Frog

Your father said they were showing a Soviet version of Ostrovsky’s novel How the Steel Was Tempered. He was watching Wang Xiaoti and your aunt’s movements and gestures until he was drawn to the love and revolution themes of the movie. In those days, many Chinese youngsters had Soviet pen pals. That included your father, who was writing to a girl named Tonia, the same as the girl in the movie. He got so caught up in what was happening on the screen that he neglected his vital mission. That isn’t to say the scheme was a total failure, since he was able to get a look at Wang before the movie began and could smell the sweets on Wang’s breath when they were changing reels (back then theatres had only a single projector). Naturally he also smelled and heard the sunflower seed and peanut eaters in front and behind. Back then you could eat almost anything in theatres, resulting in a thick layer of wrappers, melon seeds and peanut shells on the floor. When the movie was over, in the bright lights at the lobby entrance, Wang pushed his bicycle up to ride your great-aunt back to the health centre dormitory (she had a temporary assignment at the health centre). Wang Xiaoti, she said with a little laugh, I want to introduce you to someone. Your father was hiding in the shadows behind a column in the entrance. Wang looked all around. Who? Where is he? Wan Kou, come over here. Your father stepped shyly out from behind the column. He was about Wang’s height back then, but skinny as a rail. All that talk about hurling a discus over the school wall and slicing off an ox’s horn was just that — talk. His hair looked like a magpie’s nest. This is my nephew, Wan Kou, your great-aunt said by way of an introduction. Aha! Wang slapped your father on the shoulder. A spy, I see. Wang Kou, that’s a good name. Wang reached out his hand. Nice to meet you, pal. I’m Wang Xiaoti. Apparently overwhelmed by the attention, your father grabbed Wang’s hand with both of his and shook it spiritedly.

Your father said he went to look up Wang at the airfield after that, and was treated to a casual air force meal of braised prawns, spicy chicken nuggets, eggs and day lily, and as much rice as he could eat. His description of the meal made us green with envy. For me, there was pride as well. Not just because it was Wang Xiaoti, but because I had a brother who’d eaten in the air force mess.

Wang Xiaoti also gave your father a harmonica, a very expensive one. Your father characterised Wang as multi-talented. He wasn’t a bad basketball player, who could shoot from all angles, and as well as the harmonica, he could play the accordion; he was also a fine calligrapher and painter. He had tacked a sketch of his onto the wall, a portrait of Gugu. There wasn’t a blemish in his family background. His father was a high-ranking Party cadre, his mother a university professor. Why would someone like that fly to Taiwan and go down as a thoroughly reviled defector?

Wang’s squadron commander said he’d defected after secretly listening to enemy propaganda broadcasts. He had a short-wave radio capable of receiving broadcasts from Taiwan, in particular a KMT station announcer with a sweet and highly alluring voice who called herself ‘Night Air Rose’; a real killer, she was, he assumed, and what ultimately turned Wang into a defector. Did that mean my aunt wasn’t attractive enough for him? The doddering former squadron commander said: Your aunt wasn’t bad, with an excellent family background, good-looking, and a Party member. By standards of that time she was an ideal catch, and we all envied Wang Xiaoti. But your aunt was too revolutionary, too principled, and not appealing enough for someone like Wang, who had fallen for the poisonous appeal of bourgeois thinking. Afterward, the security division examined Wang’s diary, in which he had given your aunt the nickname ‘Red Blockhead’. It was a good thing they had his diary, his squadron commander said, for it left your aunt in the clear. Without it, she could not have recaptured her good name even if she’d jumped into the cleansing waters of the Yellow River.

Sensei, I told my nephew that his great-aunt wasn’t the only one who nearly met destruction by Wang’s hand. The authorities investigated your father several times, I said, and that harmonica was confiscated as evidence of Wang Xiaoti’s corruptive influence on the young. He’d written in his diary: Red Blockhead introduced her dumb nephew to me, another Red Blockhead, and he had a goofy name: Wan Kou, Wan Mouth! Again, it was that diary that saved your father.

Maybe Wang did all that on purpose, my nephew said.

Your great-aunt came to that conclusion later. She believed that Wang had left his diary behind to protect her. That’s why last night she said that he’d ruined her, but he’d also saved her.