Frog

A hero is silent about past glories, Gugu said. Back then… what’s the point of dredging up the past? Let’s drink! What’s that? I don’t have a glass. Well, I’ve brought my own. She reached into her oversized pocket and brought out a bottle of Maotai, which she banged down on the table. Fifty-year-old Maotai, she said. Given to me by an official in the city of Tinglan whose mistress — twenty years his junior — wanted nothing more than to give him a son, and since she’d heard that I had a secret formula for changing the sex of a foetus from female to male, that’s what she wanted me to do. I told her that was just a quack doctor’s trick, but she didn’t believe me. She cried and refused to leave, all but getting down on her knees to beg. She said the man’s wife had given him two daughters, and if she could produce a son, the man would be hers. His head was filled with feudal ideas like favouring boys over girls, not the sort of thing you’d expect from someone so important. Hell, Gugu spat out angrily, those people’s fortunes are all ill-gotten, so whom should I take advantage of if not the likes of him? So I made up nine packets of herbal concoctions, with things like angelica, Chinese yam, rehmannia and licorice, stuff you can buy for ten cents a bunch, no more than thirty yuan in total, and I asked her for a hundred for each packet. She was so happy she sort of waddled as she climbed into a red car and drove off, leaving a trail of exhaust fumes. This afternoon the official and his mistress came to see me with their pudgy little baby boy and gifts of fine tobacco and liquor to thank me. If not for my miracle prescription, they said, they wouldn’t have such a wonderful son. Ha ha! Gugu laughed loudly, grabbed the glass my brother was respectfully holding out to her, and drank it down in one swallow. I can’t tell you how happy I am! she said as she smacked herself on the thigh. I ask you, how could a high-ranking official, someone who’s supposed to be educated, be such a simpleton? Changing the sex in the womb! If I could do that, I’d have won the Nobel Prize for Medicine a long time ago. Pour me another. She held out her empty glass. Don’t open the Maotai. Save that for Eldest Brother. No, no, no, my father said. Putting something that good into my stomach is a waste. But she stuffed the bottle into his hand and said, This is from me, so you drink it.

He fingered the red ribbon at the top. How much does something like this cost? he asked gingerly. At least eight thousand, Elder Brother’s wife said. The price has gone up recently. My god! Father exclaimed. That’s not liquor. Dragon slobber and phoenix blood aren’t worth that much. Wheat sells for eighty cents a jin. Can one bottle of liquor be worth ten thousand jin of wheat? I could work like a dog all year and not be able to afford half of one of these bottles. He handed the bottle back to Gugu. You keep it, he said. I can’t drink liquor like this. I’m afraid it’d shorten my life.

I gave it to you, so you drink it, Gugu said. It didn’t cost me anything. You’d be crazy not to enjoy it. Like back in Pingdu city. I’d have been crazy not to eat the spread the Japanese devils prepared. Don’t be crazy. Drink it.

I understand what you’re saying, my father said, but I ask you, can a bottle of peppery liquor really be worth that much money?

Eldest Brother, you don’t get it. Nobody who drinks this stuff ever pays for it. People who have to pay for their liquor can only afford to drink this — Gugu held out her glass and drained it. You’re over eighty years old, she said. How many more years do you have to enjoy a good drink? Patting herself on the chest, she said dramatically: I’ll make you a crazy offer in front of all these members of the younger generation: I will supply you with Maotai from today on. What’s there to be afraid of? I used to be scared of my own shadow, and the more scared I was the worse things got. Pour some more! Do you people have no vision? Feel sorry for the liquor?

Of course not, Gugu, Father said. It’s for you to drink.

How much do you think I can manage? she said, a note of melancholy creeping into her voice. Back then, I held my own with those bastards from the People’s Commune. A bunch of guys who figured they could easily make a spectacle of me wound up under the table barking like a pack of dogs — come on, you youngsters, down the hatch.

Have something to eat, Gugu.

Something to eat, you say? Your great-uncle could drink half a jug of sorghum liquor with only a leek to go with it. Real drinkers don’t need food. You people are eaters, not drinkers.