patrol the decks outside the cabin to keep out the prying eyes of curious children. But now the other barges were gone, so there was no need for that. After closing the window, I saw that the look in Father’s eyes was one of trepidation. Darting glances to one side and the other, he said, ‘What’s that buzzing in my ears? Who’s out there?’

‘The fleet’s gone,’ I said. ‘Ours is the only boat left, so there’s no one to make any noise.’

With a watchful glance at the door, he said, ‘That’s not safe, not safe at all. Shut the door.’

So I did, and the cabin got stuffy. After filling the tub with hot water, I helped Father out of his filthy clothes, but only as far as his underpants. ‘Those stay on,’ he said. ‘I’ll take them off when I’m in the tub.’ I helped him in and watched as he slowly sat down by leaning to one side, like a stroke victim. ‘Don’t look,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to see. You didn’t listen, and nearly suffered the same fate. Hand me the towel and turn around.’

I did as he asked, and stared at the poster of Deng Shaoxiang on the wall. Then something came over me, and I thought I saw the slumbering martyr come to life. Turning her head slightly, she gazed down at the naked body in the tub. Ku Wenxuan, she said, are you my son? If not, whose son are you? The sounds of splashing rose behind me. ‘Can you manage, Dad?’ I asked. ‘I don’t want you to tire yourself out.’

‘I’m not dead yet,’ he said. ‘I can manage the front, but you’ll have to wash my back.’ A few moments later, he said, ‘The front’s done, so now you can do my back. It must be filthy. It won’t stop itching.’

Crouching down beside the tub, I had a clear view of his birthmark. The fish’s head and body had faded until they were hardly recognizable. But the tail remained stubbornly imprinted on the sagging skin. I was shocked. ‘Dad!’ I blurted out. ‘What happened to your birthmark? Everything but the tail has almost disappeared.’

He shuddered. ‘What do you mean? What kind of crazy talk is that?’ Straining to twist his neck so he could see, he said, ‘Stop scaring me like that. My birthmark is different from other people’s, it’ll never fade.’

‘But it has, Dad! It used to be a whole fish, but now there’s only the tail.’

Again he tried to see behind him, but failed, and in his anxiety to turn his head around, he lurched from side to side. ‘Crazy,’ he said. ‘That’s crazy talk!’ He began thumping me with his hand. ‘Let me see for myself.’

‘Have you lost your mind, Dad? It’s on your backside, where you can’t see. But I’m not lying, it’s faded. Why would I lie about something that important?’

But he wouldn’t stop thrashing in the tub. I leaned to the side to see him from the front. He was trembling and tears were running down his sunken cheeks, though suspicion blazed in his eyes. ‘I know what happened, the doctors rubbed it off. No wonder the itch has been driving me crazy over the past few days. It’s a conspiracy. Pretending they were saving my life, they were actually destroying my birthmark, removing the evidence so they could sever the relationship between me and your grandmother!’

‘Don’t try to pin it on the doctors, Dad. I was there every day, and I saw what they did. They pumped your stomach three times, but never laid a hand on your backside.’

‘Don’t be naive. You watched them pump my stomach, but they wouldn’t let you see them carry out their conspiracy. Zhao Chuntang runs things on the shore, and the doctors do his bidding. It was all planned. Why did you people send me to hospital to have my stomach pumped? It was an evil plan. Why did you take me ashore? You delivered me into their hands. You might as well have taken me straight to the morgue.’

His face twisted into a sad grimace. A frantic series of tiny bubbles emerged from his mouth and popped in the air, releasing a fishy smell. Why had I said anything? So what if it had faded, he couldn’t see it! Me and my big mouth! I hadn’t been forgiven yet for my earlier behaviour, and now I’d caused a new problem. I didn’t know what to do, and, with a deep sense of self-recrimination, missed the people in the fleet as never before. How wonderful it would have been if they had still been around. Desheng’s wife, with her glib tongue, could have smoothed things over with Father by being sympathetic. Sun Ximing could have talked him around from a political angle, while Six-Fingers Wang, who was usually more negative and passive, could have done some good with a more threatening attitude. It was a critical moment, and none of them were around. They’d sailed off and left Father to me, and me alone.

‘You’re just starting to get well, Dad, you mustn’t get over-excited.’ Lacking the gift of the gab, I had to try something to calm him down and make him feel better. ‘No matter what, Dad, the tail’s still there, and even if it was gone, you’d still be Deng Shaoxiang’s son. Truth is truth, and lies are lies, that can’t be changed. People who engage in conspiracies wind up dropping rocks on their own feet. Yesterday I heard some doctors say that another investigative team is coming to overturn the other verdict.’

‘Overturn it? I doubt that I’ll live to see that day. I’ve got it all figured out. I don’t need them to overturn anything. If they’ll issue a martyr’s family certificate, I’m ready to go and report to Karl Marx.’ As he sat in the tub, he began sobbing like a little boy. ‘I think about my life, and there’s no way I can be happy. How could I be?’ Grasping my hand, he said between sobs, ‘I’ve held out for eleven long years, waited all that time, and I ask you, for what? Where’s the good news I’ve waited for?’

‘It hasn’t come,’ I replied, my head down.

‘Only bad news. Rumours, slander and conspiracies!’ He dried his eyes with his hands and pointed to me. ‘You haven’t made anything of yourself. Day in and day out I hear how degenerate you’ve become.’

‘I’ll make something of myself from now on, Dad, for you. You need to hold on, to persevere, and good news will come sooner or later.’

‘I’m not made of steel, you know. I’m not sure I can hold on.’ His sobs became weaker, maybe because they were taking too much out of him physically, but his head fell back hard against my shoulder. Then he said in a small, raspy voice, ‘Tell me the truth, Dongliang, what do I have to live for? Shouldn’t I just die?’

Unable to say a word, I wrapped my arms around his emaciated body. He squirmed instinctively, but I held him tight. My despairing father was wrapped up in my arms, as if our roles had been reversed. To me he felt more like a dried fish than a man, his spine thin and brittle, with fish-like scales suddenly appearing all over his back. The fragrance of the Glory bath soap wasn’t strong enough to mask the strange fishy smell of his body. Father, my father, where have you come from? And where will you go? I felt lost. Suddenly a scene from half a century earlier, of a boundless Golden Sparrow River, flashed before my eyes. The bamboo basket left behind by the martyr Deng Shaoxiang was floating down the river, the child and fish inside tossed by the rapid swells. I watched as the water swallowed up the child, leaving only the fish. A fish. A solitary fish. The image frightened me. Was that really what happened? A fish. If my father wasn’t that child, could he have been that fish?

Father, who had seemingly fallen asleep in my arms, abruptly opened his eyes and said uncertainly, ‘It’s so noisy outside. That doesn’t sound like people. Is the river speaking? Why has the river started speaking?’

I was amazed by the sharpness of his hearing. Even with his body in such a weak state, he had actually heard the river reveal its secret. ‘What did you hear, Dad?’ I asked. ‘What’s the river saying?’

He held his breath to listen closely. ‘It’s telling me, come down, come down.’

I fell silent. Even after the shock had passed, I didn’t know what to say. This was not a good sign. I’d always believed I was the only one who understood the river’s secret, but now he had heard it too, and if one day the river revealed all its secrets, why would barges continue to stay in its waters? I felt the steel hull of our barge start to rock, along with my father’s life and my home on the water. Come down, come down. The river’s secret became clearer and clearer, and it was beyond my power to jump in and stop up its mouth. River, ah, river, why are you so impatient? Are you summoning my father or a fish to your depths?

There was nothing I could do. Then my eye was caught by a length of rope under my cot. It was the same rope that had nearly been used to tie me up. As I stared at it, I had an idea that made my heart pound. I hurriedly lifted Father out of the wooden tub and laid him on my cot. ‘No!’ he shouted. ‘Not on your cot! Put me on the sofa.’

‘Do as I say, just this once, Dad,’ I said to him. ‘The cot is sturdier. From now on, this is where you’ll sleep.’

I began dressing him in clean clothes, and as I was putting on his socks, I bent down and took the rope out from under the cot. First I looped it around his feet, without his realizing what I was doing. Until, that is, he noticed that my hands were shaking. He shouted and began to struggle. ‘What are you doing? What? You’re tying me up? My own son! You’ve gone crazy! Is this how you get your revenge?’

‘This isn’t revenge, Dad. I’m trying to save you.’ In my anxiety, I wrapped the rope around him speedily and indiscriminately. ‘Bear with me, Dad, I’ll be finished in a minute, and I won’t let you go down. You can’t go down there. I’m here, and I’ll keep death away!’

