The Dark Road.

A Novel.

Ma Jian.

About the Book.

'These days, you have to pay the government nine thousand yuan to be born and two thousand yuan to die,' says Father, taking off his gla.s.ses and rubbing his tired eyes. 'The gates of h.e.l.l aren't somewhere far beneath us. They're right here on earth.'

Meili, a young peasant woman born in the remote heart of China, is married to Kongzi, a village school teacher, and a distant descendant of Confucius. They have a daughter, but desperate for a son to carry on his ill.u.s.trious family line, Kongzi gets Meili pregnant again without waiting for official permission. When family planning officers storm the village to arrest violators of the population control policy, mother, father and daughter escape to the Yangtze River and begin a fugitive life.

For years they drift south through the poisoned waterways and ruined landscapes of China, picking up work as they go along, scavenging for necessities and flying from police detection. As Meili's body continues to be invaded by her husband and a.s.saulted by the state, she fights to regain control of her fate and that of her unborn child.

About the Author.

Ma Jian was born in Qingdao, China in 1953. He is the author of Stick Out Your Tongue, which in 1987 led to the permanent banning of his books in China, Red Dust, winner of the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award 2002, The Noodle Maker, and Beijing Coma which narrated the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

While writing The Dark Road, Ma Jian travelled through the backwaters of central and southern China. Posing as an official reporter, he visited family planning offices and hospitals where forced abortions and sterilisations are carried out. He later adopted the guise of an itinerant worker and lived among fugitives of the One Child Policy who sc.r.a.pe a living on the Yangtze River and the vast waste sites of Guangdong Province.

Flora Drew has translated five works by Ma Jian into English. She studied Chinese at the School of Oriental and African Studies and worked in television and film. She lives in west London with Ma Jian and their four children.

For Flora.

The Dark Road.

Ma Jian.

Translated from the Chinese by Flora Drew.

KEYWORDS: sterilised, dugout, breast milk, family planning squad, date tree, longevity locket, Nuwa Cave.

THE INFANT SPIRIT sees Mother sitting on the edge of her bed, her hands clutching her swollen belly, her legs trembling with fear . . .

Meili rests her hands on her pregnant belly and feels the fetus's heartbeat thud like a watch beneath a pillow. The heavy banging on the compound gate grows louder, the dim light bulb hanging from the ceiling sways. The family planning officers have come to get me, she says to herself. She raises her feet from the basin of warm water in which they've been soaking, hides under her quilt and waits for the gate to be forced open.

This afternoon, as warm sunlight was melting the last patches of snow on the maize bundles in the yard, their neighbour Fang was laying out sesame seeds to dry, her three-week-old baby suckling at her breast, when suddenly four family planning officers stormed in and dragged her off to be sterilised. Fang kicked and howled like a sow being towed to the slaughterhouse. The glutinous rice she'd left soaking in a basin on the ground in preparation for dumplings was overturned, and two mongrel ducks scuttled over to peck at the grains. Eventually they managed to tie her hands together and force her into the open back of their truck. Her white vest was ripped by then, and her shoulders smeared with blood that had fallen from the shaven-headed officer's nose when she'd kicked him in the face. He was crouching at her feet now, binding her flailing legs with rope and firmly securing her to the metal bars. Trapped from the waist down, Fang leaned over the side and shouted: 'I d.a.m.n the eight generations of your ancestors! Have you forgotten that every one of you was nursed by your mother as a child? And now you dare tear a baby from its mother's breast? May your families produce no sons for nine generations! . . .' Meili climbed over the wall and scooped Fang's baby into her arms, and pleaded with a uniformed officer to let Fang go. 'If she's sterilised, her milk will run dry. At least wait until her baby's three months old.'

'Keep out of this!' he replied, rubbing his cold red hands together. 'Haven't you read the public notice? If a woman is found to be pregnant without authorisation, every household within one hundred metres of her home will be punished. You should have reported her to the authorities before the child was born. As her next-door neighbour, you'll be fined at least a thousand yuan.'

Meili didn't recognise the officers, and presumed they'd been drafted in from neighbouring counties. Had she not been afraid that they'd notice her pregnant bulge, she would have run to Fang with a blanket and wrapped it over her shoulders. Instead, she stood rooted to the spot and watched the truck trundle away, Fang jolting up and down at the back, breast milk dripping from her exposed red nipples.

