Frog (34 page)

SUPERVISOR:
I’ll ask you one more time to leave, madam. If you don’t, I’ll have to call the police.

CHEN MEI:
The police? Good, call them. That’s exactly who I want to see. The people’s police love the people. Can they ignore people who lose children?

SUPERVISOR:
No, they can’t. They’ll even help you find a lost dog, let alone a child.

CHEN MEI:
That’s good. I’ll go find a policeman.

SUPERVISOR:
Good idea, do it now. (
points out the way to go
) Straight ahead, then right at the traffic light. The Binhe precinct station is next to the dancehall.

A car drives up from the hospital, horn blaring.

CHEN MEI:
(
briefly dazed, then comes to
) My baby, they’re taking my baby away in that car. (
rushes towards the car
) Give me my baby, you thieves!

The supervisor tries to stop her, but she is uncommonly strong and shoves him away.

SUPERVISOR:
(
exasperated
) Stop her!

The security guard rushes up and wraps his arms around Chen Mei as she tries to block the car’s way. She struggles. The supervisor comes up to help the guard restrain Chen Mei. Her veil is torn loose in the struggle, revealing a horribly disfigured face destroyed by fire. The guard and supervisor recoil in horror.

SECURITY GUARD:
My god!

SUPERVISOR:
(
spots frogs that have been flattened by the car’s tyres and people’s feet
) Shit! Where did all these damn things come from?

Curtain

Green lights turn the stage into a gloomy underwater world. The entrance to a cave at the rear is moss-covered. The croaks of frogs and wails of babies emerge from the cave. A dozen bawling babies hang down from above the stage, limbs flailing.

A pair of workbenches for making clay dolls has been placed at the front of the stage.

Hao Dashou and Qin He sit behind the benches in lotus position creating clay dolls.

Gugu crawls out from the cave. She is wearing a baggy black robe, her hair is uncombed.

GUGU:
(
as if reciting from memory
) My name is Wan Xin, I am seventy-two years old, and have been an obstetrician for fifty years. Though I am retired, I am anything but idle. I have been in attendance at the birth of nine thousand eight hundred and eighty-three babies. (
She looks up at the babies hanging above the stage.
) You children, I love to hear the sound of your crying. It makes me feel alive and real. Not hearing you cry makes Gugu feel empty inside. There isn’t another sound anywhere to match that of your crying. It is Gugu’s requiem. I only wish there had been tape recorders around back then to record the sounds of your crying as you were born. Gugu would play those sounds every day while she was alive and have them played at her funeral when she died. What wonderfully moving music the sound of nine thousand eight hundred and eighty-three babies crying together would make. (
totally carried away
) Let your crying move Heaven and Earth, let it deliver Gugu into Paradise . . .

QIN HE:
(
gloomy
) Be careful their crying doesn’t send you down to Hell!

GUGU:
(
wanders lightly among the babies hanging above the stage like a fish swimming spryly through the water, lightly spanking their bottoms as she passes among them
) Cry, my darlings, cry! Not crying means there’s something wrong with you, crying means you’re healthy.

HAO DASHOU:
Crazy!

QIN HE:
Who is?

HAO DASHOU:
I am.

QIN HE:
It’s okay to say you’re crazy, but not me. (
self-importantly
) Because I am Northeast Gaomi Township’s most famous clay-doll artisan. Though some may disagree, they’re welcome to their opinion. Where making things out of clay is concerned, I am the world’s number one. People have to learn how to promote themselves. If you don’t treat yourself like someone special, who will? The dolls I create are objets d’art, each valued at a hundred US dollars.

HAO DASHOU:
Did you all hear that? That’s what you call shameless! When I was making dolls out of clay you were crawling on the ground scrounging for chicken feed. I was designated a master folk artist by the county chief himself. And what are you?

QIN HE:
Comrades, friends, did you hear that? Hao Dashou, you’re not shameless, you’re too thickheaded to even feel shame, you’re deranged, you’re obsessive-compulsive. After a lifetime of making clay dolls, there isn’t one that can be called finished. You make one, then destroy it. The next one will be the one, you tell yourself. You’re like the bear in the cornfield picking ears and discarding them. Comrades, friends, take a good look at those hands. Hao Dashou, Big-Hands Hao? Those aren’t hands, they’re frog claws, duck’s feet, webbing and all . . .

