‘Why did your mother drown herself?’ Kongzi asks bluntly.
‘She was diagnosed with breast cancer. The hospital treatment was going to cost a thousand yuan a day. She knew that we’re struggling to find the money for my son’s university fees, and she didn’t want to drain our resources.’
Kongzi’s eyes widen. ‘So your son has got into university?’
‘Yes, we slaved for two years helping him prepare for the exams. He’s the only student in our county who’s been offered a place. Such glory he’s brought to our ancestors! But the fees have risen to eighteen thousand yuan this year, and my salary is just five thousand. Still, I’m determined to raise the cash. I’m planning to give up teaching and look for a factory job in Shenzhen. When the acceptance letter arrived, I showed it to my mother, and she drowned herself that very afternoon.’
‘Did anyone see her jump? Perhaps she’s just gone travelling.’
‘She left a will and a letter instructing me not to search for her body. She said if we found it we’d have to pay for a cremation, and she’d rather we put all our money towards my son’s fees. She left her keys on the kitchen table.’
Upset by the man’s story, Meili pushes down the throttle handle to accelerate.
‘So she chose to drown herself, rather than hang or gas herself, just to save you the thousand-yuan cremation fee!’ Kongzi exclaims. ‘The government is shameless, trying to make money from corpses. The poor can’t even afford to die these days!’
‘I don’t care how much it costs. I must find her body and give her a decent burial. If I don’t, how will I be able to look my descendants in the eye?’ He lowers his bloodshot eyes. The sweat on his face evaporates in the breeze.
‘If no one saw her jump, she’s technically a missing person,’ Kongzi says. ‘Why don’t you contact the river police and ask them to help you look for her?’
‘I’ve spoken to them. They told me a person must be missing for one month before they can open a case, and she’s only been gone for ten days. They won’t help. Here, brother, have another cigarette.’
‘No, I couldn’t. They’re a top brand. Must have cost you a fortune.’
‘Don’t worry. The Education Board gives us two packs a month. It’s some shady deal they’ve cooked up with the tobacco company. They deduct the cost from our salary, whether we smoke them or not. What’s your name, brother? Mine is Weiwei.’
‘I’m Kong Lingming,’ Kongzi says, the wind blowing in his face. ‘The problem is, if the river police did agree to follow up the case, they’d probably just send a few messages out to local police stations. They wouldn’t dispatch a search party unless you paid them a huge bribe.’
‘That’s why I’ve come to search for her myself.’ Then he raises his head and looks Kongzi in the eye. ‘So, Mr Kong Lingming, I presume from your name that you’re a seventy-sixth generation descendant of the great sage. It’s an honour to make your acquaintance. We have a Kong in our county too, from the seventy-fifth generation. He’s a deputy to the National People’s Congress.’
‘Yes, I am a descendant – but I’m having to live like a tramp now so that I can continue my illustrious line,’ Kongzi says, embarrassed by his lowly circumstances.
Green forested mountains begin to tower on both sides. Meili gazes up at the peaks then down at their reflections plunging into the river. She breathes in the green light and feels her mind clear. There are no villages or towns in sight. She closes her eyes and lets the peace and calm wash over her.
‘Why not make a television appeal to see if anyone saw her jump?’ Kongzi suggests, trying to keep the conversation going.
‘I tried. My brother works for the local TV station. He asked his bosses to air an appeal, but they refused to. They’ve had to broadcast so many appeals for missing children and women recently, they’ve decided to stop offering the service. I printed hundreds of notices and stuck them on street corners, but no one’s responded. There’s no official organisation that can help me. I’m all on my own.’ He wipes a tear from his eye.
‘Don’t get upset. It’s not our fault we were born into a dynasty that prevents men performing their filial duty.’ Since Kongzi lost his spectacles, he’s been wearing a pair of cheap brown sunglasses that make him look like a shifty hawker of fake medicine in a country market. ‘I toiled for years teaching in a village school, for the sake of my country, but what did the government do for me in return? I couldn’t even feed my family on the meagre salary they paid me.’
‘But you’ve plunged into the sea of commerce now, and become a private entrepreneur. I envy your freedom!’ Weiwei rubs his goatee, then brings out from his bag a photograph of his mother which a strong gust almost blows from his hands.
Kongzi takes the photograph and studies it in the shade of the canopy. ‘What a lovely lady she looks,’ he says. ‘You wouldn’t guess she was ill.’
