Frog

  While Yuan Sai and the others manhandle Chen off the stage, Chen Mei, all in black, enters to the astonishment of everyone present. There is total silence.

  CHEN MEI: (sniffs the air in exaggerated fashion, softly at first, but builds in intensity) My baby, my darling, I have picked up your sweet-smelling, pungent scent. (feels her way up close to Little Lion, like a blind person, just as loud cries emerge from the swaddling clothes) My baby, my good, little baby, you have never tasted your mother’s milk, you must be starving. (She snatches the baby away from Little Lion and dashes offstage. The guests, stunned by the act, do not know what to do.)

  LITTLE LION: (opens her now empty arms) My baby (in real despair), my little Jinwa . . .

  Little Lion runs after Chen Mei, followed by Tadpole and others. Chaos onstage.

  Curtain

  Act VII

  Scenery changes constantly on a large screen at the rear of the stage. A busy street one moment, a crowded marketplace the next, followed by a public park, where people are practising Tai Chi, carrying bird cages and playing the two-stringed erhu. The changing scenery denotes the places she passes in Chen Mei’s getaway.

  As Chen Mei runs with the baby, she speaks her heart to him.

  CHEN MEI: My little darling, Mummy has finally found you . . . she’ll never let you go again . . .

  Little Lion, Tadpole, and many others are chasing her.

  LITTLE LION: Jinwa . . . my son . . .

  Some of the time, Chen Mei is alone onstage, running and looking over her shoulder, at other times she shouts to people she passes: Help, save me, save my baby.

  Some of the time, she and the people chasing her are on the stage together. Chen Mei shouts to people on the street: Help, save us! Little Lion and the others shout to the people ahead: Stop her. Stop that baby stealer, stop that madwoman!

  Chen Mei stumbles, clambers to her feet, stumbles again, gets up again.

  The fast, lively, shrill music of an opera fiddle together with a baby’s cries form a background from when the curtain goes up till the curtain falls.

  Curtain

  Act VIII

  The TV drama Gao Mengjiu is being filmed.

  The main hall of a county yamen during the Republican era. Though there are signs of reform, it basically follows the old patterns. The words ‘justice’ and ‘integrity’ are carved into a signboard hanging above the hall. One scroll to the side of the signboard proclaims: ‘Wind, then rain, then the blue sky’. Its mate on the other side proclaims: ‘The civil, the martial, and the barbaric’. A large shoe rests on an altar in the centre of the hall.

  Gao Mengjiu is in a black tunic and top hat, a watch chain looping out of his breast pocket. Yamen clerks stand straight on both sides of the stage, each holding a long red and black ‘fire and water’ club, but they are dressed in modern black tunics, a comical effect.

  The director, cameraman, and sound technician move around busily.

  DIRECTOR: Take your places. Ready – action!

  GAO MENGJIU: (picks up the shoe and bangs it on the table) Oh my, oh my . . . What a nuisance! (sings) Magistrate Gao is in his hall to try a case: two families, Zhang and Wang, have a dispute over land. Zhang is in the right, and so is Wang. Both families have a claim, and I must settle the dispute. My name is Gao Mengjiu from Weibaodi county in the Tianjin municipality. I joined the army in my youth under Field Marshal Feng Yuxiang, performing outstanding service in battles north and south. Marshal Feng selected me to be his guard battalion commander. One day, Marshal Feng spotted a soldier under my command parading around town in dark glasses, a prostitute on his arm, and censured me for lax discipline. I was so embarrassed at having fallen short of the marshal’s expectations that I tendered my resignation and returned to my native home. In the nineteenth year of the Republic, 1930, Gao’s fellow townsman Han Fuju, Governor of Shandong, respectfully and repeatedly invited me to take up an official position. I could not refuse the request of a fellow officer, so was sent to Shandong, first as a provincial representative, then as head of Pingyuan, Qufu, and, as of this spring, Gaomi counties. The people here are cunning and stubborn, crime is rampant, gambling is ubiquitous, opium is a scourge, and public order is non-existent. After taking office, I boldly instituted reforms, stamped out criminal activity, promoted filial behaviour, and travelled incognito, resolving difficult cases. (softly) Of course, not everything went smoothly, as is always the case for one who is not a sage. And even sages make mistakes from time to time. The local gentry families presented me with a pair of scrolls, with ‘Wind, then rain, then the blue sky’ on one and ‘The civil, the martial, and the barbaric’ on the other. Well written. Extremely well! They also came up with a nickname for me: Gao the Second with Shoe-soles. The origin of this moniker came from my proclivity to use the soles of shoes across the faces of criminals and harridans. (sings) In troubled times an official must employ severe punishments/Answering brutality with brutality/Use clever schemes to exterminate bandits/A shoe sole is the tool of an upright magistrate. I say, all you clerks —

  YAMEN CLERKS: Yes, sir!

