four
frogs
The yellow dirt of the summer comes thick and dusty each year to Da Ji Cun. I squat to tie my shoelaces in front of Nai Nai’s
house. My sneakers are coated.
You come clomping after me through the front doorway. We’re both wearing tank tops and shorts, but even so, we’re sweating.
It’s still morning. Summer in the middle of China is so hot that everything wilts. The hazy sky spreads all around like a
whiteout, so bright that you can’t look up without squinting into tears. The ground is coated with fuzzy pink mimosa flowers
from the tree next to Nai Nai’s door. When we go on the roof, the branches are close enough that we can reach out and gather
them for tea.
You have a big bucket swinging in your right hand. “Let’s go catch some frogs,” you say, your face splitting with a grin.
Nai Nai’s house is at the end of Da Ji Cun, which means the village of big joy.
I learned the words for it in English only this past year.
Village of Big Joy sounds clunky on my tongue, like most of the new words I’m learning in school.
In front of the house, there’s a small circular pond with steep banks like the sides of a whirlpool.
Nai Nai told us not to get close because the water is deep and a boy had drowned in it before.
Da Ji Cun is outside Xi’An, after the pavement grounds into packed yellow earth. Follow the road for forty-five minutes, until
you begin to doze off and the outer suburbs give way to low fields of wheat, the road edged with rows of dusty ash trees.
The village is surrounded by an old brick wall with its name in faded paint. It consists of three dirt roads in parallel.
The houses are built right against each other, sharing cement walls on either side, easy for shouting over the top and passing
across meals. Each house has a front room with a sitting area and kitchen, a back area with bedrooms, and a courtyard in the
middle open to the sky, with stairs leading up to a second level. Nai Nai’s courtyard is full of roses and grapevines. In
the most frigid winter nights, we used to huddle in Nai Nai’s hard bed, warmed by the coal furnace underneath.
But now we live in America with Mama and Baba, and so we only come back in the summertime. When I’m here, it’s easy to forget
that this is not home anymore.
The other kids in the village join us. We’re a ragtag pack, feral and loud, ranging from four to eleven. School has finally
let out in the village, and they’re as ready to wreak havoc as we are.
“What do you learn in American school?” Lixin asks me. He’s a year younger than me. He’s got a streak of dirt in his hair and has big round eyes. He’s a runt, but the villagers say he’s got the best eyes in town. “Do you eat pizza and hamburgers every day?”
I shrug as we trek out of the village onto the dirt road, under the trees. I don’t like talking about life in America. The
others are endlessly curious. You have a lot to say, but I never do. It reminds me that in three weeks, we have to go back.
Although you’re not the oldest, you lead the way. Maybe because Nai Nai is the eldest in the village and you are her prized
grandson, or simply because you’re the special kid from America. We all fall in line.
I skip to the front of the group to walk side by side with you. “Where are you taking us?”
You shake your head, smiling. I’m annoyed but giddy. You usually don’t keep secrets. It must be a really good one.
We walk for twenty minutes, which feels like hours in the sweltering temperature. I am panting by the time you stop abruptly.
We’ve passed at least three different fields. It’s the farthest I’ve ever gone out without an adult. I glance behind me, and
Da Ji Cun is a tiny dot far away. The air shimmers with heat. I stick my tongue out like an animal to see if I will cool down
faster.
“Listen,” you say, your hand cupping your ear.
We stand stock-still. We hear it all at once. The sound of running water.
You scramble down the side of the road, sloping toward the line between two fields. And I see it. A tiny creek, cutting the two properties in half. In a flash, we’re all in the gully, our shoes squelching with mud, our ankles wet.
We don’t have to look very hard. Frogs begin leaping out of the water, out of the grass. We’re surrounded by frogs, bouncing
all around us, croaking in a ribbity chorus. They’re different colors on a spectrum of brown to yellow to bright green.
We fill our bucket with a shallow amount of water from the creek and then load it up with frogs. Some of them leap out, but
we cover the top with a lid with holes.
Soon enough, we’ve gotten our prize and climb out back onto the road. Dirty, hot, and supremely satisfied.
“A pet frog,” I keep saying over and over again.
Mama and Baba never let us have any pets.
I hold hands and sing on the way back with a girl nicknamed Gou Gou, for little dog. Her hair sticks up in pigtails and she’s
wilder than any boy.
Gou Gou’s mother stands at the head of the road. She is out of work this summer, souring slowly at home. She’s a stout woman
with big hands and a wide face. She’s wearing a dress with a faded floral pattern, inevitably coated in dust, and scowling
up a storm. “Gou Gou!” she shrieks. “Where have you been? I’m going to kill you.”
Gou Gou squeals and whispers in my ear, “I stayed out all last night and hid on the roof. She never found me.”
Gou Gou’s mother makes to rush toward us, her hands on her hips.
“Give me your ear, you little devil.” Her Chinese has a strong local accent, earthy and brash.
The adults in the village don’t speak Mandarin well, because most of them never went past high school.