HAO DASHOU:
(
angrily throws a lump of clay at Qin He
) You’re full of shit,
you’re
deranged. Get the hell out of here!

QIN HE:
Make me!

HAO DASHOU:
This is my house.

QIN HE:
Can you prove that? (
points to Gugu and the hanging children
) Can she? Can they?

HAO DASHOU:
(
points to Gugu
) Of course she can.

QIN HE:
Prove it.

HAO DASHOU:
She’s my wife.

QIN HE:
Prove it.

HAO DASHOU:
We’re married.

QIN HE:
Got any proof?

HAO DASHOU:
We’ve slept together.

QIN HE:
(
deeply hurt, holds his head
) No – you’re a liar, you’re lying to me. I gave up my youth for you, you promised you wouldn’t marry anyone, not ever!

GUGU:
(
looks daggers at Hao
) Why are you provoking him? We agreed.

HAO DASHOU:
I forgot.

GUGU:
You forgot? Let me remind you. I told you back then that I’d marry you, but only if you accepted him as my kid brother, and that you’d put up with his outbursts, his foolishness, his crazy talk; and that you’d supply his room, board and clothing.

HAO DASHOU:
And let him sleep with you?

GUGU:
Deranged, you’re both deranged.

QIN HE:
(
points angrily at Hao
) He’s deranged, not me.

HAO DASHOU:
Make as much noise as you want, be as angry from embarrassment as you want, it won’t make any difference. You can raise your fists above the trees, cherries can spray from your eyes, you can grow horns, birds can fly out of your mouth, you can grow pig’s bristles all over your body, and none of those will alter the fact that you’re deranged. That is etched in stone.

GUGU:
(
mocking
) Is that language you learned from Tadpole’s little drama?

HAO DASHOU:
(
points to Qin He
) Every two months you have to check in to the Ma’er Shan Asylum for a three-month stay. They put you in a straitjacket and a sedative regimen; if that doesn’t work, they use electric shock therapy. When they finish with you, you’re skin and bones and glassy-eyed, like an African orphan. Your face is covered with flyspecks, like an old wall. You finally escape, but are never out more than two months. Tomorrow or the day after, you have to go back there again. (
deftly imitates the sound of an ambulance siren. Qin He trembles and falls to his knees
) When you go in this time, you’ll not come out again. If they let you out with your manic condition, you would introduce an element of disharmony into harmonious society.

GUGU:
That’s enough!

HAO DASHOU:
If I were a doctor, I’d lock you up for good and use a cow prod till you foamed at the mouth, till your body was racked by spasms, and you went into such deep shock you’d never come out of it. But if somehow you did, you’d have no memory.

Qin He wraps his arms around his head as he rolls on the ground and releases horrifying shrieks
.

HAO DASHOU:
Braying like a donkey and rolling on the ground are paltry skills. Go on, keep rolling. Look, your face is getting longer. Your ears are getting bigger. Feel them yourself. You’re becoming a donkey. A donkey turns a millstone, round and round and round. (
Qin He crawls on the floor, his rump raised, as he mimics a donkey turning a millstone
) Right, that’s it, you’re a fine donkey. After you mill two pecks of black beans, mill a bushel of sorghum. A good donkey doesn’t need blinders, because a good donkey doesn’t nibble at the grain on the millstone. Do a good job and your master will treat you well. I’ve got your feed already prepared, just waiting for you.

Gugu goes up to stop Qin He, but he bites her hand.

GUGU:
Damn you, you don’t know what’s good for you!

HAO DASHOU:
I’ve told you you’ve got no business here. You go take care of the children. Make sure they’re not cold or hungry. But don’t let them eat too much either or get too warm. Like you’ve always said: Children are best comforted by keeping them slightly hungry and a little cold. (
turns to Qin He
) Why have you stopped? You lazy donkey, do I have to use a whip on you?

GUGU:
Stop abusing him, he’s not well.

HAO DASHOU:
He’s
not well, I think
you’re
not well!

Qin He collapses on the stage, foaming at the mouth.

HAO DASHOU:
Get up, you can stop playing dead. This isn’t the first time you’ve played that game. I’ve seen it many, many times. If you think you can scare me with that, you’re mistaken. Even a stinkbug knows how to play dead. What you need to do is really die. Do it now, don’t wait another minute.

Gugu rushes up to help Qin He. Hao Dashou gets up and stops her.

