Frog (4 page)

Gugu had reached marrying age. But she was a salaried professional, a public servant who ate marketable grains and enjoyed an enviable background, which kept the local boys from entertaining any hope of being the one for her. I was five at the time, and often heard my great-aunt and my grandmother talk about my aunt’s marital prospects. Wan Xin’s aunt, I heard Gugu’s mother say, her voice laden with anxiety, Xin is twenty-two. Girls born the same year as her already have two children of their own, but not a single proposal has ever come her way. There’s no reason to be concerned, my grandmother said. A girl like her, who knows, she could marry into the royal family and wind up as Empress. When that happens, you’ll be mother-in-law to the Emperor, and we’ll all be royalty, enjoying reflected glory. Nonsense, Great-Aunt said. The Emperor went out with the revolution. We’re a republic now, with the Chairman at the helm. Well, if that’s the case, Grandmother replied, then we’ll have Xin marry the Chairman. You might live physically in the modern world, Great-Aunt said impatiently, but your mind is stuck in pre-Liberation days. I’m different than you, Grandmother said. In all my life I’ve never left Heping. But you’ve been to the liberated areas and spent time in Pingdu city. Don’t talk to me about Pingdu city, Great-Aunt said. Just hearing the name makes my scalp itch. I was kidnapped by those Jap devils, taken there to suffer, not to enjoy myself.

The longer the two sisters-in-law talked, the more their conversation sounded like an argument. The way Great-Aunt stormed off angrily, you’d have thought she never wanted to see my grandmother again. But she was back the next day. Whenever my mother witnessed the two of them talking about Gugu’s marital prospects, she had to stifle a laugh.

I recall one evening when our water buffalo calved. I don’t know if the mother modelled herself after my mother or the calf modelled itself after me, but it started coming out leg first, and got stuck. The mother’s bellows gave testimony to her agony. My father and grandfather were so distressed they could only wring their hands, stomp their feet, and pace the area in tight little circles. A farmer’s life revolves around a buffalo, and this particular one had been sent to us by the production team to tend. There’d be hell to pay if it died. My mother whispered to my elder sister: Man, I heard your aunt coming in. My sister took off. My father glared at his wife and said: Don’t talk like an idiot. She works with women. The principle’s the same, Mother replied.

Gugu walked in the door and raged: You people are going to kill me from exhaustion. Delivering human babies has me running all day, and now you want me to deliver a cow!

With a smile, Mother said: Like it or not, Sister, you’re a member of this family. Who else should we ask for help? Everybody says you’re a reincarnated bodhisattva, and bodhisattvas are supposed to deliver all living creatures from torment, to save the lives of all sentient beings. A water buffalo may not be human, but it’s a life, and I can’t imagine you letting it die without lifting a finger.

It’s a good thing you can’t read, Auntie, Gugu said. If you knew how to read a couple of handfuls of characters, our village would be too small to hold you.

If it had been eight handfuls, not two, I’d still be no match for even your little toe.

Annoyance still showed on Gugu’s face, but the feeling behind it was fading. Night had fallen, so Mother lit all the lanterns in the house, turned up the wicks, and carried them out to the barn.

When the birthing mother saw Gugu come in, she bent her front legs and knelt on the ground. The sight nearly caused tears to spurt from Gugu’s eyes.

Ours were not long in following.

Gugu made a quick examination of the mother’s body. Another leg-first, she said in a sympathetic, but slightly mocking tone.

Gugu sent us out into the yard so we wouldn’t be upset by what we might see. By the sound of her commands, we could picture what she was telling Father and Mother to do. It was the fifteenth day of the lunar month; as the moon hung in the southeast corner of the sky, illuminating the earth below, we heard Gugu shout: Good, it’s out!

With whoops of delight we ran inside, where we saw a little sticky-coated creature on the ground behind its mother. Wonderful, Father announced excitedly, it’s another female!

Isn’t it strange, Gugu seethed, how men pull a long face when a woman gives birth to a girl baby, but grin happily if a cow does the same thing.