Feeling the wind blow the back of her dress towards Weiwei’s shoulder, Meili pulls it down and stuffs it between her legs.
‘We’ve entered Fengkai County now,’ Weiwei says. ‘Look up there. That’s Yearning for the Spouse’s Return Rock, one of Xi River’s eight scenic sites.’ He swigs back some lemonade from the bottle Kongzi gave him and points to a leaning stack of rocks on the summit of a green mountain.
‘Is it a wife yearning for her husband or a husband yearning for his wife?’ Meili asks him, squinting up at it. The engine is chugging so loudly now, she has to shout to be heard.
‘A wife yearning for her husband, of course,’ Kongzi says, before Weiwei has a chance to reply. ‘In the past, the men went travelling and the women always stayed at home.’ Meili is annoyed that Kongzi butted in – she wanted to hear Weiwei speak. Kongzi turns to him and says, ‘When we fled the village, we never thought that two years later, we’d still be on the run. We imagined the rivers would be safe, but they’re almost as heavily policed as the roads. So-called Boat Safety Inspection Posts have popped up all along Xi River. The inspectors couldn’t care less how safe your boat is, all they want is your money. If they stop you, they’ll confiscate your licence unless you pay fees of two hundred yuan.’
Meili pulls a white T-shirt over her sleeveless dress, and feels more comfortable now that her hairy armpits are concealed. With her free hand she rearranges the sachets of washing powder, magazines and bamboo fans behind her into a neat pile.
‘How much did this boat cost you?’ Weiwei asks.
‘Oh, about ten thousand yuan,’ Kongzi lies, wanting to impress him.
‘And business is going well?’ Weiwei’s gaze shifts to Meili who is now clutching the steering wheel with both hands, the wind rippling through her hair.
‘The money isn’t great. Small boats like this can only take heavy cargo short distances. Most of the time, I deliver fake goods that registered boats are too afraid to touch. And the price of diesel keeps rising. I get through forty yuan of it a day.’
‘Have you thought of taking up fishing?’ Weiwei says, still looking at Meili. ‘You could open a crab and shrimp stall on the banks.’
‘The river’s become so polluted, there are hardly any fish left. Most of the fishermen round here have abandoned their nets and gone to find jobs in the cities. Ah! What a beautiful stretch of the river this is. It brings to mind that Song Dynasty poem: “Clouds appear to drift beneath the moving boat / The empty water is clear—”’
‘“—I gaze up, gaze down, and wonder whether / Beneath the lake’s surface, another Heaven exists,”’ Weiwei interrupts, completing the quatrain. He looks to the right and points to a mountain peak. ‘See that white sculpture at the top? That’s the mythical Dragon Mother.’
‘She’s so beautiful,’ Meili gasps. ‘But she looks like an angel or a goddess, not a mother.’
‘But mothers can be beautiful as well – just look at you!’ Weiwei says with a smile. Meili looks away bashfully and blurts out the first thing that enters her mind. ‘So, is the Dragon Mother a dragon herself, or a human being who’s a mother of dragons?’
‘She’s a local deity,’ Weiwei replies, ‘a goddess of rain, mothers and children. The legend goes that as a baby she was put on a wooden tray and cast off by her parents into the Xi River, then found and raised by a fisherman. When she grew up, she was able to control the floods. The people in this area call anyone with supernatural powers a dragon.’
Meili feels sick at the thought of a mother abandoning her baby. She imagines waves rolling over the baby’s head and its tiny body sinking to the riverbed. She looks up again at the Dragon Mother’s sparkling white figure, and the golden temple and bamboo grove behind it. Tourists appear to be crawling up the narrow path to the summit like an army of wriggling maggots.
As the boat approaches Yinluo, the river widens and divides, with a backwater branching off to the right. The dark water appears stagnant, but plastic bottles and polystyrene boxes are moving sluggishly across its surface. Shacks built from broken doors and plastic sheeting are dotted among the long grass at the far end. The warm evening breeze smells of rot and decay.
‘This must be the place I was told about,’ Weiwei says, gripping the canopy.
Meili steers to the right and advances with care. The water grows shallower and the engine begins to rumble and spew blue smoke into the air. Kongzi moves to the bow and darts from side to side, prodding his bamboo pole into the riverbed to check the depth. When they reach an expanse of floating rubbish that seems impassable, Meili slows the boat to a crawl. She tries veering to the right but Kongzi shouts out, ‘No, we’ll never make it to the bank this way,’ so she steers in the other direction and, after a while, finds a cleared channel that leads to the shore. A man walks out of one of the shelters and stares at them. Clouds of crows and mosquitoes hover overhead, making the grey sky look dark and soiled.