  GAO MENGJIU: Is all in readiness?

  YAMEN CLERKS: It is.

  GAO MENGJIU: Call for the plaintiffs and defendants.

  Chen Mei, baby in her arms, stumbles onto the stage.

  CHEN MEI: Magistrate Bao, please help me gain justice.

  Little Lion, Tadpole, and the others enter, one after the other.

  The actors playing Zhang and Wang are among the crowd as they enter.

  DIRECTOR: (frustrated) Cut! Cut! What’s going on here? This is a mess. Where’s the stage manager?

  CHEN MEI: (falls to her knees at the front of the stage) Magistrate Bao, please help me gain justice!

  GAO MENGJIU: My name is Gao, not Bao.

  CHEN MEI: (amid the sound of the baby’s cries) Magistrate Bao, I lay an odd grievance at your feet for impartial justice.

  Yuan Sai and the cousin take the director aside and say something to him that others cannot hear. The director nods his head. Yuan’s comment to the director can barely be heard: Our company will donate a hundred thousand.

  The director walks up to Gao Mengjiu and whispers something to him.

  The director signals to the cameraman and others to continue filming.

  Yuan Sai walks up to Tadpole and Little Lion and speaks to them in hushed tones.

  GAO MENGJIU: (picks up the shoe and bangs it on the table) Citizen at the front of this hall, hear me. I will today be extraordinarily generous by deciding an additional case. Tell me your name, your residency, what charges you bring, against whom, all in complete truth. If I hear one false note, do you know how I will deal with it?

  CHEN MEI: I do not.

  YAMEN CLERKS: (in unison) Woo-wei!

  GAO MENGJIU: (takes hold of the shoe and bangs it on the table) If there is one dishonest word, I will use this shoe on your face.

  CHEN MEI: Now I know.

  GAO MENGJIU: Tell me everything.

  CHEN MEI: Hear my report, Your Honour: My name is Chen Mei, I am from Northeast Gaomi Township. I lost my mother when I was a girl and grew up alone with my older sister. We took jobs at a toy factory, where there was a fire that killed my sister and destroyed my face . . .

  GAO MENGJIU: Remove your veil, Chen Mei, and let me see the damage.

  CHEN MEI: I cannot remove it, Magistrate Bao.

  GAO MENGJIU: Why not?

  CHEN MEI: With it on I am human, if I remove it I am a demon.

  GAO MENGJIU: When I decide a case, Chen Mei, I follow the letter of the law. With that veil over your face, how am I supposed to know you are who you say you are?

  CHEN MEI: Will you tell them all to cover their eyes, Your Honour?

  GAO MENGJIU: Cover your eyes, all of you.

  CHEN MEI: I will let you see, Magistrate. It is a bitter life I lead!

  Chen Mei puts the baby down, removes the veil, and covers her face with both hands.

  Gao makes a sign to the front o
f the hall. Little Lion rushes forward and picks up the baby.

  LITTLE LION: (sobs) My darling, Jinwa, my little Jinwa, let Mama take a look at you . . . Tadpole, come look, what’s wrong with Jinwa . . . that crazy woman has killed my baby!

  CHEN MEI: (screams and madly rushes towards Little Lion) My baby . . . Your Honour, she has stolen my baby . . .

  The yamen clerks stop her.

  Gugu slowly enters.

  TADPOLE: Gugu is here.

  LITTLE LION: Gugu, tell me what’s wrong with Jinwa.

  Gugu pinches and rubs the child in places. The baby cries. Tadpole hands Little Lion a nursing bottle. She puts the nipple in the baby’s mouth. The crying stops.

  CHEN MEI: Don’t let her feed my baby, Your Honour. That milk is toxic. I have milk, Your Honour . . . I’ll squeeze some out for Your Honour if you do not believe me.

  Chen Bi and Li Shou enter.

  CHEN BI: (pounds a crutch on the floor) Fairness, I demand fairness!

