Mo Yan - Frog

Like someone who has been caught making contraband, she was startled and jittery. She tried covering the doll with her sleeve, but couldn’t manage. Then she stopped trying. I can’t hide anything from you, she said.

Gugu, I said, we’ve watched the documentary Wang Gan sent us, and now we understand you and know what’s in your heart.

I’m glad, she said as she stood up and carried the newest clay doll over to the eastern side rooms. Without turning around, she said, Follow me. Her large, shapeless figure in black created a mysterious tension in us. Father had said she hadn’t been acting quite normal, so we’d seldom been to see her since our return. It was heartbreaking to see what a sad figure she’d become after the renown and influence she’d enjoyed as a younger woman.

A dank chill assailed our noses in the dim light of the building. Gugu pulled the chain on a hundred-watt bulb near the wall, bringing the room into sharp focus. Every window in the three rooms was bricked up. Latticed wooden racks fronted the eastern, southern, and northern walls, each little square occupied by a clay doll.

Gugu placed the doll in her hands into the last square on the wall, then stepped back, lit three sticks of incense on an altar in the centre of the room, fell to her knees, brought her palms together, and muttered prayerfully.

We hastily joined her on our knees, though I didn’t know what I should be praying for. The lively images of the children on the signboard in front of the Sino-American Jiabao Women and Children’s Hospital scrolled through my mind like a peepshow. I was feeling immense gratitude, shame and remorse, and fine threads of terror. I knew that by employing her husband’s talents, Gugu was bringing to life all the children she’d stopped from being born. I guessed that was her way to assuage deep-seated feelings of guilt, and there was nothing wrong with that. If she hadn’t done it, someone else would have. The men and women who defied the policy against multiple pregnancies could not escape a share of the responsibility for what happened. And if no one had done what she did, it is truly hard to say what China might be like today.

Her devotion completed, Gugu stood up and said, with a broad smile, Xiaopao, Little Lion, I’m glad you’re here. I’ve fulfilled my desire. Take a good look around you. Every one of these children has a name. I’ve brought them all together here where they can accept my offerings. Once they have reached spiritual attainment they can leave for wherever they are fated to be reborn. Gugu led us past each of the squares and told us where the boys and girls went or were to go.

This girl, she said, pointing to a doll with almond-shaped eyes, and lips in a little pout, should have been born to Tan Xiaoliu and Dong Yue’e of Tan Family Village in August 1974, but I destroyed her. Now everything is fine. Her father is a wealthy farmer, her mother a resourceful woman, and together they invented a process of irrigating celery with cow’s milk to produce a fresh vegetable that sells for sixty yuan a jin.

This boy, Gugu said as she pointed to a laughing doll with eyes reduced to a squint, should have been born to Wu Junbao and Zhou Aihua of Wu Family Bridge in February 1983, but I destroyed him. Now everything is fine. The little imp is flooded with good luck, reborn into the family of an official in Qingzhou Prefecture. Both parents are Party cadres, and his grandfather is high-ranking provincial official who is regularly seen on TV. Gugu has done well by you, you little imp.

These two sisters, Gugu said as she pointed to a pair of dolls in one of the squares, should have been born in 1990. Both parents had leprosy, and even though the disease had been stopped, they had claws for hands and demonic faces. Being born into a family like that was the same as being thrown into the bitter seas, and destroying them was their salvation. Now everything is fine. On the first night of 2000 they were born at the People’s Hospital in Jiaozhou and became millennial babies. Their father is a renowned actor of Maoqiang opera, their mother owns a women’s boutique. On New Year’s day last year, the sisters appeared on a television program to sing the famous Maoqiang aria ‘Zhao Meirong Observes Lanterns’: Eggplant lantern, purple and neat/leek lantern, a messy treat/cucumber lantern, thorns all over/radish lantern, watery sweet/and then the crab lantern with buggy eyes/the hen lantern clucks as an egg lands at her feet… Their mother and father phoned to remind me to watch them on the Jiaozhou channel. I meant something to them. Pearly tears rolled down my cheeks.

Don’t forget this one, Gugu said as she pointed to a cross-eyed doll. He should have been born into the Dongfeng Village home of Zhang Quan, but I destroyed him. It wasn’t all my fault, but I bear some of the responsibility. In July 1995, the little imp was born to the second daughter of Zhang Quan, Zhang Laidi, in Dongfeng Village. Laidi came to see me. She already had two daughters, and another pregnancy would be illegal. Though her father had once cracked open my head, and there was a history of unpleasantness between us, I went ahead and returned to her the child that should have been born to her mother. He would have been her kid brother, and now he was her son. This is a secret that only I, and now you two know. You mustn’t tell anyone. He is not a good boy. Knowing that Gugu is afraid of frogs, he once handed me one wrapped in paper and nearly scared me to death. But I don’t hate him. In this mortal world, not a single person can be left out, not the good and not the bad…

The last square Gugu pointed to was the one in which she’d placed the doll after we walked in. Know who that is? she asked us.

There were tears in my eyes. Don’t say anything, Gugu, I know who he is.

Gugu, Little Lion said, that child will be born soon. His father is a playwright, his mother a retired nurse… thank you, Gugu, I’m pregnant…

When you read this, Sensei, you will think I’m either crazy or dreaming. I admit there are issues with Gugu’s mental state, and my wife had been yearning for a child for so long that she wasn’t quite herself emotionally, so I ask for your compassion and understanding where they are concerned. Anyone burdened with feelings of guilt must find ways to comfort herself, as Xiang Lin Sao did in the Lu Xun story ‘Benediction’, a character who, as you know so well, offered a threshold for people to walk on to atone for what she considered her crimes. Clear-headed people were wrong to have laid bare her illusions, and should have given her hope, let her gain release, have no more nightmares, and live a life free of guilt. I have complied with their wishes, I even strive to believe in whatever they believe in. That seems like the proper thing to do. I know that people with scientific minds will laugh at me and that the moralists will criticise my decision, and that some of the more enlightened might even go public with their accusations, but none of that will change me. For the sake of the child and for the sake of Gugu and Little Lion, who had once been saddled with special work, I’m perfectly willing to muddle along the way I’ve been going.

Gugu had Little Lion lie down and expose her abdomen so she could listen with a stethoscope. When she was finished checking her, she placed her hands — hands that Mother had praised many times — on Little Lion’s abdomen and said, Five months, I’d say. It sounds good, clear, and well positioned.

Past six months, Little Lion said with notable embarrassment.

Get up, Gugu said as she gently patted Little Lion’s belly. Age could be an issue, she said, but I recommend natural birth. I don’t favour caesarian sections. A woman whose child has not passed through the birth canal misses out on much of what a mother should feel.