Frog (6 page)

Sensei, the next day my nephew, curious to learn more about Wang Xiaoti, came home on his motorcycle and asked my father to take him to see Gugu. You don’t want to do that, my father said. She’s nearly seventy and she’s had a difficult life. I’m afraid you’ll upset her by bringing up the past. Besides, she’d find it hard to talk about that in front of her husband.

Xiangqun, I said, listen to your grandfather. Since you want to hear what happened, I’ll tell you what I know. Actually, all you have to do is go online to get most of the details.

I’ve long planned to write a novel based on Gugu’s life – now, of course, that’s changed into a play – and Wang Xiaoti will figure prominently. The work has been twenty years in preparation. Relying on connections, I’ve interviewed many people from that time, made special trips to the three airfields where Wang had served, visited his hometown in Zhejiang, interviewed one of his squadron comrades-in-arms as well as his commander and deputy commander, actually climbed into the cockpit of his Jian-5, and interviewed the one-time head of the county security bureau’s anti-espionage unit, and the one-time security division head at the county health department. I don’t mind saying that I know more than anyone else; my only regret is that I never got to meet Wang Xiaoti himself. But your father got Great-Aunt’s OK to sneak into a theatre before they arrived to see a movie. He saw Wang and Gugu enter hand-in-hand. He was sitting close enough to Wang to be able to describe him for us: Five-nine, maybe a bit taller, fair skin, a long, gaunt face, eyes on the small side, but alert. Sparkling white, even teeth.

Your father said they were showing a Soviet version of Ostrovsky’s novel
How the Steel Was Tempered
. He was watching Wang Xiaoti and your aunt’s movements and gestures until he was drawn to the love and revolution themes of the movie. In those days, many Chinese youngsters had Soviet pen pals. That included your father, who was writing to a girl named Tonia, the same as the girl in the movie. He got so caught up in what was happening on the screen that he neglected his vital mission. That isn’t to say the scheme was a total failure, since he was able to get a look at Wang before the movie began and could smell the sweets on Wang’s breath when they were changing reels (back then theatres had only a single projector). Naturally he also smelled and heard the sunflower seed and peanut eaters in front and behind. Back then you could eat almost anything in theatres, resulting in a thick layer of wrappers, melon seeds and peanut shells on the floor. When the movie was over, in the bright lights at the lobby entrance, Wang pushed his bicycle up to ride your great-aunt back to the health centre dormitory (she had a temporary assignment at the health centre). Wang Xiaoti, she said with a little laugh, I want to introduce you to someone. Your father was hiding in the shadows behind a column in the entrance. Wang looked all around. Who? Where is he? Wan Kou, come over here. Your father stepped shyly out from behind the column. He was about Wang’s height back then, but skinny as a rail. All that talk about hurling a discus over the school wall and slicing off an ox’s horn was just that – talk. His hair looked like a magpie’s nest. This is my nephew, Wan Kou, your great-aunt said by way of an introduction. Aha! Wang slapped your father on the shoulder. A spy, I see. Wang Kou, that’s a good name. Wang reached out his hand. Nice to meet you, pal. I’m Wang Xiaoti. Apparently overwhelmed by the attention, your father grabbed Wang’s hand with both of his and shook it spiritedly.

Your father said he went to look up Wang at the airfield after that, and was treated to a casual air force meal of braised prawns, spicy chicken nuggets, eggs and day lily, and as much rice as he could eat. His description of the meal made us green with envy. For me, there was pride as well. Not just because it was Wang Xiaoti, but because I had a brother who’d eaten in the air force mess.

Wang Xiaoti also gave your father a harmonica, a very expensive one. Your father characterised Wang as multi-talented. He wasn’t a bad basketball player, who could shoot from all angles, and as well as the harmonica, he could play the accordion; he was also a fine calligrapher and painter. He had tacked a sketch of his onto the wall, a portrait of Gugu. There wasn’t a blemish in his family background. His father was a high-ranking Party cadre, his mother a university professor. Why would someone like that fly to Taiwan and go down as a thoroughly reviled defector?

Wang’s squadron commander said he’d defected after secretly listening to enemy propaganda broadcasts. He had a short-wave radio capable of receiving broadcasts from Taiwan, in particular a KMT station announcer with a sweet and highly alluring voice who called herself ‘Night Air Rose’; a real killer, she was, he assumed, and what ultimately turned Wang into a defector. Did that mean my aunt wasn’t attractive enough for him? The doddering former squadron commander said: Your aunt wasn’t bad, with an excellent family background, good-looking, and a Party member. By standards of that time she was an ideal catch, and we all envied Wang Xiaoti. But your aunt was too revolutionary, too principled, and not appealing enough for someone like Wang, who had fallen for the poisonous appeal of bourgeois thinking. Afterward, the security division examined Wang’s diary, in which he had given your aunt the nickname ‘Red Blockhead’. It was a good thing they had his diary, his squadron commander said, for it left your aunt in the clear. Without it, she could not have recaptured her good name even if she’d jumped into the cleansing waters of the Yellow River.

