Mo Yan - Frog

So take a mistress.

Of course, a lot of them do, sometimes more than one, but more common are men who are henpecked and hate being inconvenienced. They are Uncle Yuan’s clients.

The sight of the little pink building that housed the offices of the bullfrog farm and of the golden halls of the Fertility Goddess Temple across the river gave me a bad feeling. I thought back to that recent morning after returning from a toilet visit at the health centre to an extraordinary bedtime drama with Little Lion.

You don’t have a son, do you, Old Uncle? Flathead’s son asked me.

I didn’t answer.

It’s not right for a special man like you not to have a son. You know that, don’t you? It’s actually a sort of sin. As Mengzi said: Of the three forms of unfilialness, not having an heir is the worst.

… After holding it in all night, I feel much better after relieving myself. I could use some more sleep, but Little Lion is getting frisky, and that hasn’t happened in a long time…

You must have a son, old uncle. This isn’t just about you, but for all of Northeast Township. Uncle Yuan has suggested many ways you could manage this, but a sexual surrogate is the best. The surrogate women are all beautiful, healthy, unmarried college graduates with terrific genes. You can stay with one until she’s pregnant with your child. It’s not cheap, at least two hundred thousand yuan. Of course, if you want the very best for your son, you can give her the most nutritious food and, if you’re so inclined, a personal bonus. The greatest danger is that an extended period of living together could produce an emotional attachment, and what was only pretend could turn into something real, which in turn would affect your marriage. That’s why I think your wife won’t let you get away with this.

… She seems to be in the grip of passion, but her body is cold, and she’s acting totally out of character. She wants to do it differently this time. What is it you want? I can see that her eyes are flashing in the morning light. She gives me a mischievous smile. I feel like abusing you. First, she puts a blindfold on me. What are you doing? Don’t take it off — after years of bad treatment, today I want to get my revenge. Are you going to give me a vasectomy? She giggles — I couldn’t bear to do that. I want you to enjoy this…

A woman caused a scene not long ago, young Flathead said. She wrecked Uncle Yuan’s car. You see, her old man got romantically involved with his surrogate, and as soon as his son was born, he dumped her. That’s why I’m sure your wife won’t let you do it.

… She’s really doing it to me, has got me hot and half crazed. She’s putting something over it. What are you doing? Is this really necessary? No answer…

If all you want is a son, and you’re not interested in tasting the forbidden fruit, I’ll give you a money-saving hint. It’s a well-kept secret that Uncle Yuan employs several inexpensive surrogates. They’re scary-ugly, but they weren’t born that way. They were beautiful once, by which I mean they have great genes. I’m sure you heard about that disastrous fire at the Dongli Stuffed Animal Factory, old uncle. Five girls from Northeast Township died in that fire. Three others survived the fire, but were terribly disfigured. Their lives ever since have been sheer agony. Uncle Yuan took them in out of the goodness of his heart, seeing that they had plenty to eat as well as a way to make a living and save up for old age. Naturally, they do their job without sexual contact. Your sperm is inserted into their uterus, and you take the child after it’s born. They don’t charge much — fifty thousand for a boy, thirty for a girl…

… She’s made me howl. I feel like I’ve fallen into an abyss. She gently covers me and leaves…

Old Uncle, I recommend…

Are you pimping for Yuan Sai?

How could you even think of using an old term like that, old uncle? He laughed. I’m one of Uncle Yuan’s professional associates, and I’m grateful to you, Uncle Xiao, for giving me the chance to make a little money. I’ll give Uncle Yuan a call now. He steadied the raft and took out his cell phone. Sorry, I said, but I’m not your Uncle Xiao, and I don’t need what you’re selling.

Sensei, Little Lion and I had a fight a couple of days ago and, in the heat of the moment, I wound up with a bloody nose. Blood even stained the paper I was writing the letter on, which I decided to continue, even with a headache. When I’m writing my play I need to choose every word and craft every sentence with care, but a letter is a different matter. Anyone who knows a few hundred characters and has something to say can write a letter. Back when my first wife, Wang Renmei, wrote to me, she used drawings when she didn’t know how to write something. Xiaopao, she’d say apologetically, I’m not an educated woman, and drawing is about all I can do. You are, too, I’d respond. Using drawings to ‘say’ what you mean is the same as creating new characters. Why don’t I create a son for you, Xiaopao? she said. We’ll create a son.

Sensei, after my conversation with the young Flathead on his raft, I nervously came to a conclusion that has troubled me a great deal: Little Lion, this woman who harbours an insane desire for a child, relieved me of my sperm and inserted it into the body of one of those deformed women. The image of countless little tadpoles encircling an egg floats into my mind, reminding me of my childhood, when we’d watch tadpoles in the shallows of the dried pond behind the village nibbling a water-soaked bun. The surrogate mother is none other than the daughter of my schoolmate Chen Bi, Chen Mei, in whose womb my child is growing.

I rushed over to the bullfrog farm, meeting a number of people on the way, some of whom waved to me, though I couldn’t tell you the name of a single one. Through a crack in the automatic gate I caught my second glimpse of the frog sculpture and shivered from a clammy, menacing feeling, though maybe it was only a trick of memory. Six girls in colourful outfits were dancing in the square in front of the squat building, waving floral wreaths to the accompaniment of a man sitting off to the side playing a squeezebox. More than likely rehearsing for some sort of performance. Days of peace, sunlight and breezes, and nothing happened, so maybe it was something I had imagined. I needed to find a place to sit down and think hard about my play.

‘Timid as a mouse when nothing is wrong, bold as a tiger when events are strong’, and ‘When your luck is good, it can’t be bad; when your luck is bad, you’ve been had’. Those were lessons my father taught me. Old folks are usually a storehouse of warnings. Thoughts of my father reminded me that I was hungry. I was fifty-five, and though I mustn’t refer to myself as old in front of my father, I was already more than halfway home and on a downward slide. There is nothing a man in the sunset of his life, someone who has retired early to return to live in his childhood hometown, needs to fear. That thought made me even hungrier.

I went into the Don Quixote, a little café next to the Fertility Goddess Temple square, a favourite haunt of mine since Little Lion went to work at the bullfrog farm. I took a seat by the window. Business was slow. This is like a reserved seat. The short, overweight waiter greeted me. Sensei, each time I sit at that table and gaze at the empty chair across from me, I dream that one day you’ll be sitting in it and talking with me about the play I’m having so much trouble writing. There was a broad smile on the waiter’s oily face, but a strange expression lay behind it. Maybe it was the look on the face of Don Quixote’s retainer, Sancho Panza, that of a prankster, slightly unscrupulous, someone who likes to taunt people and is himself taunted. Hard to tell if he’s lovable or hateful. The table is made of unvarnished Chinese linden, the grain marred by cigarette burns. It’s where I’ve done much of my writing. Someday, maybe, when the play is a success, the table will become an object of literary lore. Then, anyone who sits at it to enjoy a drink will have to pay extra. If you could sit across from me, well, that would be super! Sorry, but literary figures tend to rely upon boastful fantasies as a stimulus for writing.