The kids can switch back and forth because the teachers now are required to teach in the Mandarin dialect—or Beijing dialect, as we call it in Chinese—even out in the countryside.
You and I used to speak the local dialect perfectly, but now that we live in America full-time, the village children switch
to Mandarin when they speak to us, as though we are no longer from here.
“Run!” one of the boys shouts gleefully, and we all scatter before Gou Gou’s mother’s rage.
At high noon, we take the bucket into the courtyard and gingerly set it down under the shade of the grape trellis. Inside,
Nai Nai has dressed cold noodles with spicy chili oil, black vinegar, soy sauce, cucumbers, spongy wheat gluten, cilantro,
and bean sprouts. You add an extra dribble of the hot oil to your portion. We slurp our lunch happily, faces smeared with
oil and sauce. Cold noodles are perfect for a hot day.
There is no air-conditioning here, and the electricity stops working during the day, siphoned off to the city for use, so we don’t even have fans.
The midafternoon is too hot to breathe. Nai Nai goes into the back room to take a nap.
You and I lie on the cool tile floor, pressing our cheeks one way and then the other for relief.
When we get bored of doing that, we creep into the garden quietly to check on the frogs.
They must be warm too. They bob in the water, legs bending and extending slowly.
They’ve quieted down and stare out with glazed eyes.
Evening comes. Nai Nai is in the kitchen, prepping dinner. She pulls aside the curtain to the courtyard, her hands covered
in flour. “Let’s clean up. You two are filthy.”
You take the bathroom, which has a showerhead and a sloped floor where the water drains away. Nai Nai and I bathe in the courtyard,
where she fills two big tureens with water. The cool water feels wonderful as it evaporates off my skin. Nai Nai rubs a citrusy-smelling
shampoo into my hair.
“Dirt everywhere,” she scolds.
I throw my head back and take in the sun-streaked sky, as pink as the mimosa flowers. Nothing is better than an outdoor bath.
I hate washing up in our new bathroom at Mama and Baba’s house. Tiled and sterile and nothing to see when you look up.
“Next time we take a bath, the frogs can be with us,” I say.
“Mm,” she hums noncommittally. She hands me a rough-textured towel so I can dry off.
I shake my hair so it flings droplets of water everywhere.
Nai Nai laughs. “Silly girl.” She asks me to get rid of the dirty water while she sets the table.
I pour the water into the garden. It seeps into the rich black earth.
We eat ravenously at the dinner table.
“I’m thinking about the frogs,” Nai Nai says carefully when we’re almost done. “Don’t you think they would be happier if you let them go into the pond?”
My head jerks up from my bowl. “They’re our pets,” I protest. I look to you.
You shake your head. “Do we have to?” you ask.
“You don’t have to,” Nai Nai says. “It’s your choice. But maybe the frogs miss their home. Maybe they don’t think it’s fair for you to have
taken them somewhere new where they don’t know anybody.” Nai Nai never raises her voice, not like our parents. She never scolds
or disciplines. Instead, she provides commentary, but with enough suggestive flavor so that you feel her disappointment deep
into the soles of your feet.
You look at me, upset. My face flushes red in shame.
“We didn’t mean to,” I say.
“I know,” she says gently. “But you can let them go back.”
I glance to you for direction. In everything, I always still defer to you, the one who knows best, the one who speaks for
both of us.
Your face wrestles with the decision, but in the end, your sense of responsibility wins out. “Okay,” you say at last. “But
can we wait a little bit after dinner?”
Nai Nai nods.
We go into the courtyard to check on the frogs as Nai Nai cleans up. They are quiet and watchful, as if they know they are
close to freedom. I take one finger and slowly stroke the top of one frog’s slimy head. Its eyes blink. It opens its mouth
and croaks.
“Be good, froggy,” I tell it.
After it gets fully dark, we take the bucket outside and Nai Nai follows us. The moon shines in an almost full coin. Against
the horizon, the artificial city lights glow in the distance, giving the deep teal-blue sky a pale-colored rind, like the
edge of a watermelon.
The pond is completely still. We stand at the road, right before the banks begin to slope toward the water.
“We can let them go here,” Nai Nai says. “Frogs will always find water.”
“Are you sure?” I ask, looking up at her.
“I’m sure,” she says. “They’ll be just fine.”
You pour the water out carefully. For a moment, the frogs seem stunned, but then one of them croaks and they all start hopping
madly down the banks. They hit the water with bright moonlit ripples and disappear. I watch the lagging frogs leap around
until all of them are gone. The bucket is empty, and the night is quiet.
I feel sad.
“Nai Nai,” I say, “how come the frogs get to stay here at home but we have to leave? I want to stay too.”
A flash of surprise flickers across her face before she quashes it. “America is your home now, mei mei. With Baba and Mama.”
In three weeks, we will have to get on a plane back to Illinois. The next time we come back, everything will be different.
We stay outside until the song of the cicadas makes us sleepy.
We hold hands in the time before childhood ends.