Sensei, I told my nephew that his great-aunt wasn’t the only one who nearly met destruction by Wang’s hand. The authorities investigated your father several times, I said, and that harmonica was confiscated as evidence of Wang Xiaoti’s corruptive influence on the young. He’d written in his diary:
Red Blockhead introduced her dumb nephew to me, another Red Blockhead, and he had a goofy name: Wan Kou, Wan Mouth!
Again, it was that diary that saved your father.

Maybe Wang did all that on purpose, my nephew said.

Your great-aunt came to that conclusion later. She believed that Wang had left his diary behind to protect her. That’s why last night she said that he’d ruined her, but he’d also saved her.

Sensei, my nephew was mainly interested in how Wang Xiaoti managed to defect. He especially admired Wang’s flying skill. He said the slightest miscalculation while flying eight hundred kilometres an hour no higher than five metres above the water could have sent his Jian-5 plunging into the ocean. It was a skillful, gutsy performance, according to the youngster. There’s no denying his cockpit mastery, regardless of weather conditions. Before his defection, every time he flew a training mission over our village, he’d wow us with his aerobatics. We used to say he could fly down to the watermelon patch on the eastern edge of the village, pluck a melon out of the ground, and, with a wing wave, soar back up into the clouds.

Did they really reward him over there with five thousand ounces of gold? my nephew asked.

Maybe, I said. But even ten thousand ounces wouldn’t be worth it. You mustn’t envy him, Xiangqun. Money and beautiful women are as transient as floating clouds. Country, honour, and family are the only true treasures.

You must be joking, Third Uncle, he said. Who says things like that in this day and age?

In the spring of 1961, after Gugu came out from under the cloud of the Wang Xiaoti incident, she returned to work at the obstetrics ward in the health centre. Over a two-year period, however, not a single infant was born in any of the more than forty villages that made up the People’s commune. The reason? Famine, of course.

Hunger disrupted women’s menstrual cycles. Hunger turned men into eunuchs. The obstetrics ward included only Gugu and a middle-aged doctor named Huang. Dr Huang was a graduate of a prominent medical school, but because of a questionable family background and her own history as a rightist, she’d been exiled to a rural health centre. Every time she mentioned the woman’s name, Gugu could barely contain her anger. The woman had a strange disposition. Some days she might not say a word to anyone, on other days she’d be bitterly sarcastic, talking a blue streak. She could give a lengthy speech to a spittoon.

Gugu stopped going home so often after her mother died, but whenever there was something special on the table, Mother had my sister send some over to Gugu. One day my father got his hands on half a rabbit in the field, probably the remnant of a hawk’s meal. Mother went out and picked half a basket of wild greens and cooked them together with the rabbit. She wrapped up a bowlful of the meat and told my sister to take it over to Gugu. When she said she wouldn’t do it, I volunteered. You can go, Mother said, but don’t sneak some of it for yourself on the way. And keep your eyes open while you’re walking. I don’t want you breaking that bowl.

The health centre was about ten li from our house. I started off trotting, wanting to get there while the rabbit meat was still warm. But my stomach began to growl at the same time as my legs began to ache, and I was sweating and light-headed. In short, I was hungry. The two bowls of porridge with greens I’d eaten that morning had passed through my stomach and the smell of the cooked rabbit was seeping through the wrapping. A debate, soon to develop into an argument, between me and myself broke out. Have a bite, one me said, just one bite. No, the other me countered, you have to be an honest boy and do what your mother said. My hand came close to undoing the wrapping more than once, but the image of Mother’s face flashed into my mind.

Mulberry trees lined both sides of the road from our village to the health centre, all stripped bare of leaves by famine victims. I broke off a branch and began gnawing on it, finding its sharp, bitter taste hard to swallow. But then I spotted a cicada that had just emerged from its cocoon, a nice soft yellow, its wings not yet dry. Ecstatic, I flung down the mulberry branch, scooped up the cicada and popped it into my mouth. Cicadas were a nutritious delicacy to us, but only after they were fried. By eating this one raw I saved on fuel and time. It had a fresh taste and, I was willing to bet, was more nutritious than if it had been fried. I searched all the trees as I walked along, but found no more cicadas. I did, however, find a fancy coloured handbill showing a young man with a glowing face holding a lovely young woman in his arms. The text read:
Communist Air Force pilot Wang Xiaoti has left the dark side and flown into the light, where he is now a Nationalist Air Force Brigadier General. He has received five thousand ounces of gold, and is the glorious mate of the famed songstress Miss Tao Lili.
My hunger abruptly forgotten, I experienced a strange and powerful emotion. I felt like screaming. In school I’d heard that the Nationalists sent reactionary handbills across the Strait by balloon, but I never thought I’d actually see one or that it could be quite so flashy. And I had to admit that the woman in the photograph was better-looking than Gugu.

Gugu and Dr Huang were having a heated argument when I walked into the ward. Dr Huang wore a pair of dark glasses over a hooked nose, thin lips, and exposed, badly stained teeth – in future years Gugu would often remind us that staying single was preferable to marrying a woman whose teeth showed when they talked – there was a gloomy cast in her eyes that sent chills down my back. I heard her say, How do you get off telling me what to do? You were still in nappies when I was in medical school!

