'Think about your future, Meili,' says Hua. 'Bringing up a handicapped child is expensive, and exhausting too. All that money and effort, and you won't even be able to marry her off in the end!'

Meili crosses her legs, rests a foot on a burnt tin can and pushes her nipple back into Waterborn's mouth. 'What does your husband do, Hua?' she asks.

'He works at the Radiance Hair Factory. I believe your husband's delivered some stock to them.'

'What do they do with the hair?' Meili asks, coiling her own hair into a bun then securing it with a twig.

'If it's long, they make wigs out of it. If it's short, they ferment it.' The two sisters are now sitting down on the beer crate, cooling themselves with the paper fans Nannan has just made.

'Ferment it? To make shampoo?' Meili closes her eyes briefly and imagines sailing upstream to a clean stretch of the Xi River, then jumping in and washing herself with soap. Although according to custom she is allowed to bathe now that her confinement is over, she still wouldn't dare enter the filthy creek. Kongzi brings back bottles of clean river water from his trips, but never enough to wash more than her hands and face.

'See that brand of soy sauce you have there?' says Hua, pointing her fan at the bottle. 'It's made from fermented hair. Hair is amazing stuff: it's full of nutritious protein and amino acids, and it never rots. A corpse's hair can survive thousands of years.'

Waterborn frowns nervously. She has very little hair on her scalp, and small scratches on her eyelids and forehead. Although she's in the shade, she doesn't dare open her eyes. Her damp face glistens like a peeled lychee.

'I've heard that parents in the village mutilate their babies then rent them out to illegal gangs,' Meili blurts, unable to restrain her curiosity.

'Nonsense!' exclaims Hua, the gold wedding ring glinting on her chubby finger. 'Only a couple of families have done that. They may have nice houses now, but no one will speak to them. They've ruined the reputation of the village.'

'She's got your ears, I see,' says Gu, 'and your upward-slanting eyes.'

'Thank goodness the family planning officers are relaxed here, or I would have got into deep trouble,' Meili says.

'They used to be much stricter,' Hua replies. 'When the Fujian couple's third daughter was just three days old, the officers came down here and drowned her in the pond.'

'No!' gasps Meili, her eyes moving to the pond's still surface. The drake is floating in the middle, his beak in the air, while the ducks drift slowly around him with bowed heads.

'No, they didn't drown the baby they kicked her to death up there,' Gu says, pointing to the terraced hill behind. A dog's black tail darts down a path running between the overgrown fields.

'I heard someone's offered you seven thousand yuan for her already,' Hua whispers to Meili.

'If you wait any longer, the price will go down,' Gu says softly.

'So, you're agents?' Meili asks, staring at the crate lying at the edge of the creek, which she uses as a rubbish bin to keep the flies away from the hut.

'It can't be cheap, rearing ducks. Look, it's not as if you're paying Sister Mao to break her legs. You'll be selling her to an orphanage who will export her to a foreign country where there are no mosquitoes in summer, no flies in winter, and medical care is free. She'll be in Heaven!'

'Your baby's r.e.t.a.r.ded, no doubt about it. So do it for her sake. If not for her sake, then do it for your husband and your elder daughter.'

'But I heard that if orphanages can't get the children adopted, they sell them to child traffickers who break their limbs and force them to beg on the streets,' Meili says testily.

'No, no, that's complete nonsense,' Gu says, flicking a fly away from her bottle of fizzy orange.

'Trust us, egg lady, we wouldn't lie to you,' Hua says. The drake on the pond puffs out his chest and grunts.

'My name is Meili so don't call me "egg lady"!' Meili says, staring down angrily at the plantain leaves on the ground.

'But that's what we call people who live on boats. Perhaps you northerners use a different term.'

'We're not from the north, and we're not from the south we're from the very centre, just like this!' Meili says, pointing to her crotch, then laughing triumphantly. The sisters roll their eyes, not knowing where to look. 'Yes, I was born in the birthplace of Nuwa, the G.o.ddess of fertility and the founder of the Chinese race. So don't patronise me.'

Gu pulls out a box from her bag. 'Try one of these, my dear. I made them myself. You've only recently finished your confinement. You need to build up your strength.'