The banging at the gate pauses then starts again. 'It's me Kongzi!' she hears her husband cry out. 'Open up!' Remembering at last that a couple of hours ago she wedged a spade firmly against the gate so that it couldn't be opened from the outside, she runs out into the yard and lets him in.

Kongzi staggers into the house, his hair wild and his gaze distracted, and paces restlessly about the room. He's just returned from a Party meeting. 'The squad of family planning officers that arrived yesterday has been sent from Hexi Town. The village Party office isn't large enough for their purposes, so they've commandeered a cla.s.sroom in the school and are doing the abortions and sterilisations there. This crackdown will be merciless.'

'What are we going to do?' Meili says with fear in her eyes.

'I don't know. The officers were clear: any pregnant woman who doesn't have a birth permit will be given an immediate abortion and a 10,000-yuan fine.'

'Ten thousand yuan? We couldn't raise that even if we sold our house. Thank goodness we bought that fake birth permit last month.'

'It won't fool them,' Kongzi says, taking off his gla.s.ses and rubbing his face. 'They're examining the permits closely this time, checking for fakes.'

'How many women did they round up today?' Meili asks, feeling a wave of nausea.

'Well, there were ten tied up outside the Party office. The school caretaker saw his wife among them, and tried to rescue her. But the family planning officers struck his head with a hammer, took him to the school and locked him up in the kitchen. The old seamstress who lives on Locust Tree Lane tried to hide her pregnant daughter from the squad, and got beaten to death.'

'They killed her?' Meili gasps. She strokes her swollen belly and watches Kongzi move around the room, the outer corners of her eyes slanting upwards like outstretched wings. He's throwing his hands about and groaning. She's never seen him in such a disturbed state. Abruptly, he slumps down beside her, knocking over the basin of water by her feet. A dark puddle spreads over the concrete floor. Small feathers gather on the surface, resembling flimsy boats on a lake. 'Why didn't you clear the basin away?' Kongzi says, jumping to his feet. 'Look, my shoes are all wet now.'

'I was keeping the water for you. Come on. Sit down again.' Meili fetches the thermos flask, pours more warm water into the basin, then kneels down, takes off Kongzi's shoes and washes his dirty feet. After drying them in a towel, she mops up the mess on the floor.

'Cla.s.ses have been suspended,' he says. 'I doubt whether many pupils would have turned up anyway. Some have already been sent to stay with relatives in other counties until the crackdown is over.'

'Will you still get your salary?'

'Huh! I haven't received proper payment for three months. The education bureau was only giving a measly hundred yuan a week, but now it can't even pay me that. Last week all I got was a small can of diesel and a pad of writing paper. And the county authorities have the nerve to say that this crackdown against family planning violators has been launched to raise money for village schools! Well, you can be sure that our school won't be receiving any cash.'

Meili looks over to the right and sees her daughter, Nannan, crouched in the corner near a muddled pile of shoes, staring at the wet floor. 'What are you doing there, Nannan?' she says. 'Go back to bed.'

Nannan raises her sleepy eyes to Kongzi. 'Me want to pee, Daddy.'

'Go and do it yourself. You're two years old now. You shouldn't be afraid of the dark any more.'

Nannan moves grumpily to the front door but can't turn the handle. Meili pushes it down for her and swings the door open. A cold draught blows in and makes the skin of her belly tighten.

Kongzi shivers and lights a cigarette. On the wall behind him is a huge mosaic mural of green mountains and blue rivers which his friend, a renowned local artist called Old Cao, created for him after Kongzi built this house three years ago. Last year, Old Cao moved to a town fifty kilometres away to live with his son and daughter-in-law, a low-level cadre, in a luxurious apartment block for government employees. On Kongzi's left, beside the entrance to the kitchen, hangs a scroll of the Confucian text for children, The Three Character Cla.s.sic, and a framed photograph of Kongzi and Meili, standing in Tiananmen Square during their honeymoon in Beijing. On his right is the doorway that leads to Nannan's room where, under the bags of fertiliser and pig feed beneath the bed, lies the secret dugout Kongzi made for Meili to hide in once her pregnancy can no longer be concealed.