Gugu gave her tit for tat: Don’t think I don’t know that you, Huang Qiuya, are a capitalist’s daughter and were the campus queen in med school. Did you wave a flag to welcome the arrival of the Japanese into the city? Did you dance cheek to cheek with Japanese officers? Well, when you were dancing with them, I was in Pingdu engaged in a battle of wits with the Japanese commander there.

The woman sneered. Got any witnesses? I’d like to know who saw you have your battle of wits with the commander.

The mountains and rivers are my witnesses.

I couldn’t, I mustn’t, under any circumstances let Gugu see that handbill, not now.

What are you doing here? she asked unhappily. And what’s this?

A reactionary handbill, one of the KMT’s reactionary handbills. My voice quavered with excitement.

Gugu barely looked at it, but I saw her body tense, a spasm like she’d been shocked. Her eyes grew wide, the blood fled from her face. She flung the handbill away as if it were a snake – no, a frog.

When she had regained her composure and bent down to retrieve it, she was too late.

Huang Qiuya had already picked it up and examined it. She looked up, glanced at Gugu, and took another look at the handbill. A green glare emerged from behind those dark glasses. That was followed by an icy laugh.

Gugu sprang at the woman to snatch the handbill back, but Huang spun around to prevent that. So Gugu grabbed the back of Huang’s smock and shouted, Give me that!

Huang lurched forward to free herself, and we heard her smock rip, exposing her back, which was the white of a frog’s belly.

I said give me that!

Huang turned around, but held the handbill behind her back; she was shaking as she moved slowly towards the door.

Give it back? she said with a sinister, smug look. Hah! You dog of a spy, defector’s woman. The defector took all he wanted from you, you slut! Scared, are you? Have you quit selling the stink of your so-called martyr’s descendant?

Gugu, maddened by the comment, charged Huang.

Huang ran into the corridor. We’ve got a spy! she cried. Come catch the spy!

Gugu followed her into the corridor, where she grabbed her by the hair; even with her neck bent back, Huang thrust the handbill out in front, her cries even more shrill. Treatment rooms were in the front of the health centre, offices in the rear. Everyone heard her cries and came into the corridor to see what was happening. Gugu had by then pushed Huang to the floor and was straddling her as she fought to retrieve the handbill.

The director, a bald, middle-aged man, ran up. He had bags under his long, narrow eyes and blindingly white false teeth. Stop that! he shouted. What’s going on?

Gugu fought harder to pry open Huang’s fingers, apparently not hearing the director. By this time Huang Qiuya’s screams had turned into tearful wails.

Stop that, Wan Xin! the director demanded angrily. And you people, he said loudly to the rubberneckers, have you all gone blind? Pull those two apart!

Two male doctors went up and, with difficulty, pulled Gugu off Huang.

Two female doctors picked Huang up off the floor.

Huang’s dark glasses had fallen off and there was a trickle of blood from her gums. Cloudy tears poured from her sunken eyes. But she was still clutching the handbill. Director, she bellowed, you have to back me on this!

Gugu’s clothes were pulled this way and that, and her face was ashen. A pair of bloody gouges marred her cheeks, obviously from Huang Qiuya’s nails.

What’s this all about, Wan Xin?

Gugu’s face wore a desolate smile; tears fell from her eyes. She threw the torn pieces of the handbill in her hand to the floor and, without a word, walked unsteadily back to the ward.

Like someone who has performed heroically under brutal circumstances, Huang Qiuya handed the crumpled remains of the handbill to the director and then got down on her hands and knees to feel around for her glasses, which she found and put back on, holding them to her face since one of the arms was broken. When she saw the torn pieces Gugu had thrown away, she frantically scooped them up, as if she’d found hidden treasure.

What’s this? asked the director as he smoothed out the handbill.

A reactionary handbill, said Huang as she handed him the torn fragments, as if they were treasured gifts. Don’t forget these, they’re the rest of what the defector Wang Xiaoti sent to Wan Xin.

The curious doctors and nurses were transfixed.

Suffering from a case of far-sightedness, the director held the handbill out at arm’s length so he could read it. The doctors and nurses crowded around him.

What are you people looking at? What’s there to see? Get back to work, he scolded as he put away the handbill. Come with me, Dr Huang.

The doctors and nurses wasted no time in sharing their views of the incident as Huang followed the director to his office.

Gugu’s heart-rending wails erupted from the obstetrics ward, and I was suddenly aware of what a destructive thing I’d done. I stepped nervously into the ward, where I saw Gugu sitting with her head down on a table, crying and pounding her fists on the tabletop.

Gugu, I said, Mother sent me over with some rabbit for you.

She ignored me, just kept crying.

I laid my bundle down on the table, opened it, and placed the bowl of rabbit meat next to her head.

Gugu swept the bowl off the table with her arm. It shattered on the floor.

Get out of here! Go! Go! She raised her head to scream at me. Get out of my sight, you little bastard!