Father kept struggling until his strength ran out. ‘Go ahead,’ he said, ‘tie me up. I raised you to adulthood and taught you all those years, and this is what it’s all come to.’ A bleak smile creased the corners of his mouth, releasing a crystalline bubble that fell to the floor and disappeared. He gave me a cold look. ‘You’re too late,’ he said. ‘The river wants me. I don’t care if you’re a dutiful son or an unworthy one, you’re too late. Me tying you or you tying me, it makes no difference. It’s too late for anything.’

The hopelessness I saw in him scared and saddened me. I felt the blood rush to my head. ‘It’s not too late, Dad, it’s not. You have to wait.’ I tied his hands to the sides of the cot as I prepared a vow. ‘Don’t fight me, Dad, don’t be stubborn. You have to wait. I’m going ashore in a minute and I’m going to make sure that bastard Zhao Chuntang comes aboard our barge to give you the apology you deserve.’

‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ Father cried out. ‘Even if you drag him aboard and force him to tell me he’s sorry, I won’t accept his apology. You mustn’t go. If you do, I’ll find a way to die before you get back.’

But my mind was made up, and I wasn’t about to let my trussedup father interfere with my plan. I picked up the wooden tub, took it out on deck and dumped the dirty water into the river. Not wanting the rope to cut into Father’s flesh, I checked all the knots to make sure they were tight but not too tight. I placed two steamed buns and a glass of water next to his head. ‘Dad,’ I said, ‘I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, so if you’re hungry there’s food, and water if you’re thirsty.’ I put the bedpan down by his hip, but then it dawned on me that he could not relieve himself tied up like that. So I reached down to take off his trousers, to which he reacted by curling up and angrily spitting in my face. What I was doing, I knew, was taboo. We needed to talk this out. ‘I have to take them off, Dad. How else are you going to relieve yourself? Someone like you, so insistent on cleanliness, doesn’t want to pee in his trousers.’

I saw a trickle of murky tears snake down his cheeks. Then he turned his face away and I heard him say, ‘Go ahead, take them off, but don’t look. Promise me you won’t look.’

I promised, but when I pulled down his underpants, I couldn’t stop myself from looking down. What I saw shocked me. His penis looked like a discarded silkworm cocoon, shrivelled and ugly, lying partially hidden in a clump of grass. I’d imagined it to be ugly, but not that ugly or that shrivelled. It looked miserable and sad. Instinctively I covered my eyes and ran to the door, not taking my hands away until I was at the bottom of the ladder. I didn’t realize I was crying until the palms of my hands felt wet. I looked down at them — there were fresh tears falling through my fingers.

Memorial Stone

I WENT ASHORE.

The sunset had begun to lose its brilliance at the far end of the Golden Sparrow River when I stepped off the gangplank, and in no time, empty, dark clouds had taken its place. This was normally the time when I’d be returning home from a visit to the shore, but everything was different now. As night began to fall, I left the barge with a plan.

The lights had already come on around the piers, including the searchlights at the oil-pumping station, their snow-white beams lighting up the loading docks and the sky above, then creeping across the embankment. Half of our barge was in the light, the other half lay in the water, brooding. The stray cat leaped out of the darkness as soon as I stepped on land and scurried up to the bow of our barge, and I let it be. With Father all alone in the cabin, having a stray cat watch over him was better than nothing.

The evening wind chilled me as my sweat-soaked cotton jersey stuck to my chest and back. Having forgotten to put on shoes, I walked down the newly paved street barefoot, as if prowling the decks of the barge. The soft, slightly tacky surface seemed to be taking pity on the soles of my feet. There was no one to disturb the peace from the embankment to the loading dock. Li Juhua and her co-workers had turned off the machinery at the pumping station when their workday ended. The longshoremen had all gone home. A towering hoist and several light cranes sat quietly in the twilight like strange sleeping beasts. Cargo unloaded during the day had all been taken away, leaving the piers uncannily spacious and quiet.

Too quiet for me. Ghosts are drawn to stillness. As I passed the office of the security group, where a dim light shone through the window, I heard someone intoning a verse or reciting a piece of prose. But that stopped abruptly, and was followed by raucous laughter. Baldy Chen and Scabby Five’s laughter was especially loud, while the woman, Wintersweet, was laughing so hard she could barely breathe. ‘Stop,’ she begged between bursts of laughter, ‘don’t read any more, or I’ll laugh myself sick!’

I tiptoed up to the window, where I listened to what was going on inside. When the laughter died down, Scabby Five recommenced his intonation, and this time I heard a familiar phrase: ‘The water gourd will love the sunflower till the seas dry up and rocks turn to dust!’

My head buzzed as I pressed my hands against my ears. No one was more familiar with that lyrical passage than I. Ah, ‘The water gourd will love the sunflower till the seas dry up and rocks turn to dust!’ It was from page 34 or 35 of my diary, where I wrote down my feelings about Huixian when she was singing with the district opera troupe. Now I knew that my diary had fallen into Wang Xiaogai’s hands. They were reciting passages from it. It was too late for regrets. I’d hidden my diary in the lining of my bag so Father wouldn’t find it. I’d managed to keep it out of Father’s hands, but not theirs, and they were reciting passages from it for their entertainment!

As I stood outside the security-office window, I was both ashamed and angry. ‘Don’t stop, Xiaogai,’ Wintersweet said. ‘Read the juicy passages for us.’

‘These are the only pages I could get my hands on,’ Xiaogai said. ‘Old Cui got some of the others, and Little Chen tore out a few for himself. Huixian got the rest, and nobody wanted to take them from her, since she is the sunflower, and just about everything in that thick little book is about her.’

Break up their little gathering or not? I couldn’t decide. In the end, lacking the courage to burst in on them, all I could do was mutter, ‘We’ll settle scores when this is all over. The time will come. But settle scores with whom? Xiaogai? Old Cui? Little Chen? Or Huixian? Or maybe I should get my revenge on Old Seven of Li Village. I looked up into the sky, then turned to face the riverbank, where barge number seven lay all alone in the deepening twilight. That snapped me out of it. Father was more important than me, and my vow to him took precedence over my lost diary. There was no time to waste, I had to find Zhao Chuntang and bring him back to the barge with me. Every debt has its debtor, and every injustice its perpetrator. I had to get him to apologize to my father.

I headed for the General Affairs Building, but when I got there I realized that my plan had been a case of wishful thinking. I’d arrived too late — all the officials had left for the day. Other than the reception office and a few windows here and there, the lights were all off, including those on the fourth floor. I looked for Zhao Chuntang’s private car, and found it. The Jeep, which had seemed so impressive for a while, had been left idle, sitting dejected in a corner, while its original parking space was occupied by a brand-new, black and very distinguished Volga sedan.

The driver, Little Jia, was washing the car with a hose, turning the ground around him to mud. Skirting the puddles, I went up and asked, ‘Are you waiting for Secretary Zhao to leave the office? Is he upstairs?’

He looked at me askance and said, ‘Who do you think you are, asking after him, and what do you want?’

‘Nothing in particular,’ I said. ‘I just want to report something to him.’

He scowled and continued washing the car. ‘You can tell me what it is,’ he said arrogantly, ‘and I’ll decide if it’s important enough to tell Secretary Zhao. Besides, what could you have to report? Still making trouble over the business of being a martyr’s descendant?’

I was savvy enough about doing business in Milltown to know that cigarettes were a door opener, so I handed one to Little Jia. He took it reluctantly, checked the brand and said, ‘Flying Horse? I don’t smoke those. I only smoke Front Gates.’ He tossed the cigarette on to the front seat. ‘Hah, Flying Horse. You boat people are the only ones who think those are any good.’

But I could see that he’d softened his expression a little, so I said, ‘I promise you, I’m not here to make trouble. It’s nothing important, so please tell me if Zhao has left to go home.’

Another frown. ‘Kongpi, that’s a good name for you. You talk like a kongpi. If it’s nothing important, why do you need to see Zhao Chuntang? He puts in sixteen hours a day in the office, and then entertains guests after work. You should know that investigative teams have been sent down here just about every day, and Secretary Zhao has to go out drinking with his guests.’

He’d piqued my interest. ‘What guests are those? What are the teams here to investigate?’

Again he looked at me out of the corner of his eye; his lips were curled into a hostile grin. ‘Calm down,’ he said. ‘It’s family planning, including vasectomies. This has been a headache for Secretary Zhao. If there are three men in town without vasectomies, Milltown won’t be considered progressive. Since that thing of yours isn’t doing anything, why don’t you get one and perform a service for Milltown?’