'Old Huan, the district family planning chief, was at the meeting,' Kongzi continues, after taking a deep drag from his cigarette. 'He said it's a countywide crackdown. Every high official has been mobilised. The squad officers are under pressure to meet targets. Tomorrow, they want to insert IUDs into every woman in the village who's had one child.'

'I won't let them put one of those metal coils inside me! Yan said hers causes her so much pain, she can't bend over in the fields.'

'Yes, and if they did insert one, it might lead to a miscarriage. So, stay indoors tomorrow. If the family planning officers turn up, convince them that you're not pregnant, then flash the birth permit at them and say you don't need an IUD because you've been authorised to try for a second child. My father's still well regarded by the Party, so with any luck, they'll let you off.'

'But my bulge is definitely noticeable now. And when I was walking through the village yesterday, I had a bout of morning sickness and vomited in the lane. Kong Dufa's wife pa.s.sed me and gave me a suspicious glance.' Meili shines a torch on Nannan, who is still outside, squatting beside the low wall that runs between their house and the home of Kongzi's parents.

'You idiot! What if she's reported you to the police? They pay a hundred yuan for public tip-offs now.' Seeing Nannan walk in and sidle up to him, he says, 'Off to bed now, or you'll catch cold.'

'My bottom did big pee, Daddy,' she says, treading over a bundle of cables. 'Me thirsty.'

Kongzi looks away and flings his hands in the air. 'Abortions, sterilisations, IUDs! What has this country come to? Confucius said that of the three desertions of filial duty, leaving no male heirs is the worst. Now, two thousand years later, I, his seventy-sixth generation male descendant, am forbidden to perform my sacred duty to bring his seventy-seventh generation male descendant into the world.'

'I don't want to be dragged to the school tomorrow,' Meili says. 'I'll hide in the dugout.'

'The rabbit breeder in Ma Village hid in her secret dugout for two months, but the family planning officers found her yesterday. They pulled her out, took her off to be sterilised and confiscated her three hundred rabbits.'

Meili feels a sickening, rotten taste fill her mouth and her nose, and wonders if it comes from the darkness outside or from the depths of her own body.

'Look, Daddy, my tummy can go big too!' Nannan says, lifting her jumper and sticking her belly out.

'Bed! Now!' Father shouts.

Nannan bursts into tears and rushes into Mother's arms. 'Me hate that daddy,' she cries. 'Me want different one!'

Mother carries Nannan to her bed, tucks the quilt around her and brushes out her thin plaits.

Travelling in reverse motion, the infant spirit has retraced Mother and Father's journey, floating upstream along the watery landscapes down which they drifted for nine years. Now, it has finally reached its place of origin. This is the rightful home of Mother's second child, whom the infant spirit was a.s.signed to inhabit until it achieved a successful birth.

Only scenes that took place in the darkness are now clearly visible to the infant spirit. It sees shadows tremble, as though stirred by the wind, and hears echoes from the past drift through the now windowless and roofless house, and linger near a patch of mosaic still stuck to a crumbling wall. The yard is pitch black, and empty, apart from a date tree which lies bent over the ground, a few leafless branches rising from its trunk . . . Father said that when he found out that Mother was pregnant for the second time, he planted a date tree in the yard to ensure the child would be a son, and buried a longevity locket in the soil beneath to grant the child a safe birth. Mother said that before the date sapling was planted, she took it to Nuwa Cave and rubbed it across the sacred crevice so that, in years to come, all her children would be born under the tree and receive G.o.ddess Nuwa's blessing. Father also mentioned that in the secret dugout under Nannan's bed there is a red lacquer chest containing an ancient edition of Confucius's a.n.a.lects and a bound volume of the Kong family register. The red chest is still there, buried now under the smashed bed and the thick rubble of a bulldozed wall. Piercing black eyes of mice glint through the weeds and broken roof tiles above.

In the lane behind, a willow tree rises from a mound of singed cobs like a graceful fairy frozen mid-dance. Further away, beyond a red compound wall, are two small osmanthus trees and the public road that leads out of the village.

