I woke up with a start, feeling cold all over. My cousin walked in with Little Lion, who was holding swaddling clothes, from which husky cries emerged. My heartiest congratulations, my cousin said softly, you have a son.
My cousin drove us to my father’s village, which had already been incorporated into a metropolitan district. As I wrote in a previous letter, it is a village that retains its cultural characteristics on orders from our county chief — now promoted to mayor — with the early Cultural Revolution style of buildings, slogans painted on the walls, revolutionary signs at the head of the village, loudspeakers mounted on poles, an open spot for bringing the production brigade together… dawn had broken, but there was no one on the streets, only some early morning buses speeding along with a few ghost-like passengers, and some street sweepers, with everything but their eyes covered, raising clouds of dust with their brooms on the pedestrian paths. I desperately wanted to see the baby’s face, but the look on Little Lion’s face — more sombre than a pregnant woman, weary, and overjoyed — nipped that thought in the bud. A red bandana was wrapped around her head, her lips were chapped as she held the baby close to her and kept burying her face in the blankets, either to look at her baby or to inhale his smell.
We had already moved everything the baby would need to Father’s place, mainly because it was so difficult to find a milk goat, and Father had arranged to buy milk from a villager named Du. They were raising a pair of milk cows that together produced a hundred jin of milk every day. Father made it clear that they were not to add anything to the milk they sold us. Grandpa, the villager said, if you don’t trust us, you can come milk them yourself.
My cousin pulled up and parked outside my father’s gate. He was waiting for us. With him were my second sister-in-law and some young women, probably nephews’ wives. Second Sister-in-law grabbed the baby as the young women carried Little Lion out of the car and into the yard, and from there into the room we’d prepared for her convalescence.
Second Sister-in-law opened the bundle to let Father set eyes on this late arriving grandson. Wonderful, he said over and over, tears in his eyes. And when I saw the dark-haired, ruddy-faced infant, my heart filled with emotions, my eyes with tears.
Sensei, this child helped me recapture my youth and my inspiration. While the gestation and birth might have been more difficult, more torturous than most, and while issues concerning his status might create some thorny problems, as my aunt said, Once it’s seen the light of day, it’s a life and will become a legal citizen of the country, entitled to all the rights and benefits of the country. If there is trouble, that is for those of us who permitted him to come into the world to deal with. What we have to give to him is love, nothing more.
Sensei, tomorrow I will spread out some writing paper and complete the laboured birth of this play. My next letter will include a play that might never see the stage:
Frog.
Book Five
~ ~ ~
Dear Sensei,
I finally finished the play.
So many things in real life are tangled up in the story told in my play that when I was writing I sometimes could not tell if it was a true-to-life record or a fictional work. I finished it in a period of five days, like a child who can’t wait to tell his parents what he’s seen or thought. I know it’s a bit of an affectation to compare myself to a child, but that is exactly what I was feeling.
This play ought to constitute an organic part of my aunt’s story. Though some of the incidents did not actually occur, they did in my mind, and that makes them real to me.
Sensei, I used to think that writing could be a means of attaining redemption, but when the play was finished, instead of lessening, my feelings of guilt actually grew more intense. Although I can trot out an array of rationalisations to absolve myself of responsibility for the deaths of Renmei and the child in her womb — my child, too, of course — and place the blame on Gugu, the army, Yuan Sai, even Renmei herself — that is what I did for decades — now I understand with greater clarity than at any other time that I was not just the chief culprit, but the only one. For the sake of my so-called ‘future’, I sent Renmei and her child straight to Hell. I tried to imagine that the child carried by Chen Mei was the reincarnation of the unborn child, but that was nothing but self-consolation. It served the same function as Gugu’s clay dolls. Every child is unique, irreplaceable. Can blood on one’s hands never be washed clean? Can a soul entangled in guilt never be free?
I long to hear your answers, Sensei.
Tadpole
3 June 2009
Frog: A PLAY IN 9 ACTS
Dramatis Personae
GUGU, a retired obstetrician, in her seventies
TADPOLE, playwright, Gugu’s nephew, in his fifties
LITTLE LION, one-time assistant to Gugu, Tadpole’s wife, in her fifties
CHEN MEI, surrogate mother, in her twenties, a fire victim with a disfigured face
CHEN BI, Chen Mei’s father, Tadpole’s elementary schoolmate, a vagrant in his fifties
YUAN SAI, Tadpole’s elementary schoolmate, Bullfrog Company boss, secretly engaged in a ‘surrogate mother company’, in his fifties
COUSIN, Jin Xiu by name, Tadpole’s cousin, Yuan Sai’s subordinate, in his forties
LI SHOU, Tadpole’s elementary schoolmate, restaurant owner, in his fifties
STATION CHIEF, police officer in his forties
WEI YING, policewoman, a recent police academy graduate, in her twenties
HAO DASHOU, a folk artist, Gugu’s husband
QIN HE, a folk artist, Gugu’s admirer
LIU GUIFANG, Tadpole’s elementary schoolmate, manager of the county guesthouse
GAO MENGJIU, Gaomi County Chief during the Republic of China era