We lived in cages back then, he said, either that or we were led around with leashes. Now we know what freedom is. You can do anything you want if you’ve got the money and it isn’t illegal.
You’re right. You’ve got quite a sales pitch, I said. I pointed to the dolls. Are they really as spirited as you say?
Do you think I’m just blowing smoke? He was dead serious. Every word is the sacred truth, with just a hint of acceptable exaggeration. Even the national media is allowed that.
I’m no match for you, I said. Did Qin He really make those?
Would I say he did if he didn’t? That bit about flutes and dancing on a full moon, that was an exaggeration, but it’s true that Qin He made them with his eyes shut. If you don’t believe me, name the day and I’ll take you to see for yourself.
So Qin He settled down here too, did he?
Who talks about settling these days? You live where it suits you. Wherever your aunt is, that’s where you’ll find Qin He. His kind of diehard loyalty is rare, no matter where you look.
Little Lion held up a lovely little doll with big eyes and a high nose, like a girl with mixed Chinese and European blood. I want this little girl, she said.
I began to sense something as I looked at the doll. Of course, I’d seen that face somewhere. But where? Who was it? Oh, my, it was Wang Dan’s daughter, Chen Mei, the girl Gugu and Little Lion took care of for nearly six months, but then had to turn over to her father, Chen Bi.
I still recall the evening Chen came to our house to retrieve his daughter – it was on the night we sent the Kitchen God off to report on the family, not long before New Year’s, with firecracker explosions and the smell of gunpowder in the air. Little Lion had filled out the paperwork to accompany me and had left her position with the commune health centre. I’d soon be taking her and Yanyan with me to Beijing. A two-room unit in a Beijing compound would be our new home. Father would not go with us, and was unwilling to move in to my older brother’s home in the county capital. He wanted to stay where he was. Fortunately, my second brother had a job in the township, close enough to take care of him.
After Wang Dan’s death, Chen Bi began to drown himself in liquor. He walked the streets, alternating between weeping and singing. People sympathised with him at first, but with the passage of time that turned to annoyance. Back when the pursuit of Wang Dan was on, Chen Bi’s savings had been used to pay the villagers’ wages. But after her death, most gave the money back to him. Additionally, the commune did not ask him to repay the money spent on him during his confinement. A conservative estimate put his savings at thirty thousand yuan, enough for him to spend on drink for several years. To all appearances, he had put out of his mind the child Gugu and Little Lion had taken to the health centre to fight for her life. In basic terms, his goal in subjecting Wang Dan to the dangers of a second pregnancy had been to produce a boy to carry on the family line, and when all the suffering and hardships in reaching that goal ended with the birth of another girl, he pounded himself in the head. The heavens have abandoned me! he wept bitterly.
Gugu named the child. Since she had a fresh, pretty face and a sister named Chen Er (Ear), she settled on Chen Mei (Eyebrow). Little Lion pronounced it to be a beautiful name.
Gugu and Little Lion thought seriously about raising the child on their own, but with the residence issue and the difficult procedures involved in adoption, when Chen Bi came and lifted her from Little Lion’s arms, she still had no resident status. In accordance with the laws of the People’s Republic of China, she did not exist, what is known as a ‘bootleg kid’. How many of those there were at the time no one could say, but the number had to be astonishingly high. The bootleg kid residence issue was finally resolved in 1990 during the Fourth Census. The income derived from fining the masses for illegal births reached astronomical heights, but how much of that money actually made it into the national coffers is too tangled an affair for anyone to sort out. And the number of bootleg kids the masses have produced over the past decade or so is certainly another astronomical figure. The fine for such births is now ten times greater than twenty years ago, and when the next census rolls around, we’ll see if the bootleg-kid parents can afford to pay the fines . . .
