Frog (16 page)

Before she was wheeled into surgery, Renmei took my hand and looked down at the teeth marks.

I shouldn’t have bitten you, she said apologetically.

That’s all right.

Does it still hurt?

Hurt? No more than a mosquito bite.

You can bite me.

Please, I said. You’re acting like a little girl.

She gripped my hand. Where’s Yanyan?

At home with her grandparents.

Does she have plenty to eat?

Yes, I bought two bags of milk powder and two jin of butter cookies. I also bought some shredded pork and lotus meal. There’s nothing to worry about.

Yanyan takes after you. You’ve got single-fold eyelids, mine are double.

I know. She should take after you, you’re so much better-looking than me.

People say girls take after their father and boys take after their mothers.

Maybe so.

This one would have been a boy, I know that, I’m not joking.

The times have changed. Boy or girl, it makes no difference. I tried to sound casual. In a couple of years, you’ll follow me to Beijing, and we’ll find our daughter the best school there is. We’ll raise her to be someone of distinction. A good daughter is better than ten troublesome sons.

Xiaopao . . .

What?

I wasn’t naked when Xiao Xiachun touched me that time, really.

Don’t be silly, I said with a laugh. I’ve forgotten that.

I had on a heavy jacket, a sweater underneath, and a shirt under that, and a . . .

And your bra, right?

I washed my bra that day, so I wasn’t wearing it, but I was wearing an undershirt.

Okay, that’s enough goofy talk.

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.

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.

I saw Gugu standing out there with her head down. I saw the grief on my parents’ faces and the mechanical repetition of their movements. I saw the commune Party secretary, who had come with Gugu, along with Little Lion and three commune cadres. They had brought fancy boxes of pastries and sweets, which they placed alongside the well opening. Beside the boxes was a damp cattail bag that gave off a strong odour. I knew the bag contained salted fish.

No one could have anticipated such a turn of events, the Party secretary was saying. Experts from the county hospital have determined that Chairwoman Wan followed all the appropriate protocols to the letter, and lifesaving attempts were carried out properly. Dr Wan even gave the patient 600 ccs of her own blood. We are deeply saddened and wish that more could have been done.

Are you blind? Father scolded Mother angrily. Can’t you see that black line? The saw is a half inch off, and you should have seen that. Can’t you do anything right?

Mother got to her feet, began to wail, and went inside.

Father threw down the saw and, with a bent back, walked to the water vat. He picked up the gourd ladle, tipped his head back, and drank, some of the water spilling down his chin to his chest, where it merged with the sawdust. He returned to the plank, picked up the saw, and recommenced sawing with a vengeance.

The Party secretary and cadres went into the house, where they bowed three times to Renmei’s ashes. One of the cadres placed a manila envelope on the stove counter.

Comrade Wan Zu, the Party secretary said, we know that no amount of money can make up for the terrible loss this unfortunate incident has caused you and your family, and this five thousand yuan is merely a token of our respect.

Someone – apparently a clerk – said, Three thousand of this is public money. The additional two thousand was donated by Secretary Wu and several leading cadres.

Take it with you, I said. Please take it back. We don’t need it.

I understand how you feel, the secretary said sadly, it won’t bring her back, but the living have to continue on the revolutionary path. Chairwoman Yang telephoned from Beijing to express her sadness over Comrade Wang’s death, to pass on her condolences to the bereaved family, and to inform you that your leave has been extended two weeks to give you time to take care of the funeral and matters at home before reporting back to work.

Thank you, I said. You may leave now.

The Party secretary and his retinue bowed once more to the funerary container and then walked out, still bent at the waist.

I gazed at their legs and at their backsides, some fleshy, some bony, and my tears flowed again.

A woman’s wails and a man’s profanities emerged from the lane, and I knew that my in-laws were coming.

My father-in-law was carrying a pitchfork. You bastards, he cursed, give me back my daughter!

My mother-in-law was making all sorts of wild gestures and bouncing on her bound feet, looking as if she was about to pounce on my aunt. But she fell before she could get there. She sat there beating the ground with both hands and howling. My poor daughter, why have you left us like that . . . how are we going to live without you . . .

The Party secretary stepped forward. We were on our way to your house, he said to my in-laws. What a tragic affair. This has saddened us deeply.

My father-in-law pounded the ground with his pitchfork handle. Come out here, Wan Xiaopao, you son of a bitch, he growled.

I walked up to him with my daughter, whose arms were wrapped around my neck, her face tucked up against my cheek.

Father, I said when I was right in front of him, you can take it out on me.

He raised his pitchfork, but his hands froze above his head. Teardrops dotted the grey stubble on his chin. His legs crumpled and suddenly he was kneeling.

But she was alive . . . He tossed the pitchfork aside and wept openly. As he knelt in the dirt, he said, She was so alive, but you people had to go and kill her . . . you evil people, aren’t you afraid of heavenly retribution?

Gugu walked over and stood in front of my father-in-law, where she hung her head and said, Wang family parents, it’s not Xiaopao’s fault. You can blame me. Blame me for not being responsible enough, for not checking carefully to see that women of child-bearing age were properly fitted with intra-uterine devices, for not considering the possibility that the no-good Yuan Sai had the skill to remove an intra-uterine device, and for not sending Renmei to the hospital for the procedure. Now – she looked over at the Party secretary – I am prepared to accept punishment from my superiors.

What’s done is done, the Party secretary said as he turned to my in-laws. We’ll go back to decide the compensation you two deserve. But Dr Wan did nothing wrong. It just happened, a result of your daughter’s unique physical constitution. Even going to the hospital would not have changed the outcome. In addition – the secretary raised his voice for the benefit of the people crowding into the yard and emerging from the lane – family planning is a national policy that cannot be changed because of an unfortunate accident. Women with illegal pregnancies should volunteer to have the pregnancies terminated. Anyone who is considering an illegal pregnancy or planning to circumvent family-planning policy will be severely punished.

It’s your turn! my mother-in-law shrieked as she took a pair of scissors from her pocket and stabbed my aunt in the thigh.

Gugu pressed her hand against the wound to staunch the blood that seeped out between her fingers.

Commune cadres rushed up, pinned my mother-in-law to the ground, and wrenched the scissors out of her hand.

Little Lion crouched down beside Gugu, opened her medical kit and took out a bandage, which she wrapped around Gugu’s leg.

Get on the phone, the Party secretary shouted, and send for an ambulance.

There’s no need for that, Gugu said. Renmei’s mother, I gave your daughter 600 ccs of my blood. Now our blood debt is paid in full.

Gugu’s movements caused the blood to flow more freely than ever.

How could you, old woman! the enraged Party secretary said. You’ll pay for it if anything happens to Chairwoman Wan.

The sight of all that blood must have frightened my mother-in-law. Once again she beat the ground and howled.

This is nothing to worry about, Renmei’s mother, Gugu said. Even if I get tetanus and die, you’re not responsible. I want to thank you for stabbing me. I can now cast off my burden and strengthen my beliefs – she turned to face the people drawn to the commotion and announced – Please pass the word to Chen Bi and Wang Dan to come to the health centre and ask for me. If they don’t – she waved her bloodstained hand in the air – even if she hid in an underground tomb, I’ll go dig her up!