Frog

Chen Mei shouts and struggles, but is stopped by the clerks.

CHEN BI: Gao Mengjiu, you are a muddled judge.

LI SHOU: (nudges Chen) Let it be, old friend. I have already talked with Tadpole and Yuan Sai, who have agreed to give Chen Mei a hundred thousand yuan.

Curtain

Act IX

Gugu’s yard, same scene as Acts II and IV.

Hao Dashou and Qin He are still making clay dolls.

Tadpole, manuscript in hand, stands to the side.

TADPOLE:(intones loudly) If someone were to ask me to name Northeast Gaomi Township’s predominant colour, without hesitation I would respond: Green!

HAO DASHOU: (grumbles) What about red? Red sorghum, radishes, the red sun, red jackets, red peppers, apples…

QIN HE: Yellow earth, droppings, teeth, yellow weasels, everything yellow but gold.

TADPOLE: If someone were to ask me to name Northeast Gaomi Township’s predominant sound, I would proudly respond: the croak of frogs.

HAO DASHOU: What’s there to be proud about?

QIN HE: The cry of a baby is worth being proud about.

TADPOLE: The croak of a frog, like the heavy lowing of a young cow, like the sad bleating of a young goat, like the crisp sound of a hen when she lays an egg, like the loud and mournful sound of a newborn infant…

HAO DASHOU: How about a barking dog, a mewing cat, a braying donkey?

TADPOLE: (angrily) Are you two messing with me?

QIN HE: In my view, your play is messing with you.

GUGU: (coldly) Did I really say the things you just read?

TADPOLE: The Gugu in the play said them.

GUGU: Is the Gugu in the play me? Or isn’t it?

TADPOLE: It is and it isn’t.

GUGU: What does that mean?

TADPOLE: It’s a common principle in art. Like the dolls they make, modelled after real life but enhanced by their imagination and creativity.

GUGU: Are you really planning to stage your play? Aren’t you afraid of the trouble it could cause, since you’ve used people’s real names?

TADPOLE: This is just a draft, Gugu. In the final version I’ll use all foreigners’ names. Gugu will become Aunt Maria, Hao Dashou will be Henry, Qin He will be Allende, Chen Mei will be Tonia, Chen Bi will be Figaro… even Northeast Gaomi Township will become the town of Macondo.

HAO DASHOU: Henry? Interesting name.

QIN HE: I think I should be Rodin or Michelangelo, since their work resembles mine.

GUGU: Tadpole, play-acting is play-acting, reality is reality. I think that you — no, I have to include myself — we all treated Chen Mei badly. My insomnia has returned in recent days. All those crippled frogs that damned little devil brought out come to disturb me at night. Not only can I feel their chilled, slimy skin, but I can even smell their cold stench…

HAO DASHOU: Those are illusions brought on by your nervous condition, nothing but illusions.

TADPOLE: I understand how you feel, Gugu, and the way we dealt with this has weighed heavily on me. But I don’t know how else to deal with it. No matter how you look at it, Chen Mei was insane, a madwoman with a hideous, disfigured face, and giving the baby to her would have violated our responsibility to the child. Not only that, I was the child’s biological father, albeit a reluctant one. If his mother had gone off the tracks emotionally and could not even care for herself, then the father would have had to assume child-raising duties. Even the People’s Supreme Court would have made that determination. Am I right or not?

GUGU: Maybe she would have been fine if we’d given her the baby. Miracles can happen when you put a woman and child together.

TADPOLE: We couldn’t take the chance, not with the child’s wellbeing in the balance. People with mental problems are capable of anything.

GUGU: People with mental problems can still love children.

TADPOLE: But her love could have harmed the child. Gugu, don’t beat yourself up this way. We’ve already done everything compassion and humanity dictate. We gave her twice her original fee and got her admitted into a hospital for treatment. Even Chen Bi was not short-changed. If one day her mental health is restored, and the child is old enough, when the time is right, we’ll reveal all this to him — even if that will be painful for him.

GUGU: I want you all to know that I’ve been thinking about death a lot recently.

TADPOLE: I don’t want to hear such crazy talk, Gugu. You’re barely seventy years old. Though it’s an exaggeration to say you are the noonday sun, it’s not flattery to say that you’re the sun at two or three in the afternoon, a long way from darkness. Besides, the people of Northeast Gaomi Township cannot live without you.