Back then, Little Lion’s motherly instincts were in full bloom. She held Chen Mei, showering her with kisses, hardly ever taking her eyes off her, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d tried to nurse her, since her nipples looked funny – whether or not she could actually produce milk was hard to say, but such ‘miracles’ were said to have occurred. As a youngster I saw a play about a family in which the parents died tragically, leaving behind an eighteen-year-old daughter and her baby brother. Given no choice, she offered her virgin breasts to him, and in only a few days, milk oozed from her nipples. In the real world, such things are likely impossible these days. An eighteen-year-old girl with a nursing brother? Mother said it was common in old times for a woman and her mother-in-law to have children at the same time. Now? It could still happen. A girl in my daughter’s college class has a newborn baby sister. Her father, a coalmine owner who hires migrant workers under slave-like conditions, was immeasurably wealthy. People like that live in luxurious villas in Beijing, Shanghai, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Melbourne and Toronto with their mistresses, who produce babies for them.
I pulled my thoughts back from where they were headed, like reining in a spooked horse. I thought back to the evening we were sending the Kitchen God off. I had just dumped a bamboo steamer full of dumplings into a pot of boiling water to the accompaniment of my daughter Yanyan, who clapped and sang a children’s song about dumplings – ‘Geese flying from the south splash into the river’ – as Little Lion cooed to Chen Mei in her arms, when Chen Bi, in his worn-shiny leather jacket and cap with earflaps, sort of staggered into our yard. Chen Er was behind him, holding on to his shirt tail. She was wearing a little padded coat whose sleeves ended above her wrists, exposing hands red from the cold. Her hair looked like a bird’s nest, and she was sniffling, probably from a cold.
You’re just in time to eat, I said as I stirred the dumplings in the pot. Have a seat.
He sat on the threshold, his face illuminated by flames from the stove. His large nose looked like a turnip carved out of ice. Chen Er stood beside him, resting her hand on his shoulder, the light of fear in her large eyes that kept darting around curiously: from the dumplings roiling in the pot to Little Lion and the baby in her arms; then they alit on Yanyan, who held out a piece of chocolate. She cocked her head to look at her father, then looked up at us.
Take it, I said. She wants you to have it.
She reached out timidly.
Chen Er! Chen Bi snapped.
The girl jerked her hand back.
What’s that for? I said. She’s just a child.
Chen Er burst into tears.
I picked up a handful of chocolate and stuffed it into Chen Er’s coat pocket.
Chen Bi stood up and said to Little Lion, Give me back my child.
She just stared at him. I thought you didn’t want her.
Who said so? he growled. She’s my flesh and blood, why wouldn’t I want her?
You don’t deserve her! Little Lion shot back. She looked like a sick kitten when she was born, and I’m the one who kept her alive.
Wang Dan went into labour so early because you were hounding her! If you hadn’t she’d be alive today. You owe me a life!
Bullshit! Little Lion said. She should never have been pregnant in the first place. All you cared about was carrying on your line. You didn’t give a damn if Wang Dan lived or died. Her death is on your hands!
How dare you say that! Chen Bi screamed. If you say it again I’ll make sure your family has a terrible New Year’s!
Chen picked a garlic press up off the counter and aimed it at the pot on the stove.
Have you lost your mind, Chen Bi? We’ve been friends since we were kids.
What good are friends in times like these? He sn
eered. Were you the one who reported that Wang Dan was hiding in your father-in-law’s house?
That had nothing to do with him, Little Lion said. It was Xiao Shangchun.
I don’t care who it was. All I know is, you have to give me back my child.
In your dreams! Little Lion said. I’m not going to let this child die at your hand. You have no right to call yourself a father.
You stinking hermaphrodites can’t have kids of your own, so you won’t let other people have theirs. When they do, you take them for your own!
Shut your stinking mouth, Chen Bi, I fumed. What’s the big idea of coming to my house while we’re sending off the Kitchen God and making a scene? Go ahead, throw it if you think you have the guts.
You think I won’t?
Go ahead.
If you people don’t give me back my child, nothing will stop me, not murder or anything, from getting what I want.
Father, who had been in his room, not saying a word, walked out. Good nephew, he said, for the sake of this bearded old man, who was your father’s friend for so many years, put that garlic press down.
