'No, he looks like a tax collector to me,' replies Kongzi. 'And only large cities have custody centres. Sanxia is smaller than Hexi. Look, that department store is only two storeys high, and there are hardly any cars about. So stop worrying.'

A young man on a motorbike pa.s.ses them, then looks back and shouts to Kongzi, 'Hey, my friend! Five yuan a ride. How about it? I'll take all three of you.'

Kongzi shakes his head. 'Dad, me want motorbike!' Nannan cries as it speeds away. 'Me want sit on motorbike!'

'We'll walk,' Kongzi says, setting off down the dirt road.

'You horrid!' Nannan says in a huff. 'Me hate you.'

Kongzi doesn't understand how I feel, Meili says to herself. If the police arrest us, I'm the one who will be punished. The condemned fetus is hidden in my belly.

They pa.s.s houses and billboards smothered in dust then, further along, the gloomy skeletons of gutted and abandoned buildings. Wooden beams, floor tiles, gla.s.s panes and revolving chairs have tumbled onto the dirt road. The rows of ancient houses clinging to the steep slopes above appear to have subsided into a layered heap.

'Look at all those houses squashed together up there,' says Meili. 'None of them have doors. How do people get inside?'

'Don't you know? In river towns, all the windows face the river, and the doors are at the back,' says Kongzi. They come to a pathway of stone steps that leads endlessly up the mountain. Kongzi takes Nannan's hand and begins to climb.

'So many steps,' Meili says, struggling up behind, sweating and puffing. 'How high are we going? What if I faint and fall down? Kongzi, will your cousin still remember you?'

'Of course. We ran through the village together as kids, stealing peanuts and dates from the neighbours' yards. We grew up eating from the same cob of corn!'

'Daddy, you got your energy?' Nannan says, lifting her sweaty face to his, her ponytail skewed to one side. Her red quilted jacket is far too hot for this town.

'No, I left it at home,' Kongzi says, knowing she wants him to carry her.

'Me tired. Carry me.'

'I told you, I haven't brought my energy,' he says, squeezing her hand. 'Keep climbing. Don't look up.'

Halfway up they reach a narrow lane. Kongzi leads them to the left and stops outside a dark entrance. Rows of rusty letter boxes are nailed to the cement walls inside. Some have been smashed open, others are stuffed with flyers offering to buy unwanted television sets.

'Look at that slogan on the wall,' says Meili, still catching her breath.

Kongzi turns to the crumbling wall and reads out loud: '"After the first child: an IUD. After the second child: sterilisation. Pregnant with a third or a fourth? Then the fetus will be killed, killed, killed!" Don't worry. That's an old one. Look, the paint is flaking off. Yes, this is definitely the right place. Here's his letter box. Flat 121.' He dumps his plastic bag on the ground and opens the door to the communal stairwell.

'Daddy, careful, big bad wolf in there,' Nannan whispers.

'I'll wait here with Nannan,' Meili says. As he disappears, a smell of boiled mutton blows out from the stairwell and makes her stomach churn. She falls to her knees and vomits. Nannan jumps back in disgust.

'Quick: cover it with some of that rubbish,' Meili tells her, pointing to the dusty newspapers and orange peel in the corner.

Kongzi returns a few minutes later. 'He's not there. The woman in the flat next door said he moved to another town two months ago.'

'I need to pee,' Meili says in a panic.

'You can't do it here we're not in the countryside any more. Let's go back down to the wharf and find you a toilet.'

So they pick up their bags, tramp back down the steep steps and book into the stationary barge hotel.

At night, the newly built apartment blocks jutting from the mountain top resemble featureless planks of wood. A few have lights on, but most are still dark.

'Look at that block up there: it must be twelve storeys high,' Meili says. 'If the top windows were opened, birds could fly straight in.' Now that Nannan is asleep, she and Kongzi have come out to sit on the barge's open deck. The hotel is mostly occupied by migrant workers. The cabins reek of mould and the toilets are so squalid no one dares to use them.

Kongzi wraps his down jacket over his shoulders and looks out at the river. 'What a fine view! It reminds me of that Tang Dynasty poem: "In spring the river swells to the height of the sea. / The bright moon lifts from the surface of the water and rises with the tide."' He takes a drag on his cigarette then exhales slowly, clouding his thick gla.s.ses.

'I'd like to go up one of those blocks and see the view from the top,' Meili says, still staring at the lights twinkling on the mountain.

'What a philistine you are! How can you look at apartment blocks when we have the eternal Yangtze to gaze upon? Our greatest poet, Li Bai, sailed down this river a thousand years ago and immortalised it in his verse. The Yangtze is our nation's artery of life. It's by these banks that the Chinese people first settled and cultivated the arts of civilisation.'