Meili takes the box and lifts the lid. 'How pretty! Nannan, come and look! I've never seen sticky rice cakes as green as this before.'

'It's a local speciality,' Hua says. 'We colour glutinous rice with crushed motherwort, then divide it into small b.a.l.l.s which we steam then roll in shredded coconut.'

'Would you like to buy today's batch of eggs?' Meili asks, trying to steer the conversation further away from Waterborn. 'I'll sell them to you for three mao each and you can sell them on for five. Pay me later, if you don't have cash on you.'

'All right,' Gu says. 'I'll take some and see how I do. If they don't sell, I'll preserve them in salt and eat them myself. Those bananas up there look ripe. Feel free to chop some off.' Most of the banana trees have died; only two are still producing fruit. A swarm of flies are now circling the sisters, attracted perhaps by the smell of warm rice rising from their clothes. They stand up and get ready to leave.

'You're so clever, you family planning violators you've realised you can make far more money having babies than you could raising pigs!' Hua says conspiratorially. 'How many more do you plan to have?'

'I'm finished now!' Meili says, getting up and brushing off the coconut shreds that have fallen onto her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. 'My husband's desperate for a son, but I refuse to have any more.'

'I only ever wanted one,' says Gu. 'I read in the papers that if a woman eats tadpoles on a regular basis, she'll never get pregnant. So after I had my first child, I scooped some from a pond every week and swallowed them. Fine lot of good it did! I was pregnant again within two months!' Gu laughs loudly, revealing her long yellow teeth.

'But who can afford to have more than one child these days, the way school fees and medical fees keep rising?' Hua says.

'So how many children do you have, Hua?' Meili asks, glancing down at the braised duck simmering on the stove.

'Four. Only two of them are legally registered, though.'

'I've told you, Hua, you must hurry up and buy permits for the other two or they won't be able to go to school,' Gu says.

'If you do decide you want to go ahead with the sale, come and speak to us,' Hua says to Meili. 'Don't go to that guy who runs the sc.r.a.pyard. He's a nasty crook. If the babies are alive, he sells them to traffickers, and if they're dead he sells them to restaurants.'

'I would never sell my own child,' Meili says, softly rocking Waterborn as she starts to cry again. 'If she does turn out to be mentally handicapped, I won't mind I'd be happy to look after her for the rest of my life.'

'We just want to help you secure a good future for your daughter, and for your family as well,' Gu says. 'If you sell her, everyone will benefit.'

'Yes, it will be a winwin situation, just like President Jiang Zemin said to the US in the international trade discussions last week,' Hua says. 'Come on now, let's go and choose our eggs.'

When the sisters walk past her, they seem to give off more heat than the scorching pot on the stove.

KEYWORDS: flea-ridden, magnet, sc.u.m, beautification fee, gangsters, Custody and Repatriation Centre.

RETURNING TO THE hut and seeing Nannan sitting alone under the porch and the boat gone, Meili knows at once that Kongzi has gone to give Waterborn away.

'Where's Daddy, Nannan?' she shouts.

'He said he's taking Waterborn on a trip. He said he'll be back very soon, and when he comes back I'll be his only daughter and he'll only love me.'

'The evil b.a.s.t.a.r.d! I know what he's done he's gone to sell her to a Welfare Office! Kongzi, you monster! You force me to get pregnant, then you take my baby from me. You're worse than the Communist Party. I despise you. I never want to set eyes on you again!' Shaking with rage and howling curses, she kicks out at the wok and bowls on the ground, stamps on the peanut oil and mosquito coils she just bought in the village, then turns round and marches away into the fields. The ducks in the pond flap their wings and take flight.