I ignored him. Little Jia had given enough information for me to guess that Zhao Chuntang was in the dining hall having dinner with guests, so I walked around to the side of the building and went up to the dining-hall window. In the dim light I saw that there were only two unfamiliar officials sitting opposite one another beneath the window, either eating dinner or talking.

‘No need to look over there,’ Little Jia shouted. ‘Milltown has exchanged its shotguns for cannons. Rank plays a role in entertaining guests these days. High-ranking officials are entertained at the Spring Breeze Inn. I doubt you’ve heard that the inn has private rooms. But you’d be wasting your time going there, because they won’t let you in.’

I took my leave of Little Jia and rushed over to the Spring Breeze Inn, meeting a tall, skinny fellow on the way. He was wearing glasses and had sloping shoulders; he was carrying books under his arms, heading home from school. I knew who he was — Old Cui’s grandson, a local high-school student. Old Cui was forever boasting that the boy was a top-notch student with a bright future. Since people with bright futures generally stayed clear of those with no future, I had no interest in stopping to talk to him.

He walked past me with a haughty air and then spun around and fell in behind me. ‘You’re Ku Dongliang, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘Let me ask you a historical question. Do you know when Chairman Mao came to Milltown?’ I immediately sensed that this out-of-nowhere question had something to do with my diary, so I pretended I hadn’t heard him and started walking faster. I never imagined that getting away would be so difficult. He kept coming after me. Starting to breathe hard, he said, ‘Then let me ask you a common-sense question. Why would Chairman Mao meet with a sunflower and not Milltown’s masses? Is it really possible that the great man would stoop to meet with something planted in the ground? Why are you creating a false history, Ku Dongliang?’

Obviously, my diary was being read by people all over town, including Old Cui’s grandson. How could a bookworm like him be in on my secrets? I wasn’t interested in having a historical debate with the boy and was not obliged to reveal any of my youthful secrets. ‘How much history does a little bastard like you understand?’ I roared, glaring at him. ‘Get away from me!’

I felt sheepish after chasing the youngster away, and as I walked the streets of Milltown at twilight, it seemed to me that my private affairs were like streetlamps lighting up the little town and its residents’ lonely lives. I had the feeling that the laughter emerging from windows along the way was directed at me and at my diary. Keeping to the dark side of the streets, I continued on to Spring Breeze Inn, taking pains to avoid meeting up with anyone else. Profound doubts filled my mind. How many more pages of my diary remained, I wondered, and how many of those were with Huixian?

I stopped at the entrance to the inn, with its lanterns that heralded a May Day celebration. The spot was deserted; there was no trace of any vehicles. I glanced up at the third-floor windows of the concrete building, with its isolated ‘penthouse’. The purple curtains were shut, making it impossible to determine whether or not the investigative teams were up there. I breathed in deeply, but couldn’t smell food; when I held my breath, I heard nothing that sounded like people at a dinner table. Feeling dejected, I went up and tried the front door. It was locked. But by looking through the glass door, I could see someone asleep at the reception desk. I knocked, then knocked again, but the head didn’t move. ‘Who’s there?’ It was a woman’s listless voice. ‘You need permission from the police station to stay here.’

‘I’m not a guest,’ I replied. ‘I’m looking for somebody.’

‘Who?’ she said. ‘You can’t do that without permission either. Who are you? And who are you looking for?’

I wouldn’t tell her my name. ‘You have a private room,’ I said. ‘Is Zhao Chuntang in there with dinner guests?’

The sleepy-eyed woman stood up and strained to see who I was. Her tone of voice was guarded. ‘I asked you who you are. Who told you we have a private room?’

I decided to try being clever. ‘Secretary Zhao,’ I said. ‘He told me I’d find him here.’

Still she wouldn’t open the door for me. She squinted to get a good look. ‘I don’t know you,’ she said. ‘You’re not an official.’ She sat down and laid her head back down on the desk. ‘Go and look for the Party Secretary at the General Affairs Building,’ she snarled. ‘There’s no Party Secretary here, only paying guests.’

Assuming that Little Jia had lied to me, I felt my anger rise. I just wanted to talk to Zhao Chuntang, not commit violence against him. ‘Why did you lie to me, Little Jia, you son of a bitch?’ Cursing him under my breath, I sat down on the steps of the inn, suddenly weary beyond imagining. When you’re overly tired, all your aches and pains start acting up. My hip began throbbing so badly I couldn’t get to my feet.

The lights in Pock-faced Li’s bean-curd shop, which was next door to the inn, came on, as Li and his wife busied themselves emptying bags of soy beans that were piled up at their door on to their millstone. Father had always liked the bean curd from this shop, and since you could buy it without ration coupons, I figured this was too good an opportunity to pass up. Father could use some nutritious food. ‘Two cakes of bean curd!’ I called out. ‘I’ll buy two cakes.’

The response was immediate. Li’s wife stepped outside with two cakes, but when she didn’t see anyone at the door, she cried out, ‘Who’s that shouting? A ghost?’

‘Over here,’ I said with a wave of my hand. ‘It’s me.’

Seeing me sitting on the steps of the inn, she said with obvious displeasure, ‘You must think you’re some kind of big shot, buying bean curd with the airs of an official! Rather than take a few steps, you expect me to deliver it to you.’

I tried to stand up, but couldn’t, and was reminded that buying the bean curd would stop me from doing what I’d come to do. How would it look if I went searching for Zhao Chuntang with two cakes of bean curd in my hands? I changed my mind. ‘Forget it,’ I said to Li’s wife. ‘I don’t want it after all. I’ll just rest here a while.’

‘How am I supposed to trust anything you say?’ she grumbled. ‘First one thing, then another. Are you going to rest or do you want this bean curd? Don’t play games with me. There are plenty of customers for bean curd from our shop.’

I muttered an apology, then changed the subject. ‘Do you know where Zhao Chuntang moved to, Aunty?’

Something clicked when she heard my question. Still holding the two cakes of bean curd, she gave me a long look, her eyes lighting up, and exclaimed, ‘Aha, you’re Ku something-or-other Liang, aren’t you? I know you, you’re Ku Wenxuan’s son. Still running around pleading your father’s case, are you? Well, you can stop running. They’ve located the martyr Deng Shaoxiang’s son. It isn’t your dad and it isn’t the idiot Bianjin. The ordained descendant is a one-time schoolteacher in Wufu with a bright future. He used to be a middle-school headteacher, but has been promoted to chief of the Education Bureau.’

About halfway through her rant, she noticed the pained grimace on my face, and a note of fear crept into her voice. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ she demanded. ‘You look as if you’d eat me alive if you could. Well, I’m not the one who determined that you’re not the descendants of the martyr. I heard that from Aunty Wang at the inn, who heard it from some comrades in the investigative team.’

Just then Pock-faced Li walked outside in his apron, looking angry, and without so much as a glance at me railed at his wife, ‘You blabbermouth, what are you doing out here — selling bean curd or selling information? And if you’re a spy selling information, you’re supposed to ask how much they’re paying and who you’re selling it to. A dog’s got a better memory than you. Have you forgotten how his dad once sent people over to chop off our capitalist’s tail, how they confiscated three bags of beans and our millstone? I guess you don’t remember how you screamed and wailed. But now the scar is healed and the pain’s a distant memory, is that it? Don’t you dare answer his questions till they give us back our three bags of beans!’

Pock-faced Li’s hatred of my father took me by surprise, since I had no idea that Father and this couple had a past grievance. But then I was reminded of Li Yuhe’s song in the opera Red Lantern: ‘Plant a peach tree and you get peaches, sow rose seeds and roses bloom.’ That, in a word, summed up the failure of my father’s political career. I gritted my teeth and walked over to People’s Avenue under the withering stares of Li and his wife. Once I was out of view I breathed a sigh of relief. Night had fallen and the streetlamps were lit, leaving one side of Milltown’s streets in darkness. The town’s main street looked cleaner than ever, in contrast to the lanes, which appeared even dirtier than before. Oily smoke from kitchens filled the air with the tempting smells of pork and spicy greens. My stomach began to grumble as I wondered where to go now. Li’s wife hadn’t produced any evidence to back up what she’d told me, but the news that a new descendant of Deng Shaoxiang had been chosen must have already been making the rounds in town. Father’s long wait was about to end in a crushing defeat. He wouldn’t believe it, of course, but that no longer mattered.

