Wang Gan went silent at the moment Gugu’s boat hove into view. I saw that he was shaking, that his mouth hung open, that his moist eyes were fixed on the boat. As it passed by us it listed to one side, drawing a cry of alarm from Wang Gan. He tensed, and it seemed to me he might jump into the river. Farther up in the slow current, the boat turned and sped lightly towards us, the sound of its motor settling into a rhythmic hum. Gugu had arrived. So had Little Lion.
The boat was piloted by a familiar figure — Qin He. In the latter days of the Cultural Revolution, his older brother had been restored to the post of commune Party secretary, while he had been reduced to begging in the marketplace; no matter how civilised his begging methods were, he was as an embarrassment to his brother. We’d heard that he had asked his brother to assign him to work in the obstetrics ward at the commune health centre — You’re a man, how can you work in an obstetrics ward? — There are lots of men in obstetrics wards — You have no medical skills — What do I need those for? — and so Qin He was made pilot of the family-planning boat. In the weeks and months that followed, he hardly ever left Gugu’s side. On days when a boat was required, he went out onto the river; on other days he sat idly in the cabin.
His hair was parted down the middle, like the young men in movies set in the May Fourth period, and even in the dog days of summer he wore his blue gabardine student uniform, still with two pens in the breast pocket: a fountain pen and a two-colour ballpoint pen. His face seemed darker than the last time I’d seen him. He manoeuvred the boat slowly towards the riverbank, up near the twisted old willow. The motor slowed, ramping up the loudspeaker volume, making our ears ring. The commune had built a temporary pier west of the willow tree for the exclusive use of the family-planning boat. Crossbars had been fixed with wire to four thick posts in the water and overlaid by planks. After securing the boat to the pier, Qin He stood at the prow. The motor shut down and the loudspeakers went silent, reintroducing us to the splash of the river and the cries of gulls.
Gugu was first out of the cabin. The boat rocked, so did she. Qin He reached out to give her a hand but she pushed it away. She jumped onto the pier; though now on the heavy side, she was nimble as always. A bandage on her forehead emitted a harsh light.
Little Lion was next. Short and squat to begin with, she was dwarfed by the oversized medicine kit on her back. Though much younger than Gugu, her movements were clumsier. It was she who caused Wang Gan to wrap his arms tightly around the branch, his face pale, his eyes filling with tears.
Huang Qiuya was the third person to emerge. In the years since I’d last seen her, she’d become noticeably stooped; her head was thrust forward, her legs were no longer straight, and her movements were laboured. She rocked with the motion of the boat, arms in rapid motion to keep from losing her balance. All that kept her from crossing to the pier were legs that seemed incapable of leaving the boat. Qin He watched her impassively. No helping hand was offered. So she leaned forward and reached out to embrace the structure with both hands, like an orangutan, but stopped when Gugu said gruffly, Old Huang, why don’t you stay aboard? Without even turning her head, she continued, Watch her carefully. Don’t let her run off.
Gugu’s order was directed at both Qin He and Huang Qiuya, since Qin immediately bent down to look inside the cabin. The sound of a woman’s sobs soon emerged.
Once ashore, Gugu strode quickly along the riverbank heading east, Little Lion trotting to keep up with her. Blood had stained the bandage on Gugu’s forehead. Her face was set, her gaze intense, her expression unrelentingly firm, almost menacing. Naturally, Wang Gan was not looking at Gugu; no, his gaze followed Little Lion. He was muttering something under his breath. I sort of felt sorry for him, but more than that I was moved. I could not understand how a man might lose his head over a woman.