'You think I haven't heard of Li Bai? "I bid farewell to Baidi Town in the rosy clouds of dawn. / By nightfall, I'll be back in Jiangling, a thousand miles away. / On both sides of the gorge, apes cry unceasingly. / My light raft has already pa.s.sed through ten thousand mountain folds."' Meili smiles proudly, then, as she always does when Kongzi accuses her of being uncultured, says, 'I can't be too much of a philistine, or you wouldn't have married me, would you?'

'I taught you that poem,' says Kongzi, his white teeth gleaming in his thin, dark face.

'Nonsense! I learned it at primary school.'

Kongzi takes another long drag. 'What a crime it is to destroy this beautiful ancient town!' he says, and after a long sigh recites: '"Against the river's jade waters, the birds appear whiter. / Against the blue mountains, the flowers appear aflame. / Yet another spring ends. / How many more will pa.s.s before I can return home?"' Then taking Meili's hand, which she's been keeping warm in the sleeve of his down jacket, he says, 'I'd love to hear the "Fishing Boat Lullaby" now. It's an ancient zither song. Do you know the words?'

'Stop testing me,' she says, stuffing her hand back into his sleeve. 'You know I only like pop songs.'

'Well, sing "In the Village Lives a Girl Called Xiao Fang", then.'

'No, we've left the village behind. I want to sing songs from the city. Listen to this one: . . . You say you're mine, but still I'm not happy. What is love? What is pain? I don't know any more . . .' Before she reaches the end of the chorus, Mother looks up, takes off Father's gla.s.ses and says, 'Kongzi, promise me that once this baby is born, you and I will get sterilised. I don't want to go through this again.'

'Only if the baby's a boy. I have a duty to my ancestors to carry on the family line. Huh! Since time began, the Chinese people have been able to procreate in freedom. Just my d.a.m.n luck to be born in an age of birth control!'

'But I'm your wife you have a duty to protect me,' Mother says, resting her head on Father's shoulder. 'It would be reckless to have a third.'

'What is a wife for if not to produce sons? Besides, now we're here, you've no need to worry. The family planning officers of Sanxia leave boat people alone. The hotel didn't even ask to see our marriage certificate when we booked in. It's full of fugitives like us. We're safe.'

'Why are you so obsessed with having a son? It's so feudal! Don't you know that men and women are equal now?'

'My brother has no sons, so it's my responsibility to continue the family line. Our daughters will join their husbands' family when they marry, and their names won't be recorded in the Kong register. So they serve no purpose to us.'

'Still clinging to those outmoded Confucian beliefs! I warn you, the modern world will leave you behind.'

'Huh! Just a few days on the road and already you've become worldly-wise! Don't forget, you left school at eight while I graduated at sixteen, so I'll always be cleverer than you.'

'Stop being so patronising. We're both fugitives now. Let's see how far your male chauvinism gets you here.'

'Oh G.o.d! I've just remembered. I left our Kong family register in the dugout.'

'Was it wrapped in newspaper, on top of that old edition of the a.n.a.lects?'

'Yes. It dates back to Emperor Qianlong's reign. It's the twenty-second volume in the series, and proves that I'm a seventy-sixth generation descendant of Confucius in the direct patrilineal line.'

'Look how you gloat at being his successor!' Mother says, pinching his ear.

'Well, Confucius had to wander through the country like a stray dog after he was banished from the State of Lu. So I'm happy to become a stray dog as well for a while, as long as I have you, my little b.i.t.c.h, to keep me company!'

'You rascal!' says Mother, running her hand further up Father's sleeve to pinch his chest. In the darkness surrounding them, all that can be perceived is their laughter and warm breath. Someone wanders out on deck to have a smoke. Another figure leans out of a porthole to drop an empty orange crate into the river.

'We've been away two weeks now,' says Meili, nuzzling her face against his jacket. 'I still haven't dared write to my mother. What are we going to live on now?'

'Don't worry. I signed up to join the demolition team. They pay thirty yuan a day. So we can stay here until our son is born. In a year's time, I'll have saved enough money to pay the fine for his illegal birth, and we can all go home.' He slides his hand up onto Meili's breast. She feels her face grow warm. He hasn't touched her for days.

'It frightens me to think how little we have now,' she says.

'Yes, we're starting from scratch, but we'll soon have everything settled.'

'I mean, I feel empty, cut off . . . You won't leave me, will you?'

'Never. Let me feel our baby.' Kongzi lifts Meili's jumper, undoes the lower b.u.t.tons of her shirt and places both hands on her belly.

'What if it's a girl?' she says, her heart thumping.