As I passed the darkened culture hall I noticed shadowy objects on the remains of the open-air stage. Someone had tossed a broken chair on to the stage, and in my mind’s eye I saw a pair of shamed figures being pushed up on to the stage: my father and me. I was standing, hands tied behind my back; Father, naked, was sitting in the tilting chair, head bowed as he revealed his disfigured penis to the crowd below. ‘I’m not guilty of anything,’ he said, his grey head bowed. Wind passing my ears carried the people’s angry shouts. ‘Yes, you are, you’re guilty!’ Then a barrage of arrows flew at him from all directions, and I saw my dying father, his body impaled by arrows, terror filling his eyes, turn to me and say, ‘Tell them, son, tell them whose son I am. Tell them I’m Deng Shaoxiang’s son!’

I couldn’t look at that stage or the chair any longer, so I turned and trotted over to the chess pavilion. I didn’t have anything particular in mind, but that was a place where people gathered and rumours spread, and I decided to find out from someone where Zhao Chuntang’s new home was. I was intent on rescuing Father. When I reached the pavilion, I was surprised to find the place deserted. Widow Fang had left with her stall and so had the people who had once gathered around it. I saw several oil transporters and cargo trucks in the car park, and some of the drivers playing poker on a tarpaulin they’d spread out on the ground. A man with a full beard waved to me from the cab of his truck. ‘Want a ride? Come on up, I’m getting ready to shove off. I’ll take you to Xingfu for fifty cents.’

Fifty cents to Xingfu. Xingfu again. Too bad I couldn’t go this time.

I paced the area around the pavilion, watching my shadow shrink and lengthen under a streetlamp. I was wavering. Suddenly I doubted the wisdom of coming ashore in the first place. Kongpi, that’s what my vow to Father was, kongpi! I couldn’t find Zhao Chuntang, but even if I could, what could I say to get him to go aboard our barge and apologize to Father? Nothing, unless I had a gun or happened to be his superior. I had nothing. I was nothing. Nothing but a kongpi.

I stared blankly at the partially demolished pavilion; it was hardly more than rubble. A gust of wind blew open a corner of the plastic wrapping, releasing a weird triangle of dim light that nonetheless hurt my eyes. The light unexpectedly drew me to it; I crept inside.

Workers’ tools were strewn all over the floor — hammers, pickaxes and some small jacks — but their owners were not there; nor was the idiot Bianjin. I did, however, see a pair of his geese, one of which was perched cockily on one of the hammers; the other one unforgivably stood atop the martyr’s memorial stone and was soiling it with its excrement.

It was that stone that had sent the dim light my way, presenting me with the greatest inspiration I’d ever had. It was lying on its side, secured by thick ropes, which could only mean that they would be moving it within the next few days, and when it left it would take the martyr’s spirit with it. Would they go to Phoenix in the upper reaches, or to Wufu, some forty li up the road? At that moment, a light went on in my head and I felt my blood begin to churn as a splendid, almost manic idea was born. I wanted that memorial stone. I’d make it mine by moving it to our barge. I was going to return Deng Shaoxiang’s martyr spirit to my father!

There was no time like the present. I knew I’d do it. First I kicked off the goose and wiped away some of the excrement. Then, before I started, I didn’t forget to bow respectfully. Moving something that heavy was child’s play to a boat person. Calmly and in complete control, I grasped the rope with both hands and pulled with all my might. The stone obediently righted itself and stood at the right angle for me to lift it with my arms and hip. Slowly it began to move, and it seemed to me to weigh at least two hundred jin. Experience told me that it was too heavy for one man to move, but it gave me a tremendous surprise: it was helping me along, dispensing good will and a warm feeling. The heavy stone slid easily along the cement floor, never wavering, with no doubt or hesitation, and by pulling hard, it didn’t take me long to drag it free of the pavilion. Bianjin’s geese reacted with panicky honks, which attracted the attention of the truck drivers in the car park. Thinking I was a thief, one of them stood up and, with a grin, shouted to me, ‘I knew you were a three-handed sort, the way you slinked around there. But a memorial stone? What are you going to do with that? Take it home and build a house to win a bride?’

It was a lucky break. Those truckers were all outsiders, and Milltown meant nothing to them. But their laughter brought me out in a cold sweat. This was Milltown, where everyone was on the lookout for something, and my risky adventure could be over before it really began. I had to move fast. Move fast! Fast! I kept telling myself. Fast! Move fast! I urged the stone, but, seemingly offended, it chose this moment to make a display of its dignity and flaunt its weight. Now pulling it behind me was like dragging a mountain along, and by the time I reached the path by the cotton warehouse, my arms felt as if they were about to fall off and I was gasping for breath. I had to stop. When I turned to look behind me, the first group of followers was catching up. A pair of white geese and three ducks were waddling my way, raising the alarm with their honks and quacks. Then the second wave came into view: the geese’s master, idiot Bianjin. He was brandishing a duck whistle. ‘Stop right there, Ku Dongliang!’ he shouted. ‘Kongpi, I said stop!’ His enraged shouts ripped through the night. ‘You’ve got guts, Kongpi. What are you dragging there? I told you to stop! Where do you think you’re going?’

He blew his duck whistle, which drew more geese and ducks from around the piers, and before I knew it I was surrounded by them. Everyone — man and fowl — was talking at once. The ducks’ and geese’s incomprehensible complaints fell on deaf ears, but not the idiot’s angry shouts. ‘How dare you, Ku Dongliang! I thought somebody was stealing a hammer or a jack, but no, you’re stealing the memorial stone! I never thought you’d have the guts to actually steal the martyr Deng Shaoxiang’s spirit!’

‘Stop the crazy talk, idiot. I’m not stealing her spirit, I’m taking the stone to show my father. He’s in terrible health, but this’ll cure him.’

‘You’re the idiot! That stone isn’t some magic elixir, how can it cure your dad?’ With one hand on his hip and the other pointing to his own nose, he said, ‘You’ve certainly got guts. Do you know what you’ve done? You’re an active counter-revolutionary. You can be shot for that.’

‘What do you know about active counter-revolutionaries?’ I asked. ‘Or historical ones, for that matter? With my own eyes I saw one of your geese shit on the martyr’s memorial. Come and look for yourself. If that’s not goose shit, what is it? What kind of counter-revolutionary is that goose of yours, huh? Should they take it out and shoot it?’

One look at the mess on the memorial stone and his nerves began to betray him. He looked at his flock. ‘Which one was it? Tell me. He won’t get away with it.’

‘All your geese look alike. How am I supposed to know which one it was? But if one of them shit on the memorial stone, I’m sure the others did too. They’re all counter-revolutionaries, and they’ll have to be taken out and shot.’

‘Stop trying to scare me.’ After glowering at me, he turned back to his flock and thought for a minute. Then he came up with a smart comment. ‘The goose shouldn’t have shit on it, but it’s an animal and it doesn’t know any better. Are you an animal too? Don’t you know any better?’

He stumped me. Not having anything to say, I gave him a shove. ‘You really are an idiot. I can’t argue with an idiot. If they shoot me, they shoot me, and it’s none of your business. Get out of my sight.’ I kicked a goose and two ducks out of my way and continued dragging the stone towards the embankment.

Bianjin grabbed a handful of my clothes. ‘Where do you think you’re going? I’m in charge of the pavilion. I can’t let you take anything out of it.’

I’d underestimated his intelligence and his physical skills. With a shout he jumped on to the stone, and the added weight nearly broke my arms. I immediately let go of the rope. Seeing that I’d given up, his next move was to take control of the rope. We went for it at the same time, four hands grasping at the same spot. We bumped heads, hard, and I saw stars. That enraged me, so I grabbed hold of his tattered shirt and pushed him to the side of the road. ‘Good dogs stay out of the way, idiot, so be a good dog and get out of my way. If you don’t, I’ll twist that dog’s head of yours off.’

But I had underestimated Bianjin’s courage. He surprised me by sticking his head right up to my chest. ‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘Twist it off. If you don’t, then you’re the dog.’

Bianjin and I grappled atop the memorial. He was no pushover, and as the struggle raged, I fought to stay on top. But that proved to be an unwise tactic: if I couldn’t control Bianjin, I wouldn’t be able to move the stone. In the end, I abandoned it, ran around and jumped on to Bianjin’s back, pinning his arms to his sides and holding on tight. He was not a young man, after all, and couldn’t get out of my bear hug, though he stamped around as best he could and screamed in distress, ‘Help! Someone come and catch Ku Dongliang! Catch a counter-revolutionary!’

