Mo Yan - Frog

This episode of the TV series, entitled ‘Moon Child’, was supposed to be about the sculptor Hao Dashou, though the camera was always on her, talking and gesturing as she welcomed journalists into Hao’s yard and gave them a guided tour of his workshop and the storeroom where he kept his clay figurines, while he sat quietly at his workbench, eyes glazed over and a blank look on his face, like a dreamy old horse. Did all master artists turn into dreamy old horses once they reached the pinnacle of their artistry? I wondered. The name Hao Dashou was familiar to me, though I’d only met him a few times. After seeing him late on the night my nephew Xiangqun hosted a dinner to celebrate his acceptance as an air force pilot, years passed before I saw him again, and this time it was on TV. His hair and beard had turned white, but his complexion was as ruddy as ever; composed and serene, he was a nearly transcendent figure. It was during that program that we accidentally learned why Gugu had married him.

Gugu lit a cigarette, took a drag, and began to speak, sadness creeping into her voice. Marriages, she said, are made in Heaven. By this, I’m not promoting the cause of idealism for you youngsters, for there was a time when I was an ardent materialist, but where marriage is concerned, you must believe in fate. Just ask him, she said, pointing to Hao Dashou, who sat there like one of his sculptures. Do you think he ever dreamed of one day getting me as his wife?

In 1997, when I was sixty, she said, my superiors asked me to retire, whether I wanted to or not. I was already five years past the retirement age, and nothing I said would have made any difference. You know the hospital director, that ungrateful bastard Huang Jun, the son of Huang Pi from Hexi Village. Just who do you think dragged that little shit — they called him Melon Huang — out of his mother’s belly? Well, he spent a couple of days in a medical school, and he came out almost as stupid as the day he went in — he couldn’t locate a heart with a stethoscope, couldn’t find a vein with a syringe, and had never heard the terms inch, bar and cubit when checking a patient’s pulse. So who better to appoint as hospital director! He was admitted into the school thanks to my personal recommendation to Director Shen of the Bureau of Health. Only to be ignored by him when he was the man in charge. The wretched creature has two talents, and only two: playing the host, giving gifts, and kissing arse; and seducing, even raping, women.

At this point, Gugu thumped her breast and stomped her foot. What a fool I was, she said angrily, letting the wolf in the door. I made it easy for him to have his way with all the girls in the hospital. Wang Xiaomei, a seventeen-year-old girl from Wang Village, had nice, thick braids, a pretty oval face, and skin like ivory. Her lashes danced like butterfly wings, her eyes could talk, and anyone who saw her would believe that if film director Zhang Yimou discovered her, she’d be a hotter commodity than Gong Li or Zhang Ziyi ever were. Sadly, Melon Huang, the sex fiend, discovered her first. He rushed off to Wang Village, where, with a glib tongue that could bring back the dead, he talked Xiaomei’s parents into sending her to his hospital to learn from me how to treat women’s problems. He said she’d be my student, but she never spent a single day with me. Instead, the lecher kept her to himself as his daily companion and nightly lover. If that weren’t bad enough, he even took her in the daytime; people had seen them. Then once he’d had enough fun with her, he went off to the county seat, where he hosted banquets for high officials with public funds, in the hope of being transferred to the big city. Maybe you haven’t seen what he looks like: a long, donkey face with dark lips, bloody gums, and breath so bad it could fell a horse. Even with a face like that, he figured he had a chance of becoming assistant director at the Bureau of Health! So he dragged Wang Xiaomei along to drink and eat and entertain the officials, probably even offering her up as a gift for their pleasure. Evil! That’s what he was, pure evil!

One day the wretch called me to his office. Other women who worked in the hospital were afraid to be in his office. But not me. I kept a little dagger handy, and wouldn’t have hesitated to use it on the bastard. Well, he poured tea, smiled, and laid it on thick. What did you want to see me about, Director Huang? Let’s get to the point.

Heh-heh. He grinned. Great Gugu — damned if he didn’t call me Great Gugu — you delivered me the day I was born, and you’ve watched me grow into adulthood. Why, I could be your own son. Heh-heh…

I don’t deserve such an honour, I said. You’re the director of a big hospital, while I’m just an ordinary obstetrician. If you were my son I’d die from the honour. So, please, tell me what you have in mind. More heh-heh-hehing, before he got around to revealing the shameless reason he’d summoned me. I’ve made the mistake all leading cadres make sooner or later — through my own carelessness Wang Xiaomei got pregnant. Congratulations! I said. Now that Xiaomei is carrying your dragon seed, the hospital is guaranteed leadership continuity. Don’t mock me, Great Gugu, I’ve been so upset the past few days I can’t eat or sleep. Can you believe the bastard actually said he had trouble eating and sleeping? She’s demanding that I divorce my wife, and if I won’t she’s threatened to report me to the County Discipline Commission. Really? I said. I thought having second wives was popular among you officials these days. Buy a villa, install her in it, and you’ve got it made. I asked you not to make fun of me, Great Gugu, he said. I couldn’t go public with a second or a third wife. Besides, where would I get the money to buy a villa? Then go ahead and get a divorce, I said. He pulled that donkey face longer than ever and said, Great Gugu, you know full well that my father-in-law and those pig-butcher brothers-in-law of mine are violent thugs. They wouldn’t hesitate to butcher me if they found out about this. But you’re the Director, an official! All right, that’s enough, Great Gugu. In your old eyes the director of a hospital in a piddling, out-of-the-way town is about as important as a loud fart, so instead of mocking me, why don’t you help me come up with something! What in the world could I come up with? Wang Xiaomei admires you, he said. She’s told me that many, many times. You’re the only person she’ll listen to. What do you want me to do? Talk her into having an abortion. Melon Huang, I protested through clenched teeth, I’ll never again soil my hands with that atrocious act! Over the course of my life I’ve been responsible for more than two thousand aborted births, and I’ll never do it again. Just wait until you’re a father. Xiaomei is such a pretty girl, she’s bound to present you with a lovely boy or girl, and that should make you happy. You go tell her that when the time comes, I’ll be there to deliver the child.

With that, I turned on my heel and walked out of the office pleased with myself. But that feeling lasted only till I was back in my own office and had drunk a glass of water. My mood turned dark. No one as bad as Melon Huang deserved to have an heir, and what a shame it was that Wang Xiaomei was carrying his child. I’d learned enough from delivering all those children to know that a person’s core — good or bad — is determined more by nature than nurture. You can criticise hereditary laws all you want, but this is knowledge based on experience. You could place a son of that evil Melon Huang in a Buddhist temple, and he’d grow up to be a lascivious monk. No matter how sorry I felt for Wang Xiaomei, I would not put ideas in her head; I simply couldn’t let that fiend find an easy way out of his predicament. If the world had another lascivious monk, so be it. But in the end I helped her abort the baby she was carrying.