Mo Yan - Frog

CHEN BI:Get out of my face, you shameless piece of shit. Do you really think you can shut me up with some stinking seafood? That’s not going to happen. Today is a big day in my grandson’s life, and I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying here to have a celebratory drink. ( sits down and spots Gugu ) Gugu, your mind is like a spotless mirror. You took care of all our Northeast Gaomi Township babies. You knew whose seeds would not sprout and whose soil would not grow grass, so you borrowed seeds and soil, you replaced beams with rotten timbers, you used Chencang as a decoy, you deceived the heavens to cross the ocean, you sacrificed the plum to preserve the peach, you let someone get away in order to capture, you killed with a borrowed knife… you have used all the thirty-six stratagems from The Art of War .

GUGU:You used only two — you made a sound in the east and attacked from the west, and you escaped like a cicada sloughing off its skin. I nearly fell for your tricks back then. Half the foetid blood on my hands ( holds them to her nose to smell ) you put there.

LI SHOU:( pours a glass for Chen ) Have a drink, old Chen. Drink up.

CHEN BI:( tosses down the glassful ) Young classmate, you’re a fair man. Come reason this out for us —

LI SHOU:( doesn’t let Chen finish; refills his glass ) Only the heavens know about fairness. Drink up. Here, use a bigger glass.

CHEN BI:Are you trying to get me drunk? You’re wrong if you think liquor will shut me up.

LI SHOU:Of course I’m wrong. No one can outdrink you. We’re drinking real Maotai today, and you don’t want to waste the opportunity, right? Down the hatch!

CHEN BI:( tips his head and drains the glass, breathes heavily as tears begin to fall ) Gugu, Tadpole, Little Lion, Yuan Sai, Jin Xiu — I, Chen Bi, have fallen as low as a man can fall. Is there a single person among the fifty thousand residents of the eighteen villages in Northeast Gaomi Township as pitiful as me? I ask you, is there? No, there isn’t, no one is as pitiful as me. But you, all of you, have ganged up to bully me, a cripple. I guess that’s all right, since I’m not a good person and never have been. Bullying me is like heavenly retribution. But you shouldn’t take advantage of my daughter. Chen Mei, a girl you have all watched grow up, the prettiest girl in all of Northeast Gaomi Township, she and her sister, Chen Er, who together could have married into the imperial family as queens or royal consorts, but… it’s all my fault… retribution… my daughter carried your child ( angrily points at Tadpole ) to earn enough to pay off my debts. But you, my old classmates, all you uncles and elders, all you playwrights, all you big bosses, conspired to fabricate a story that her baby was stillborn. You cheated her out of her forty-thousand-yuan fee. The heavens are only three feet above your head. Why doesn’t God open his eyes to see how these terrible people are riding roughshod over us… turn on your camera, TV people, shine a light on us all — me, her, them — for all your viewers…

LIU:Everyone says nobody holds his drink as well as you, old Chen. So why are you spouting all this nonsense after only two glasses?

CHEN BI:You’re a shrewd woman, Liu Guifang. When the guesthouse went private, you became a big boss overnight. You’re now worth millions. I begged you to find a job for my daughter, even if it was tending a fire in your kitchen, but you chose not to be generous, saying you were in the process of downsizing and that the door to charity was hard to open. But…

LIU:I was wrong, old friend, and I’ll take care of Chen Mei. It’s only one more mouth to feed, isn’t it? I’ll take her under my wing, how’s that?

Yuan Sai, Jin Xiu, and others try to ‘escort’ Chen Bi out of the yard.

CHEN BI:( struggles ) I still haven’t seen my grandson. ( takes out a red envelope ) Grandson, your granddad may be poor, but ethical codes must be followed. I have prepared a red envelope for you…

While Yuan Sai and the others manhandle Chen off the stage, Chen Mei, all in black, enters to the astonishment of everyone present. There is total silence.

CHEN MEI:( sniffs the air in exaggerated fashion, softly at first, but builds in intensity ) My baby, my darling, I have picked up your sweet-smelling, pungent scent. ( feels her way up close to Little Lion, like a blind person, just as loud cries emerge from the swaddling clothes ) My baby, my good, little baby, you have never tasted your mother’s milk, you must be starving. ( She snatches the baby away from Little Lion and dashes offstage. The guests, stunned by the act, do not know what to do .)