The screams brought Old Qin, night watchman at the cotton warehouse, running, lunch box in hand. But when he saw who it was, he lost interest and continued shovelling food into his mouth. ‘So it’s you two,’ he said finally. ‘What’s all this about a counter-revolutionary? It’s just an idiot and a kongpi. Counter-revolutionary? That’s above both of your ranks. Don’t waste my time.’

‘He’s stealing the martyr’s memorial stone,’ Bianjin cried out desperately. ‘He’s a counter-revolutionary, an active counter-revolutionary. Get the police!’

Old Qin ignored Bianjin’s pleas. Instead, he walked up to the stone, still holding his lunch box, and gave me a quizzical look. ‘Come to think of it, this is strange. What do you want this for? A souvenir for your dad or something? But it’s only a memorial. Why bother to drag it around like that? As far as I’m concerned, your dad’s head is filled with mush. What difference does it make if he’s descended from a martyr or not? What matters is getting by the best you can in good health.’

Old Qin’s admonition fell on deaf ears — mine and Bianjin’s. Bianjin looked up and vented his anger and frustration on Old Qin. ‘Why don’t you get the police instead of standing around talking like a fool? You’re abetting a criminal, and that’s a crime punishable by three years in prison!’

Old Qin lost his temper and kicked Bianjin in the rear. ‘You stinking idiot!’ he cursed. ‘I tried to teach you how to do arithmetic, but you were too dumb to learn. The only way you could count six geese is by using your fingers, so what’s all that talk about three years in prison? Lucky for me you’re an idiot, or you’d sentence me to three hundred years! If you weren’t an idiot, you’d have lined everyone up along the Golden Sparrow River and shot them!’ His anger growing, he kicked Bianjin a second time.

Bianjin screeched. ‘Where is everybody? Is everybody dead? Where are the revolutionary masses?’ By then he was nearly crying, so I grabbed him by the collar, and he went limp. I thought he’d given up, and was about to let him go, when two people emerged from behind the warehouse. Seeing that his rescue was at hand, he shouted, ‘Grab the counter-revolutionary! You’ll be rewarded for your efforts.’

It was a young couple who’d been up to something behind the warehouse. He heeded the call, she vanished. In his twenties, he had bushy eyebrows and large eyes, neatly combed hair, and was wearing a tunic with three pens in his breast pocket. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t recall his name. But he obviously knew who we were. He looked down at the memorial stone, then up at the two of us and smiled. With an enigmatic expression, he said, ‘So, it’s you two. What are you doing, fighting over this stone? One’s fighting over Deng Shaoxiang’s son, the other over her grandson. Well, you can stop fighting, since you’re both out of the running. The latest news is that a school headteacher in Wufu is her son, but that’s not true either. You’re all fakes! I’ll tell you what my research has turned up, but it can’t be made public. Here’s what happened. Deng Shaoxiang was married, but didn’t get along with her husband and had no children. The boy in that basket wasn’t her child. She’d borrowed a baby as a cover for her mission.’

The young woman suddenly appeared by the side of the road, and since the young official’s mind was still on her, after disclosing his news, he took off after her. Then it dawned on me that he was a college student newly assigned to the General Affairs Building, specializing in revolutionary history. His astonishing news dumbfounded both Bianjin and me, but I quickly gathered my senses and shouted at his back, ‘Bullshit!’

Bianjin, who was also watching him, gnashed his teeth and shouted, ‘You’re spreading false rumours!’

Rare though it was for Bianjin and me to see eye to eye, it wasn’t enough to turn a pair of enemies into friends. We both held our ground, one crouching, the other kneeling, eyeing one another suspiciously, and we were soon at it again, fighting over the memorial stone and the rope. ‘Stop trying to take this away from me, idiot. Didn’t you hear what he said? Deng Shaoxiang didn’t have a son, which means my dad has no claim, and neither do you. It’s time to stop daydreaming. You’ve got no right to block my way, and if you keep it up, I’m going to get rough with you.’

‘I don’t care about that other stuff, but I’ve vowed to protect the memorial stone with my life, and that’s what I’ll do, even if I lose my head in the process. You want to get rough with me, well let’s see what you’re made of. Kill me, and you can take the stone, how’s that? But if you can’t do it, then turn yourself in at the police station.’

‘Don’t push me, idiot,’ I said. ‘I could do that if I wanted, but there’s no glory in killing an idiot.’

He responded by kicking me and running off. Glaring defiantly, he yelled, ‘Come on, hit me! Think I care? Beat me, beat me to death. I don’t care if I lose my head. They’ll shoot you, and the glory will be mine. I’ll be a martyr.’

I turned to look at the embankment, where the water shimmered in the darkness. But I couldn’t see our barge, and I was reminded that I’d left Father tied up on my cot, waiting wide-eyed for my return. But instead of returning with what I’d promised, I was hung up with an idiot on the shore, which enraged me. Raising my fist in the air, the wind brushed against it like kindling lighting a burning torch. Beat him, beat him to death, he’s an idiot, hit him all you want, stop wasting your time. The mysterious and sinister sound came on the wind, and made me lose my senses. I knew it was wrong to hit someone in the face, that when other people fought, they always punched in places that were hard to see. But I made up my mind to hit him in the face. I grabbed his collar and jerked his head back. He had a flat face with a protruding nose, and that’s where I aimed. He turned his face, I jerked my hand back, took aim and swung. His nose seemed to explode, sending snot and blood flying. I turned my head, afraid to look. ‘Idiot,’ I said in spite of myself, ‘your nose is bleeding. Now are you going to get out of my way or not?’

He had such a solemn look I doubt he even felt the pain. With a look of stern righteousness, he said, ‘No. A bloody nose doesn’t bother me. I’m not afraid to lose my head over this. Go ahead, hit me again, beat me into martyrdom. Then they’ll shoot you, a life for a life, and I’m the winner.’

The sight of Bianjin standing there with blood flowing from his nose nearly had me in tears. The wind returned to my fist, and I heard the sinister voice again. Hit him, go ahead. He’s an orphan, after all, no parents and no friends, kill him and no one will care. It was a strange, evil voice, forcing me on, making me feel like crying. My fist danced around Bianjin’s face, which was like a child’s face — dirty, gaunt and innocent. He wore the bleak but inexplicably pure expression common to orphans. My fist stopped before it smashed into his cheekbone. ‘Oh, to hell with it!’ I said. ‘You’re a pitiful creature, and I can’t keep hitting you. If I killed you, no one would even claim your body.’

‘You’re done, but I’m not,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘We’ll settle up later. This debt will be paid.’

His threat rekindled the flames and stoked a nameless fire that had smouldered in my heart for eleven years. Hatred and loathing, old and new, came together in fists that were infused with the power of savage vengeance. ‘We’ll settle up later. This debt will be paid!’ I roared as my fists rained down on his face. ‘This debt will be paid! You people on the shore owe a debt to my father and to me. Yes, it will be paid — paid by you. That’s how it will be paid!’

The next thing I heard were Bianjin’s shrieks, ‘My eyes! You hit me in the eyes!’ He was in such a state he’d begun to stammer slightly. ‘Don’t … don’t hit me in the eyes, don’t do that. Hit me anywhere but my eyes. Kill me, but not my eyes. I can’t tend my geese if I’m blind. What’ll happen to my geese and my ducks?’

He was covering his eyes with his hands, and I saw trickles of blood seep through his fingers, which snapped me back to my senses. I unclenched my fists and looked closely at Bianjin, whose aching head hung low. Now, finally, he jumped down off the stone and, still covering his eyes, began to cry.

In the dim light of the streetlamps I saw someone running towards us with a club. ‘Who’s fighting out there? Fighting around the piers is not allowed.’ It was the security guard, late as always. The light glinted off his head; it could only be Baldy Chen, who was a stickler for enforcing the law. Without a word, he put his truncheon to use, hitting me on the shoulder and Bianjin on the arm. Bianjin dropped his hands and grabbed his own arm with one of them. He wailed like an abused child. ‘You hit me! Why did you hit me? You’re in charge of security. Can’t you tell friend from foe?’

Baldy gasped when he saw Bianjin’s bloody face. ‘Did you do this to him, Ku Dongliang? You’re too damned wild for your own good. Other people bully you, so you bully the idiot, is that it?’ He crouched down to look at Bianjin’s injuries. ‘Look what you’ve done to his nose,’ he said. ‘This spells big trouble for you, Kongpi. What if it’s broken?’

‘He had it coming,’ I said. ‘I’ll make amends if it’s broken.’

Then Bianjin showed Baldy Chen his eyes. ‘I can’t see,’ he sobbed. ‘He blinded me.’