We later learned that Gugu’s injury had come as a result of being clubbed by a man who’s wife was pregnant with their fourth child in Dongfeng Village, the birthplace of many bandits in the pre — Liberation era. The man, Zhang Quan, who had bovine eyes and a solid family background, was feared by all the men in the village. Every woman of child-bearing age in Dongfeng Village who had given birth twice had had their tubes tied off if one of them had been a son. If they’d had only girls, Gugu said she’d taken village customs into consideration, and chosen not to force the women to have their tubes tied; however, they were required to insert IUDs. After a third pregnancy, even if they were all girls, the tubes had to be tied. Zhang Quan’s wife was the only woman in any of the more than fifty commune villages who had neither had her tubes tied nor used an IUD, and she was pregnant again. Gugu’s boat had travelled to Dongfeng Village during a downpour expressly to get Zhang Quan’s wife to go to the health centre for an abortion. While Gugu was on her way, Party Secretary Qin Shan phoned the branch secretary of Dongfeng Village, Zhang Jinya, ordering him to take all steps and use any force necessary to deliver Zhang Quan’s wife to the health centre. When Gugu reached the village, Zhang Quan was standing guard at his gate with a spiked club; eyes red, he was shouting almost insanely. Zhang Jinya and a team of armed militiamen were watching from a distance, not daring to get close. Zhang’s three daughters were kneeling in the doorway, noses running, tears flowing, as they cried out in what seemed to be practised unison: Merciful elders and uncles, mothers and aunts, brothers and sisters, spare our mother… she has a rheumatic heart. If she has an abortion she will die for sure — if she dies, we will be orphans.
Gugu said that the effects of Zhang Quan’s sympathy-seeking ruse were excellent — many of the women watching were in tears. Of course, some were resentful. As women with two children and IUDs, or three without a son, had had their tubes tied, they had no sympathy for Zhang Quan’s wife. A bowl of water must be carried level, Gugu said, and if we let Zhang Quan’s wife have a fourth child, those women would skin me alive. If Zhang Quan prevailed, the red flag would be lowered, but that would be nothing compared to a halting in the progress of family planning. So I gave the signal, Gugu said, and walked up to Zhang Quan with Little Lion and Huang Qiuya. Smart, courageous, loyal Little Lion, moved in front of me in case Zhang used his club. I pulled her back behind me. The petty bourgeois intellectual, Huang Qiuya, was fine for a bit of technical help, but when push came to shove, she was so scared she nearly fell apart. Gugu strode straight up to Zhang. The language he used on me, she said, was worse than you could imagine, and if I repeated it, the words would dirty your ears and my mouth. But my heart was hard as steel then, and my personal safety was not a concern. Go ahead, Zhang Quan, call me any insulting thing you want — whore, bitch, murderous devil — I don’t care. But your wife is going with me. Going where? To the health centre.
With eyes fixed on Zhang’s savage face, she walked right up to him. His three daughters rushed up to her, cursing like their father, the two smaller ones holding on to Gugu’s legs, while their oldest sister rammed her head into Gugu’s midsection. All three were on her like leeches, and she tried to fight them off. A sharp pain in her knee, she knew, meant she’d been bitten. Another head to her midsection knocked her flat on her back. Little Lion grabbed the oldest girl by the neck and flung her to the side; but the girl came right back at her, driving her head into Little Lion’s midsection, where her belt buckle hit her on the nose, which started to bleed. Seeing the blood on the back of her hand a moment later produced a mixture of terror and dread. As Zhang rushed to club Little Lion like a raving maniac, Gugu ran up and put herself between them. The club hit her forehead. She fell again. Are you people dead? Little Lion screamed at the onlookers. Zhang Jinya and his militiamen ran up and wrestled Zhang Quan to the ground, pinning his arms behind him. His daughters looked like they wanted to come to his aid, but they too were wrestled to the ground by Party women. Little Lion and Huang Qiuya wrapped a bandage from the medicine kit around Gugu’s head; blood seeped through the wrapping almost at once. They wrapped it some more. Gugu’s head was spinning and her ears rang; she saw stars and everything took on the colour of blood; people’s faces were as red as a cockscomb, even the trees seemed to blaze like torches.