When this calf matures, she’ll have calves just like her, Father said.

What about humans? Gugu countered. When a girl matures, she’ll give birth to girls, also just like her.

That’s different, Father said.

Different how?

Seeing that Gugu was about to lose her temper, Father stopped talking.

The mother turned her head to lick the sticky substance that covered her calf’s body. Her tongue appeared to have miraculous powers, for every spot she licked clean seemed to be strengthened. The sight overwhelmed us. I sneaked a glance at Gugu, whose mouth hung open and whose eyes radiated love, as if she were the one being cleaned and groomed by the cow’s tongue, or it was her tongue that was cleaning the calf. When the sticky substance was nearly all gone from its hide, the calf wobbled onto its legs.

Someone brought a basin and filled it with water. A bar of soap materialised, and a towel, so Gugu could wash her hands.

Grandma sat in front of the stove using a bellows. Mother stood at the kang making noodles.

I’m starved, Gugu said after washing her hands. I’ll eat here tonight.

This is your home, isn’t it? Mother said.

Of course it is, Grandmother said. It wasn’t long ago when we all ate out of the same pot.

On the other side of our compound wall, Gugu’s mother shouted for her to come home for dinner. I can’t work for them for nothing, Gugu shouted back. I’m going to eat here. Your aunt has lived on a tight budget, Great-Aunt replied. If you eat even one bowl of her noodles, she won’t forget that for the rest of her life. My grandmother picked up a poker and ran over to the wall. If it’s food you want, come in and have a bowl. If not, then go home! I’m not interested in eating anything you’ve got, Great-Aunt said.

When the noodles were ready, Mother filled a bowl and told my sister to take it to Great-Aunt. (Years later I learned that in her haste, my sister stumbled, spraying the soupy noodles everywhere as she dropped the bowl and broke it. To keep her from getting yelled at back home, Great-Aunt took a bowl from her cupboard, and told my sister to take it home with her.)

Gugu loved to talk, and we loved listening to her. After she’d eaten her noodles, she sat on the kang, leaned back against the wall, and started the chatter. By appearing in just about every house in the area, she’d met all sorts of people and heard many interesting things, and was not above spicing up her accounts like a professional storyteller. In the early 1980s, when we watched the serialised TV stories told by Liu Lanfang, Mother would say, That could have been your aunt. If she hadn’t become a doctor, she had what it took to be that kind of storyteller.

That night she began telling us about her battles of wits with Commander Sugitani in Pingdu city. I was seven at the time. She looked at me and said: I was just about Xiaopao’s age when I went with Great-Grandma and your great-aunt to Pingdu city, where we were shut up in a dark room with two ferocious guard dogs outside the door. The dogs were fed human flesh every day and drooled whenever they saw a child. Great-Grandma and your great-aunt cried all night long. But not me. I went to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow and I didn’t wake up till the next morning. I don’t know how many days and nights we spent in that room until they moved us to a separate compound, where there was a lilac tree that smelled so good it made my head swim. A gentleman from the countryside in a long robe and formal cap came to invite us to a banquet hosted by Commander Sugitani. Your great-grandma and your great-aunt wept and did not dare accept the invitation. The gentleman said to me: Young lady, tell your grandmother and your mother there’s no need to be afraid. Commander Sugitani has no desire to harm you. All he wants is to be friends with Mr Wan Liufu. So, Grandma, Mother, I said, you can stop crying. It doesn’t do anybody any good. It won’t help you sprout wings, will it? Can you bring the Great Wall down with tears? The gentleman clapped his hands. Well spoken, young lady, you’re a smart one. You’re going to be someone special when you grow up. At my urging, your great-grandma and great-aunt stopped crying, and we all followed the gentleman over to a large wagon pulled by a black mule. After countless twists and turns, we entered a compound with a high gate, flanked by two military guards, a Chinese collaborator on the left and a Japanese soldier on the right. It was an enormous compound, with one courtyard after another as we went deeper and deeper, with no end in sight. Finally, we came up to a large reception hall in the middle of a garden, with sandalwood armchairs and windows framed by wooden carvings. Commander Sugitani was dressed in a kimono, slowly folding his fan in and out, the cultured man. After greeting us with some formal gibberish, he offered us seats around a large table overflowing with fine food. Your great-grandma and great-aunt wouldn’t even pick up their chopsticks, but I wasn’t shy, not about eating the little prick’s food. His pointed chopsticks were hard to use, so I dug in with my meat hooks, cramming food into my mouth. Sugitani held his wine cup and watched me eat, smiling the whole time. When I’d had all I could eat, I wiped my hands on the tablecloth and started to doze off. Would you like your father to come here, little girl? Sugitani asked. I opened my eyes. No, I said, I wouldn’t. Why not? My father is Eighth Route, you’re Japanese, and the Eighth Route fights the Japanese. Aren’t you afraid that’s what he’ll come to do?