Then tell her to give me my child.
No one’s going to take your child from you, but you need to talk this out with her, Father said. When all is said and done, if not for them, the child would have followed her mother.
Chen Bi threw the press to the floor and sat back down on the threshold, where he began to sob.
Chen Er patted his shoulder. Dad, she said through her tears, don’t cry . . .
The scene was affecting me as well. I guess, I said to Little Lion, you should give her to him.
Don’t even think that! she said. This child is a foundling, and I found her.
You shouldn’t treat people like this, Chen sobbed. That’s not how things are supposed to be . . .
Go call your aunt, Father said.
No need for that, Gugu said from just beyond the doorway, I’m right here.
I felt as if our saviour had arrived.
Stand up, Chen Bi, Gugu said. I was waiting for you to throw the garlic press into the pot.
Chen Bi obediently got to his feet.
Chen Bi, do realise you committed a crime?
What crime did I commit?
Child abandonment, Gugu said. We brought Chen Mei back with us, and kept her alive by feeding her millet porridge and powdered milk. For more than six months you didn’t so much as come to see her. You’re her biological father, that’s true, but how have you met your responsibilities as a parent?
She’s still mine, he muttered.
Yours? Little Lion asked fiercely. Call her and see if she responds. If she does, you can take her with you.
You’re being unreasonable, and I won’t argue with you. I was wrong, Gugu, I admit it. Now, give me my daughter.
We’ll give her to you, after you go to the commune, pay your fine, and arrange her residency.
How much is the fine?
Fifty-eight hundred, Gugu said.
That much? I don’t have that much.
You haven’t got it? Gugu said. Then don’t even think about taking the child.
Fifty-eight hundred! Fifty-eight hundred! That’s more than my life’s worth.
You can keep your life, Gugu said. And you can keep your money to buy liquor and food and even visit your whorehouses.
I don’t do that! Chen protested angrily out of embarrassment. I’m going to sue you people. If I lose at the commune level, I’ll go to the county, and from there to the province and even the Central Government if necessary!
And what if you lose at that level? Gugu asked contemptuously. Will you take your case to the United Nations?
The United Nations? Why not!
You’re the man of the hour! Gugu said. You can get out of my sight now and come back for the child when you win your case. But I’m telling you, even if you do somehow win your case, you’ll have to promise me in writing that you will bring her up well and you’ll owe Little Lion and me five thousand yuan each as ‘burden fees’ for everything we did.
Chen Bi did not take Chen Mei with him when he left that evening, but once New Year’s passed, on the sixteenth day of the new lunar year, the day after the Lantern Festival, he showed up with a receipt for the fine and left with Chen Mei. The ‘burden fees’ were just something Gugu said in anger, and there was no need for him to pay them anything. Little Lion cried so hard she shook, as if her own baby had been taken from her. What are you crying about? Gugu scolded. If you want a baby that bad, have one!
But that only intensified her sorrow. Gugu rubbed her shoulders and said in a tone sadder than I’d ever heard, My life has already been settled, but your best days are ahead of you. Go on, forget about work for now, have a child and bring it back to show me.
After moving to Beijing, we tried hard to have a child, but Chen Bi’s curse seemed to be working. Little Lion could not get pregnant. She was a good mother to my daughter, but I knew that Chen Mei was the one she pined for. And that was why she was holding a doll that was the spitting image of Chen Mei.
I want this one, she said to Wang Gan, but more to me than to him.
How much? I asked him.
What does that mean, Xiaopao? he asked, obviously miffed. Are you trying to offend me?
You’ve got me all wrong. You can’t buy a doll without good faith, and how can you have that unless you pay for it?
You can’t have good faith if you do pay for it, Wang Gan said softly. When you pay for one, what you’ve bought is a lump of clay. You can’t pay for a child.
All right, I said. We’re at the Binhe community project, number 902 in Building Nine. Come see us.
I will, he said. And I hope you have a son soon.
I shook my head and forced a smile. After saying goodbye to Wang Gan, I took Little Lion’s hand and entered the temple’s central hall, walking against the crowd of temple-goers on their way out.
