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‘I don’t know where your mama flew off to,’ I said. ‘I’m taking you to the authorities. They can find your mama for you.’

Sun Ximing was our fleet commander, so I carried the girl over to his barge, crossing five others along the way and answering the same question at each one: ‘Where are you taking her?’ ‘It’s dark out, so I’m taking her to the authorities.’ Six-Fingers Wang’s daughters tried to block my way, chattering about how cute she was and begging me to leave Huixian with them, at least for the night. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Your barge is noisier than a nest of baby birds. Besides, a bunch of silly girls like you can’t be the authorities. I’m taking her to Sun Ximing’s.’

The Sun family had just finished dinner on barge number one. Sun’s wife was washing the bowls and chopsticks under the muted light of the masthead lantern. When she saw me walk up with the little girl on my back, she bleated out in surprise, ‘Why are you carrying her over here? Crossing all those barges in the dark was risky. She was happy sleeping on your sofa — why not let her stay there? She can’t hurt it.’

‘Don’t blame me. My dad wouldn’t let her stay.’ I could only repeat what he’d said. ‘She’s a female, my dad says, so she can’t spend the night on our barge!’

Sun’s wife doubled up laughing. ‘That Secretary Ku is really something. A female, he says! She’s such a little girl that the tongue of anyone who spread rumours would rot away. Your dad’s like the man who was bitten by a snake and shied away from ropes for ten years. A man can be too careful, too guarded. There’s no need to be ridiculous.’

I wasn’t laughing. I thrust the little girl into Sun’s wife’s arms just as the rest of the family came up to see what was going on. It looked as if they’d be happy to take her. The children commented excitedly on Huixian’s braid and her clothes, until Sun shooed them away. ‘Bringing her here was the right thing to do, I guess,’ she said. ‘Without a woman on board your barge, there’s no one to look after her.’

Now that she was no longer lying across my back, Huixian began to cry. But she was too sleepy to keep it up. By then Sun’s wife was holding her in her arms, but the girl struggled and fought to get down, and I could see the disdain in her eyes. But then the woman’s gold earrings caught her eye. She reached out for one and then the other.

Sun’s wife pulled her hands back. ‘When you’re old enough to be my daughter-in-law,’ she said, ‘these gold earrings will be yours.’

As I was heading back from barge number one, I crossed five more in my bare feet, each deck colder than the one before. A half moon had risen above the Golden Sparrow River, bringing evening to the water and rousing the frogs on the banks. By now the fleet had got under way, picking up speed in the darkness, the water churning fast beneath my feet. My unburdened back felt lighter, but the girl’s warmth remained, and I recall how, as I walked across Six-Fingers Wang’s barge, I snapped my fingers casually at his daughter, masking my feeling of loss. My back remained bent under the weight of an imaginary little girl. Freed of my burden for only a moment, I had already begun to miss her.

When I reached our cabin, I saw the flickering light in the cabin. Father had gone back inside. The barge seemed a cheerless place for the very first time. I looked down at my thin shadow and discovered how lonely I was. I also felt the stirrings of love, which were more unfathomable than the water in the river.

Huixian

THE BOAT people planned to deposit the girl on the shore. Since even a found penny must be turned in, a little girl would surely not be an exception to the rule. So when the fleet reached Wufu, Sun Ximing and a group of women took Huixian to the authorities.

Wufu was a town where the social order had broken down. It was overrun with refugees who had thrown up tents on the streets, where they slept, ate and deposited their waste. The government offices and compound had been virtually swallowed up by all the squatters, and the barge delegation only managed with great difficulty to locate the local civil administration office, which had been moved to an old earth god temple. A lot of good that did them. They were told to take the child back to where they had found her. ‘We’re too busy here to worry about Milltown,’ they said.

So, their hopes dashed, the delegation headed back, grumbling as they went, ‘If we’d offered them a wallet, they wouldn’t have given a damn where we’d found it, and would have been only too happy to take it off our hands. I guess a human life isn’t as valuable as a wallet.’

The fleet returned to Milltown a few days later, and this time we all believed we’d say our goodbyes to Huixian. To this end, people stuffed all sorts of things into her pockets — an egg, a handkerchief, even a handful of melon seeds — to show how they felt about her. Sun Ximing’s wife stuck a red flower in the little girl’s hair and pinned another to her chest; Desheng’s wife dabbed rouge on her cheeks and lipstick on her mouth. Rather than seeing her off the barges for good, you’d have thought they were preparing her for the stage.

Having failed in our first attempt to have Huixian taken off our hands, this time Sun Ximing made careful plans. He came to barge number seven to talk my father into going ashore with them. ‘As a former official,’ he said, ‘you’re familiar with policy and you know what to say, Secretary Ku. You have to come. We don’t want to make things difficult for you, but we don’t know a thing about the girl’s background, and I’m afraid that if we say the wrong thing, we’ll be inviting trouble. They all think barge people have too many kids, as it is, and that we kidnap them.’

‘Rumours,’ my father said. ‘Wherever there are people you’ll find rumours.’

‘But it won’t be a rumour if they try to pin a kidnapping on us. Secretary Ku, you have to speak up for us. We’ll take the girl, all you have to do is talk to them. What do you say?’

‘No. I’m no longer a Party secretary, and no one will listen to anything I say.’ My father steadfastly shook his head. ‘Don’t think I don’t want to help, Commander Sun. But you know all about my troubles. I can’t go ashore.’

‘What I don’t understand,’ Sun said, ‘is how much trouble it can be to go ashore and talk to someone. You’ve got arms, Old Ku, and you’ve got legs, so what’s to keep you from going ashore?’ Sun’s anxiety showed in his eyes. His gaze darted downward until he was looking at Father’s crotch. The thought of his truncated penis reminded him of Father’s ugly nickname. ‘Tell me, Secretary Ku, what’s the real reason you won’t go ashore? Are you afraid of what people will say when they see you? Who cares about a bunch of smart-arse kids, especially a man like you? Come with us, and if I hear an unkind word from anyone, he’ll pay with his prick — the whole thing.’

Father’s face darkened. ‘Old Sun,’ he said unappreciatively, ‘I don’t like to hear that kind of gutter talk from you. You can’t have a very high opinion of me if you think I’m worried about a bunch of kids. I’ve said before that I vowed to the ghost of the martyr Deng Shaoxiang that I’ll not step foot on land again until my case has been resolved and the verdict on me overturned.’

With an embarrassed look, Sun Ximing grumbled, ‘It’s not like you to sulk, Old Ku. You have to tough it out. Even a fish winds up on land when the water rises. Don’t tell me you plan to spend the rest of your life on the water.’

‘I’m not sulking,’ Father said. ‘You don’t understand me, Old Sun. This isn’t sulking, it’s dignity.’