  GAO MENGJIU: (sorrowfully) Cover your face, Chen Mei.

  CHEN MEI: (terrified, she grabs the veil and covers her face) I have frightened you, Your Honour. I am so sorry.

  GAO MENGJIU: Chen Mei, your case has fallen into my hands, so I must get to the bottom of it.

  CHEN MEI: Thank you, Your Honour.

  Tadpole and Yuan Sai try to bundle Little Lion off the stage.

  GAO MENGJIU: (bangs his shoe on the table) Stop right there! No one leaves until I have handed down my judgement. Watch them, yamen clerks.

  The director gives a sign to Gao, who pretends not to have seen it.

  GAO MENGJIU: Chen Mei, you insist that the baby is yours. Then I ask you, who is the father?

  CHEN MEI: He is a high official, a rich man, a powerful man.

  GAO MENGJIU: No matter how high, how rich, or how powerful, he must have a name.

  CHEN MEI: I do not know his name.

  GAO MENGJIU: When were you married?

  CHEN MEI: I have never been married.

  GAO MENGJIU: Oh, a child out of wedlock. Then when did you and he . . . in bed?

  CHEN MEI: I do not understand, Your Honour.

  GAO MENGJIU: Ah! When did you sleep with him? What do they say – make love? Understand?

  CHEN MEI: I have never slept with a man, Your Honour, I am a virgin.

  GAO MENGJIU: Ah! Now I am confused. How could you be pregnant and have a baby if you have never slept with a man? Are you ignorant of basic biological knowledge?

  CHEN MEI: Your Honour, every word of what I say is the truth (points to the group that includes Little Lion) With a syringe they . . .

  GAO MENGJIU: A test tube baby.

  CHEN MEI: No, not a test tube baby.

  GAO MENGJIU: I understand. It’s the sort of artificial insemination they use for livestock.

  CHEN MEI: (on her knees) Please, Your Honour, pass your fair judgement. I wanted to have this baby at first to earn enough to pay my father’s hospital bills, then drown myself in the river. But death stopped being attractive once I became pregnant and felt him moving around inside me. There were other women like me, but who hated the children they were carrying. I loved mine. My disfigured face and scarred body itch and hurt on rainy, overcast days, and on hot dry days, my wounds crack and bleed. It was hard to carry my baby to term, Your Honour. I suffered miserably, but by being careful I was able to have a successful delivery. But those people lied to me, saying my baby was stillborn. I knew he wasn’t dead, so I searched and searched until I found him. I don’t want the surrogate fee, a million, ten million, I don’t care, I just want my baby. Please, Your Honour, make them give me my baby . . .

  GAO MENGJIU: (to Tadpole and Little Lion) Are you legally married?

  TADPOLE: For more than thirty years.

  GAO MENGJIU: And all that time you had no child?

  LITTLE LION: (unhappily) What would you call him, if not a child?

  GAO MENGJIU: You look to me to be in your fifties, am I right?

  LITTLE LION: I knew you’d ask that. (points to Gugu) This is our Northeast Gaomi Township’s doctor of obstetrics, who has delivered thousands of babies and has cured many women of infertility. Who knows, maybe you yourself were one of her babies. She will testify for me, since she was with me throughout my pregnancy to the birth of my baby.

  GAO MENGJIU: I have long been familiar with Gugu’s reputation. You are a local sage, someone who enjoys universal respect and whose words carry great weight.

  GUGU: I delivered that child.

  GAO MENGJIU: (asks Chen Mei) Did she deliver your baby?

  CHEN MEI: They blindfolded me in the delivery room, Your Honour.

  GAO MENGJIU: This case is difficult to adjudicate. We will need DNA results.

  The director goes up to whisper something to Gao, who has words with him under his breath.

  GAO MENGJIU: (sighs, then sings) Strange case, strange case, a very strange case – putting old Gao in a difficult place – to whom does the child belong – an ingenious plan has come to me. (steps down) Hear me, everyone, since your case has fallen into my hands, I must turn make-believe into real life and make my judgement! Yamen clerks!

  CLERKS: Yes, sir!

  GAO MENGJIU: If anyone disputes my judgement, use a shoe on their face.

  CLERKS: Yes!

  GAO MENGJIU: Chen Mei, Little Lion, each of you tells a convincing story, and I cannot choose one over the other. Therefore, I must ask Little Lion to give the child to me for now.