Baldy lifted the man’s chin with his truncheon to get a closer look at his eyes. Again he gasped. ‘Kongpi, you’ve really done it this time. You’re worse than the Fascists. How could you do that? What if he really is blind?’

‘He had it coming,’ I repeated. ‘I’ll make amends if he’s blind.’

‘Make amends, make amends! Talk’s cheap. How the hell many eyes do you have to make amends for?’ Baldy took out a filthy handkerchief to wrap around the idiot’s eyes. ‘What the hell’s got into you, Kongpi?’ he said as he poked me with his truncheon. ‘This time you’ve gone too far. What are you standing around for, when you should be rushing him to the hospital? If he dies, you’re done for!’

‘I’m not going to take him. He’s the one who insisted on a life for a life. Besides, neither of our lives is worth a damned thing. If he dies, I’ll make amends with mine.’

I could no longer hold back my tears. Nor could my body stand the stress. Slowly I fell to my knees in front of the stone, my face pressed against its cold surface, which sharply chilled my cheek as if cold water had been poured over it. Whose tears were they, mine or Deng Shaoxiang’s? The martyr’s spirit was judging me, making its presence known. Overcome with profound regret for what I’d done to Bianjin, I punished myself for my unconscionable behaviour by slapping myself across the face, which was hardly sufficient to absolve myself. Self-pity and grief, the likes of which I’d never experienced, filled my heart. I slapped myself again even harder, as punishment for feeling sorry for myself. Then, like Bianjin, I buried my face in my hands and wept.

As I wept before the memorial stone, Baldy Chen kept poking me with his truncheon. ‘You’ve got a nerve, crying like that,’ he said. ‘You reduced him to this condition, so you have to take him to hospital, and I mean now. What good does crying do? You don’t expect me to take him, do you?’

Speaking almost incoherently between sobs, I said, ‘Tomorrow, I’ll do it tomorrow.’

‘Are you out of your mind? Look at his injuries. His eyes might not make it till tomorrow.’

He could prod or tug me as much as he liked, but I was staying on my knees. I wasn’t getting up, and through the mist of my tears I watched Baldy leave with Bianjin for the hospital, followed by a cluster of ducks. The two geese, on the other hand, stuck around to avenge their guardian. They attacked, one of them going after one of my feet.

Night’s darkness was deepening and the air brought a strange smell to me. Not a fishy odour, nor rotting grass, and definitely not the smell of chemical fertilizer from Maple Village. Whatever it was, it caught my attention. I stopped crying and sniffed the air to see where it was coming from. Then I discovered a pool of congealed blood the size of a mulberry leaf between the fingers of my right hand. And there was blood on my sleeve, a stain the size of a willow leaf. The knees of my trousers were also stained. Bianjin’s blood was all over me; no wonder the smell was so strong. I remembered when my father had bled all over the cabin of our barge, several years before; Bianjin’s blood had a much stronger smell than Father’s. Worrying that the stone might be spattered with the idiot’s blood, I stood up. I was right. A pool of still-wet blood where his head had rested gave off a reddish glow. I picked up a sheet of newspaper and, after scrubbing the stone three times, wiped it clean.

Now that they were gone and I had stopped crying, I regained my composure and looked down at the memorial stone lying on the ground in the moonlight. I wasn’t about to abandon it, but would it abandon me? I got up, grabbed hold of the rope and pulled; there was a moment of resistance before it started moving again, and it seemed to me as if it had raised its head and had its sights trained on barge number seven. Then it began to slide along the ground. It was a miracle, a true miracle. Deep down, I believed that the stone had eyes that I could not see and an unfathomably compassionate heart. I wasn’t stealing it, I was taking it where it wanted to go; it was determined to meet my father. That had to be a miracle.

I took a look around; the piers were encased in silence. It was like a dream. The searchlight in front of the oil-pumping station lit up a corner of the embankment wall, allowing me a view of our barge nestled quietly up against the bank. The bank and the river, the barge and my father were all neatly and quietly immersed in a happy dream. Mustering all my strength, I dragged the stone towards the river, listening to it slide across the ground: move, keep moving. When I reached our boat, I looked behind me and saw the piers in their pristine brightness, uncommonly quiet, illuminated in turn by the moonlight and the searchlight. They had let me pass; the moon was not after me, nor were the searchlight or any people. The stray cat was there, all alone, slinking back and forth and watching me with its shining eyes.

I had no time to ponder why this night, which had started out with such bitterness, had ended so sweetly, why luck had been with me in the end, for I now had a problem. How was I going to move such a heavy object on to the boat? Our gangplank wasn’t up to the task, and I couldn’t borrow anyone else’s. Now what? Could I make a ladder out of bamboo? As I anxiously considered tactics for moving heavy objects, I shouted out happily, a note of triumph in my voice, ‘Dad, I’m back! I’m home! Come and see what I’ve brought you!’

Come Down

MY GREATEST regret during the eleven years I spent on the river was tying my father up. I still recall that night. ‘Easy,’ he said as I worked to loosen the ropes. A rare expression of fatherly concern emanated from his weary, bloodshot eyes. He’d forgiven me. I led him to the gangplank to show him the memorial stone I’d left on the riverbank. Holding on to my clothes, he followed me on shaky legs, like an obedient son. Fear, I knew, was one of the reasons, but the sight of Deng Shaoxiang’s memorial lit up his soul, as if the light of a nameless deity shone down on it. All his misgivings and fear fell away. ‘Good,’ he said with a smile. ‘Wonderful. You’ve brought your grandmother home.’

To get the stone up on to the barge, I’d need to use one of the cranes, and this was the perfect time, since there was no one around. I climbed into the cab of one of them by removing a window, and though I had no experience of operating the machine, the instrument panel seemed almost magically familiar that night, and everything went without a hitch. The crane picked up the stone and, after one uncontrolled and somewhat dangerous swing, lowered it on to the bow, where Father helped me bring it down. ‘Careful now, be careful.’ The excitement in his voice was unmistakable, and I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or to the stone.

I’d brought a heavy gift home to Father and he accepted it happily.

Father wanted the stone up next to the sofa in the cabin, facing aft. But the door was too narrow, which disappointed him, though we gave it our all, with me pushing and him giving directions. So, with the stone halfway in and halfway out of the cabin, he sat next to it, stroking it lovingly. ‘You’ll just have to stay here,’ he said, ‘which is actually better, since the cabin is stuffy. The air out here is better, and so is the scenery. This way you can enjoy the sights of the river, Mama.’

By then it was very late. The freshly washed moon shone down on the Golden Sparrow River. I lit all four of our lanterns and hung them strategically to shine their warm light on Father and his martyr’s stone. After gazing at the inscription for a long while, he said he wanted to see the relief image on the back. So I mustered up the strength to turn it around for him. ‘Gone!’ he shouted in alarm. ‘I’m gone!’

That gave me such a fright I didn’t know what to do. Again he said, ‘I’m gone, I’m gone!’ His hand rested forlornly on the carved basket, shaking uncontrollably. As soon as I went over to look I knew what had happened: the infant’s head was missing from the top of the basket.

‘How can it be empty? My little head, where did it go?’

‘Dad, you must be seeing things. How could something carved in stone be missing?’ Flustered, I grabbed one of the lanterns to get a better look, and what I saw flabbergasted me. The basket carved in the stone showed up clearly in the light, but the head of the infant that had once been there was now gone.

‘They’ve wiped me out,’ Father said. ‘My birthmark’s gone, and now so is my head.’

Even when I examined the carving closely, I saw no signs that it had been altered, nothing that would lead me to believe that human hands had done this. But when I traced the area with my finger I felt a slight outcropping above the basket where the head had once been. The spot was cold to the touch. ‘Dad,’ I said, ‘touch it here. You can feel the little round head with your finger.’

He’d already turned away in despair to gaze at the river. So I took his hand and traced his finger over the raised carving. ‘You can feel it,’ I repeated. ‘It’s still there.’

He closed his eyes and let me move his finger around; after a moment, he covered the spot with his hand and gently rubbed the barely distinct little head. ‘Is that all that’s left? Is it really my head? I don’t think so,’ he mumbled as a shadowy fear came over his face. ‘It’s not me. I’m no longer there. I only left the shore eleven years ago, and not even calligraphy in ink should fade away in that short a time. That little head in the basket, how did it just disappear?’

