Frog

Warming up from the alcohol, Gugu unbuttoned her blouse and patted Father on the shoulder. If I tell you to drink, Elder Brother, you have to drink. You and I are the only two left from our generation. We should be eating and drinking anything we want. What’s the point in saving money? Money is just paper until you spend it. I have a skill, so I’m not afraid I’ll ever be short of money. You can be an official, high or low, but you’ll still get sick, and then you’ll have to come see me. Besides, Gugu roared in laughter, I have that special talent to change a foetus’s gender. People would happily shell out ten thousand for the complicated technique of turning a female foetus to male.

But what if they still got a baby girl after taking your gender-bending potion? Father asked anxiously.

You don’t get it, Gugu said. What’s traditional Chinese medicine anyway? All practitioners of traditional medicine are adept at fortune-telling, and fortune-tellers are adept at going round and round when telling someone’s fortune without ever getting themselves tangled up.

Xiangqun managed to slip a question in when Gugu paused to light a cigarette. Can you talk about the pilot, Great-Aunt? Maybe one day on a whim I’ll fly to Taiwan to see him.

Stop that nonsense, my elder brother said.

You’re out of line, his wife said.

A seasoned smoker, Gugu puffed away, sending clouds of smoke up through her uncombed hair.

When I think about that now, Gugu said after draining the liquor in her cup, I can say he destroyed me, but he also saved me.

She took a couple of deep puffs before flicking the butt away with her middle finger. It described a dark red arc before landing on a distant grapevine trellis. I’ve had too much to drink, she said. The party’s over and it’s time to go home. She stood up, looking stoutly clumsy, and swayed her way towards the entrance. We hurried over to steady her. Do you really think I’m drunk? she asked. You’re wrong. I can drink a thousand cups without getting drunk. At the gate, Hao Dashou, the clay-doll maker who’d recently been named a county folk artist, was waiting patiently for her.

9

Sensei, the next day my nephew, curious to learn more about Wang Xiaoti, came home on his motorcycle and asked my father to take him to see Gugu. You don’t want to do that, my father said. She’s nearly seventy and she’s had a difficult life. I’m afraid you’ll upset her by bringing up the past. Besides, she’d find it hard to talk about that in front of her husband.

Xiangqun, I said, listen to your grandfather. Since you want to hear what happened, I’ll tell you what I know. Actually, all you have to do is go online to get most of the details.

I’ve long planned to write a novel based on Gugu’s life — now, of course, that’s changed into a play — and Wang Xiaoti will figure prominently. The work has been twenty years in preparation. Relying on connections, I’ve interviewed many people from that time, made special trips to the three airfields where Wang had served, visited his hometown in Zhejiang, interviewed one of his squadron comrades-in-arms as well as his commander and deputy commander, actually climbed into the cockpit of his Jian-5, and interviewed the one-time head of the county security bureau’s anti-espionage unit, and the one-time security division head at the county health department. I don’t mind saying that I know more than anyone else; my only regret is that I never got to meet Wang Xiaoti himself. But your father got Great-Aunt’s OK to sneak into a theatre before they arrived to see a movie. He saw Wang and Gugu enter hand-in-hand. He was sitting close enough to Wang to be able to describe him for us: Five-nine, maybe a bit taller, fair skin, a long, gaunt face, eyes on the small side, but alert. Sparkling white, even teeth.