Frog

He caught me by surprise when he kissed me.

So what? It was just a kiss, and you were going to marry him.

But I made him pay. I kneed him, and he squatted with his hands down there.

Oh, poor Xiao Xiachun, I joked. Why didn’t you knee me when I kissed you?

He had bad breath, you don’t.

What you’re saying is we were fated to be married.

Xiaopao, I’m so grateful to you.

What for?

I’m not sure.

That’s enough sweet nothings for now. You can talk later. Gugu stuck her head out the operating room door and waved to Renmei. You can come in.

Renmei grabbed my hand. Xiaopao…

There’s nothing to be afraid of, I said. Gugu says it’s a minor procedure.

When I get home you have to stew a whole hen for me.

Sure. I’ll make it two.

She turned to look at me just before she walked into surgery. She was wearing my beat-up old grey jacket with the missing button. The thread hung loosely. The cuffs of her blue trousers were muddy. She had on the old leather shoes Gugu had given her.

My nose ached, my heart felt empty. From where I sat on the dust-covered corridor bench, I heard the clang of metal instruments inside and envisioned what they looked like, imagining the blinding rays of light; I could almost feel how cold they were. Children’s laughter erupted in the yard behind the health centre. I stood up and looked out the window, where a three- or four-year-old boy playing with a pair of blown-up condoms was being chased by two girls about the same age.

Gugu popped out of the surgery, looking anxious.

What’s your blood type?

Type A.

How about her?

Who?

Who do you think? Gugu’s anger showed. Your wife.

Type O, I think.

Shit!

What’s happened?

Gugu’s smock was coated with blood, her face was ghostly white. My mind went blank

She went back inside and shut the door behind her. I tried looking through a crack in the doorway, but could see nothing. I didn’t hear Renmei’s voice, but I did hear Little Lion shouting into a telephone, ordering an ambulance from the county hospital.

I pushed open the door and immediately saw Renmei… saw Gugu with her sleeve rolled up and Little Lion drawing blood from her arm through a thick needle… Renmei’s face was the colour of paper… Renmei… hang in there… a nurse pushed me back out of the room. Let me in there, I said, goddamn it, I want to be in there. People in white smocks came running down the corridor… a middle-aged doctor who smelled like cigarette smoke and disinfectant sat me down on the bench and handed me a cigarette. He lit it for me. Don’t worry, he said, the county ambulance is on its way. Your aunt gave her 600 ccs of her own blood… everything’s going to be fine…

The ambulance shrieks bored into me like snakes. A man in a white smock with a medical kit. A bespectacled man in a white smock with a stethoscope around his neck. Men in white smocks. Women in white smocks. Men in white smocks carrying a collapsible gurney. Some went into the surgery, others stood in the corridor. Their actions were brisk, but their faces looked calm. No one paid me any attention, no one even looked my way. The sour taste of blood filled my mouth.

The people in white smocks emerged listlessly from the surgery and stepped back into the ambulance, one at a time. The gurney went in last.

I burst through the surgery door and saw Renmei, hidden from me by a white sheet. Covered with blood, Gugu slumped in a folding chair looking crestfallen. Little Lion and the others stood around like wooden statues. The silence in my ears was broken by what sounded like buzzing bees.

Gugu, I said, didn’t you say there’d be no problem?

She looked up, wrinkled her nose, her face ugly and frightening, and sneezed violently.

12

Sister-in-law, Elder Brother, Gugu said numbly in the yard, I’m here to apologise.

An urn with Wang Renmei’s ashes stood on a table in the centre of the main room. There was also a white bowl filled with wheat seeds to support three sticks of incense. Smoke curled towards the ceiling. In my uniform, with a black armband, I sat beside the table holding my daughter, who had on mourning garb and frequently looked up at me to ask a question.

What’s in the box, Papa?

I couldn’t say anything as tears wetted the stubble on my face.

How about my mother, Papa, where is she?

Your mother has gone to Beijing, I said. We’ll go see her in a few days.

Will Grandpa and Grandma go with us?

Yes, we’ll all go.

Father and Mother were out in the yard sawing a willow plank in half. The plank was tied at an angle to a bench. Father was standing, Mother was seated. Up and down, back and forth the saw went — shwa shwa — with sawdust floating in the sunlight.

I knew they were sawing the plank in half to make a coffin for Renmei. Even though cremation had supplanted burial in our area, the state had yet to set aside a place to store funerary containers, and so the locals chose to bury them under a grave mound. If a family could afford it, a coffin was made for the ashes, and the container smashed. Poor families simply buried the container.