Gugu paused and rolled up her sleeve to check her watch. There couldn’t have been more then ten wristwatches in all of Gaomi Township at the time, and Gugu wore one of them. Wow! my eldest brother exclaimed. He was the only member of the family who’d ever seen one before. He was enrolled in the county middle school, where he studied Russian, taught by a returnee from the Soviet Union, who also wore a wristwatch. My brother’s ‘Wow!’ was followed by a second exclamation: A wristwatch! My sister and I joined in: A wristwatch! we shouted.

Gugu rolled down her sleeve, feigning indifference, and said, It’s only a watch. What’s the big deal? That casual comment – intended as such – intensified our interest dramatically. My brother spoke up first: Gugu, I’ve only seen teacher Ji’s watch from a distance . . . can I take a look at yours? Please, Gugu, show it to us, we joined in.

She smiled. You little rascals, it’s just an old wristwatch, not worth looking at. But she took it off her wrist and handed it to him.

Be careful! Mother said.

My brother accepted the watch timidly, cradling it in his palm at first, and then put it up to his ear. When he was finished, he handed it to my sister, who handed it to my second brother when she was finished. He didn’t even have time to hold it up to his ear before Eldest Brother snatched it away and handed it back to Gugu. I showed how unhappy I was by crying.

Mother was quick to scold me: When you grow up, Xiaopao, you’ll run far enough away to have a watch of your own.

Him? Eldest Brother snapped. His own watch? I’ll draw one on his wrist tomorrow.

People cannot be judged by appearance alone any more than the ocean can be measured by bushels, Gugu said. Don’t be swayed by how ugly our Xiaopao is. He could grow up to be someone special.

If he becomes someone special, my sister said, then the pigs out in the sty can turn into tigers.

What country is this from, Gugu? Eldest Brother asked. What brand is it?

It’s Swiss, an Enicar.

Wow! he exclaimed. Second Brother and Sister echoed him.

Warty toads! I hissed angrily.

What’s it worth, Little Sister? Mother asked her.

I don’t know. It was a gift from a friend.

What sort of friend gives something that valuable? Mother said as she gave Gugu a searching look. Are we talking about a new uncle?

It’s almost midnight, Gugu said as she stood up. Bedtime.

Thank heavens my little sister is spoken for, Mother said.

Now don’t you go around saying things, Gugu said, giving us all a stern look. We haven’t even exchanged the horoscope for our birth dates. I’ll tan your hides if you do.

The next morning, maybe because he was feeling guilty for not letting me see Gugu’s watch the night before, my brother drew one on my wrist with a fountain pen. It looked like the real thing; it was beautiful, and I took pains to keep it that way. I kept it dry when I washed my hands and covered it up in the rain. Whenever it started to fade, I borrowed my brother’s pen to add ink. It stayed on my wrist for three whole months.

The man who gave Gugu the Enicar wristwatch was an air force pilot. In those days that was something to be excited about – an air force pilot! When they heard the news, my brothers and sisters croaked like an army of frogs, while I turned somersaults in the yard.