LITTLE LION:( opens her now empty arms ) My baby ( in real despair ), my little Jinwa…

Little Lion runs after Chen Mei, followed by Tadpole and others. Chaos onstage.

Curtain

Scenery changes constantly on a large screen at the rear of the stage. A busy street one moment, a crowded marketplace the next, followed by a public park, where people are practising Tai Chi, carrying bird cages and playing the two-stringed erhu. The changing scenery denotes the places she passes in Chen Mei’s getaway.

As Chen Mei runs with the baby, she speaks her heart to him.

CHEN MEI:My little darling, Mummy has finally found you… she’ll never let you go again…

Little Lion, Tadpole, and many others are chasing her.

LITTLE LION:Jinwa… my son…

Some of the time, Chen Mei is alone onstage, running and looking over her shoulder, at other times she shouts to people she passes: Help, save me, save my baby.

Some of the time, she and the people chasing her are on the stage together. Chen Mei shouts to people on the street: Help, save us! Little Lion and the others shout to the people ahead: Stop her. Stop that baby stealer, stop that madwoman!

Chen Mei stumbles, clambers to her feet, stumbles again, gets up again.

The fast, lively, shrill music of an opera fiddle together with a baby’s cries form a background from when the curtain goes up till the curtain falls.

Curtain

The TV drama Gao Mengjiu is being filmed.

The main hall of a county yamen during the Republican era. Though there are signs of reform, it basically follows the old patterns. The words ‘justice’ and ‘integrity’ are carved into a signboard hanging above the hall. One scroll to the side of the signboard proclaims: ‘Wind, then rain, then the blue sky’. Its mate on the other side proclaims: ‘The civil, the martial, and the barbaric’. A large shoe rests on an altar in the centre of the hall.

Gao Mengjiu is in a black tunic and top hat, a watch chain looping out of his breast pocket. Yamen clerks stand straight on both sides of the stage, each holding a long red and black ‘fire and water’ club, but they are dressed in modern black tunics, a comical effect.

The director, cameraman, and sound technician move around busily.

DIRECTOR:Take your places. Ready — action!

GAO MENGJIU:( picks up the shoe and bangs it on the table ) Oh my, oh my… What a nuisance! ( sings ) Magistrate Gao is in his hall to try a case: two families, Zhang and Wang, have a dispute over land. Zhang is in the right, and so is Wang. Both families have a claim, and I must settle the dispute. My name is Gao Mengjiu from Weibaodi county in the Tianjin municipality. I joined the army in my youth under Field Marshal Feng Yuxiang, performing outstanding service in battles north and south. Marshal Feng selected me to be his guard battalion commander. One day, Marshal Feng spotted a soldier under my command parading around town in dark glasses, a prostitute on his arm, and censured me for lax discipline. I was so embarrassed at having fallen short of the marshal’s expectations that I tendered my resignation and returned to my native home. In the nineteenth year of the Republic, 1930, Gao’s fellow townsman Han Fuju, Governor of Shandong, respectfully and repeatedly invited me to take up an official position. I could not refuse the request of a fellow officer, so was sent to Shandong, first as a provincial representative, then as head of Pingyuan, Qufu, and, as of this spring, Gaomi counties. The people here are cunning and stubborn, crime is rampant, gambling is ubiquitous, opium is a scourge, and public order is non-existent. After taking office, I boldly instituted reforms, stamped out criminal activity, promoted filial behaviour, and travelled incognito, resolving difficult cases. ( softly ) Of course, not everything went smoothly, as is always the case for one who is not a sage. And even sages make mistakes from time to time. The local gentry families presented me with a pair of scrolls, with ‘Wind, then rain, then the blue sky’ on one and ‘The civil, the martial, and the barbaric’ on the other. Well written. Extremely well! They also came up with a nickname for me: Gao the Second with Shoe-soles. The origin of this moniker came from my proclivity to use the soles of shoes across the faces of criminals and harridans. ( sings ) In troubled times an official must employ severe punishments/Answering brutality with brutality/Use clever schemes to exterminate bandits/A shoe sole is the tool of an upright magistrate. I say, all you clerks —