His hand slid weakly down the memorial stone and rested on his knee, still shaking. A damp pale light seemed etched on that hand. He shut his eyes; he’d grown tired, and I thought he should rest. ‘Dad,’ I said as I tried to get him to stand, ‘we can’t see it in the dark. We’ll try again tomorrow in the daylight. It’s late. You need your sleep.’ But he lay his head against the stone and left it there. ‘Don’t do that, Dad,’ I said as I tried to pull him back. ‘It’s too cold, you’ll come down with something.’

When he looked up at me I saw tears criss-crossing his face. ‘I heard it,’ he said. ‘I heard your grandmother’s voice. I no longer blame Zhao Chuntang. Your grandmother doesn’t like me, I heard her. Eleven years trying to reform myself, all wasted. I’ve failed to earn your grandmother’s forgiveness. She doesn’t want me.’

I wrapped my arms around his emaciated form; it was like a decaying tree trunk that had stubbornly warded off the elements for eleven years, only to topple during a storm. I desperately wanted to comfort him, but tears were filling my eyes and I was so choked up I couldn’t say anything. And when I read the words ‘Martyred Deng Shaoxiang Lives Forever in Our Hearts’ I was suddenly fearful. I’d worked so hard to bring the memorial stone aboard our boat, but had it brought Father happiness or a crushing defeat?

Pale morning light was beginning to show through the darkness at the far end of the Golden Sparrow River. As I glanced at sleepy Milltown I ran to the bow, knowing that dawn would bring people to the piers and that the memorial stone would no longer belong to Father and me. My first thought was to go aft, weigh anchor at once and take the stone away from Milltown. My strength returned as I worked on getting under way, all was normal. But when I ran back up to the bow to take in the hawsers tying us to the pier, my hands became weak and I had trouble keeping my eyes open. The lack of sleep had suddenly caught up to me. I lay down on the deck and fell asleep.

Father came up and shook me. ‘We can’t run away,’ he said. ‘There’s no place for us, even if we run to the ends of the earth.’

I got up and, in a daze, went back to the hawsers. ‘We’ll go out on the river, that’s where we belong.’

‘The river isn’t ours,’ he said. ‘Even this boat isn’t ours. We’re not going anywhere, we’re staying here. Go and get some sleep, Dongliang. I’ll keep watch over the memorial.’

I knew there was no sense in arguing with him, and I was in no condition to fight the weariness that had come over me. Father nudged me into the cabin. Eleven years it had taken for me to finally luxuriate in the loving care of my father. He made up the cot and covered me with an old blanket, leaving a small corner open for me, and I vaguely sensed that this was what it would feel like to be wrapped in his arms, arms that had been closed to me for so long. At first the blanket felt strangely prickly, but that gave way to warmth, as if I was in the embrace of Father’s affection. I wanted him to get some sleep as well, but I was too tired to resist; I fell asleep almost immediately.

As dawn was breaking I was in the middle of a dream about the river and our boat. I could hear the churning of the water off the fantail, creating transparent bubbles. Our anchor was banging against the hull — once, twice, three times — and in the wake caused by our passage, an old-fashioned woman appeared, translucent pearls of water dripping from her hair, which was cut short; drops of water shimmered on her face, and the same secret message emerged from her reddened lips: Come down, come down, come down now. The fact that I was dreaming did nothing to lessen the reverence I felt towards her. I held my breath so I could hear her clearly: Come down, come down, come down now. The martyr was holding on to the swaying anchor, which caused the barge to roll from side to side. Come down, come down, come down now. She was so close I could see moss growing on the backs of her hands. I stared in awe at her face and at her hair as it swished back and forth above her ears. Watery pearls fell into the river and revealed the anxious face of a mother. Come down, she said, come down. You can both be saved.

That startled me awake. The cabin was suffused with soft blue early-morning light. Day was breaking. I got up and went to the door to look outside. Father was still keeping watch over the memorial stone. Two of the lanterns hanging from the canopy had gone out. As I went on deck I was hit by the potent fishy smell of Father’s body. His head was resting against the stone, a homemade plywood chessboard on his knees. A few of the chess men remained on the board; the rest were scattered on the deck around him.

Father was half asleep, his forehead furrowed with shadows whose origins were a mystery. ‘Dongliang,’ he said, ‘can you hear that strange sound coming from the river?’

I didn’t dare tell him about my dream. ‘Your hearing isn’t as good as it once was, Dad,’ I said. ‘That’s the anchor hitting the hull.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘not the anchor. Actually, it’s not really so strange. The river is saying, Come down, come down.’

I lifted him to his feet to force him to go inside, but he pushed me away. ‘There’s no time to sleep, they’ll be here soon.’ He pointed to the shore, where people were beginning to stir. An odd smile floated on to his face. ‘The sun’s out, and they’ll be here soon. The battle over the memorial stone is about to start.’

I was puzzled by his casual tone and his smile, and wondered if he had passed a sleepless night reminiscing or planning for what was to come. Daylight filled the sky, and the piers were waking up. The PA system crackled to life, blaring a choral work that extolled the virtues of the labouring masses. ‘We workers have power as we work, day and night.’ From the mountain of coal to the oil-pumping station, machinery that had slept through the night awakened, motors roaring. Cranes in the dock area creaked and moaned as their arms limbered up, skip cars emptied their loads of bags of cement, which thudded on to the open ground, sending sand up into the air, only to settle to the ground like falling rain. Chunks of coal complained shrilly, like the shrieks of women, as they landed, while boulders roared like rocky avalanches. I saw a strange tubular oil tower, formed, thanks to the morning light, into what appeared to be a blue metal stage. Birds circled it. Why, I didn’t know, but flocks of sparrows had flown over Maple Village, on the far side of the river, and brazenly gathered on top of the tent, where they filled the air with a chorus of mysterious, shrill cries, competing with the PA system.

They came, just as he’d said.

Four men were the first to arrive: Wang Xiaogai, Scabby Five and Baldy Chen of the security group appeared on the embankment, along with the head of the Milltown police department, all of them looking very businesslike. I saw that Baldy was holding his rifle, a glinting bayonet in place. Without a second thought, I ran over and pulled up the gangplank. Scabby Five saw what I was doing and dashed up, but found nothing but empty air. ‘Kongpi,’ he growled, ‘where did you get the guts to steal Deng Shaoxiang’s memorial stone? Why the fuck don’t you go to Tiananmen Square and steal the Monument to the People’s Heroes?’

No time to reply. I picked up our axe and attacked the mooring hawser. Running away is always the best strategy; we had to get the boat away from the pier. ‘Dad,’ I shouted towards the canopy, ‘we have to get out on the river!’ Then I grabbed our punting pole, which we hadn’t used in years — with no tugboat, that was our only means of getting going. We moved four or five metres away from the pier under the helpless stares of the four men, who began arguing about how to get on our boat. Scabby Five, first again, took off his shoes and rolled up his trouser legs, planning to wade over to us. ‘Damn, this water’s cold!’ he groused. ‘And where did those little whirlpools come from?’

‘Don’t talk like an idiot,’ Wang Xiaogai said. ‘How can there be whirlpools so close to shore? You ought to be brave enough to walk in water that shallow.’

But Scabby Five was having none of it. ‘It’s cold and it’s deep,’ he said, ‘and the air pump is sucking my legs down. You’re the leader of this group, the one who’s supposed to be so brave, why don’t you come down here?’

Xiaogai, not about to take the bait and having no luck with Scabby Five, turned his attention to Baldy Chen. ‘That’s a rifle you’ve got, not a fishing pole, so shoot.’

If I hadn’t been afraid before, I was now. I crouched down and waited. Nothing happened. Then I heard Baldy say, ‘Shoot what? You need bullets for that, and they wouldn’t give me any.’

‘Kongpi! What a stupid arsehole! Go on, try to run away,’ Xiaogai shouted to me. ‘The river won’t help you. The Golden Sparrow doesn’t belong to you, and how far do you think you’ll get with a punting pole? You could punt all day and still be in Milltown’s waters. Even punting for a whole month and getting off the Golden Sparrow won’t do you any good. One phone call to alert the emergency defence forces, and you’ll fall into our hands. But go ahead, try, maybe you’ll make it to the Pacific Ocean! But not to the Atlantic. Or maybe you’ll reach the shores of the American imperialists. Well, so what? We’ll fire a missile and wipe you off the face of the earth!’

Police Chief Xiao remained calm the whole time. He knew what to do. Rolling up a magazine to serve as a makeshift megaphone, he stood on the riverbank and shouted, ‘Barge number seven, Father and Son Ku, be warned. Seizing a revolutionary historical relic is a crime. If you don’t want to be guilty of a crime, come back to shore. Turn back and the shore is at hand.’