HAO DASHOU:
(
painfully
) My patience has run out. I’m not going to let you save him like that . . .

Gugu moves left, Hao follows; Gugu moves right, Hao follows.

GUGU:
He’s not well. In the minds of us doctors there are two types of people, healthy and sick. If he’d hit my mother yesterday and was struck by illness today, I’d put aside my hatred and treat him to the best of my ability. If his brother had an epileptic seizure while he was raping me I’d push him off and try to save him.

HAO DASHOU:
(
abruptly stiffens and lowers his voice to say painfully
) You finally admit that you had illicit relations with the two brothers.

GUGU:
History is like that, the history of thousands of years of civilised society. Those who acknowledge history are history’s materialists. Those who deny it are history’s idealists.

Gugu sits beside Qin He and wraps him in her arms like a baby. She rocks him and sings an indistinguishable song.

GUGU:
My heart breaks when I think of you . . . I cry but without tears when I think of you . . . I want to write but cannot find your address . . . I want to sing but cannot recall the words . . . I want to kiss you but cannot find your lips . . . I want to hold you but cannot find your body . . .

A child in a green stomacher embroidered with a frog, his head as clean as watermelon rind, emerges from the dark cave entrance at the head of an army of frogs (played by children) in wheelchairs, on canes, their front legs wrapped in gauze. The boy shouts
Collecting debts! Collecting debts!
The frogs behind him produce a guttural chorus.

Gugu lets out a shrill scream, runs away from Qin He and dodges the child and the frogs.

Hao Dashou and the suddenly alert Qin He block the attack of the green boy and frogs; Gugu leaves the stage in their protection. The green boy and frogs take up the chase offstage.

Curtain

A police station waiting room. One table only, with a telephone. Certificates of merit and citations adorn the wall.

A policewoman named Wei sits behind the table, gesturing to Chen Mei to take the chair on the other side. Chen Mei is still all in black, with her veil.

WEI:
(
prim and proper, sounds like a student
) Have a seat, visiting citizen.

CHEN MEI:
(
illogically
) Why aren’t there two big drums at the entrance to the main hall?

WEI:
Drums? What for?

CHEN MEI:
That’s what they used to have, so why don’t you? Without drums how are the common people supposed to announce their complaints?

WEI:
You’re talking about the yamens of the old, feudal society. In a socialist society those things have been discarded.

CHEN MEI:
Not in Kaifeng Prefecture.

WEI:
Did you see something like that in a TV series? Magistrate Bao sat in Kaifeng Prefecture.

CHEN MEI:
Take me to see Magistrate Bao.

WEI:
Citizen, you are in the public waiting room of the Binhe Road police station. I am Duty Officer Wei Ying. Tell me what you’ve come for. I’ll record it and open a case file, then I’ll report to my superior.

CHEN MEI:
Only Magistrate Bao can resolve a problem as great as mine.

WEI:
Citizen, Magistrate Bao isn’t in today, so tell me what your problem is, and I will be sure to relay it to the magistrate. How’s that?

CHEN MEI:
Do I have your word?

WEI:
You do. (
gestures to the chair
) Have a seat.

CHEN MEI:
This common woman dares not sit.

WEI:
If I say sit, you sit.

CHEN MEI:
This common woman thanks you.

WEI:
Would you like a glass of water?

CHEN MEI:
This common woman dares not.

WEI:
Citizen woman, let’s stop the TV drama, all right? What’s your name?

CHEN MEI:
This common woman’s name was Chen Mei, but Chen Mei died, or shall we say, she is half dead, half alive. So this common woman does not know her name.

WEI:
Are you making fun of me, Citizen? Or are you expecting me to play your games? You are in a police station, where that sort of thing is not allowed.

CHEN MEI:
I once had the loveliest eyebrows in all of Northeast Gaomi Township, and that is why my name was Chen Mei, Eyebrows Chen. But they’re gone now . . . and not just my brows (
shrilly
) but even my lashes and my hair! So I no longer have the right to be called Chen Mei.

WEI:
(
a sudden realisation
) Citizen woman, if you don’t mind, would you remove your veil?

CHEN MEI:
No!

WEI:
If I’m not mistaken, you were a victim of the Dongli Stuffed Animal Factory fire.

CHEN MEI:
How clever of you.

