‘How can it be empty? My little head, where did it go?’
‘Dad, you must be seeing things. How could something carved in stone be missing?’ Flustered, I grabbed one of the lanterns to get a better look, and what I saw flabbergasted me. The basket carved in the stone showed up clearly in the light, but the head of the infant that had once been there was now gone.
‘They’ve wiped me out,’ Father said. ‘My birthmark’s gone, and now so is my head.’
Even when I examined the carving closely, I saw no signs that it had been altered, nothing that would lead me to believe that human hands had done this. But when I traced the area with my finger I felt a slight outcropping above the basket where the head had once been. The spot was cold to the touch. ‘Dad,’ I said, ‘touch it here. You can feel the little round head with your finger.’
He’d already turned away in despair to gaze at the river. So I took his hand and traced his finger over the raised carving. ‘You can feel it,’ I repeated. ‘It’s still there.’
He closed his eyes and let me move his finger around; after a moment, he covered the spot with his hand and gently rubbed the barely distinct little head. ‘Is that all that’s left? Is it really my head? I don’t think so,’ he mumbled as a shadowy fear came over his face. ‘It’s not me. I’m no longer there. I only left the shore eleven years ago, and not even calligraphy in ink should fade away in that short a time. That little head in the basket, how did it just disappear?’
His hand slid weakly down the memorial stone and rested on his knee, still shaking. A damp pale light seemed etched on that hand. He shut his eyes; he’d grown tired, and I thought he should rest. ‘Dad,’ I said as I tried to get him to stand, ‘we can’t see it in the dark. We’ll try again tomorrow in the daylight. It’s late. You need your sleep.’ But he lay his head against the stone and left it there. ‘Don’t do that, Dad,’ I said as I tried to pull him back. ‘It’s too cold, you’ll come down with something.’
When he looked up at me I saw tears criss-crossing his face. ‘I heard it,’ he said. ‘I heard your grandmother’s voice. I no longer blame Zhao Chuntang. Your grandmother doesn’t like me, I heard her. Eleven years trying to reform myself, all wasted. I’ve failed to earn your grandmother’s forgiveness. She doesn’t want me.’
I wrapped my arms around his emaciated form; it was like a decaying tree trunk that had stubbornly warded off the elements for eleven years, only to topple during a storm. I desperately wanted to comfort him, but tears were filling my eyes and I was so choked up I couldn’t say anything. And when I read the words ‘Martyred Deng Shaoxiang Lives Forever in Our Hearts’ I was suddenly fearful. I’d worked so hard to bring the memorial stone aboard our boat, but had it brought Father happiness or a crushing defeat?
Pale morning light was beginning to show through the darkness at the far end of the Golden Sparrow River. As I glanced at sleepy Milltown I ran to the bow, knowing that dawn would bring people to the piers and that the memorial stone would no longer belong to Father and me. My first thought was to go aft, weigh anchor at once and take the stone away from Milltown. My strength returned as I worked on getting under way, all was normal. But when I ran back up to the bow to take in the hawsers tying us to the pier, my hands became weak and I had trouble keeping my eyes open. The lack of sleep had suddenly caught up to me. I lay down on the deck and fell asleep.
Father came up and shook me. ‘We can’t run away,’ he said. ‘There’s no place for us, even if we run to the ends of the earth.’
I got up and, in a daze, went back to the hawsers. ‘We’ll go out on the river, that’s where we belong.’
‘The river isn’t ours,’ he said. ‘Even this boat isn’t ours. We’re not going anywhere, we’re staying here. Go and get some sleep, Dongliang. I’ll keep watch over the memorial.’
I knew there was no sense in arguing with him, and I was in no condition to fight the weariness that had come over me. Father nudged me into the cabin. Eleven years it had taken for me to finally luxuriate in the loving care of my father. He made up the cot and covered me with an old blanket, leaving a small corner open for me, and I vaguely sensed that this was what it would feel like to be wrapped in his arms, arms that had been closed to me for so long. At first the blanket felt strangely prickly, but that gave way to warmth, as if I was in the embrace of Father’s affection. I wanted him to get some sleep as well, but I was too tired to resist; I fell asleep almost immediately.
As dawn was breaking I was in the middle of a dream about the river and our boat. I could hear the churning of the water off the fantail, creating transparent bubbles. Our anchor was banging against the hull — once, twice, three times — and in the wake caused by our passage, an old-fashioned woman appeared, translucent pearls of water dripping from her hair, which was cut short; drops of water shimmered on her face, and the same secret message emerged from her reddened lips: Come down, come down, come down now. The fact that I was dreaming did nothing to lessen the reverence I felt towards her. I held my breath so I could hear her clearly: Come down, come down, come down now. The martyr was holding on to the swaying anchor, which caused the barge to roll from side to side. Come down, come down, come down now. She was so close I could see moss growing on the backs of her hands. I stared in awe at her face and at her hair as it swished back and forth above her ears. Watery pearls fell into the river and revealed the anxious face of a mother. Come down, she said, come down. You can both be saved.
That startled me awake. The cabin was suffused with soft blue early-morning light. Day was breaking. I got up and went to the door to look outside. Father was still keeping watch over the memorial stone. Two of the lanterns hanging from the canopy had gone out. As I went on deck I was hit by the potent fishy smell of Father’s body. His head was resting against the stone, a homemade plywood chessboard on his knees. A few of the chess men remained on the board; the rest were scattered on the deck around him.
Father was half asleep, his forehead furrowed with shadows whose origins were a mystery. ‘Dongliang,’ he said, ‘can you hear that strange sound coming from the river?’
I didn’t dare tell him about my dream. ‘Your hearing isn’t as good as it once was, Dad,’ I said. ‘That’s the anchor hitting the hull.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘not the anchor. Actually, it’s not really so strange. The river is saying, Come down, come down.’
I lifted him to his feet to force him to go inside, but he pushed me away. ‘There’s no time to sleep, they’ll be here soon.’ He pointed to the shore, where people were beginning to stir. An odd smile floated on to his face. ‘The sun’s out, and they’ll be here soon. The battle over the memorial stone is about to start.’
I was puzzled by his casual tone and his smile, and wondered if he had passed a sleepless night reminiscing or planning for what was to come. Daylight filled the sky, and the piers were waking up. The PA system crackled to life, blaring a choral work that extolled the virtues of the labouring masses. ‘We workers have power as we work, day and night.’ From the mountain of coal to the oil-pumping station, machinery that had slept through the night awakened, motors roaring. Cranes in the dock area creaked and moaned as their arms limbered up, skip cars emptied their loads of bags of cement, which thudded on to the open ground, sending sand up into the air, only to settle to the ground like falling rain. Chunks of coal complained shrilly, like the shrieks of women, as they landed, while boulders roared like rocky avalanches. I saw a strange tubular oil tower, formed, thanks to the morning light, into what appeared to be a blue metal stage. Birds circled it. Why, I didn’t know, but flocks of sparrows had flown over Maple Village, on the far side of the river, and brazenly gathered on top of the tent, where they filled the air with a chorus of mysterious, shrill cries, competing with the PA system.