Fragrant smoke curled out of the iron incense burners alongside an array of flickering red candles coated with wax drippings. Many women, some old and grizzled, others hibiscus fresh, some in tatters, others heavily bejewelled, an endless variety, each unique to herself, and all wearing expressions of devotion, were burning incense, lighting candles, and cradling clay dolls.
Forty-nine white marble steps led to the entrance to the towering central hall. I gazed up at the inscribed board beneath the swallow eaves over the entrance; it read: ‘Moral Education for Children’ etched in gold. Bronze bells hanging from the eaves rang out with each gust of wind.
Virtually every person who trod the marble steps was a woman with a doll, and I felt like a spectator as I mixed with the feminine crowd. Reproduction is so solemn yet so commonplace, so serious yet so absurd. I was reminded of that time in my childhood when with my own eyes I watched the ‘Down with the Four Olds’ struggle corps of the Number One County High School Red Guard faction come to tear down temples and destroy idols. They – boys and girls – picked up the Goddess idol and flung it into the river, accompanied by shouts of: Family planning is the only good path, the Goddess goes in the river to take a bath! Grey-haired old women lining the banks fell to their knees, and I wondered if their mutterings were prayers that the Goddess would come down in spirit to punish those unruly youngsters. Or were they asking the Goddess to forgive them for the sinful actions? No way to tell. ‘Rivers flow east for thirty years, and west for the next thirty.’ This is what proved the wisdom of that saying: a new temple had been built where the old one had once stood, and a golden idol now stood in the central hall. Not only did it carry on the cultural heritage, but it created a new convention; not only did it fulfill the people’s spiritual needs, but it also was a great draw for tourists. The service industry was flourishing with visible economic growth, so better to construct a temple than to build a factory. My fellow townspeople and old friends all lived for and through the temple.
I gazed up at the idol: a face as round as the moon, hair like black clouds;
thin brows that arched to her temples, eyes filled with compassion. She was cloaked in white, with jewels draped around her neck. A long-handled round fan in her right hand rested against her shoulder; her left hand lay atop the head of a child riding a fish. A dozen children in a variety of poses were arrayed around her. With lively expressions, filled with childish delight, the children were universally adorable, and all I could think was, the only people in Northeast Gaomi Township capable of crafting such figures were Hao Dashou and Qin He. If Wang Gan had been telling the truth, then the figures had to be Qin He’s handiwork, which led me to thoughts of comparing the white-clad goddess with a youthful Gugu. The nine mats in front of the goddess were filled by kneeling women who were in no hurry to give up their spots; they kowtowed and they clasped their hands in prayer as they gazed up at the goddess’s face. Women also filled the space on the marble floor behind the prayer mats, all with clay dolls laid out in front of them, as they faced the goddess. Little Lion knelt on the floor and banged her head loudly to demonstrate her devotion. Tear-filled eyes were proof of her abiding longing for a child. I knew, however, that she could never realise her dream of having one. Born in 1950, she was now fifty-five years old and already post-menopausal, despite the fullness of her breasts. I knelt alongside her and faced the goddess. People looking at us would have assumed that the old couple on the floor was praying for a child for their son or daughter.
Their prayers finished, the women stuffed money into the red wooden box at the feet of the goddess. Those who gave little did so in a hurry; those who gave more made a show of it. The offering completed, a nun standing alongside the donation box handed each woman a red thread to tie around her doll’s neck. Two grey-cassocked nuns, one on each side, eyes lowered, beat the temple blocks in their hands and chanted prayers. One might think they saw nothing, but whenever someone dropped a hundred yuan or more into the box, the wooden fish sang out loudly, maybe to get the goddess’s attention.
Since this was not a planned visit to the temple, we hadn’t brought any money, throwing Little Lion into a bit of a panic, so she slipped the gold ring off her finger and dropped it into the box. The three loud beats on the wooden fish sounded like the starter’s pistol I’d heard at a race I’d run in years before.