Mo Yan - Frog

But if word gets out, won’t that be the end of my career?

Then there’s nothing I can do for you. Only one end of the sugar cane is sweet.

Damn that bitch, she needs a serious beating. I finished what was in my glass and got down off the kang. She’s the cause of all my rotten luck.

Don’t say that, good brother. I’ve looked at both your fortunes, and I tell you, Wang Renmei was born to help her husband achieve great things. Your successes will come from her.

Help her husband? Ruin her husband is more like it. I smiled coldly.

The worst that can happen is for Wang Renmei to have the child and you give up your career to come home and tend your field. What’s wrong with that? In twenty years, your son will rise high in the world, and you’ll live the enviable, comfortable life of a gentleman farmer. Isn’t that something to look forward to?

I wouldn’t be so upset if she’d told me beforehand, I said, but how am I supposed to swallow this sort of deceit?

No matter what you say, Xiaopao, the child in Wang Renmei’s belly is yours, and whether it lives or dies is up to you.

You’re right there, it is up to me, and I want to remind you that all walls have holes. You need to be careful.

I took the sleeping child from Yuan Sai’s wife and started walking out. As I was saying goodbye to her, she said softly, Let her have the baby, good brother. I’ll help you find a secret place to do it.

A Jeep was parked outside Yuan Sai’s gate. A pair of policemen got out and stormed through the gate. Sesame Twist tried to stop them, but they pushed her out of the way and swooped into the house. Smacking sounds and Yuan Sai’s screams emerged, followed a few minutes later by Yuan Sai himself, handcuffed and wearing his shoes with the backs stepped on, in the custody of the police.

Why are you arresting me? he protested, his head cocked to look at one of his escorts. What did I do?

Knock it off, the policeman ordered. Why are we arresting you? You know better than anybody.

Xiaopao, you have to get me out. I haven’t broken any laws!

A heavy-set woman stepped out of the car.

Gugu!

She removed her hospital mask and said coldly, Come see me at the health centre tomorrow.

Let her have the baby, Gugu, I said sadly. I no longer want my Party membership or my commission…

She banged the table with her hand, sending water splashing over the sides of the glass in front of me.

What a misfit you are, Xiaopao! This isn’t just about you. For three years the commune has not had a single case of exceeding the birth quota. Are you going to be the one to ruin our record?

But she’s tried to kill herself more than once, I said with difficulty. What if she goes through with it?

With a cold look, she said, You know local policy where that’s concerned? Don’t hide the bottle if they want to take poison, give them a rope if they want to hang themselves.

That’s cruel!

You think that’s what we want? You don’t need cruelty in the army, and you don’t need it in the cities; you especially don’t need it in foreign countries — all foreign women want is to enjoy themselves. They don’t have children in response to government encouragement, not even if they’re rewarded for having them. But this is rural China and we’re dealing with peasants. We can reason with them, we can talk about policy, we can wear out shoe leather and talk ourselves hoarse, and will they listen to us? No. So what do we do? We have no choice but to control population growth, carry out national policy, and meet our superiors’ goals. So what do we do? Those of us involved with family planning are reviled during the day and are the targets of missiles when we’re out walking at night — even five-year-old children jab our legs with awls. Gugu rolled up a pant leg to show me a large purple scab. See that? A cross-eyed little bastard in Dongfeng Village did that to me a few days ago. You haven’t forgotten what happened with Zhang Quan’s wife, have you? — I shook my head, recalling the incident in the surging river a decade or more before — she jumped into the river and we pulled her out, but Zhang Quan and his fellow villagers insisted that we pushed Geng Xiulian into the river, where she drowned. They wrote a letter, signing it in blood, that went all the way to the State Council, and in the end we were forced to sacrifice Huang Qiuya.

Gugu lit a cigarette and puffed so hard her sad features were swathed in a cloud of smoke. She’d gotten old, with deep wrinkles at the sides of her mouth, bags under her eyes, and a clouded look — we did everything humanly possible to save Zhang’s wife, including giving her some of my own blood, but she had a heart condition. In the end, we gave Zhang Quan a thousand yuan, which was a lot of money at the time. But even after taking the money he wouldn’t let us off the hook. He carried his wife’s body on a flatbed cart, followed by his three daughters in funeral hemp, to the offices of the county Party committee when the provincial head of the family-planning committee was in town on an inspection tour. The police sent a beat-up old Jeep to deliver Huang Qiuya, Little Lion and me to the county guesthouse. The police were surly and crude, and the way they manhandled us, you’d have thought we were criminals. The county officials wanted to talk to me, but I stiffened my neck and refused, saying I’d only talk to the provincial authority. So I walked unannounced into the visitors’ room, where he was reading a newspaper in an easychair. One look and I knew, it was Yang Lin! Now a fair-skinned deputy governor with a healthy complexion. I was furious, and the words came out like machine-gun fire — pow pow pow pow . You people up there send down your orders, and we down here run our legs off and talk till our lips split open. You want us to be civilised, talk policy, and work on the ideological state of the masses… while you stand there giving orders, suffering no back pain and, since you don’t bear children, you don’t know how a woman hurts! Why don’t you come down and see what’s happening, see how we work like dogs so we can be cursed, beaten black and blue, our heads bloodied, and then, if some little problem arises, instead of backing us up, you take sides with hooligans and shrews! You cast a chill over us — here pride crept into Gugu’s monologue — other people might shy from talking to high officials, but not me! When I see a high official I really start talking — it’s not that I’m a great talker, but that I’ve got a bellyful of bile. I was crying the whole time I talked to him, and I stopped to show him the scar on my head. Did Zhang Quan break the law when he hit me with his club? Did jumping into the river to save his wife and giving her my own blood count as doing everything called for by humanity and duty? By then, I was really bawling. Go ahead, send me to a re-education camp, throw me in jail, but I’m through! Tears were welling in Yang Lin’s eyes. He got up to pour me some water and went to the bathroom to get me a moist, hot towel. Work at the grassroots level is hard, he said. Chairman Mao said: Educating the peasant masses is critical. You have suffered, Comrade Wan. I know that, and so do the county officials. We have a high opinion of you. He came over and sat beside me. How would you like to come work for me in provincial headquarters, Comrade Wan? I knew exactly what he was getting at, but when I thought back to all those terrible things he’d said at the public denouncement rally, my heart cooled. No, I said firmly, that’s not for me. I’m needed here. In a somewhat rueful tone, he said, Then how about a move to the county health centre? No, I said, I’m staying put. Maybe I should have gone with him, Gugu said, just up and left. What you can’t see doesn’t bother you. If people want babies, let them go ahead and have them. Two billion, three billion, when the sky falls, the tall people can hold it up. Why should I worry about any of this? I’ve suffered all my life from being too compliant, too revolutionary, too loyal, and too serious about things.