KEYWORDS: IUD, f.u.c.king Communists, flames, fallopian tubes, Kong the Second Son, cla.s.s enemy.

DISTRAUGHT RESIDENTS OF the village sit crammed on Meili and Kongzi's bed, on the sofa opposite and on the floor. Almost every one of them is, like Kongzi, a member of the Kong clan, direct descendants of the most celebrated Kong: Confucius. Meili is perched on the end of the bed, her hands carefully crossed over her belly. She suspects that Kongzi's parents have guessed that she's pregnant. His father is sitting by the headrest, shooting furtive glances at her as he sucks on his cigarette. He was village head for twenty years, and although he retired recently, he still commands respect, which explains why so many villagers have gathered here tonight to vent their anger.

Kong Qing, a former artillery soldier, is slumped in the corner, weeping and cursing, a bloodstained bandage wrapped around his head. 'f.u.c.king Communists,' he cries, 'depriving me of my son. My branch of the family has been extinguished . . .' When the family planning squad came banging on his gate yesterday, he and his wife, who was heavily pregnant with their third child, escaped through a secret tunnel and fled to the tall reeds near the reservoir. In the evening, his father took them food, unaware that the police were trailing him. He quacked like a duck their usual secret signal and as soon as Kong Qing and his wife emerged from the reeds they were pounced upon by the police. The wife was dragged to the school, where family planning officers strapped her to a wooden desk and injected two shots into her abdomen. The aborted fetus is now lying at Kong Qing's feet in a plastic basin. It has its father's flat nose and small eyes. Sc.r.a.ps of congealed amniotic fluid are still stuck to its black hair.

'Former Village Head, you must stand up for us,' says Kong Zhaobo, a prominent member of the clan who attended high school in Hexi and now owns the only motorbike in the village. 'Filial piety demands that we produce sons and grandsons. The male lines must continue. We can't let the Party sever them.'

'And anyway, the authorities said that we peasants can have a second child if our first one is a girl,' says a man nicknamed Clubfoot, who is sitting by the television clutching his walking stick. 'So why are they bunging IUDs in women who've only had one child? If this carries on, we'll become a village where the children have no brothers or sisters, uncles or aunts. What kind of future is that?' Clubfoot is always searching for ways to make money. Last year he bought a desktop computer, surfed the internet and informed everyone that a fortune could be made rearing a breed of wild duck that lays golden-yolked eggs. His house stands on the site of an ancestral temple to Confucius which was built by Kongzi's grandfather and demolished in the Cultural Revolution.

A frail, spindly woman, whose third daughter, Xiang, Kongzi once taught, speaks up. 'The family planning squad came to our house today and demanded a 10,000-yuan back payment for Xiang's illegal birth. She's twelve years old now, for G.o.d's sake! I told them we didn't have any cash on us, but they searched our house, and found the two thousand yuan my eldest daughter sent us after slaving in a Shenzhen factory for a year. They took the cash, our bags of rice, our pots and pans, even our kitchen clock, and they want us to pay them the rest of the money by the end of the week.'

'And you know where all that money will go?' Clubfoot says, rubbing the handle of his walking stick. 'Straight into the mouths of the corrupt bureaucrats in Hexi Town. Have you seen the new District Party headquarters they've built themselves? It's vast. As grandiose as Tiananmen Gate. And after they've guzzled our money, they come to murder our babies. Well, this time, we can't let them get away with it. We must fight back!'

'No, that would be madness,' says Kongzi's father, stubbing out his cigarette and smoothing back his white hair. 'The road out of the village has been blocked and a police boat is patrolling the reservoir. We're trapped. If we put up a fight, they'll crush us.'

'The squad officers have the names of the one hundred women of childbearing age in the village,' says Kong Wen, chair of the village family planning team. 'We had to send them the list last week. Forty of the women will be subjected to an IUD insertion, and the sixty who have two or more children will be sterilised.' Kong Wen worked in a Guangzhou clothing factory for three years, sewing zips into trousers. Almost every woman in the village is now wearing a pair of the Lee jeans she brought back with her. When she was informed that this crackdown was imminent, she gave her pregnant sister a letter of introduction stamped with an official seal and told her to escape to Beijing. As a result, she's been given the minor role of record keeper during this crackdown, and once it's over will probably be sacked.

