Frog

A woman caused a scene not long ago, young Flathead said. She wrecked Uncle Yuan’s car. You see, her old man got romantically involved with his surrogate, and as soon as his son was born, he dumped her. That’s why I’m sure your wife won’t let you do it.

… She’s really doing it to me, has got me hot and half crazed. She’s putting something over it. What are you doing? Is this really necessary? No answer…

If all you want is a son, and you’re not interested in tasting the forbidden fruit, I’ll give you a money-saving hint. It’s a well-kept secret that Uncle Yuan employs several inexpensive surrogates. They’re scary-ugly, but they weren’t born that way. They were beautiful once, by which I mean they have great genes. I’m sure you heard about that disastrous fire at the Dongli Stuffed Animal Factory, old uncle. Five girls from Northeast Township died in that fire. Three others survived the fire, but were terribly disfigured. Their lives ever since have been sheer agony. Uncle Yuan took them in out of the goodness of his heart, seeing that they had plenty to eat as well as a way to make a living and save up for old age. Naturally, they do their job without sexual contact. Your sperm is inserted into their uterus, and you take the child after it’s born. They don’t charge much — fifty thousand for a boy, thirty for a girl…

… She’s made me howl. I feel like I’ve fallen into an abyss. She gently covers me and leaves…

Old Uncle, I recommend…

Are you pimping for Yuan Sai?

How could you even think of using an old term like that, old uncle? He laughed. I’m one of Uncle Yuan’s professional associates, and I’m grateful to you, Uncle Xiao, for giving me the chance to make a little money. I’ll give Uncle Yuan a call now. He steadied the raft and took out his cell phone. Sorry, I said, but I’m not your Uncle Xiao, and I don’t need what you’re selling.

8

Sensei, Little Lion and I had a fight a couple of days ago and, in the heat of the moment, I wound up with a bloody nose. Blood even stained the paper I was writing the letter on, which I decided to continue, even with a headache. When I’m writing my play I need to choose every word and craft every sentence with care, but a letter is a different matter. Anyone who knows a few hundred characters and has something to say can write a letter. Back when my first wife, Wang Renmei, wrote to me, she used drawings when she didn’t know how to write something. Xiaopao, she’d say apologetically, I’m not an educated woman, and drawing is about all I can do. You are, too, I’d respond. Using drawings to ‘say’ what you mean is the same as creating new characters. Why don’t I create a son for you, Xiaopao? she said. We’ll create a son.

Sensei, after my conversation with the young Flathead on his raft, I nervously came to a conclusion that has troubled me a great deal: Little Lion, this woman who harbours an insane desire for a child, relieved me of my sperm and inserted it into the body of one of those deformed women. The image of countless little tadpoles encircling an egg floats into my mind, reminding me of my childhood, when we’d watch tadpoles in the shallows of the dried pond behind the village nibbling a water-soaked bun. The surrogate mother is none other than the daughter of my schoolmate Chen Bi, Chen Mei, in whose womb my child is growing.

I rushed over to the bullfrog farm, meeting a number of people on the way, some of whom waved to me, though I couldn’t tell you the name of a single one. Through a crack in the automatic gate I caught my second glimpse of the frog sculpture and shivered from a clammy, menacing feeling, though maybe it was only a trick of memory. Six girls in colourful outfits were dancing in the square in front of the squat building, waving floral wreaths to the accompaniment of a man sitting off to the side playing a squeezebox. More than likely rehearsing for some sort of performance. Days of peace, sunlight and breezes, and nothing happened, so maybe it was something I had imagined. I needed to find a place to sit down and think hard about my play.

‘Timid as a mouse when nothing is wrong, bold as a tiger when events are strong’, and ‘When your luck is good, it can’t be bad; when your luck is bad, you’ve been had’. Those were lessons my father taught me. Old folks are usually a storehouse of warnings. Thoughts of my father reminded me that I was hungry. I was fifty-five, and though I mustn’t refer to myself as old in front of my father, I was already more than halfway home and on a downward slide. There is nothing a man in the sunset of his life, someone who has retired early to return to live in his childhood hometown, needs to fear. That thought made me even hungrier.