Frog

Gugu lit a cigarette and puffed so hard her sad features were swathed in a cloud of smoke. She’d gotten old, with deep wrinkles at the sides of her mouth, bags under her eyes, and a clouded look — we did everything humanly possible to save Zhang’s wife, including giving her some of my own blood, but she had a heart condition. In the end, we gave Zhang Quan a thousand yuan, which was a lot of money at the time. But even after taking the money he wouldn’t let us off the hook. He carried his wife’s body on a flatbed cart, followed by his three daughters in funeral hemp, to the offices of the county Party committee when the provincial head of the family-planning committee was in town on an inspection tour. The police sent a beat-up old Jeep to deliver Huang Qiuya, Little Lion and me to the county guesthouse. The police were surly and crude, and the way they manhandled us, you’d have thought we were criminals. The county officials wanted to talk to me, but I stiffened my neck and refused, saying I’d only talk to the provincial authority. So I walked unannounced into the visitors’ room, where he was reading a newspaper in an easychair. One look and I knew, it was Yang Lin! Now a fair-skinned deputy governor with a healthy complexion. I was furious, and the words came out like machine-gun fire — pow pow pow pow. You people up there send down your orders, and we down here run our legs off and talk till our lips split open. You want us to be civilised, talk policy, and work on the ideological state of the masses… while you stand there giving orders, suffering no back pain and, since you don’t bear children, you don’t know how a woman hurts! Why don’t you come down and see what’s happening, see how we work like dogs so we can be cursed, beaten black and blue, our heads bloodied, and then, if some little problem arises, instead of backing us up, you take sides with hooligans and shrews! You cast a chill over us — here pride crept into Gugu’s monologue — other people might shy from talking to high officials, but not me! When I see a high official I really start talking — it’s not that I’m a great talker, but that I’ve got a bellyful of bile. I was crying the whole time I talked to him, and I stopped to show him the scar on my head. Did Zhang Quan break the law when he hit me with his club? Did jumping into the river to save his wife and giving her my own blood count as doing everything called for by humanity and duty? By then, I was really bawling. Go ahead, send me to a re-education camp, throw me in jail, but I’m through! Tears were welling in Yang Lin’s eyes. He got up to pour me some water and went to the bathroom to get me a moist, hot towel. Work at the grassroots level is hard, he said. Chairman Mao said: Educating the peasant masses is critical. You have suffered, Comrade Wan. I know that, and so do the county officials. We have a high opinion of you. He came over and sat beside me. How would you like to come work for me in provincial headquarters, Comrade Wan? I knew exactly what he was getting at, but when I thought back to all those terrible things he’d said at the public denouncement rally, my heart cooled. No, I said firmly, that’s not for me. I’m needed here. In a somewhat rueful tone, he said, Then how about a move to the county health centre? No, I said, I’m staying put. Maybe I should have gone with him, Gugu said, just up and left. What you can’t see doesn’t bother you. If people want babies, let them go ahead and have them. Two billion, three billion, when the sky falls, the tall people can hold it up. Why should I worry about any of this? I’ve suffered all my life from being too compliant, too revolutionary, too loyal, and too serious about things.

It’s not too late to come to your senses, I said.

What the hell does that mean? she spat angrily. Come to my senses? I’ve just been venting to a member of my own family, a little private bitching. Your aunt is a steadfastly loyal Communist who did not waver when she was being brutalised during the Cultural Revolution, so why would she now? No, family planning is absolutely essential. If we let people have all the babies they want, that’s thirty million a year, three hundred million a decade. At that rate, in fifty years the Chinese population alone would flatten the earth. So we must lower the birth rate, no matter what it costs. That will be China’s greatest contribution to humanity.

I understand what you’re saying, Gugu, I said, but my immediate problem is, Renmei has run off…

She can run but she can’t hide. Where could she go? She’s hiding in your father-in-law’s house.

Renmei has a stubborn streak, and if she’s pushed too far, I’m afraid she might do something stupid…