Frog

At the time we kids, who lived in an out-of-the-way village, had no idea that Sino-Russian relations were deteriorating. Chen Bi’s unflattering comparison of Soviet and Chinese fliers made us all — especially me — unhappy, but no one’s thoughts went beyond that. Years later, at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, when we were in the fifth grade, our classmate Xiao Xiachun exposed this incident from the past, not only causing trouble for Chen Bi, but leading ultimately to the deaths of his parents. The Soviet novel A Real Man, about a Soviet Air Force hero who returned to active duty after both feet were amputated, was discovered in his house. Based upon a true story, this novel of revolutionary inspiration was proof to the mobs that Chen Bi’s mother, Ailian, was the Soviet hero’s lover and that Chen Bi was their bastard offspring.

While the Jian-5 fighter planes were training, the Jiaozhou airfield aircraft were not idle. They went out at night, every night around nine o’clock, which was about the time the nightly local broadcast was coming to an end. Airfield searchlights abruptly lit up the sky, their broad beams beginning to break up in the sky above our village, though they sent shivers through us anyway. I was always saying stupid things at the worst possible moment. Wouldn’t it be great if I had a flashlight like that! I remarked. Stupid! Second brother said as he rapped my head with his knuckles. Of course, since we were about to gain a special uncle, my second brother had become a sort of expert in flying affairs; he’d committed to memory the names of all the volunteer pilots and could recite the details of their heroic achievements. He was also the one who told me once, when he asked me to check him for fleas, that the explosion that ripped the paper in our window coverings was called a sonic boom, caused by a plane breaking the sound barrier. What does that mean? I asked. It means going faster than the speed of sound, you dope. When the Jiaozhou bombers flew training missions, the mesmerising searchlight beams were the only things worth talking about. Some people said they weren’t for the sake of training, but were intended to guide lost planes home. The beams swung back and forth, crossing in places, moving together in others, occasionally capturing a bird in mid flight and throwing it off balance, like a fly caught in a bottle. In the end, after a few minutes of watching the searchlights, we heard the roar of an aeroplane engine, and then spotted the outline of a big black object in the sky, its outline visible because of the lights on its nose, tail and wingtips. It gave the impression of sliding down a beam of light to its nest. Aeroplanes have nests, just as chickens do.

7

In the second half of 1960, that is, not long after our coal-eating incident, word spread that Gugu would soon be marrying the air force pilot. Her mother came over to our side of the wall to discuss a dowry with Mother, and together they decided to cut down the hundred-year-old catalpa tree on the other side of the wall and have a man named Fan, the finest carpenter in the township, make a set of furniture from it. I saw Father and Fan come over to measure the tree, which shook so hard from fright as it anticipated its death that leaves fell to the ground, as if the tree were crying.

In the end, nothing came of the plan, and Gugu was away a long time. I ran over to Great-Aunt’s to see if there was any news, for which I got a taste of her cane. That’s when I discovered that she was older than those old midwives I’d heard about.

On the morning of the season’s first snowfall the sun shone bright red. On our way to school in our hempen sandals, our hands and feet were half frozen. We were running around the playground, whooping and hollering to keep warm, when suddenly we heard a frightening roar in the sky. We looked up, mouths agape, and spotted an enormous object — dark red — trailing black smoke — a pair of staring red eyes — gigantic white teeth — shuddering in the sky — coming right at us. Aeroplane, damn, it’s an aeroplane! Was it going to land on our playground?