Yuanyuan pushes her way into the house, reeking of rotten cabbage. She's eight months pregnant. Her home doesn't have a dugout, so she's been hiding in her neighbour's vegetable hut. Squeezing down next to Meili, she announces: 'I've just seen a woman halfway up a tree. She's out of her mind! Refuses to come down. She says her baby's up in the branches.' Yuanyuan went to Guangzhou with Kong Wen and found a job in an Apple computer factory, where she plans to return after the birth of her child. She looks at her now and says, 'You sucked up to the cadres when you came back here, hoping they'd make you village head. Well, are you happy now, helping them kill our babies? We're women of Nuwa, descended from G.o.ddess Nuwa, who created the Chinese people from the yellow soil of this plain. And now the government wants to stop us having children! Are they trying to eliminate the Chinese race?' Yuanyuan is the only woman in the village to own a pair of knee-high leather boots. Meili longs for the day when she too can own a pair.

The villagers in the yard who've been unable to squeeze into the house poke their heads through the open windows. 'Even dogs have the right to bark before they're slaughtered!' one of them calls out. 'Kongzi: why don't you take the lead and speak out on our behalf?'

'Yes, Kongzi!' Kong Zhaobo agrees, running his hand along the turtleneck of his black sweater. 'You're eloquent and well read, and you've always had a rebellious streak.' Kongzi's defiant nature was recognised at the age of nine. When the entire school sang 'Lin Biao and Confucius are scoundrels', Kongzi dared change the words to 'Confucius was a gentleman and a sage', and was taken to the district police station. Thanks to his father's back-door connections, he was released the next day, on condition that he sing the song correctly one hundred times. Kongzi's real name is Kong Lingming, but after his courageous expression of support for his ancestor, everyone began to call him Kongzi Confucius's more common name. Sometimes they call him Kong Lao-er, meaning Kong the Second Son, the derogatory nickname given to the sage during the Cultural Revolution, or just Lao-er for short, which also means 'd.i.c.k'. As he grew up, his interest in his ancestor deepened, and he became the village authority on the sage's life and works.

'You've studied Sunzi's Art of War,' says Kong Dufa, a po-faced Party member who is married to the village accountant. 'Just choose one of the thirty-six strategies and write out a plan.'

Kongzi raises his palms. 'No, no, I may be a teacher, but I have no formal training. I'm just a simple peasant, a farmer who's read a few books. I can't come up with any ideas . . .'

Desperate to prevent him from becoming involved in a political protest, Meili throws Kongzi a meaningful look. He fails to notice. So, to attract his attention, she leans over to Nannan, who's curled up in the lap of Kongzi's mother, and gives her a sharp pinch.

'Ouch!' Nannan shrieks. 'A mouse bit me, Grandma.'

'Shh, little one,' Kongzi's mother says, rubbing Nannan's arm. 'Here, have a malt sweet.'

'No, me want chocolate.' Nannan hates the way malt sweets stick to her teeth. Villagers traditionally offer them to the hearth G.o.d at Spring Festival to make sure that when he meets the Lord of Heaven he'll be unable to open his mouth and utter any inauspicious words.

'I've heard peasants have poured into Hexi Town to protest against the crackdown,' says Li Peisong. 'They've stormed the Family Planning Commission and smashed all the computers and water dispensers. We should sneak out of the village tonight and go and join them.' During the Cultural Revolution, Li Peisong was head of the village revolutionary committee and in 1966 was sent to Shandong Province to help Red Guards destroy the Temple of Confucius in the sage's native town of Qufu. While swept up in the revolutionary fervour, he changed his name to Miekong 'Obliterate Confucius'. But by 1974, when the Campaign against Lin Biao and Criticise Confucius was in full swing, he'd undergone a change of heart. Not only did he fail to denounce Confucius at public meetings, he changed his name back to Li Peisong and married a member of the Kong clan. They now have two sons. The second son, Little Fatty, is two years old, but they still haven't paid off the fine for his unauthorised birth.

'What's a water dispenser?' asks Scarface, a man whose forehead is badly disfigured by a childhood burn. He is dest.i.tute, and can only pay for the education of his three daughters with beans adulterated with sand.