This was a joyous event for more than our family; the elation spilled across the township. Everyone considered a pilot the perfect match for Gugu. Cook Wang from the school kitchen, who had fought in the Korean War, was of the opinion that they were made of gold. Can you make a person out of gold? I asked him, filled with doubt. In front of the teachers and the commune cadres, who were eating their dinner, he said: How stupid can you be, Xiaopao Wan? What I mean is, the cost of training an air force pilot to the nation is the equal of seventy kilograms of gold. Oh, my, Mother said when I told her what Wang had said. How in the world are we supposed to treat your new uncle when he comes to the house?

We youngsters spread all sorts of fanciful talk about pilots. Chen Bi said his mother had seen a Soviet pilot when she lived in Harbin. They wore deerskin jackets, high-topped leather boots, had gold inlays in their mouths, wore gold wristwatches, ate black bread and sausage, and drank beer. Xiao Xiachun (Lower Lip, the characters later changed to summer and spring), son of Xiao Shangchun (Upper Lip), the granary watchman, said that China’s pilots ate better than their Soviet counterparts, and even created a menu, as if he were going to cook for them. Breakfast: two eggs, milk, four oily fritters, two steamed buns, and a chunk of pickled tofu. Lunch: braised pork, a whole croaker, and two large corn cakes. Dinner: roasted chicken, two pork buns, two mutton buns, and a bowl of millet congee. Fruit, of course, after each meal: bananas, apples, pears, grapes . . . whatever they couldn’t eat they could take home. Pilots’ leather jackets had two large pockets. What for? For carrying fruit. What people said about the pilots made us drool. We all dreamed of one day becoming air force pilots and living a magical life.

When the air force announced that they were coming to our county’s Number One High School to recruit pilots, my eldest brother signed up excitedly. Our great granddad had worked as a landlord’s hired hand, was a tenant farmer, and served the People’s Liberation Army as a stretcher-bearer. He’d fought in the battle of Mengliang Mesa and was one of those who’d carried the body of Zhang Lingfu down the mountain. My maternal grandmother’s family was also dirt poor. Add to all that the fact that my great granddad was a revolutionary martyr, and our family background and social status were above reproach. One day my brother, who was a high school sports star, a discus thrower, came home for lunch and feasted on a fat lamb’s tail. Back at school that afternoon, he had energy to burn, so he picked up a discus and flung it over the school wall into the field beyond. It so happened that the farmer was ploughing his field at that moment, and the discus hit his water buffalo’s horn, slicing it off. All this is to say that my brother’s background was unimpeachable, his grades in school were excellent, he was especially fit, and his aunt was going to marry an air force pilot. Everyone naturally assumed that even if they only picked one candidate from our county, it would surely be him. He wasn’t chosen. The reason: a scar on his leg from a childhood boil. Our school cook told us that scars were immediate disqualifiers, because the pressure of high-altitude flying would cause them to rupture. Even a set of uneven nostrils would squelch one’s chances.

In sum, from the time my aunt began a romantic relationship with the pilot, we were alert to anything having to do with the air force. I’m now in my fifties, and still haven’t shaken off the essence of vanity or my penchant for showing off, someone who would blare all over town the news that he’d won a hundred yuan in the lottery. Just think, I was only in elementary school and had a future uncle who was an air force pilot. You can imagine how insufferable that made me.