'Mummy, come back, I'm frightened . . .' Nannan cries out, but Meili is so delirious with rage she can't hear her. She strides across the fields all the way to the public road, then stops a pa.s.sing minibus and jumps aboard. She wants to go as far away as possible. No she wants to return to Nuwa Village, to her birthplace. She finds a seat at the back, buries her face in her scarf and weeps. May you get struck by lightning, Kongzi! she mutters under her breath. All these years you drone on about benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, then you go and sell your own daughter! How could I have married such a monster? . . . When she met him at seventeen, she believed marriage was for ever, that the government protects and cares for the people, and that husbands protect and care for their wives. But as soon as she got married, these naive beliefs were shattered. She discovered that women don't own their bodies: their wombs and genitals are battle zones over which their husband and the state fight for control territories their husbands invade for s.e.xual gratification and to produce male heirs, and which the state probes, monitors, guards and sc.r.a.pes so as to a.s.sert its power and spread fear. These continual intrusions into her body's most intimate parts have made her lose her sense of who she is. All she is certain of is that she is a legal wife and an illegal mother. I'd be better off dead, she mumbles to herself. I should throw myself into the Yangtze and join Happiness on the riverbed. With a jolt, she remembers Nannan and wishes she'd had the presence of mind to bring her with her. She decides to spend the night in whatever town the minibus is taking her to, then to sneak back to the hut in the morning and fetch Nannan.

Only at night, when the minibus pulls into the terminal and she steps off, goes outside and looks at the dark road running downhill, does she begin to feel helpless and alone. On a dimly lit fruit stall, peeled pineapples gleam like freshly plucked ducks. The pavements are littered with the trampled pulp of chewed sugar cane. Sensing that the road leads to the centre of town she follows it down. It stretches on through the darkness, desolate as a barren field. At last, in the distance, she sees neon signs flashing from tall buildings, and begins to walk towards them as though pulled by a magnet.

The road bends and becomes wider and brighter. There are cars and buses now. After crossing two junctions, waiting for the pedestrian lights to turn green, she begins to realise that this is not a town but a city. She must ask someone where the train station is. She'd like to go home now and see her parents. The thought of being fined or arrested doesn't frighten her any more. If there's no train to Nuwa, she'll return to Guai Village in the morning, take Nannan and a few belongings, and set off for Heaven Township, leaving Kongzi to fend for himself. She approaches a small kiosk to ask for directions. When she sees the red telephone on the counter, she has a longing to phone Weiwei and pour her heart out to him, but she doesn't have his number on her. She thinks of phoning Kongzi's parents, but is afraid the line might be bugged, and besides, she's not in the mood to speak to them. Clubfoot has a telephone too now, as well as a laptop computer and satellite TV, but she has forgotten his number. The only other person in Kong Village whose number she can remember is Kong Zhaobo. He's opened a dairy farm that supplies milk to an infant formula company. She phoned him a couple of times in Guai Village, asking if he could give her brother a job.

'Want to use the phone?' the vendor asks, leaning over the counter. 'Domestic calls are four jiao a minute. Dial the area code first. The list's up there.'

'It's a Hubei number,' says Meili, as she dials the last digit. As soon as the ringing tone sounds, she immediately regrets making the call. Kong Zhaobo says h.e.l.lo in his heavy accent.

'It's Meili,' she says, feeling drops of milk start to leak from her full b.r.e.a.s.t.s. 'You mustn't tell anyone I phoned.'

'Won't tell a soul, I promise. Where are you?'

'I don't know. I've just got off a bus.'

'What's up?'

'Nothing. I just wanted to hear how things are in the village.'

'Oh, there've been big changes. You know Kong Dufa who took over your husband's teaching post? Slimy b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Well, he's village head now. His son graduated from university last summer and has got a job at the County Transport Bureau. You won't believe it: the village has become a tourist destination! Six coachloads of visitors arrive every day. My neighbour has built a side extension and opened a restaurant called the Happy Farmer. And that painter, Old Cao, who created the mosaic mural for you. Well, his son, Cao Niuniu, has done well. He's a successful artist now. Lives in Beijing. He came back to the village a few months ago and bought the Sky Beyond the Sky Hotel and has turned it into a painters' colony. He's got a hundred artists living there, churning out copies of foreign masterpieces that he sells back in Beijing. And you heard that Kong Qing's wife was arrested for complaining about her forced abortion? Yes, she's still locked up in the mental asylum . . . Five of the villagers who were arrested in the riots are still in jail. One poor sod is serving fourteen years. Kong Guo was released last month, thank goodness.'

'What about that sweet, gentle man . . . ?'

