Mo Yan - Frog

Fisherman Wang jerked his pole backward; beads of water dripped from the flashing brightness of his line, glistening like pearls in the sunlight. At the end of his hook a soft-shelled beige turtle the size of a tea bowl crashed to the ground, and was probably dizzy from the fall, lying on the ground looking skyward, its white underbelly exposed, four legs pawing the air, sad but awfully cute.

A turtle! Li Shou shouted gleefully.

Little Lion, my dearest, I am lowborn, the son of a farmer, while you are a doctor whose table is graced with top quality food. There’s a chasm between our social standings, and you may not care to even take notice of me. After you finish my letter, only laughter will emerge from your lovely mouth before you tear it to shreds. Or maybe when it reaches you, you will toss it into a wastepaper basket unread. Nevertheless, I want to say to you, my dear, my dearest one, if you will accept my love, like a tiger with wings or a fine steed with a carved saddle, I will acquire unprecedented power and, as if boosted by an injection of blood from a young rooster, my spirit will be invigorated. There will be bread and milk; with your encouragement, I will improve my social status to stand with you as someone who, like you, subsists on marketable grains…

Hey, what are you two doing up there, reciting passages from novels? Li Shou shouted when he spotted us up in the tree.

… If you won’t accept me, my dear, I’ll not retreat, not give up, but will quietly follow you, trail you wherever you go, going down on my knees to kiss your footprints, I will stand outside your window to gaze at the lamplight inside, from first light to last — I want to turn into a candle and burn for you until there is nothing left of me. My dear, if I spit up blood and expire, I will be content if you favour me by coming to my gravesite for a brief look. If you can shed a tear for me, I will die with no regrets — your tears, my dear, a magic elixir that will bring me back from the dead…

The goose bumps on my arms were gone, and I was starting to be moved by his recitation of infatuation. I’d never dreamed he could fall for Little Lion and fall that hard, or that he had the literary talent to write such a plaintive letter. At that moment I felt that the doorway to adolescence was rumbling open for me, and that Wang Gan was leading the way. I knew nothing about love, but its splendour would draw me dashing recklessly towards it, like a moth to the flame.

The way you love her, I said, she has to love you back.

Do you think so? He gripped my hand, his eyes blazing. Will she really love me?

She will, absolutely. I gripped his hand back. If it doesn’t happen, I’ll ask my aunt to act as matchmaker. Little Lion will do anything she says.

No, he said, no, no, no. I don’t want to rely on anyone else. A melon won’t be sweet if you yank it off the vine. I want to win her heart with my own effort.

Li Shou looked up. What goofy stuff are you guys up to? he asked.

Fisherman Wang grabbed a handful of mud and threw it at us. You’re scaring the fish with all that jabbering.

A motorised red and blue boat chugged towards us from downstream, the sound of its engine instilling in us a hard-to-describe sense of anxiety, panic even. The boat was straining against the rapid flow, its bow throwing up whitecaps and ploughing thin ridges right and left that filled back in little by little. A layer of blue mist floated atop the surface of the river, the smell of diesel fuel spread to our lips. A dozen seagulls glided along behind the boat.

The boat belonged to the commune’s family-planning group, that is, Gugu’s boat. Little Lion was aboard, of course. County officials had assigned the boat to Gugu to aid her in keeping residents from exceeding the family-planning quotas through illegal pregnancies and other unanticipated problems, and to keep the bright family-planning banner flying even when passage across the swamped stone bridge was interrupted during flood season. The small cabin had a pair of faux leather seats; a twelve-horsepower diesel motor was attached to the stern and loudspeakers were mounted on the bow to broadcast a lilting popular Hunan song, a paean to Chairman Mao that was soft on the ear. The bow turned towards our village and the music ended. A brief moment of silence intensified the motor noise. Then: The Great Chairman Mao has instructed us, Gugu announced hoarsely, that humanity must proceed with planned population growth…

Wang Gan went silent at the moment Gugu’s boat hove into view. I saw that he was shaking, that his mouth hung open, that his moist eyes were fixed on the boat. As it passed by us it listed to one side, drawing a cry of alarm from Wang Gan. He tensed, and it seemed to me he might jump into the river. Farther up in the slow current, the boat turned and sped lightly towards us, the sound of its motor settling into a rhythmic hum. Gugu had arrived. So had Little Lion.

The boat was piloted by a familiar figure — Qin He. In the latter days of the Cultural Revolution, his older brother had been restored to the post of commune Party secretary, while he had been reduced to begging in the marketplace; no matter how civilised his begging methods were, he was as an embarrassment to his brother. We’d heard that he had asked his brother to assign him to work in the obstetrics ward at the commune health centre — You’re a man, how can you work in an obstetrics ward? — There are lots of men in obstetrics wards — You have no medical skills — What do I need those for? — and so Qin He was made pilot of the family-planning boat. In the weeks and months that followed, he hardly ever left Gugu’s side. On days when a boat was required, he went out onto the river; on other days he sat idly in the cabin.

His hair was parted down the middle, like the young men in movies set in the May Fourth period, and even in the dog days of summer he wore his blue gabardine student uniform, still with two pens in the breast pocket: a fountain pen and a two-colour ballpoint pen. His face seemed darker than the last time I’d seen him. He manoeuvred the boat slowly towards the riverbank, up near the twisted old willow. The motor slowed, ramping up the loudspeaker volume, making our ears ring. The commune had built a temporary pier west of the willow tree for the exclusive use of the family-planning boat. Crossbars had been fixed with wire to four thick posts in the water and overlaid by planks. After securing the boat to the pier, Qin He stood at the prow. The motor shut down and the loudspeakers went silent, reintroducing us to the splash of the river and the cries of gulls.

Gugu was first out of the cabin. The boat rocked, so did she. Qin He reached out to give her a hand but she pushed it away. She jumped onto the pier; though now on the heavy side, she was nimble as always. A bandage on her forehead emitted a harsh light.

Little Lion was next. Short and squat to begin with, she was dwarfed by the oversized medicine kit on her back. Though much younger than Gugu, her movements were clumsier. It was she who caused Wang Gan to wrap his arms tightly around the branch, his face pale, his eyes filling with tears.

Huang Qiuya was the third person to emerge. In the years since I’d last seen her, she’d become noticeably stooped; her head was thrust forward, her legs were no longer straight, and her movements were laboured. She rocked with the motion of the boat, arms in rapid motion to keep from losing her balance. All that kept her from crossing to the pier were legs that seemed incapable of leaving the boat. Qin He watched her impassively. No helping hand was offered. So she leaned forward and reached out to embrace the structure with both hands, like an orangutan, but stopped when Gugu said gruffly, Old Huang, why don’t you stay aboard? Without even turning her head, she continued, Watch her carefully. Don’t let her run off.