WEI:
I was a student at the police academy at the time, and I saw TV reports of the fire. Those capitalists have hearts of stone. I felt so sorry for what happened to you, but if you are looking for compensation, you need to go to the courts. Either that or go see the city’s Party committee or government. You could even take your case to the media.

CHEN MEI:
Didn’t you say you knew Magistrate Bao? He’s the only one who can give me justice.

WEI:
(
with forced resolve
) All right, let’s hear it. I’ll do everything within my power to take your case to my superiors.

CHEN MEI:
I want to charge them with the crime of stealing my child.

WEI:
Who stole your child? Take your time. Just tell me what happened. I think you need a drink of water. You’re getting hoarse. Water will help. (
pours a glass of water and hands it to her.
)

CHEN MEI:
No water for me. I know that’s just an excuse so you can see my face. I hate my face and hate for others to see it.

WEI:
I’m sorry, but that wasn’t my intention.

CHEN MEI:
I have only looked in a mirror once since the accident. I hate mirrors, hate anything that gives reflections. I was going to kill myself after I’d paid off my father’s debts, but I’ve changed my mind. If I killed myself, my baby would starve to death. If I killed myself, my baby would be an orphan. I hear my baby crying. Listen . . . he’s cried himself hoarse. I want to nurse him, my breasts have swelled up like balloons about to pop. But they’ve hidden my baby someplace . . .

WEI:
Who are
they
?

CHEN MEI:
(
casts a watchful glance at the door
) Frogs, bullfrogs as big as pot lids, always croaking, vicious frogs, frogs that eat children . . .

WEI:
(
gets up and shuts the door
) Don’t worry, big sister, these walls are soundproof.

CHEN MEI:
They know all the tricks, and they conspire with officials.

WEI:
They don’t scare Magistrate Bao.

CHEN MEI:
(
gets out of the chair and kneels
) Magistrate Bao, the injustice to this common woman is as deep as the ocean. Please see that justice is done.

WEI:
You may speak.

CHEN MEI:
Reporting. This commoner is Chen Mei, a resident of Northeast Gaomi Township. Her father, Chen Bi, greatly favours boys over girls. Years ago, when he wanted a son, he forced my mother into an illegal pregnancy, but the secret was exposed. He hid her here and there, until they were chased and caught on the river. My mother had her baby – me – and then died. My father was disappointed to have a second daughter. He abandoned me at first, then took me back, but because I was born illegally, he was fined five thousand eight hundred yuan. From then on he took to drinking, and when he was drunk he beat his daughters. When we could we two went south to work in a Guangdong factory to pay off our father’s debts and hope for a brighter future. My sister, Chen Er, and I were known as great beauties who could make our fortune if we wished to leave the path of virtue. But we refused to give up our chastity and modelled ourselves after the lotus that emerges from the mud and remains pure. But there was a terrible fire that claimed my sister’s life and ruined my face . . .

Wei dries her eyes with a tissue.

CHEN MEI:
My sister died trying to save me . . . why did you do that, Sister? I’d rather be dead than live a life like someone who is neither human nor demon.

WEI:
Those horrid capitalists. They should all be rounded up and shot.

CHEN MEI:
They’re not so bad. They gave us twenty thousand for my sister and paid all my hospital bills plus fifteen thousand. I gave it all to Father. Dad, I said, this is for the fine you paid when I was born plus twenty years’ interest. I no longer owe you anything.

WEI:
Your dad is not a good man either.

CHEN MEI:
Good or bad, he’s still my dad, and you’re out of line saying that.

WEI:
What did he spend the money on?

CHEN MEI:
What else? Food, drink, cigarettes, till it was all gone.

WEI:
A degenerate man, no better than a pig or a dog.

CHEN MEI:
I told you not to talk about him like that.

WEI:
(
self-mocking
) I was just following your lead.

CHEN MEI:
Eventually, I went to work at the Bullfrog Company.

WEI:
I’m aware of that company, it’s quite famous. I hear they’re working on making a high-end skin care product out of frog skins. If they’re successful, they’ll own the global patent.

CHEN MEI:
They’re the ones I’m charging.

WEI:
Tell me.

CHEN MEI:
Raising bullfrogs is just a screen. Their real business is making babies.

WEI:
Making babies, how?

CHEN MEI:
They’ve hired a bunch of young women to get pregnant for rich men.

WEI:
Are you kidding me?

CHEN MEI:
There are twenty hidden rooms in their compound, each with a woman, married, engaged, or single, ugly and pretty, some getting pregnant through sexual activity, others not.