'Kong Fanhua? He's all right. He chopped down the huge tree in his yard and sold the timber to pay off his fine. His wife has gone to work in Guangzhou. He still cycles around the village every morning collecting eggs . . . Listen, if you do give birth to a son and earn enough money to pay the fine, don't come back here. Go and live in the county town. The schools are much better there.'

'How's Li Peisong, and his son, Little Fatty?'

'Oh, Little Fatty he's in a juvenile detention centre. Granny Kong told him off about something, and he ended up beating her to the ground with a stick. Well, it's not surprising he's turned out that way. His parents were left dest.i.tute after paying the fine for his birth, and couldn't even afford to send him or his brother to school . . .'

As Meili puts a ten-yuan note on the counter to pay for the call, a man behind her says, 'You're not local, are you? Where are you from?'

'Hubei Province,' she says, counting the change before putting it in her pocket.

'Do you have a temporary residence card for this city?'

'No, I haven't brought any doc.u.ments with me.'

'Well, you won't be able to get a room in a hotel, then. Come with me. I'll take you somewhere that provides free food and lodging.'

Meili follows the man back to the main road. Growing suspicious, she asks, 'So, how come the food and lodging are free?'

'The city authorities pay for it. They know hotels won't accept flea-ridden peasants like you, and they don't want you sleeping on the streets, spoiling the city's image, so they've built a guest house where you can stay for free.'

'Are you trying to say that no one in the city has fleas?' Meili says indignantly. 'I can't believe that's true.'

They reach a dark doorway. When Meili reads the words CHANGSHA CITY CUSTODY AND REPATRIATION CENTRE on the sign above it, she turns to run, but the man grabs hold of her and drags her inside.

'This is the fourth one I've brought in today,' he says to a uniformed officer at the front desk. 'So that's 120 yuan you owe me.'

'The child you brought in this afternoon doesn't count. He was ten years old and mute. We couldn't have sold him on, so we let him go.'

'You never told me you don't take children,' he says, fingering the loose threads on his shirt where his top b.u.t.ton has been tugged off.

'Well, you'd better read the detention criteria again.'

'This one's a peasant. She has no doc.u.ments.'

'Let me go, comrade,' Meili says to the officer. 'I'll make my own way to the train station. You won't need to escort me.'

'You think you can escape that easily? We'll only release you if someone pays your bail. Old Wu, give her a body search. When did you arrive in Changsha?' The officer picks up a pen and takes out a registration form.

'About an hour ago.'

'Why did you come here? Where were you planning to stay?'

'I was just pa.s.sing through, on my way to the train station.'

'Education?'

'Primary school.'

'Where were you travelling from? Take off your belt.'

'I'm not wearing one,' Meili says, slapping Old Wu's hands as he runs them up her legs.

'Put all your cash and valuables on the table, then,' Old Wu says, pointing at her aggressively. 'If you try to hide anything from me, I'll f.u.c.king kill you!'

'All I have is the thirty yuan I made from selling eggs this morning. Comrade, can I ask you something?'

'What?' the officer behind the desk says, looking up.

'The sign outside said Custody and Repatriation Centre. So is this a prison? Have I committed a crime?'

'No, it's not a prison.'

'What is it, then?' Meili says, her voice shaking.

'It's a place that houses undesirables like you. We've been ordered to evict 300,000 peasants and vagrants from the city before the National Day celebrations next week, and you've fallen into our net, I'm afraid.' He hands her the registration form, tells her to sign at the bottom, then pa.s.ses her a sponge filled with red ink, two blank sheets of paper and tells her to sign and fingerprint these as well.

'But there's nothing written on them. What am I signing for?'

'None of your business. Just get on with it.'

Meili does as she's told.

'Now take her to the warehouse!' The officer files away the forms, brushes some orange peel from his desk and takes a sip from his mug of tea.

Meili follows a policewoman into a warehouse in the backyard. The interior is dark and cavernous. A single bulb hangs from the high ceiling. There are no beds, just numbered rectangles painted in yellow on the concrete floor. Meili is taken to number 15. A narrow path between the rectangles leads to a large plastic bucket at the far end for the detainees to use as a toilet.

'Where do we go to make telephone calls, comrade?' Meili asks a girl with gla.s.ses who's lying on the rectangle next to hers.

'You'll have to wait until the morning.'