The Jiaozhou airport was fifty li south of our village; the Gaomi airport was sixty li to the west of us. Aeroplanes flying in and out of the Jiaozhou airfield were big, black, and very slow – bombers according to what the adults told us. Aeroplanes that used the Gaomi airfield were swept-wing, silvery aircraft that left contrails and could make spectacular manoeuvres. Eldest Brother said they were Jian-5s, modelled after Soviet MIG-17s, elite fighter planes, the ones that shot the shit out of US jets during the Korean War. Needless to say, these were the planes our future uncle flew, at a time when war fever was at its peak, and training manoeuvres filled the skies over the Gaomi airfield every day. They swept over the township, opening up a site for dogfights. Three more planes arrived one moment, then six, one plane nipping at the tail of another. Suddenly one plane went into a steep dive, pulling up just before crashing into a pine tree at the head of our village and soaring back into the sky like a sparrow hawk. One day there was a thunderous explosion in the sky – Gugu told us she was assisting an older woman who was experiencing convulsions from anxiety, preparing to use her scalpel, when the explosion startled the woman, breaking her concentration; the convulsions stopped, and with one push, the child emerged. The explosion tore the paper window coverings in every house in the village. Shocked by the sound, we couldn’t move for a moment, until our teacher led us outside, where we looked up into a clear blue sky and saw several aeroplanes chasing one that was towing a tubular object. We saw puffs of white smoke emerge from the tubular object, followed by earsplitting explosions. But these bursts of cannon fire weren’t nearly as powerful as the blast that had pounded our eardrums just a moment before, the second most powerful explosion I’ve heard in my entire life. Not even a lightning strike powerful enough to split a willow tree in half made that much noise. It seemed as though the fliers did not want to bring the target down, since the puffs of white smoke appeared near but not on the tubular object. Even as it disappeared from view, it had not suffered a direct hit. Chen Bi rubbed his nose, which had earned him the affectionate title of ‘Little Russian’, and sneered: China’s flyboys can’t hit a damned thing. If those had been Soviet pilots, one burst would have brought that target down! I knew his comment stemmed from jealousy towards me. Born and reared in our village, he’d never seen a Soviet dog, let alone one of its air force’s top guns.

At the time we kids, who lived in an out-of-the-way village, had no idea that Sino-Russian relations were deteriorating. Chen Bi’s unflattering comparison of Soviet and Chinese fliers made us all – especially me – unhappy, but no one’s thoughts went beyond that. Years later, at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, when we were in the fifth grade, our classmate Xiao Xiachun exposed this incident from the past, not only causing trouble for Chen Bi, but leading ultimately to the deaths of his parents. The Soviet novel
A Real Man
, about a Soviet Air Force hero who returned to active duty after both feet were amputated, was discovered in his house. Based upon a true story, this novel of revolutionary inspiration was proof to the mobs that Chen Bi’s mother, Ailian, was the Soviet hero’s lover and that Chen Bi was their bastard offspring.

While the Jian-5 fighter planes were training, the Jiaozhou airfield aircraft were not idle. They went out at night, every night around nine o’clock, which was about the time the nightly local broadcast was coming to an end. Airfield searchlights abruptly lit up the sky, their broad beams beginning to break up in the sky above our village, though they sent shivers through us anyway. I was always saying stupid things at the worst possible moment. Wouldn’t it be great if I had a flashlight like that! I remarked. Stupid! Second brother said as he rapped my head with his knuckles. Of course, since we were about to gain a special uncle, my second brother had become a sort of expert in flying affairs; he’d committed to memory the names of all the volunteer pilots and could recite the details of their heroic achievements. He was also the one who told me once, when he asked me to check him for fleas, that the explosion that ripped the paper in our window coverings was called a sonic boom, caused by a plane breaking the sound barrier. What does that mean? I asked. It means going faster than the speed of sound, you dope. When the Jiaozhou bombers flew training missions, the mesmerising searchlight beams were the only things worth talking about. Some people said they weren’t for the sake of training, but were intended to guide lost planes home. The beams swung back and forth, crossing in places, moving together in others, occasionally capturing a bird in mid flight and throwing it off balance, like a fly caught in a bottle. In the end, after a few minutes of watching the searchlights, we heard the roar of an aeroplane engine, and then spotted the outline of a big black object in the sky, its outline visible because of the lights on its nose, tail and wingtips. It gave the impression of sliding down a beam of light to its nest. Aeroplanes have nests, just as chickens do.