The couple willingly took the girl on a pretend search for her mother whenever they went ashore; it was something they had to do, though it was hard to keep the story up. They came to our barge with old newspapers and asked my father to write missing-persons posters, which they then pasted up on street corners, with Dafu responsible for pasting and Erfu for putting them up. Once that was done, they inquired at government offices. If they forgot, Huixian quickly reminded them. ‘We can’t go back until we’ve checked with the authorities, can we? Maybe my mother is waiting for me in one of those offices.’
The ruse was hard to maintain, and it was exhausting. But the alternative was never considered. They were afraid Huixian would go ashore on her own and cause trouble, so for some reason they thought of me. One day they brought her over to number seven and said to her, ‘How about letting Dongliang take you this time? He can read and knows the bureaucratic ins and outs better than anybody. Since we haven’t been able to find your mother, let’s give him a try.’ Sun Ximing reddened and signalled me not to give anything away.
Having no idea what was in my heart, they wrote me off as hateful and cruel behind my back, and yet the warm feelings I felt towards Huixian never left me. I’d cleverly masked my fondness for her. I welcomed the thought of doing something for her, but Sun must have taken me for an idiot, asking me to go ashore to find a ghost. Not only was it stupid, it was a blow to my self-respect, and I was just about to tell him so when Huixian reached out and took me by the arm. Her little hand was pink and plump, its nails painted a pretty red, thanks to the women, and it looked like a flower blossoming on my arm. Her dark eyes turned to me, not in a pleading fashion, but sort of charitable and proud. ‘Let’s go,’ she said. ‘You can relax with me.’ Then, assuming the wise, knowing tone of an adult, she said, ‘We don’t need to rush. It’s OK if we don’t find her right away.’
Knowing I could not refuse that outstretched hand, I took her to Milltown, a trip that gave me the chance to toughen myself up emotionally. It was important to keep that well-intentioned lie fresh in my mind, and to learn how to look after a little girl. Though younger than I was, Huixian was more cunning and more wilful. She was also a lot worse off. Those were my reasons for wanting to look after her.
All sorts of little problems cropped up on our way from the barge to the shore. First of all, I needed to avoid her hand. She’d got used to holding people’s hands, and now she wanted to hold mine. But how was I supposed to walk on shore hand-in-hand with a girl? I started by walking ahead of her, telling her to stay close behind me. Then I thought about what my father always told me, which was to take pleasure in helping others. My primary concern, of course, was her safety. The piers were congested with commodities and crowds of people, and I was afraid she might get lost. So I let her go ahead. ‘Turn left, go straight on, halt.’ I sounded like a drill sergeant. At first she couldn’t distinguish between left and right, but she wasn’t stupid, and she got the idea after a few false starts, which made her happy. When we came to a junction, she’d halt, turn to look at me and ask, ‘Left or right?’
The sky above Milltown was clear and bright. The ‘critical times’ seemed to have come to an end, and East Wind No. 8 had apparently been completed, since the trench had been filled in and all the stacked pipes were now buried deep in the ground, along with their accompanying legends and secrets. The grand, seemingly endless construction project had produced early results: red banners flapped in the wind, proclaiming the vigour of the East, and the familiar Milltown now had the air of a boomtown, tinged with a sense of grandeur that infused its residents with veneration. A circular steel tower had been erected near the embankment, like a steel colossus holding up the sky; protected by a chain-link fence, it gave off an acrid odour of tar and metallic paint. I had no idea what it was for, whether it was intended for storing oil or in preparation for battle, but I instinctively knew that it was important. Xiaogai and Wulaizi of the security group no longer cared whether we came ashore or not. Now they stood guard on either side of the single gate in the fence, like a pair of faithful stone lions. A large, prominent sign affixed to the gate read: ‘HEIGHTEN VIGILANCE, PROTECT THE MOTHERLAND.’
Handbills for Huixian’s lost mother, at odds with their surroundings, were still posted where crowds congregated:
If you have any information regarding the missing mother of Jiang Huixian please leave your contact information here or contact the Sunnyside Fleet.
Some were on propaganda leaflets, others on old newsprint, and all were in my father’s handwriting. Huixian knew better than I where they had been posted, so she ignored any commands that would have led her away from those spots, and kept running from place to place. If you’re no good at tending cattle, your only choice is to chase after them. I was forced to chase after her. When she walked up to the noticeboard outside the General Affairs Building she shrieked, ‘It’s gone! My mother must have taken it!’ I was still digesting this news when Gimpy Gu emerged from the gatehouse and said to Huixian, ‘Go and play somewhere else. This is a government building, not a playground. The officials demand quiet.’
‘My mama took the handbill that was here,’ Huixian said. ‘You’re in your guardhouse every day, have you seen her?’
‘Your mother didn’t take it,’ Gu said. ‘I did. This is a notice-board reserved for socialist announcements, not to help you find your mother.’
‘But what if she’s really lost?’ Huixian asked Gimpy Gu.
‘How should I know?’ he said. ‘I lost my mother at the age of five and I’m still here. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a mother. All you really need is the Party.’ Gimpy was obviously unhappy with the look in my eyes. ‘Did I say something wrong?’ he demanded. ‘How dare you stand there rolling your eyes at me! I know you hate the socialist system. You’re forever up to no good. What did you hope to gain by writing on the fourth-floor wall that time? By attacking Secretary Zhao you attacked the Party leadership. Understand? I’d have hauled you up for that long ago if you weren’t Qiao Limin’s son.’
We had to move on. I had a job to do, and it did not include arguing with Gimpy Gu. ‘About turn!’ I ordered Huixian. ‘Forward march!’ But she kept turning back again. ‘Hurry up,’ I said. ‘What do you keep looking at? The old guy said your mama didn’t take it, he did.’
With a scowl, she said, ‘He makes me so mad I could die! Why’s he so mean?’ What could I say? But then her thoughts took another leap. And this time she handed me a real hot potato. ‘The old man said something about Sister Qiao Li, Qiao Limei. Who’s she?’
‘There’s no Qiao Limei. It’s Qiao Limin — my mother.’
With a surprised shriek, she said, ‘You’ve got a mama too? Everybody said you do, but I didn’t believe them.’
My head buzzed. ‘Why wouldn’t I have a mama?’ I demanded. ‘Did you think I slithered out from between some rocks?’
She knew she’d said the wrong thing. With a wounded look, she whined, ‘I never said that. But if you’re not trying to find her, that makes you a bad person. Why aren’t you looking for her?’
Huixian might have been small, but she was no stranger to resentment. The minute I blew up at her, she stopped obeying my commands. When I told her to start walking, she stopped to rest, and when I told her to speed up, she slowed down. Somehow, we managed to make it to People’s Avenue and walked up to the general store, at the entrance to the marketplace, where there was always lots of traffic; that meant plenty of wear and tear. Half of her missing-persons poster was missing, the other half had been covered with writing. Someone had written ‘Three Cheers for the Revolutionary Committee’, another had written ‘Li Caixia is a tattered shoe, a whore’, and someone else had written ‘Down with Liu Shaoqi’, to which someone else had added Scabby Five’s name. None of these scrawled comments surprised me; what struck me as odd was that someone had drawn a fish — a very realistic fish — on the poster in chalk. Huixian gawked at the fish in alarm and asked, ‘What does that mean? Why did they draw a fish?’