‘Are you a corpse fisher, my friend?’ Weiwei shouts to the man as they draw closer. ‘I’m looking for my mother.’
‘When did she drown?’ the man asks, walking to the shore. He’s wearing black trousers and a white vest, and is fanning his face with a straw hat.
‘Ten days ago,’ Weiwei answers, rubbing his goatee anxiously.
‘Only three women have washed up here this week. How old was your mother?’
‘Sixty-five.’
‘Those three are much younger than that. One is naked from the waist down. Her hands and feet are bound with rope and her toenails are painted red.’
‘And the other two?’ Weiwei asks plaintively.
‘The oldest looks no more than forty. Dark blue trousers, purple jacket, bare feet.’
‘Purple jacket? Let me see her.’
Meili turns off the engine and Kongzi punts the boat to the shore.
‘I must warn you, comrade, it will cost you 150 yuan to look at the corpse, and three thousand if you want me to dredge it out and arrange for a van to deliver it to your home. My fees are the lowest, though. That guy up there will charge you two hundred to look at the corpse. But he’s a crook. Unlike me, he can read, so he scans the newspapers’ missing persons notices, phones the families and tells them to come here, knowing very well he doesn’t have the bodies they’re looking for. I’d never do that. I have principles.’
‘You must make a fortune!’ Kongzi says. ‘A hundred and fifty yuan just to look? That’s robbery! This boat only cost me three thousand.’ Kongzi bites his lip, remembering that he told Weiwei it cost him much more.
‘No one gets rich from this trade. Only five or six families a year turn up here looking for dead relatives, and we have to buy all the rope and plastic sacks ourselves. There are four of us fishing corpses, and none of us have made much money. If you don’t believe me, go and ask them.’
‘Does the woman in the purple jacket have grey hair?’ asks Weiwei, scrutinising the man’s face.
‘A few grey hairs, perhaps. Not many. See, I’m an honest man. If you’d asked Chang, he would’ve lied to you.’
‘All right, let me see her. Where is she?’
‘All the bodies are tethered to poles under the floating rubbish. But I can’t show you the woman in the purple jacket. She belongs to Chang. We stick to the rules here. He’s gone into town today. He’ll be back tomorrow.’
Kongzi whispers to Weiwei that they should speak to the other corpse fishers, then in a louder voice asks the man if there’s a police station nearby.
‘Yes, a station was opened near here a couple of years ago,’ he answers. ‘The police used to pay us a hundred yuan to pull out the bodies, then would take them away to be cremated. But so many bodies washed up last year, the police couldn’t cope. For a while, they’d still come once a week, to photograph the corpses and cut locks of hair. But money is tight now, and they’ve stopped coming altogether. So we have to rely entirely on people like you for our income.’
Weiwei and Kongzi climb the littered bank towards shelters further up, pinching their noses from the stench.
‘Stinks, doesn’t it?’ the corpse fisher shouts out to them, putting on his straw hat. ‘It’s not easy living here, I tell you!’
They come to a shelter surrounded by heaps of plastic bottles. A man steps out, holding a can of Coke.
‘Hello, my friend,’ Weiwei says. ‘I’m looking for my mother. She’s sixty-five, with grey hair. Have you seen any bodies like that recently? Here, have a smoke.’ He hands the man a cigarette and searches his pocket for a lighter.
‘I saw an old woman’s corpse bobbing on the water yesterday, but it was bloated and decayed.’
Kongzi glances back at the man they just spoke to, annoyed that he made no mention of this body to them.
‘How long would it take for a corpse to reach that state?’ Kongzi asks.
‘I’m not in the business, but I should think three weeks at least, a bit less if crabs have got to it. Old Gui down there keeps his bodies under the rubbish for six months. If no one comes to claim them, he drags them back to the river and lets the current sweep them away. But by then they’re unrecognisable.’
‘So you don’t keep any corpses yourself?’ asks Kongzi, stepping back from a cockroach he sees crawling towards his feet.
‘No, no! That work would give me nightmares. Every morning, the corpse fishers row out into the floating rubbish to check if any bodies have got trapped beneath it during the night. When they come across a patch that smells particularly bad, or has flies hovering above it, they plunge their hooked poles into it, hoping to pull up a body. I don’t have the stomach for that.’