Frog

Sensei, I spotted Chen Bi and his dog behind a large column to the right of the temple entrance. Unlike the local mutt that wound up under the wheels of the police car, this was an obviously noble foreign breed with black spots all over its body. Why in the world would a dog with that pedigree choose to partner up with a vagrant? While it seemed to be a mystery, on second thought it wasn’t so surprising. Here in developing Northeast Gaomi Township, it was common for the foreign and the domestic to come together, for good and bad to coexist, for beauty and ugliness to be indistinguishable, and for truth and falseness to look the same. Many faddish members of the nouveau riche could not wait to raise a tiger as a pet when the money was rolling in, and were anxious to sell their wives to pay off their debts when the money petered out. So many of the stray dogs on the street were once the costly playthings of the rich. In the previous century, when the Russian Revolution erupted, hordes of rich White Russian women were stranded in the city of Harbin, where they were forced to sell their bodies for bread or marry coolie labourers. They produced a generation of mixed children, one of whom could have been Chen Bi, with his high nose and sunken eyes. The spotted abandoned dog and Chen Bi appeared to belong to similar species. My thoughts were running wild. At a distance of a dozen metres or so, I watched the two of them. A pair of crutches rested beside him, a red cloth spread out in front. On the cloth, predictably, was a written plea for charity for a disabled man. From time to time, a bejewelled woman would bend down and place money — paper or a few coins — in the metal bowl. Every time that happened the dog looked up and rewarded the woman with three gentle, emotional barks. Three barks, no more, no fewer. The charitable woman would be moved, some to the extent of digging in her purse a second time. I’d given up my idea of paying him to talk Chen Mei into terminating the pregnancy and approached him now more out of curiosity than anything, wanting to see what was written on the red cloth — the bad habit of a writer. Here’s what it said: I am Iron-Crutch Li, come to the human world with a heavenly jade dog. My aunt the Fertility Goddess has sent me here to beg for alms. Your charity will reward you with a son, who will ride the streets as scholar number one.

I assumed that the lines had come from Wang Gan, and that the calligraphy was Li Shou’s, each using his unique talent to help an old classmate. He had rolled up the baggy cuffs of his pants to expose legs like rotten eggplants, and I was reminded of a story Mother had told me:

After Iron-Crutch Li became an immortal, one day there was no kindling at home for cooking, so his wife asked him: What shall we use for a fire? My leg, he said. With that he stuck one of his legs into the belly of the stove and lit it. The fire roared, water in the pot boiled, and the rice was cooked as his sister-in-law walked in and was startled by what she saw. Oh, my! she said, take care, brother-in-law, that you don’t become a cripple. Well, he did.

After Mother finished her story, she warned us to be silent when confronted by miraculous sights and, under no circumstances, to show alarm.

Chen Bi was wearing a brick red down jacket that was grease-spotted and shiny as a suit of armour. The fourth lunar month, a time of warm southerly breezes and millet ripening in the far-off fields, was mating season for amphibians in distant ponds and, nearby, in the bullfrog breeding farm, where loud croaks were carried on the air. Girls and young women had changed into light satin dresses that showed off their curves, but our old friend was still wearing winter garments. I felt hot just looking at him, while he was curled up, shivering. His face was the colour of bronze, the bald spot on his head shone as if sandpapered. Why, I wondered, was he wearing a dirty surgical mask? To hide his nose from curious stares? My gaze recoiled as it met his, emanating from a pair of sunken eyes, and I turned to his dog, which was staring indifferently my way. Part of its left front claw was missing, as if sliced off by a sharp object, and that was when I knew that man and dog were united by common suffering. I also knew there wasn’t a thing I could say to him, that all I could do was put some money in his bowl and leave. All I had on me was a hundred-yuan bill, meal money for lunch and dinner. But with no hesitation, I placed it in the bowl. He did not react, but his dog released three routine barks.