"Please don't be so nasty," he begged.

"Ah, I'm dying. Damn your mother!"

Snow Goose turned aside and tittered, but she stopped at Manna's stare. Ashamed, Lin let go of his wife's shoulder and made for the door again. Haiyan grasped his arm and whispered, "Lin, you should stay."

"I – I can't. "

"It's common for a woman in labor to go berserk. She called me names too. But we shouldn't mind. You know, this makes her feel better. You mustn't take her words to heart. She's frightened and needs you to be with her."

He shook his head and went out without another word.

Manna yelled after him, "Go to hell, coward! I don't want to see your face before I die."

Haiyan returned to the birth bed and said, "Come on, let's push again."

"No, I can't," Manna cried. "Cut me open, Haiyan. I beg of you. Please give me… a cesarean."

The corridor was lit dimly, though some people were on night duty in the building. Lin paced up and down in the hall, chainsmoking; his mind was numb, blank, and slightly dazed. Meanwhile his wife's screams and curses were echoing through the floor. Some people went past the delivery room time and again to try to make out what she was shouting. Lin sat down on a long bench, his face buried in his hands. He felt pity for himself. Why do I have to go through this? he thought. I never wanted a baby.

He remembered that half a year ago a peasant woman had lain on this very bench, bleeding and waiting to be treated. Her husband had thrust two large batteries into her vagina, because he had incurred a thousand-yuan fine for having a second baby and she had once more failed to give him a son. The barefoot doctor in the village couldn't get the batteries out, so she was carted to the army hospital. Lin vividly remembered that she was skinny and young, her face half-covered by a sky-blue bandanna and a blood vessel on her temple pulsating like an earthworm. Her round eyes gazed at him emotionlessly as he paused to observe her. He was amazed by her eyes, which were devoid of any trace of resentment, and he saw lice and nits like sesame seeds in her permed hair.

Now he couldn't help thinking, Why do people have to live like animals, eating and reproducing, possessed by the instinct for survival? What point is there in having a dozen sons if your own life is miserable and senseless? Probably people are afraid, afraid of disappearing from this world – traceless and completely forgotten, so they have children to leave reminders of themselves. How selfish parents can be. Then why does it have to be a son? Can't a girl serve equally well as a reminder of her parents? What a crazy, stupid custom, which demands that every couple have a baby boy to carry on the family line.

He remembered the saying "Raise a son for your old years." He reasoned, Even though a boy is believed superior to a girl, his life may not be easy either. He will have to become a provider for his parents when he grows up. Selfish. How often parents have sons so that they can exploit them in the future. They prefer boys to girls mainly because sons will provide more, are worth more as capital.

His thoughts were interrupted by a burst of squalling from the delivery room. The door opened and Nurse Yu beckoned him to come in. He stubbed out the cigarette on his rubber sole, dropped it into a spittoon by the bench, and rose to his feet, shuffling to the door.

"Congratulations," Haiyan said the moment he stepped in. "You have two sons."

"You mean twins?"

"Yes."

The nurses showed him the crying babies, who looked almost identical, each weighing just over five pounds. They were bony, with big heads, thick joints, flat noses, red shrunken skin, and closed eyes. Their faces were puckered like old men's. One of them opened his mouth as though wanting to eat something to assert his existence. The other one had an ear whose auricle was folded inward. They were so different from what Lin had expected that he was overwhelmed with disgust.

"Look," Haiyan said to Lin. "They take after you."

"Like two exact copies of you," Snow Goose chimed in, gently patting the back of the baby she was holding in her arms.

He turned and looked at his wife. She smiled at him faintly with tear-stained eyes and mumbled, "Sorry, I was so scared. I thought I couldn't make it. My heart almost burst."

"You did well." He put the back of his hand on her cheek. Meanwhile, Haiyan began giving Manna stitches to sew up the torn cervix and the incision of the episiotomy. The sight of the bloody cut made Lin's skin crawl, and he turned his head, nauseated.

An hour later two male nurses came. They placed Manna on a stretcher, covered her with blankets, and carried her home. Lin fol lowed them, holding the babies in his arms and shivering with cold. The moon was glistening on the willow and maple crowns; beetles and grasshoppers were chirring madly. The leaves and branches, heavy with dew, bent down slightly, while the grass on both sides of the road looked spiky and thick in the coppery light of the street lamps. A toad was croaking like a broken horn from a distant ditch partly filled with foamy water. Lin felt weak and aged; he was unsure whether he cared for the twins and whether he would be able to love them devotedly. Watching their covered faces, somehow he began to imagine trading places with them, having his life start afresh. If only he himself had been carried by someone like this now; then he would have led his life differently. Perhaps he would never have had a family.

9

Manna was given fifty-six days of maternity leave. During the first week she could hardly move about, so Lin did all the housework and cooked for her. She didn't have enough milk for the twins, though Lin made her eat a large bowl of pigs' feet soup a day to increase lactation. The babies had to be fed every three or four hours; because it took at least a month to secure the daily delivery of fresh milk, for the time being Lin had to get powdered milk for them, which was in short supply. Luckily Haiyan helped him buy eight pounds of milk powder in town, though at a higher price.

In the second week after Manna's delivery, Lin hired a maid from a suburban village, a short, freckle-faced girl with a pair of long braids. Her name was Juli. On weekdays she cooked and helped Manna look after the babies, but she returned home at night and couldn't come on Sundays.

Manna meanwhile was getting weaker and weaker. Sometimes she had heartburn and breathed with difficulty as though suffering from asthma. A murmur was detected in her heart. The cardiogram indicated she had a heart condition, which shocked Lin. He withheld the information from her for a week, then decided to let her know. When he told her the truth, she shed a few tears, not for herself but for their babies.

"It doesn't matter for me," she said. "The earlier I die, the sooner I can free myself from this world."

"What nonsense," he said. "I want you to live!"

She lifted her face, and the desperate look in her eyes disconcerted him. "Lin, I want you to promise me something."

"What? "

"Promise me that you'll love and take care of our babies when I'm gone."

"Don't think of that. You'll – "

"Promise me, please!"

"All right, I promise."

"You'll never abandon them."

"I won't, of course."

"Thank you. You've made me feel better." Unconsciously her right palm was rubbing her sore nipple.

Her words upset him, but he had no idea how to distract her from thinking of death. All he could do was insist she must not exert herself in any way or worry about anything. Let him do the housework and receive any visitor she was reluctant to meet.

After an extended argument between the parents, the twins were finally named River and Lake. Their father didn't like the names very much because they sounded too common, but their mother believed the commonness was a major advantage, arguing that with plain names the boys would be easier to raise. Besides, both the characters "river" and "lake" contain the element of water, which represents natural vitality and is pliable, enduring, and invincible.