Frog

Him? Eldest Brother snapped. His own watch? I’ll draw one on his wrist tomorrow.

People cannot be judged by appearance alone any more than the ocean can be measured by bushels, Gugu said. Don’t be swayed by how ugly our Xiaopao is. He could grow up to be someone special.

If he becomes someone special, my sister said, then the pigs out in the sty can turn into tigers.

What country is this from, Gugu? Eldest Brother asked. What brand is it?

It’s Swiss, an Enicar.

Wow! he exclaimed. Second Brother and Sister echoed him.

Warty toads! I hissed angrily.

What’s it worth, Little Sister? Mother asked her.

I don’t know. It was a gift from a friend.

What sort of friend gives something that valuable? Mother said as she gave Gugu a searching look. Are we talking about a new uncle?

It’s almost midnight, Gugu said as she stood up. Bedtime.

Thank heavens my little sister is spoken for, Mother said.

Now don’t you go around saying things, Gugu said, giving us all a stern look. We haven’t even exchanged the horoscope for our birth dates. I’ll tan your hides if you do.

The next morning, maybe because he was feeling guilty for not letting me see Gugu’s watch the night before, my brother drew one on my wrist with a fountain pen. It looked like the real thing; it was beautiful, and I took pains to keep it that way. I kept it dry when I washed my hands and covered it up in the rain. Whenever it started to fade, I borrowed my brother’s pen to add ink. It stayed on my wrist for three whole months.

6

The man who gave Gugu the Enicar wristwatch was an air force pilot. In those days that was something to be excited about — an air force pilot! When they heard the news, my brothers and sisters croaked like an army of frogs, while I turned somersaults in the yard.

This was a joyous event for more than our family; the elation spilled across the township. Everyone considered a pilot the perfect match for Gugu. Cook Wang from the school kitchen, who had fought in the Korean War, was of the opinion that they were made of gold. Can you make a person out of gold? I asked him, filled with doubt. In front of the teachers and the commune cadres, who were eating their dinner, he said: How stupid can you be, Xiaopao Wan? What I mean is, the cost of training an air force pilot to the nation is the equal of seventy kilograms of gold. Oh, my, Mother said when I told her what Wang had said. How in the world are we supposed to treat your new uncle when he comes to the house?

We youngsters spread all sorts of fanciful talk about pilots. Chen Bi said his mother had seen a Soviet pilot when she lived in Harbin. They wore deerskin jackets, high-topped leather boots, had gold inlays in their mouths, wore gold wristwatches, ate black bread and sausage, and drank beer. Xiao Xiachun (Lower Lip, the characters later changed to summer and spring), son of Xiao Shangchun (Upper Lip), the granary watchman, said that China’s pilots ate better than their Soviet counterparts, and even created a menu, as if he were going to cook for them. Breakfast: two eggs, milk, four oily fritters, two steamed buns, and a chunk of pickled tofu. Lunch: braised pork, a whole croaker, and two large corn cakes. Dinner: roasted chicken, two pork buns, two mutton buns, and a bowl of millet congee. Fruit, of course, after each meal: bananas, apples, pears, grapes… whatever they couldn’t eat they could take home. Pilots’ leather jackets had two large pockets. What for? For carrying fruit. What people said about the pilots made us drool. We all dreamed of one day becoming air force pilots and living a magical life.