HAO DASHOU: Those are illusions brought on by your nervous condition, nothing but illusions.
TADPOLE: I understand how you feel, Gugu, and the way we dealt with this has weighed heavily on me. But I don’t know how else to deal with it. No matter how you look at it, Chen Mei was insane, a madwoman with a hideous, disfigured face, and giving the baby to her would have violated our responsibility to the child. Not only that, I was the child’s biological father, albeit a reluctant one. If his mother had gone off the tracks emotionally and could not even care for herself, then the father would have had to assume child-raising duties. Even the People’s Supreme Court would have made that determination. Am I right or not?
GUGU: Maybe she would have been fine if we’d given her the baby. Miracles can happen when you put a woman and child together.
TADPOLE: We couldn’t take the chance, not with the child’s wellbeing in the balance. People with mental problems are capable of anything.
GUGU: People with mental problems can still love children.
TADPOLE: But her love could have harmed the child. Gugu, don’t beat yourself up this way. We’ve already done everything compassion and humanity dictate. We gave her twice her original fee and got her admitted into a hospital for treatment. Even Chen Bi was not short-changed. If one day her mental health is restored, and the child is old enough, when the time is right, we’ll reveal all this to him – even if that will be painful for him.
GUGU: I want you all to know that I’ve been thinking about death a lot recently.
TADPOLE: I don’t want to hear such crazy talk, Gugu. You’re barely seventy years old. Though it’s an exaggeration to say you are the noonday sun, it’s not flattery to say that you’re the sun at two or three in the afternoon, a long way from darkness. Besides, the people of Northeast Gaomi Township cannot live without you.
GUGU: I didn’t say I wanted to die, not as long as I’m in good health, have a good appetite, and can sleep at night. Who would? But sleep has become a problem. Everyone else is sound asleep in the middle of the night, everyone but me and that owl in the tree. The owl stays awake to hunt mice. What about me?
TADPOLE: You can take a sleeping pill. Lots of important people are troubled by insomnia, and that’s how they deal with it.
GUGU: Sleeping pills don’t work with me any more.
TADPOLE: Try Chinese herbs.
GUGU: I’m a doctor, and I’m telling you, this isn’t physical. The day of reckoning has arrived. All those avenging ghosts have come to settle accounts. At night, when all around is quiet and the owl begins to hoot in the tree, they come. Coated in blood, they wail and moan, accompanied by those frogs with missing legs and claws. Cries and croaks swirl together and cannot be distinguished, one from the other. They chase me around the yard. I’m not afraid of being bitten, what frightens me is their slimy skin and the cold stench they produce. Tell me, what things have frightened me at any time in my life? Tigers? Panthers? Wolves? Foxes? I have never been afraid of animals that frighten others. But the ghosts of those frogs petrify me.
TADPOLE: (to Hao Dashou) Should we invite a Daoist priest to do an exorcism?
HAO DASHOU: She’s giving you an actor’s lines.
GUGU: When I can’t sleep, I think back over my life, starting with the first child I delivered all the way to the last. They all play in my head, like a movie. I don’t think I’ve done an evil thing ever in my life . . . but those . . . was that evil?
TADPOLE: That’s hard to say, Gugu, but even if they were, you were not responsible. Don’t blame yourself, Gugu, and don’t feel guilty. You’re a hero, not a sinner.
GUGU: I’m not? Really?
TADPOLE: If the township residents voted for the best person, you would get the most votes.
GUGU: Are my hands clean?
TADPOLE: Not just clean, but sacred.
GUGU: When I can’t sleep, I think of how Zhang Quan’s wife died, and Wang Renmei, and Wang Dan . . .
TADPOLE: You didn’t kill them, it wasn’t you.
GUGU: Did you know that Zhang Quan’s wife uttered some last words?
TADPOLE: I didn’t know that.
GUGU: ‘Wan Xin,’ she said, ‘you will die a terrible death.’
TADPOLE: That bitch had no right to say that.
GUGU: Did you know that Renmei uttered last words as well?
TADPOLE: What did she say?
GUGU: She said, ‘I’m cold, Gugu.’
TADPOLE: (agonisingly) I’m cold, too, Renmei.
GUGU: Did you know that Wang Dan said something to me before she died?
TADPOLE: No.
GUGU: Do you want to know?
TADPOLE: Of course . . . but . . .
GUGU: (in high spirits) She said, ‘Thank you for saving my baby’s life, Gugu.’ Did I really save her baby’s life?
TADPOLE: Of course you did.
GUGU: Then I can die in peace, right?
TADPOLE: Don’t say that, Gugu. What you should say is you can sleep in peace and keep living well.
GUGU: A sinner cannot and has no right to die. She must live on, to suffer torment, to be like a fish frying in a pan, like medicine boiling in a pot of water, all for the sake of atonement. Only when that is complete, is she free to die.
A large black noose drops from above the stage. Gugu goes up, stands on a stool, sticks her head through the noose, and kicks the stool over.
Hao Dashou and Qin He do not look up from their doll making.
Tadpole picks up a knife, rights the stool, jumps up onto it, and cuts the rope in two.
Gugu drops to the stage floor.
TADPOLE: (props up Gugu) Gugu! Gugu!
GUGU: Am I dead?
TADPOLE: I guess you could say that. But people like you don’t really die.
GUGU: Then I’ve been reborn.
TADPOLE: Yes, you can say that.
GUGU: Are you all okay?
TADPOLE: We’re fine.
GUGU: The baby too?
TADPOLE: He’s doing beautifully.
GUGU: Has Little Lion begun to lactate?
TADPOLE: Yes.
GUGU: Lots of milk?
TADPOLE: Lots and lots of it.
GUGU: What does it look like?
TADPOLE: Like a fountain.
Curtain
(Finis)
HAMISH HAMILTON
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Originally published by Shanghai Art and Literature Publishing House, 2009
This edition published by Penguin Group (Australia) in association with Penguin (Beijing) Ltd, 2014
Text copyright © Mo Yan 2009
Translated from the original Chinese by Howard Goldblatt
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bsp; Translation © Penguin (Beijing) Ltd
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All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Cover and text design by Laura Thomas © Penguin Group (Australia)
Cover photograph: water photo © Rainer Behrens/Gallery Stock; illustration by Laura Thomas © Penguin Group (Australia); paper scan by Mark Carrel/Shutterstock.com
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ISBN: 9780857979322
THE BEGINNING
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Mo Yan, Frog
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