The River Ran Red

The people of Willow Bend still remember that three years ago the river was clear enough to rinse rice and catch fish in. When Man was six she caught a carp of over a pound in the shallows and ran home holding it high, sunlight glinting off its scales.

Then a chemical plant rose downstream — Hongsheng Chemical, a flagship project the county had courted with banners and drums. That first summer the water changed color, rusty and thick. Fish drifted belly-up, and the old folk said the river had been poisoned.

At first Cuilan still washed vegetables at the bank; the water clung to her hands and smelled of burnt plastic. Then even the well water turned bitter. The town delivered bottled water, and the three of them drank it. But the vegetables watered from the river yellowed at the edges, and the old well at the east end left a layer of red silt in the bottom of every bucket.

Man began to bleed from the nose at night, soaking her pillow red; Cuilan blamed heat in the body. Then the child was always tired, breathless after a few steps, her face pale as paper. The county hospital found nothing; in the city a bone marrow test gave the answer — leukemia. The doctor sighed: often no cause is found, but you would do well to test the earth and water where you live.

Zhao Changshun had the well water tested. Mercury was nine times the limit; cadmium over the line as well. He clutched the report to the township environmental office. Director He flipped two pages and said the plant had all its permits, its discharges met the standard, and told him not to believe every rumor. At the county petition window a young clerk handed him a receipt and said it would be forwarded.

He did not believe them. At night he slipped downstream. The discharge pipe was as thick as a bucket; past midnight black-red water gushed out, the surface foaming, the stench reaching for miles. He crouched, filled a bottle to the brim, screwed the cap tight, and set it on the windowsill.

He asked around for a reporter from the city. A journalist named Zhou came, walked the village a day, photographed the river and Man's chart, and said he would write. Half a month passed with no article; word came instead that the plant was the city's largest taxpayer, and Zhou's paper had a new editor-in-chief.

The village head, Tian Shouye, came to reason with him. The plant built our roads, he said, hung our streetlamps, hired twenty-odd young men as guards. You kick up a fuss and the plant shuts, where do those rice bowls go? And did the plant not already own Man's medical bills — ten thousand yuan? It was hush money, with one condition: no more petitions.

Zhao never pressed that thumbprint. Ten thousand for what? A single chemotherapy course cost more than twenty thousand. Cuilan urged him: accept it. They give us water to drink; we drink theirs. Push further and Man loses her school — those two volunteer teachers at the village school were donated by the plant too.

Still he mailed materials to the city, to the province. The replies read much the same: referred to the local authority. The local authority was that same township.

Man's illness came in waves. One night a fever would not break; they rushed her to the city hospital and ran up a debt. Zhao went back to the plant for more money. The guard stopped him: the leader is not in. He squatted by the stone lions at the gate; two security men hooked his arms and dragged him off, and one shoe fell behind.

That autumn the province announced an environmental inspection, said to reach the village itself. County and township sprang into motion overnight: the plant halted its nightly discharge, the river ran clear for three days; a red banner reading Green Hills, Clear Waters was strung at the entrance; Tian Shouye went door to door, instructing everyone, if asked, to say the water had long been fine, the well water sweet.

The inspectors did come — two men in spectacles who stood ten minutes at the village mouth, took photographs, asked how the water was, and heard Tian Shouye answer for all: never better. No one knocked at Zhao Changshun's door.

Old Shun wiped the bottle on his sill. He thought: were he to carry this water out, which story would the two spectacled comrades believe? But they did not come. The red water in the bottle had not faded a shade.

The inspection left. On the fourth night the discharge pipe sounded again; foam returned to the surface and the stench rolled over the fields. The red banner at the entrance had torn loose at one corner and hung from the wire like a forgotten, ragged flag.

Man sat on the threshold, watching the river. She asked: Papa, when can we catch fish again? Zhao Changshun did not answer. He looked to the sill, where the bottle of red water stood in the sunlight like an eye that would not close.

Later, Hongsheng Chemical was awarded a Green Enterprise plaque by the county. The plaque was polished bright and hung at the plant gate, facing the river that had turned red again.