Gugu walked over and stood in front of my father-in-law, where she hung her head and said, Wang family parents, it’s not Xiaopao’s fault. You can blame me. Blame me for not being responsible enough, for not checking carefully to see that women of child-bearing age were properly fitted with intra-uterine devices, for not considering the possibility that the no-good Yuan Sai had the skill to remove an intra-uterine device, and for not sending Renmei to the hospital for the procedure. Now — she looked over at the Party secretary — I am prepared to accept punishment from my superiors.
What’s done is done, the Party secretary said as he turned to my in-laws. We’ll go back to decide the compensation you two deserve. But Dr Wan did nothing wrong. It just happened, a result of your daughter’s unique physical constitution. Even going to the hospital would not have changed the outcome. In addition — the secretary raised his voice for the benefit of the people crowding into the yard and emerging from the lane — family planning is a national policy that cannot be changed because of an unfortunate accident. Women with illegal pregnancies should volunteer to have the pregnancies terminated. Anyone who is considering an illegal pregnancy or planning to circumvent family-planning policy will be severely punished.
It’s your turn! my mother-in-law shrieked as she took a pair of scissors from her pocket and stabbed my aunt in the thigh.
Gugu pressed her hand against the wound to staunch the blood that seeped out between her fingers.
Commune cadres rushed up, pinned my mother-in-law to the ground, and wrenched the scissors out of her hand.
Little Lion crouched down beside Gugu, opened her medical kit and took out a bandage, which she wrapped around Gugu’s leg.
Get on the phone, the Party secretary shouted, and send for an ambulance.
There’s no need for that, Gugu said. Renmei’s mother, I gave your daughter 600 ccs of my blood. Now our blood debt is paid in full.
Gugu’s movements caused the blood to flow more freely than ever.
How could you, old woman! the enraged Party secretary said. You’ll pay for it if anything happens to Chairwoman Wan.
The sight of all that blood must have frightened my mother-in-law. Once again she beat the ground and howled.
This is nothing to worry about, Renmei’s mother, Gugu said. Even if I get tetanus and die, you’re not responsible. I want to thank you for stabbing me. I can now cast off my burden and strengthen my beliefs — she turned to face the people drawn to the commotion and announced — Please pass the word to Chen Bi and Wang Dan to come to the health centre and ask for me. If they don’t — she waved her bloodstained hand in the air — even if she hid in an underground tomb, I’ll go dig her up!
Book Three
~ ~ ~
Dear Sugitani Akihito sensei,
It’s New Year’s day, January first. It has been snowing since yesterday evening. The world outside my window is blanketed by white, and children are already out there playing boisterously. A pair of magpies is calling in the poplar tree in front of my house, chittering like they’d been pleasantly surprised.
My heart was heavy after reading your response, knowing that my letter had caused you to lose sleep and suffer physically. Your expression of sympathy has touched me deeply. You cried when you read the part where Renmei died; writing it had the same effect on me. I did not blame Gugu, she did nothing wrong. Even though she’s expressed remorse more frequently in recent years, saying she had blood on her hands, that’s history, and history is all about effects, not what caused them. One gazes upon China’s Great Wall or the Egyptian pyramids without a thought to the blanched bones buried beneath these magnificent edifices. Over the past two decades China has resolved the problem of its population explosion by draconian measures, not only for the sake of the country’s development, but as a contribution to humanity. When all is said and done, we live together on this tiny planet, with its finite resources. Once they’re gone, they’re not coming back, and seen from this perspective, Westerners’ critiques of China’s family-planning policies are unfair.
There have been significant changes in my hometown over the past couple of years. The new Party secretary is a young man in his late thirties with an American PhD, bold vision, and lofty goals. We’ve been told that he plans to develop the area on both sides of the Jiao River, and to that end, construction equipment has begun rumbling into the area. Within a few years, you won’t be able to recognise the place, with all its changes. Much of what you saw when you were here will be gone. Whether these coming changes will work to the area’s advantage or disadvantage is impossible to say.
I will include the third portion of material about my aunt with this letter — I’m embarrassed to call it a letter. I will, of course, keep writing. Your praise is all the encouragement I need.
Let me repeat our heartfelt invitation for you to visit us again at your convenience — maybe we should welcome you with the sort of treatment reserved for old and dear friends.
One more thing. My wife and I will soon retire and move back to our hometown. In Beijing we have always felt like outsiders. Not long ago, near the People’s Theatre, we were pilloried for two hours by a pair of women who, we were told, had grown up in a Beijing lane, one of its famous hutongs, which cemented our desire to return to our roots. We don’t expect the people back home to mistreat us like the people in big cities do. And maybe I’ll be closer to literature there.
Tadpole
New Year’s Day, 2004
Beijing
1
After dealing with Renmei’s funeral and putting things in order at home, I rushed back to my unit. A month later I received a telegram informing me that Mother had died. I took the telegram to my superior and asked for more leave. At the same time I handed him a request to transfer to civilian life.
On the night of Mother’s funeral, the yard was bathed in silvery moonlight. My daughter was sleeping on a rush mat laid out beneath the pear tree. Father was fanning her to keep the mosquitoes away. Katydids chirping on the bean trellis added to the sound of water flowing in the river.
You should find someone, Father said with a sigh. With no women in the family, this doesn’t seem like a home.
I’ve sent in a request to return to civilian life, I said. So let’s wait till I come back home.
Everything was going along fine, he said with another sigh, and look how it’s turned out. I don’t even know who to blame.
You can’t blame Gugu, I said. She didn’t do anything wrong.
I wasn’t blaming her, he said. It was just our fate.
Without dedicated people like Gugu, I said, government policy would be impossible to implement.
What you say makes sense, but why did it have to be her? It broke my heart to see her get stabbed in the leg and bleed like that. She is, after all, my cousin.
Nothing we can do about that, I said.
2
According to Father, after my mother-in-law stabbed Gugu, the wound became infected and Gugu spiked a high fever that stubbornly hung on. Yet that did not stop her from leading a team to search for and arrest Wang Dan. The term sounds unduly harsh, but that’s what they used.