Mo Yan - Frog

I returned to Gaomi in June, more than a month ago. While here I’ve done a bit of research for the play I plan to write, focusing on my aunt. I’ve also continued relating the story of Gugu’s life in letter form, as you asked me to do, and, as you requested, included in those letters as many of my own experiences as possible.

My aunt and my father have asked me to pass on their regards to you and your family.

Northeast Gaomi Township welcomes you!

Tadpole

July 2003, Gaomi

Sensei, 7 July 1979 was my wedding day. I married a classmate from elementary school, Wang Renmei. With our long legs, we looked like a pair of cranes. Just the sight of her legs made my heart race. We met at the well one day when I was eighteen. When one of her buckets fell into the well, she walked around in circles, not knowing what to do. So I jumped up onto the wellhead and fished her bucket out for her. I was in luck that day, snatching it on my first try. Hey, Xiaopao, she said admiringly, you’re a master bucket fisherman. A substitute PE teacher at the elementary school, she was tall, had a long thin neck and a relatively small head, and wore her hair in braids. Wang Renmei, I stammered, I want to tell you something. What? she asked. Did you know that Wang Dan and Chen Bi like each other? She froze briefly, then broke out laughing. Xiaopao, she said between laughs, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Wang Dan is so little, and Chen Bi’s as big as a horse. They are a terrible match. She stopped, seemed to think about something, and started laughing so hard she actually bent over; and she was blushing. I’m not lying, I declared solemnly. If I was, I’d be a dog. I saw them with my own eyes. What did you see? she asked. You can’t tell anybody what I’m about to say. Last night after leaving the work points office, I heard some sounds in a haystack on the threshing floor. I went up to see what it was, and I heard Chen Bi and Wang Dan whispering things to each other. Don’t worry Brother Chen Bi, Wang Dan was saying, I might be small, but I have everything a girl’s supposed to have, and I promise I’ll give you a son. Wang Renmei bent over laughing yet again. Do you want to hear what I have to say or don’t you? I said. Yes, she replied, but hurry up. Then what happened? What did they do after that? I think they kissed. Nonsense! she insisted. Tell me how they kissed. I’ll give it to you straight, I told her. They kissed the way they’re supposed to. Chen Bi took Wang Dan in his arms, like he was holding a baby, and they kissed the way they felt like it. Wang Renmei blushed again. Xiaopao, she said, you’re a little hooligan! And so is Chen Bi! Wang Renmei, since Chen Bi and Wang Dan are dating, do you think you and I could become friends? Again she froze, and again she laughed. Why do you want us to be friends? You have long legs and so do I. My aunt says that if we got married, our child would have nice long legs, and we could train the kid to be an international champion athlete. You’ve got quite an aunt, she said, still laughing. Not only is she good at performing vasectomies, she’s a matchmaker as well. Wang Renmei picked up her water buckets and walked off. Her carrying pole rocked up and down with each long stride, nearly sending the buckets on the ends flying into the air.

Years later, after leaving home to join the army, I heard that she and Xiao Xiachun were engaged. He was teaching language and writing as a substitute teacher in the agricultural school. One of his essays, ‘An Ode to Coal’, which was published in the newspaper Masses Daily , created a stir in our hometown. I had quite an emotional reaction to the news, because those of us who had actually eaten coal did not write any odes to coal, while Xiao Xiachun, who hadn’t eaten it, did. Renmei, it seemed, had chosen a mate wisely.

When Xiao Xiachun was accepted into college, his father set off three strings of ‘thousand head’ firecrackers out on the street in celebration and hired a movie company to erect a screen on the school grounds to show three movies, one after the other. It was a display of arrogance the likes of which we’d never seen.

As a decorated soldier returned from the Sino-Vietnamese Conflict who had received a commission as an officer in the regular army, I was visited by a host of matchmakers. Xiaopao, Gugu said, I’ve found the right girl for you. I guarantee you’ll approve. Who is it? Mother asked. My apprentice, Little Lion. She’s thirty if she’s a day, Mother said. Exactly thirty, Gugu confirmed. Xiaopao is only twenty-six. The older the better, Gugu said. They know enough to be caring.

Little Lion’s fine, I said, but Wang Gan has been gaga over her for more than a decade. I can’t steal a girl from a friend.

Wang Gan? Gugu remarked. He’s the proverbial toad wanting to taste the swan’s flesh. If there’s anyone Little Lion won’t marry, it’s Wang Gan! His father hobbles over to the health centre every market day, bent at the waist, cane in hand, to make a scene and blacken my name. And for years, mind you! He’s gotten no less than eight hundred yuan in nutritional expenses from the centre.

That Wang Jiao, Mother said, is pretty good at faking things.

Pretty good? Gugu railed. He’s a master of the art. He takes the money he extracted from me to the market to feast on braised meat and strong liquor until he’s drunk, at which time his back is straight and he zips around the market. Tell me why I’ve bumped into scoundrels like that all my life. Then there’s that bastard Xiao Shangchun, who damn near killed me during the Cultural Revolution, and now struts around like a lord and master, waving his palm-leaf fan as he enjoys the good life at home. I hear his son has tested into college. Is that right? What happened to the old saying that ‘good is rewarded with good, evil with evil’? The good people suffer, the rotten eggs live like kings, that’s what. People still get what’s coming to them, Mother said. It just takes time. How much time? Gugu asked her. My hair has already turned white!

After Gugu left, Mother said, Your aunt has not had an easy life. Someone said Yang Lin came to see her after what happened, I said. That’s what she told me, Mother confirmed. By then he’d been promoted to the position of district commissioner, and arrived in a chauffeured sedan. He apologised to your aunt and told her he was willing to marry her to make up for his behaviour during the Cultural Revolution. Your aunt sent him away.

As we were sighing over Gugu’s misfortunes, Wang Renmei came barging in the door. Aunty, she said to Mother, I hear that your Xiaopao is searching high and low for a wife. How about me?

I thought you were spoken for, young lady.

I broke it off, she said. He’s a latter-day Chen Shimei, the storybook character who deserted his wife when he became a high official.

Mother said, How could he drop you just because he’s going to college?

He didn’t drop me, Renmei said, I dropped him. So he’s going to college. What’s the big deal? Firecrackers, movies, I’ve never seen such insolence! Xiaopao’s better than that. He’s an army officer without having to blow his own horn. As soon as he came home, he went into the field to work.

You’re too good for Xiaopao, young lady, Mother said.

I guess we’re going to have to ask Xiaopao what he thinks, Aunty. Xiaopao, what do you say — I’ll be your wife and present you with a champion athlete son.

You’re on! I said, gazing at her legs.

The weather was bleak on my wedding day. Dark clouds gathered as thunder rumbled. When the thunder ended, a downpour followed.

Yuan Sai said he’d picked a fine, auspicious day for you to get married, Mother complained, but what we got was flooded streets.