  LITTLE LION: I won’t . . .

  GAO MENGJIU: Yamen clerks!

  CLERKS: (in unison) Woo-wei . . .

  The director whispers to Tadpole, who nudges Little Lion and indicates she should hand the baby to Gao Mengjiu.

  GAO MENGJIU: (softly as he looks down at the baby) A fine baby for sure. No wonder the two families are fighting over him. Hear me, Chen Mei, Little Lion, I cannot decide to whom the child belongs, so I must ask you to try to take him from me. Whoever wrests the child from my hands gets him. A messy case deserves a messy resolution. (holds the child over his head) Now!

  Both Chen Mei and Little Lion rush up and grab hold of the baby, who begins to cry. Chen Mei wrests him away and holds him to her breast.

  GAO MENGJIU: Yamen clerks, take the child away from Chen Mei and arrest her.

  The clerks take the baby from Chen Mei and hand him to Gao.

  GAO MENGJIU: Audacious Chen Mei, you falsely claimed that the baby was yours, yet you did not hesitate to wrest him out of my hands, something a real mother would not do. When Little Lion heard the baby cry, her motherly instincts would not let her do anything to harm her child, and she let go. Magistrate Bao settled a similar case centuries ago. The one who let go was the true mother. With this precedent, I award the child to Little Lion. For trying to take another’s child and lying in court, I ought to sentence Chen Mei to twenty lashes with a shoe sole. But in view of your disability, I mercifully withhold punishment. Leave this court!

  Gao Mengjiu hands the baby to Little Lion.

  Chen Mei shouts and struggles, but is stopped by the clerks.

  CHEN BI: Gao Mengjiu, you are a muddled judge.

  LI SHOU: (nudges Chen) Let it be, old friend. I have already talked with Tadpole and Yuan Sai, who have agreed to give Chen Mei a hundred thousand yuan.

  Curtain

  Act IX

  Gugu’s yard, same scene as Acts II and IV.

  Hao Dashou and Qin He are still making clay dolls.

  Tadpole, manuscript in hand, stands to the side.

  TADPOLE: (intones loudly) If someone were to ask me to name Northeast Gaomi Township’s predominant colour, without hesitation I would respond: Green!

  HAO DASHOU: (grumbles) What about red? Red sorghum, radishes, the red sun, red jackets, red peppers, apples . . .

  QIN HE: Yellow earth, droppings, teeth, yellow weasels, everything yellow but gold.

  TADPOLE: If someone were to ask me to name Northeast Gaomi Township’s predominant sound, I would proudly re
spond: the croak of frogs.

  HAO DASHOU: What’s there to be proud about?

  QIN HE: The cry of a baby is worth being proud about.

  TADPOLE: The croak of a frog, like the heavy lowing of a young cow, like the sad bleating of a young goat, like the crisp sound of a hen when she lays an egg, like the loud and mournful sound of a newborn infant . . .

  HAO DASHOU: How about a barking dog, a mewing cat, a braying donkey?

  TADPOLE: (angrily) Are you two messing with me?

  QIN HE: In my view, your play is messing with you.

  GUGU: (coldly) Did I really say the things you just read?

  TADPOLE: The Gugu in the play said them.

  GUGU: Is the Gugu in the play me? Or isn’t it?

  TADPOLE: It is and it isn’t.

  GUGU: What does that mean?

  TADPOLE: It’s a common principle in art. Like the dolls they make, modelled after real life but enhanced by their imagination and creativity.

  GUGU: Are you really planning to stage your play? Aren’t you afraid of the trouble it could cause, since you’ve used people’s real names?

  TADPOLE: This is just a draft, Gugu. In the final version I’ll use all foreigners’ names. Gugu will become Aunt Maria, Hao Dashou will be Henry, Qin He will be Allende, Chen Mei will be Tonia, Chen Bi will be Figaro . . . even Northeast Gaomi Township will become the town of Macondo.

  HAO DASHOU: Henry? Interesting name.

  QIN HE: I think I should be Rodin or Michelangelo, since their work resembles mine.

  GUGU: Tadpole, play-acting is play-acting, reality is reality. I think that you – no, I have to include myself – we all treated Chen Mei badly. My insomnia has returned in recent days. All those crippled frogs that damned little devil brought out come to disturb me at night. Not only can I feel their chilled, slimy skin, but I can even smell their cold stench . . .