WEI:
What are you saying? What’s pregnant by sexual activity and what’s not?

CHEN MEI:
Please, no false innocence. Do you not know about things like that? Are you a virgin?

WEI:
I honestly don’t know.

CHEN MEI:
Sexual activity means that men sleep with the women, like any couple, and stay with them till they get pregnant. No sexual activity means they take the man’s sperm, put it in a syringe, and insert it into the woman’s womb. Are you a virgin?

WEI:
Are you?

CHEN MEI:
Of course I am.

WEI:
But you just said you’ve had a baby.

CHEN MEI:
I’ve had a baby, but I’m still a virgin. They had their fat nurse squirt a syringe filled with sperm into my womb so I became pregnant and had a baby, but I’ve never slept with a man. I’m a chaste woman, a virgin!

WEI:
Just who are the
they
you’re talking about?

CHEN MEI:
I can’t tell you that. If I did they’d kill my baby . . .

WEI:
Was it that fat person at the bullfrog breeding farm? The one called, what’s his name . . . right, Yuan Sai.

CHEN MEI:
Where’s Yuan Sai? He’s the one I’m looking for, you bastard, you cheated me, you all got together to cheat me. You told me my son was stillborn. You showed me the corpse of a skinned cat and said it was my baby, a modern-day re-enactment of the leopard cat and prince story. You used that to cheat me out of some of my fee and to see that I wouldn’t have any thoughts of looking for my baby. I didn’t care about the money, money means nothing to me. When I was in Guangdong, a Taiwanese boss was willing to pay a million to spend three years with me. But I wanted a baby, the finest baby in the world. Magistrate Bao, you must help me seek justice.

WEI:
Did you sign a contract with them to be a surrogate mother?

CHEN MEI:
Yes. They gave me a third of the fee up front. The rest was to be paid when the baby was born.

WEI:
That could be a problem. But let’s not worry about that. Magistrate Bao will sort everything out. Go on.

CHEN MEI:
They said the contents of the syringe came from a very important man, with excellent genes, a genius. They said he’d stopped smoking and drinking for half a year, and ate a whole abalone and two sea cucumbers every day, all to guarantee the birth of a healthy baby.

WEI:
(
sarcastically
) What he wanted was an investment.

CHEN MEI:
All he wanted was to father a perfect child. They told me he’d seen a photo of me before my face was ruined, and believed that I was a mixed-race beauty.

WEI:
If money means nothing to you, why be a surrogate mother?

CHEN MEI:
Did I say that money means nothing to me?

WEI:
Just a moment ago.

CHEN MEI:
(
reflects
) Now I remember. My father was in the hospital because of a traffic accident and I became a surrogate to earn enough to pay his bills.

WEI:
You are a true filial daughter. A father like that would be better off dead.

CHEN MEI:
I thought that too, but he was still my father.

WEI:
That’s why I say you’re a filial daughter.

CHEN MEI:
I knew my baby wasn’t stillborn, because I heard him cry . . . listen . . . he’s crying again . . . my baby has never tasted his mother’s milk . . . my poor baby . . .

The station chief opens the door and enters.

STATION CHIEF:
All this crying and carrying on. If you’ve got something to say, say it. Don’t cry.

CHEN MEI:
(
kneels
) Magistrate Bao, please seek justice for this common woman . . .

STATION CHIEF:
What’s that all about? Ridiculous.

WEI:
(
under her breath
) Chief, this could be a monumental case. (
hands him her notebook; he scans what she’s written
) It could involve a prostitution ring and child trafficking!

CHEN MEI:
Magistrate, please save my child!

STATION CHIEF:
All right, Citizen Chen, I’ll take your case and be sure to pass it on to Magistrate Bao. Go home and wait to hear from us.

Chen Mei leaves.

WEI:
Chief.

STATION CHIEF:
You’re new here, so you don’t have a handle on what’s going on. That woman was disfigured in the fire at the Dongli Stuffed Animal Factory. She hasn’t been right in the head for years. We all feel sorry for her, but there’s nothing we can do.

WEI:
Chief, I saw . . .

STATION CHIEF:
What did you see?

WEI:
(
embarrassed
) She’s lactating.

STATION CHIEF:
That must have been perspiration. You’re new to this post, Wei. In this profession we have to remain vigilant and keep from being overly sensitive.

Curtain