'Well, she won't be recorded in the family register with the boys of her generation who've been a.s.signed "Righteousness" as the first character of their name.'

'Never mind, let's call her "Happiness" then.'

'Yes, that's good. And we can still add "Righteousness" to the name when we register her with the government.'

'You really think we'll be able to get this baby officially registered?'

'Absolutely! Once it's born, I won't rest until I've made enough money to pay the fine . . .'

'Your hands are freezing. Let's go back to the cabin.' As soon as Meili pushes Kongzi's hands off her belly, he slides them between her thighs.

'Don't touch me there, it hurts . . .' she says, sensing herself losing control.

'It hurts? Let me make you feel better then . . .'

Meili feels her blood vessels p.r.i.c.kle as though filled with scuttling spiders. She stretches out and lets the waves of pleasure sweep through her . . . 'Don't press on my belly. Keep going, keep going . . .' Her thighs tremble against the metal bench; inside her leather shoes her ten toes clench.

With his hand still inside her, Kongzi puts a cigarette to his mouth and lights up.

'Put that out!' Meili says, tugging his hand out of her and wiping his middle finger on her sleeve.

A cruise boat sails past, a Viennese waltz pouring from loudspeakers on its rear deck. The breeze blowing across the river smells of spring earth and new growth.

'As long as we stay together, I don't care how many children we have. I just want us to be happy.'

'Didn't I make you happy just now?'

'Be serious for a minute! If you loved me, you wouldn't want to put me in danger. But it's strange: the river does feel safer than the land . . .'

The infant spirit notices that there are fewer people walking along the bank now. The lights shining near the wharf sink the distant buildings into a deeper darkness.

KEYWORDS: cruise ship, wawa soup, kitten-heeled shoes, Three Gorges Resettlement Programme, boat puller, two dragons, bulldozer.

THE MAY SUNLIGHT gleams over the Yangtze, soaking up the river mist and spreading it about the deck. As the damp seeps into Meili's skin, she feels her body soften and warm blood course through her veins into her unborn child and its infant spirit. In a relaxed stupor, it extends a leg. Don't kick so hard, Meili whispers. She's leaning on the deck railing wearing a white shirt and a long flowery skirt. When the breeze drops, her skirt becomes still. She's finished washing Kongzi's dirty work clothes and has hung them out to dry. Whether you're a boy or a girl, you're my flesh and blood and I'll make sure you have a good life, she whispers, stroking her belly. You'll go to university, then find a job in a tall building. Every morning, you'll take a lift to your office on the top floor.

Kongzi's white vest and her white bra flap in the wind. Meili sees a tall cruise ship glide slowly upstream like a floating skysc.r.a.per. Against the blue sky, the tourists on the front deck resemble party balloons tethered to the white railings. They turn their cameras to her. One man smiles broadly and waves. Meili raises her hand, about to wave back, but feels her face redden and quickly lowers her head. Inside her womb, the fetus squirms like a fish in a net. A foreigner, she says to herself, regretting her uncouth appearance. Kongzi told her that foreign men travel to China with the sole intention of sleeping with Chinese girls.

The ship's large wake rocks the boats and barges moored at the bank. Meili stares at the white clouds sliding across the blue-green water, and the spray hovering above the wake's splashing waves. Time seems to slow down. She looks up at the river town and through the corner of her eye sees the cruise ship slip away. Beyond it, where the river becomes enclosed by two bulging precipices, a small raft appears to sway towards a place beyond river and sky.

What am I doing, lazing in the sun like an old woman? she says to herself, then remembers that this morning she must go into town to buy mosquito coils and fresh vegetables. It's her third wedding anniversary today. Kongzi has given her a pair of kitten-heeled shoes as a present, and she's eager to try them out. They've been away for almost three months now, and this evening she wants the three of them to enjoy a celebratory meal. Although the barge hotel is foul-smelling and shabby, there's a television in the meeting room, which Nannan is happy to watch for hours, so the days go pleasantly by. Meili also wants to phone her brother, who's working in a coal mine with her father fifty kilometres from Nuwa, and tell him to go home and a.s.sure her mother that all is well. As it's the second week of May, he'll need to spray the sesame plants with insecticide. Her grandmother is eighty years old and too frail to help in the fields.

'Me want jump in river, Mummy!' Nannan cries, rushing out onto the deck and stepping onto the lower railing. 'Me want see King Crab's palace.'

'Get down!' Meili cries. 'That palace only exists in the television it's not real.'

'It is real! Me saw it. It has ice cream and big bed.' Nannan is wearing a long green dress, and has her hair in two small bunches.