We weren’t about to turn back, because the shore was theirs, not ours. The battle for the memorial had begun. I felt a great sense of urgency. For all my eleven years on the water we’d plied the river behind a tug boat, and punting was something I’d never done. But I tried my best, pushing with all my might until I was bent over the fantail, and then walking towards the prow. That’s how other people did it. But the barge refused to cooperate. When I walked, it stayed stubbornly where it was, lying perpendicular to the shore and trying my patience. ‘Go over to the starboard side!’ Father yelled. ‘Get over there!’ I dragged the pole over to the starboard side, but unfortunately that didn’t work either. Father, who didn’t know a thing about punting, was giving me useless commands. Then the boat began to move — floating back towards the shore! ‘Now go back to the port side!’ he shouted. So there I was, running helter-skelter from port to starboard, to the uproarious delight of the men on shore.

‘Quit wasting time and energy, Kongpi, the picket ships are on their way, and when they get here it’ll be like a racehorse chasing a turtle. Then where do you think that rust bucket will take you?’

I continued my fight with the barge. There was no time to worry about Father and the memorial stone. I could not have told you what was going on under the canopy, because by then I could hear the motor of the picket boat far down the river, which elicited whoops of joy from the shore. But they died out as quickly as they came. ‘The canopy!’ they shouted. ‘Ku Wenxuan!’ They started running parallel to our barge, saying something as they ran. I turned to look, and saw that confusion was setting in on the shore, as the first group was joined by several policemen; longshoremen, attracted by the commotion, had also come running. They were craning their necks to one side to see what was happening under the canopy.

The police chief stepped on to an oil drum and once again raised his magazine megaphone; but this time a note of anxiety had crept into his shouts. ‘Comrade Ku Wenxuan, calm down, please calm down. Don’t do anything you’ll regret later.’ Then he turned to me. ‘Kongpi, are you a fucking idiot? Stop poling and go and stop your dad!’

I threw down my pole and ran over to the canopy, just in time to see Father, his arms wrapped around the memorial stone, about to fall into the river. I couldn’t believe my eyes, I didn’t think he’d have had the strength, and I’d never imagined that the battle over the memorial would end like this. My father, Ku Wenxuan, had tied himself to the stone and inched his way to the edge of the deck with it on top of him. The stone was crushing him. I couldn’t see his head or his body, only his feet. A sandal was on his right foot; his left foot was bare. I ran up and grabbed one of his feet. ‘Dongliang,’ he said, ‘I’m going down, I’m going down.’

Was this another miracle? In the final seconds of my father’s life he was bound to the memorial stone, the two together a true giant. I couldn’t hold him. A giant was falling into the river. I couldn’t hold him. Now my eyes beheld nothing. The surface of the Golden Sparrow River exploded, sending a pillar of water into the air, accompanied by frantic screams from the shore, and my father was no more; neither were the memorial stone or the giant. I couldn’t keep Father with me; all I held was a single sandal.

Fish

I SEARCHED FOR Father in the Golden Sparrow River for several days.

The riverbed was a vast world unto itself. Its scattered rocks longed for mountains in the upper reaches of the river; broken pottery longed for old masters’ kitchens; discarded brass and corroding iron longed for the farm tools and machinery of an earlier time; broken skulls and frayed hawsers longed for boats on the surface; a dazed fish longed for another fish that had swum away; a dark section of water longed for its sunlit compatriot; I alone scoured the riverbed, longing to find my father.

On land, tortoises that, according to popular legend, travelled far with memorial tablets on their backs were enshrined in temples. But the chances were there was only one human who had carried a memorial stone into the river, and that was no legend, for that person was my father, Ku Wenxuan. No temple wanted to enshrine him, so he rested at the bottom of the Golden Sparrow River.

I located the stone on the third day and caught a brief glimpse of the body that lay beneath it. Unable to hold my breath long enough to swim deeper to get a closer look, I surfaced, then went back down, but the figure was gone. I reached out, and touched a large crack that was icy cold and felt as if there were life inside. Something nibbled the back of my hand — a fish had swum out from the crack, and though I couldn’t tell what kind it was, I could see how gaily it swam as it shot past my eyes. I tried going after it, but lost it almost at once. How could I, a human being, ever catch a fish in the water? So I just watched it go, believing that it was my father, swimming happily past me.

My father and I had got by for eleven years by relying on one another, but in the end he had left me. He obeyed the river when it told him to come down. The strange thing is, after he went down, the river stopped speaking to me. I spent three days in the river and on the boat, but it never spoke to me again, not once. Did the river see my father as a fish? He had disappeared into the water, but the river did not send me its condolences, nor did it offer me congratulations. I didn’t know why that was. On the third day, I sat dripping wet on the sunlit bow; the hot sun sizzled the water on the deck, quickly reducing little puddles to a few drops. Kongpi, I said to those drops before they too evaporated. Kongpi, I said to the sun’s rays on the deck. Kongpi, kongpi. Unlike the drops of water, the sun’s rays stubbornly refused to disappear. Instead, they fervently shone down on my face and my body, and the entire barge, covering me with their warmth. As I slowly turned my gaze to the shore, I was struck by the thought that my grief was just like those puddles of water; it too was dried by the sun. Father had been gone only three days, and my thoughts were already on the shore. I didn’t know why that was either.

I went first to the shipping office on the western edge of the piers to catch up on the barges’ movements. I read that the Sunnyside Fleet had left the town of Wufu and would reach us in three days. Again, three days. I stood transfixed in front of the noticeboard, wondering how I’d get through the next three days.

‘Kongpi!’ Someone was calling me. ‘Hey, Kongpi, come with me.’ Baldy Chen walked out of the shipping office with a glass of water, took me by the arm and led me to the security-group office.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked. ‘Was I disturbing the peace by looking for my father in the river?’

‘Take it easy,’ he said. ‘No one’s going to bother you so long as you live by the rules. Somebody asked me to give you something.’

‘Who?’

He wouldn’t say. We walked inside, where he noisily opened a cabinet with a key. I thought my mother, Qiao Limin, might have come this way, so I stood in the doorway waiting for whatever she’d brought. It took a few minutes, but then Baldy came up with a bundle, which I took from him and weighed in my hand. There was something strange about that bundle. ‘What are you afraid of?’ Baldy said. ‘It’s not a bomb. You’ll know who gave it to you when you open it.’

I untied the blue cloth and there was a tin red lantern, Huixian’s red lantern.

‘Huixian decided to swap with you,’ Baldy said, studying my reaction. ‘Her red lantern for your diary, her treasured item for yours. Fair?’ My reaction puzzled him. ‘You’d better not feel cheated. Your diary is just a worthless jumble of words, but what you’re holding is Li Tiemei’s red lantern. You get the better deal, Kongpi.’

Reminded by that lantern of so much that had happened, I felt my nose begin to ache and was nearly in tears. Not wanting to show weakness in front of Baldy Chen, I ran off with my lantern, confused and flustered, as if I were in possession of a priceless object or a keepsake that had been thought lost. It brought me consolation and it brought me pain. As I was running to my boat, a chewing-gum wrapper fell from under the lantern’s shade. I stopped and picked it up. The image of a girl’s head with a perm and a broad smile was printed on the red and white wrapper. Was that meant to symbolize the joy of chewing gum? How could something like that bring anyone joy? How strange. I didn’t know how that could be.

It was a bright, sunny afternoon, that third day, as I strolled along the deck polishing Huixian’s tin red lantern until it shone. The plastic shade gave off a red glow in the sunlight. Now I was content. As I was hanging the lantern in the cabin, I heard a strange sound from the shore. I stuck my head out and saw, to my surprise, that the gangplank was gone. How, in the few moments I’d been in the cabin, had it disappeared? Then a roar burst from the shore. ‘We’ll settle up later!’ There was the idiot, Bianjin, standing on the bank in a blue and white hospital gown, a patch over one eye, a cold avenging glare emanating from the other. His forehead was badly scarred, but it was his nose that caught my eye: it looked white from a distance, but then I saw that the gauze had formed the character , for ‘abundance’, on his nose.

He’d been discharged from hospital to come and settle up with me. He was extremely nimble, with one foot on my gangplank and a portable noticeboard in his hands. He was looking for a spot to set it up.

I couldn’t read what was on the board at first, but then he gave up looking for the right spot and simply held it up for me. It wasn’t what I’d expected — shipping news — but something he’d had someone write for him, using the barbershop notice as a model. But what it said was a hundred times worse:

STARTING TODAY, KU DONGLIANG OF THE SUNNYSIDE FLEET

IS BANNED FROM COMING ASHORE.