Mo Yan - Frog

SUPERVISOR:( stands at attention and salutes ) Madam, this is a maternity hospital. The patients and their babies need peace and quiet, so please leave at once and stop creating a scene.

CHEN MEI:Who are you? What are you doing here?

SUPERVISOR:We’re security.

CHEN MEI:What does security do?

SUPERVISOR:We maintain social order and are responsible for the safety of institutions like schools, businesses, post offices, banks, markets, restaurants, bus and train stations, and more.

CHEN MEI:I know you! ( mad laughter ) I know who you are, you’re Yuan Sai’s bodyguards, the ones people call watchdogs.

SUPERVISOR:I’ll not stand for such insults. Without us, there would be anarchy.

CHEN MEI:You’re the ones who stole my baby! I’d know you even without your surgical gown and mask.

SUPERVISOR:( alarmed ) Watch what you’re saying, madam. If you’re not careful I’ll sue you for slander.

CHEN MEI:Did you really think you could hide your identity from me by changing clothes? That putting on a uniform would make you a decent person? You’re one of Yuan Sai’s dogs. Wan Xin, that witch, delivered my baby, let me have one look… ( painfully ) no, not even a single look… they covered my face with white cloth, I wanted to see my baby, just one look, but they took my baby away without letting me have a look… but I heard my baby cry, crying for me, he wanted to see me too. Is there a child on earth that doesn’t want to see his mother? But they snatched him away from me. I knew he was hungry, he wanted to nurse, you people don’t know how precious the first drops of colostrum are to a baby, you thought I was uncultured, and didn’t know things like that, but I do, I know everything. I sent all the finest elements of my body up to my breasts, including the calcium in my bones, the oil in my marrow, the protein in my blood, and the vitamins in my flesh. My milk would ensure that my baby would not suffer from colds, diarrhoea or fevers, would grow fast and strong, and would be handsome, but you people took my baby away before he had a drop of my milk. ( goes up and claws at the supervisor )

SUPERVISOR:( flustered ) You’ve got the wrong person, madam, take my word for it. Round-cheeked or square-faced Yuan, it makes no difference, I don’t know who he is.

CHEN MEI:Of course you’d say that. You thieves, you gangsters, you steal children to sell them, a pack of devils. You may not know me, but I know you. Wasn’t it you people who gave me sleeping pills after you stole my baby, and when I woke up told me he was stillborn? Wasn’t it you people who flashed a skinned cat in front of my eyes and told me it was my baby’s dead body? After stealing my baby, you cheated me out of my fee, you said a live birth was worth fifty thousand, but my baby was stillborn, so you only gave me ten thousand, and after taking my baby, you tried to steal my milk. You came with a bowl and a baby bottle to squeeze first milk out of my nipples, saying each gram was worth ten yuan. You bastards, that milk is for my baby. Ten yuan? I wouldn’t sell it for ten thousand!

SUPERVISOR:I’ll ask you one more time to leave, madam. If you don’t, I’ll have to call the police.

CHEN MEI:The police? Good, call them. That’s exactly who I want to see. The people’s police love the people. Can they ignore people who lose children?

SUPERVISOR:No, they can’t. They’ll even help you find a lost dog, let alone a child.

CHEN MEI:That’s good. I’ll go find a policeman.

SUPERVISOR:Good idea, do it now. ( points out the way to go ) Straight ahead, then right at the traffic light. The Binhe precinct station is next to the dancehall.

A car drives up from the hospital, horn blaring.

CHEN MEI:( briefly dazed, then comes to ) My baby, they’re taking my baby away in that car. ( rushes towards the car ) Give me my baby, you thieves!

The supervisor tries to stop her, but she is uncommonly strong and shoves him away.

SUPERVISOR:( exasperated ) Stop her!

The security guard rushes up and wraps his arms around Chen Mei as she tries to block the car’s way. She struggles. The supervisor comes up to help the guard restrain Chen Mei. Her veil is torn loose in the struggle, revealing a horribly disfigured face destroyed by fire. The guard and supervisor recoil in horror.

SECURITY GUARD:My god!

SUPERVISOR:( spots frogs that have been flattened by the car’s tyres and people’s feet ) Shit! Where did all these damn things come from?

Curtain

Green lights turn the stage into a gloomy underwater world. The entrance to a cave at the rear is moss-covered. The croaks of frogs and wails of babies emerge from the cave. A dozen bawling babies hang down from above the stage, limbs flailing.

A pair of workbenches for making clay dolls has been placed at the front of the stage.

Hao Dashou and Qin He sit behind the benches in lotus position creating clay dolls.

Gugu crawls out from the cave. She is wearing a baggy black robe, her hair is uncombed.

GUGU:( as if reciting from memory ) My name is Wan Xin, I am seventy-two years old, and have been an obstetrician for fifty years. Though I am retired, I am anything but idle. I have been in attendance at the birth of nine thousand eight hundred and eighty-three babies. ( She looks up at the babies hanging above the stage. ) You children, I love to hear the sound of your crying. It makes me feel alive and real. Not hearing you cry makes Gugu feel empty inside. There isn’t another sound anywhere to match that of your crying. It is Gugu’s requiem. I only wish there had been tape recorders around back then to record the sounds of your crying as you were born. Gugu would play those sounds every day while she was alive and have them played at her funeral when she died. What wonderfully moving music the sound of nine thousand eight hundred and eighty-three babies crying together would make. ( totally carried away ) Let your crying move Heaven and Earth, let it deliver Gugu into Paradise…

QIN HE:( gloomy ) Be careful their crying doesn’t send you down to Hell!

GUGU:( wanders lightly among the babies hanging above the stage like a fish swimming spryly through the water, lightly spanking their bottoms as she passes among them ) Cry, my darlings, cry! Not crying means there’s something wrong with you, crying means you’re healthy.

HAO DASHOU:Crazy!

QIN HE:Who is?

HAO DASHOU:I am.

QIN HE:It’s okay to say you’re crazy, but not me. ( self-importantly ) Because I am Northeast Gaomi Township’s most famous clay-doll artisan. Though some may disagree, they’re welcome to their opinion. Where making things out of clay is concerned, I am the world’s number one. People have to learn how to promote themselves. If you don’t treat yourself like someone special, who will? The dolls I create are objets d’art, each valued at a hundred US dollars.

HAO DASHOU:Did you all hear that? That’s what you call shameless! When I was making dolls out of clay you were crawling on the ground scrounging for chicken feed. I was designated a master folk artist by the county chief himself. And what are you?