'Come on, let's go and buy some vegetables,' says Meili. She pulls a pair of socks over her nylon tights, steps into her kitten-heeled shoes, grabs Nannan's hand and leads her across the gangplank. As soon as her feet tread onto the bank, her muscles tense with apprehension. 'Remember, if anyone asks you whether your mum is pregnant, just shake your head. Do you hear me? Don't babble a load of nonsense like you usually do, or the family planning officers will give you a nasty injection.' Meili thinks of her primary-school friend Rongrong who was the prettiest girl in the cla.s.s. Two years ago, she went to hide up in a mountain hut to give birth to an unauthorised child, but when her baby boy was just two weeks old, three family planning officers tracked her down and gang-raped her. She only narrowly escaped with her life, and still has to take herbal medicine for the pelvic disease she contracted.

'Shh!' Nannan says, pointing to Meili's mouth. 'Give me hot hat!'

Meili pulls a yellow sun hat from her bag and claps it on Nannan's head.

'Hurray!' Nannan cries. 'Let's go!'

They ascend the steep stairs to the old town and stroll through the street market. The air reeks of fish. Everyone is shouting. Meili sees dozens of silver carp writhing in the shallow water of a polystyrene box, waiting to be pulled out, slit open and gutted. Bright green mustard tubers and pungent-smelling preserved sprouts lie scattered on the wooden counter above. The stallholder reaches into a large bucket and pulls out the black, mottled tail of a giant salamander. 'Fancy this wawa fish? I caught it today. It makes wonderful fish stew. Just the thing for pregnant women.'

Fish stew would be nice, Meili thinks to herself. A bit of garlic to bring out the flavour. But that creature would cost at least eight yuan. Too expensive. She remembers the wedding feast she attended last Spring Festival. The steamed fish were still alive when they were served to the guests. Displayed on the centre of each table were two roast chickens, the male mounted on the female, mimicking the position the married couple would adopt later that night. She hasn't been able to eat chicken since.

'I want wawa fish, Mum,' Nannan says, looking down at the wriggling black tail.

'No, it smells bad,' says Meili, staring at the guts, fish scales, spinach leaves and noodles trampled onto the ground. She goes to a fruit stall, buys a jin of oranges, peels one and puts a segment in Nannan's mouth. Nannan wrinkles her nose and says, 'Too sour! Me no want orange. Me want wawa. If me eat wawa me be wawa too.'

'Come on, lady, buy this one,' another fish seller says, walking over with a large bucket. 'Wawa nourishes the yin and fortifies the yang. It's a nationally protected species, unique to the Yangtze River. We're only able to catch them now because of the chaos caused by the dam project. Usually, you'd never get a chance to taste one.' He leans into the bucket and pulls out a slippery beast that is twice the size of the wawa at the other stall. Its arms and legs flailing wildly, it opens its wide mouth and takes a gulp of air.

'Why called wawa fish, Mummy?'

'Because when it mates, it cries "wa-wa", just like a baby.'

'Why it called fish? It no look like fish.'

'It just is. Don't touch it. It's very expensive.' Meili remembers reading that women are given wawa soup during their one-month postpartum confinement to restore their energy and encourage lactation. 'All right, I'll buy it,' she says. But as she digs into her bag for her purse she looks up and sees the words RATHER RIVERS OF BLOOD THAN ONE MORE UNAUTHORISED CHILD sprayed in red paint onto a wall that is splattered with chicken s.h.i.t and blood. Struck with panic, she abandons the purchase, grabs Nannan's hand and runs away down a side lane, turns left into another and stops outside a row of half-demolished buildings. 'Why your face red, Mummy?' asks Nannan.

'I'm hot, that's all.' Meili pulls off Nannan's yellow hat and fans her face with it. Her new kitten-heeled shoes are covered in dust.

The deserted lane is littered with broken bricks and refuse. An old man pa.s.ses through the ruins behind, dragging a bundle of flattened cardboard boxes. Nannan climbs a heap of rubbish and picks up a plastic duck.

'Drop it, it's filthy!' Meili shouts. She thinks of their house in Kong Village. Before Spring Festival this year, she and Kongzi painted the front door and window frames dark red and began re-cementing the yard. She'd wanted to plant an osmanthus tree beside the date tree so that when she opened the windows next spring the house would be filled with its fragrance.

'Me wash it,' says Nannan, smiling at the dirty plastic duck. On the broken window frames and doors behind her is an empty can of almond juice and some smouldering charcoal briquettes.

They walk down another lane, climbing over toppled telegraph poles. The segments of wall on either side are still pasted with flyers advertising the services of lock-breakers and door-menders. On a broken bulletin board next to an abandoned shop is a list of women of childbearing age drawn up by the local residents' committee. Around the next corner they find themselves in a large demolition site from which there appears to be no way out.