Mo Yan - Frog

She wept.

Sensei, as I sit at my desk writing this letter to you I am pondering how I will raise this child. We are both nearly sixty, our bodies have begun their decline, and we should be looking for a nanny, someone experienced in the raising of a child, or a wet nurse, so that our child will taste mother’s milk. My mother once said that a child raised on cow’s or goat’s milk lacks the smell of mother’s milk. A child that grows and develops on cow’s milk will be vulnerable to many dangers, and I wonder if the unprincipled merchants will actually stop their ‘chemistry’ experiments in the wake of the ‘empty formula’ and ‘melamine formula’ affairs. After the ‘big-headed babies’ and ‘stone babies,’ who knows what kind of babies will come next? Those people are now fleeing with their tails between their legs, like beaten dogs, trying to look as pitiful as possible. But before too many years have passed, their tails will be up in the air again, and they’ll be concocting even worse formulas that will wreak damage on people. I know that mother’s milk is the most precious liquid the world has to offer. The first lactated milk, known as colostrum, contains mysterious elements that, when distilled, are in essence a mother’s love. I have heard of cases where parents have paid large sums of money to their surrogate mothers to purchase colostrum, and some have gone so far as to pay the surrogate to nurse the infant for its first month before taking it home with them. This is expensive, of course. Little Lion told me that the surrogate mothers company would not permit that. According to them, when a woman nurses an infant for a month, she develops an attachment to the child that creates serious problems.

Little Lion’s eyes lit up as she said to me:

I’m his mother, and I’ll produce milk for him!

Mother had told me stories about such things, but they seemed too far-fetched to believe. Maybe, I thought, a young woman who had previously borne and nursed a child might begin lactating again with the stimulation of a child’s mouth and a heart filled with love, but no such miracle would visit Little Lion, a woman nearly sixty who had never been pregnant. If it did, it would be on a level beyond ‘miracle’.

Sensei, I feel no sense of shame in writing about such things to you, a father who took a child the hospital told you had no chance of surviving and raised him. During that process you experienced many similar miracles. So I’m sure you know what I was feeling and have an appreciation for my wife’s abnormal behaviour. Lately she’s wanted to make love every night. She has gone from being a dried-up turnip to a honey peach, and this in itself is almost a miracle. I couldn’t be happier. She reminds me each time: Tadpole, be gentle, take it easy, you don’t want to injure our son. After we finish, she takes my hand and rests it on her belly. Can you feel it? He’s kicking me. She washes her breasts every morning with warm water and gently tugs on her sunken nipples.

When we told my father that she was pregnant, ancient tears rolled down his ninety-year-old cheeks and his beard quivered.

Heaven has eyes, he said emotionally. Our ancestors have revealed themselves. The good shall be rewarded, Amita Buddha!

Sensei, we’ve made all the preparations for the baby, the best that money can buy. A Japanese stroller, a Korean crib, Shanghai disposable nappies, a Russian rubber infant’s bathtub… Little Lion will not allow nursing bottles in the house. What if you don’t have enough milk? I asked her. We should have one just in case. So we bought French bottles and some milk formula imported from New Zealand. But we weren’t convinced that New Zealand formula was safe enough, so I suggested that we buy a milk goat and pasture it at my father’s place. We could move into Father’s house and feed our precious infant freshly squeezed milk every day. Cupping her breasts in her hands, Little Lion said unhappily:

I firmly believe that these could produce fountains of milk!

Our daughter phoned us from Spain and asked what we were doing to keep so busy. Yanyan, I said, I’m really sorry, but I have wonderful news. Your mother is pregnant. You’re going to have a baby brother very soon. That was greeted with a moment of silence. Is that true, Papa? she asked. Of course it is, I said. But how old is Mama? she asked. Go online and you’ll see that a sixty-two-year-old Danish woman just gave birth to a healthy pair of twins. My daughter was thrilled. That’s wonderful! she said. Papa, congratulations to you both, hearty congratulations! Tell me what you need and I’ll send it right away. We don’t need anything, I said. We have everything we need. I don’t care, my daughter said, I’m going to send you something, a gift from the heart of a big sister. Congratulations, Papa. A thousand-year-old sago palm has flowered, a ten-thousand-year-old dead branch has sprouted. You have created a miracle!

Sensei, I’ve always thought I owed a debt to my daughter, since I played a role in the death of her mother. Renmei died way before her time because of my concern over my so-called future, and the child she was carrying died with her. He’d be in his twenties now. No matter how I look at it, another son on the way is a comfort to me. In reality, this son will be that one. He’ll just come twenty-odd years late. But he is coming.

I’m ashamed to tell you, Sensei, that my play won’t be written till later. A bawling baby is much more important than a play. Maybe this is a good thing, because my thoughts up till now have been dark, have carried the stench of blood, are all about death and destruction, not life, despair not hope, and a play like that could only poison the viewers’ souls, and that would make my offence even greater. Don’t lose faith in me, Sensei. I will write that play. After my child is born, I’ll pick up my pen and offer praise to the new life. I won’t disappoint you, Sensei.

I went with Little Lion to see Gugu. It was a beautiful, sunlit day. Flowers were blooming on the scholar trees in her yard, while some had already fallen to the ground. Gugu was sitting beneath one of the trees, her eyes shut. She was muttering something. Flowers covered her thick, messy grey hair, around which bees were circling. Hao Dashou was seated on a stool in front of a limestone bench beneath the window. Given the title of county folk artist, he was moulding a lump of clay. He had a distant look in his eyes, almost trancelike.

This child’s father has a round face, Gugu was saying, long, narrow eyes, a flat nose, thick lips and fat ears; his mother has a thin, oval face, almond-pit eyes with double folds, a small mouth, high nose bridge, and thin ears with no lobes. The child would take after his mother, but with a larger mouth, slightly thicker lips, bigger ears, and a nose bridge slightly lower…

As Gugu muttered her description, a clay doll took shape in Uncle’s hands. After forming eyebrows with a pointed bamboo strip, he pulled back to take a look, made a few changes, then placed it on a plank in front of her.

Gugu picked it up, studied it, and said:

Make the eyes a little larger and thicken the lips.

He took it from her, made the changes and handed it back. His eyes lit up like lightning beneath his bushy grey brows.

With the doll in her hands Gugu held her arms out for a distant look, then brought them in close; a look of kindness spread across her face. Yes, that’s it, she said, that’s him. But then her tone changed as she spoke directly to the doll: This is you, you little sprite, you little debtor. Gugu destroyed two thousand eight hundred foetuses, and you’re the last. With you, we have them all.

I laid a bottle of Wuliangye on the windowsill, Little Lion laid a box of sweets next to Gugu. Gugu, we said together, we’ve come to see you.