'You know those large plastic canisters that cadres have in their offices, filled with mineral water that's supposed to cure a hundred illnesses. It works out at one mao a cup!' This burly man, Kong Guo, went to Wuhan last year to work on a construction site but was arrested for not having the necessary temporary urban residence permit, fined two thousand yuan and escorted back to the village by the police.

'So, they're just drinking all our money away,' says a mild, gentle man who cycles around the village every morning collecting eggs to sell in the county market. His fists are resting on the metal table, tightly clenched.

A dishevelled peasant called w.a.n.g Wu stands up, unable to contain his rage any longer. 'They wanted twenty thousand yuan for the illegal births of my two younger daughters. I told them I don't have enough money even to buy seeds. So they tied one end of a metal cable to the central eave of my house, the other half to their tractor. When the tractor reversed my entire roof came off. Where do those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds expect us to live now?'

Suddenly, loud clanging thuds can be heard, the front gate swings open, and district policemen sweep inside followed by members of the family planning squad. The women in the house scurry into the kitchen and the men rush outside. Before w.a.n.g Wu gets a chance to launch into a tirade he's bashed to the ground. Kongzi's father steps onto a bamboo stool and shouts, 'No fighting. No violence!'

Clutching the plastic basin containing his aborted son, Kong Qing yells, 'Fascist slaughterers! I'll have my revenge! A life for a life!'

Old Huan, director of the Hexi Family Planning Commission, steps out from behind the policemen. 'I warn you, Li Peisong,' he says, jabbing his finger aggressively. 'If by tonight you haven't paid the remaining nine thousand yuan for Little Fatty's birth, we'll confiscate your stove, pans and wok, and pull down your house!'

Kong Guo elbows his way to the front and b.u.t.ts in, 'Go ahead! If you tear our houses down, we'll just come and move in with you.'

The policemen head for Kongzi's front door, shouting, 'Yuanyuan was seen entering this compound. We must search the house.'

'Step inside and I'll kill you!' Kongzi yells, waving a kitchen cleaver, unrecognisable when compared to the teacher in the grey nylon suit who walks to school every morning with his black briefcase. This is not his first experience of protest, however. In 1989, he travelled to Beijing to visit the man he still calls Teacher Zhou a former urban youth who was sent to Kong Village in the Cultural Revolution and taught Kongzi in the village school. Together, he and Teacher Zhou marched through the streets of Beijing with the student protesters, waving banners and shouting slogans in support of democracy and freedom. The County Public Security Bureau has kept a detailed file of the subversive activities he engaged in during his month in the capital.

In the yard, which is only half laid with concrete, the crowd grows agitated. Villagers begin to push and shove, knocking into the date tree sapling that's propped up with bamboo sticks. Children and barking dogs climb onto a mound of broken bricks in the corner to escape the crush.

District Party Secretary Qian, the most senior member of the squad, emerges from the crowd, accompanied by a hired thug, and shouts, 'Kongzi, as a Party member, you have a duty to a.s.sist the squad with its efforts. If you don't behave, we'll fling you behind bars.'

'Don't you dare threaten my son, Mr Qian,' Kongzi's father says with quiet authority, dropping his cigarette stub and grinding it into the ground with his heel. 'Get out of this yard.'

Kongzi goes to stand beside his father. 'Yes, this is my home!' he says. 'A Kong family home, and in here, the Kongs make the decisions. I've committed no crime. So, get out, and take your rotten minions with you!'

'You want to start a fight, then?' says the shaven-headed officer who arrested Fang two days ago. 'We'll bury you alive.' He throws the hired thug a glance, signalling for him to give Kongzi a beating.

But before he has a chance to strike, Kong Qing, who's standing behind him, raises his basin in the air and, shouting 'f.u.c.k you!' at the top of his voice, thrashes it down onto his head. Immediately the villagers grab bricks and shovels and attack the officers and policemen. The children perched on the compound walls hurl stones at Secretary Qian's back. Inside the house, Kongzi's mother crouches with the other women in the kitchen, holding Nannan tightly in her arms, while Meili cowers in the corner of the bed, pressing the folded quilt close to her belly, her eyes squeezed shut.