When the River Was Filled With Frogs

When the river ran red, our mother clutched her hand to her heart and forbade us from looking in the direction of its bloodied banks. We went anyway, of course, my older brother and I and some other boys. It smelled of baked dirt and it stained our hands. The fish swam close to the surface, tanning their bellies in the sun with their lips parted. At least, this is what I thought. My brother corrected me. “They’re dead,” he said. He knew about such things.

During that season of plagues, my brother and I adapted quickly to the new nature of things. It was harder for the grown-ups. They convened to discuss and to assign fault, blaming the king or the gods or the slaves. They were always talking about kings and gods and slaves.

Our mother calmed down when the river began to flush out and resemble muddy water, but it wasn’t long until another plague came upon the land.

We heard them before we saw them, awakening one night to their choral croaking.

They infested our father’s vegetable stall in the bazaar and hopped in the dark corners of our home. We found them boiling in the pots and injuriously stepped on them when walking in the dark.

This plague of frogs played on the squeamishness and irritability of the grown-ups, but to us children, it posed more opportunities than problems. When school was out, we would run to the river to swim with the frogs, paddling with them on our heads or floating on our backs with one resting on our bellies. We loved their nonchalance and their seeming willingness to be handled or experimented upon.

My brother, older than me by three years, endeavored to play the expert. “You see,” he said, “they are a close relative of mankind. Note that they have, as we do, two eyes and two nostrils, as well as fingers and toes. Very likely they are the descendants of a human who was cursed by the gods to live in the water.”

Our mother was less amused. There was a new baby in the house and she feared for him during those days of uncertainty.

Consumed in their concerns, neither of our parents noticed when my brother built an aquarium in the shady spot behind our house. He took a crate and sealed its cracks with leaves, which were pasted on with an adhesive made from mashed up dates and sap. We filled it with water and stones and algae and poured in a jar of tadpoles skimmed from the Nile’s surface.

During that season of plagues, my brother and I adapted quickly to the new nature of things. It was harder for the grown-ups. They convened to discuss and to assign fault, blaming the king or the gods or the slaves.

My brother stole writing utensils from the schoolmaster, who, like our parents, was too deep in some great national drama to be bothered by our exploits. We used these utensils to make notes and illustrations of the frogs’ life stages.

“The tadpole first hatches from an egg, and then slowly grows limbs and becomes a frog,” my brother said. “Humans pass through the same stages inside the womb.”

I asked him what this meant and he told me how we all start out as little fish that hatch from tiny, translucent pearls. Slowly we grow hands and feet. Just before birth our tails fall off.

With an air of wisdom, he told me that sometimes a person’s tail doesn’t fall off. “These people are sent to work for the king because they are unable to find wives in normal society,” he expounded. “In the palace, they are given positions of honor because their form is so unique.”

By the time our tadpoles were fully grown, other plagues started to roll across our land, one after the other. Many of these blights affected the food supply, and so our father encouraged us to hunt frogs, which were still in abundance.

In the evening, we would go out to the river as the sun set. The frogs would be singing their strange songs and licking flies out of the air. We’d take a quick swim and enjoy the cool bite of the water before nabbing some frogs and running home with them. I actually liked the feeling of the frog’s skin when it was cooked, no longer slimy but dry and brittle and warm.

Our mother barely touched hers, but rather attended to the baby, who cried throughout the day and night. Red faced and screaming, we feared the baby wasn’t faring well and that he wouldn’t make it. Our mother prayed to God for relief, but we didn’t know which god she was praying to. Back then, the air was thick with gods.

To escape the sound of the crying, my brother and I would run from the house to the river, sometimes staying out until blue dusk illuminated where we sat upon the bank. But one day, our father told us not to go out anymore. When we asked why, he was silent and we knew that it had to do with whatever was going on out there with the kings or the gods or the slaves.

When the great darkness came and there wasn’t even a moon in the sky, we were forbidden to leave the house. Although it was only a couple of days, it felt like a very long time that the world was like that, smooth and black and stuffy and hot. When the light of day returned, we were still forbidden to go outside. Our father said that the worst was yet to come, although he didn’t say what this might be. We drew the blinds and stayed in the darkness a little longer.

The restless days that ensued were a blur of stillness and darkness, when suddenly, in the middle of the night, I was roused from light sleep by the sudden cessation of sound. The baby had stopped crying. The house was flooded with a quiet like I had never experienced. It was a menacing silence — unnatural in its origins and bitter to the ears. Another plague.

I felt my brother beside me in our bed as hot as fire in the sheets. I wiped the sweat from his brow and clutched his hand.

The next morning, the light of dawn came on casually. The sound of birds could be heard. Whatever had come upon our home had moved on. My brother lay beside me, pale and cold and iridescent with little beads of moisture. I stifled my cries but heard wails of anguish from other homes.

We buried him in the ground behind our house and that was the end of the story. Our land and our people recovered. I returned to the schoolhouse, where I was taught how the events of my year were part of a larger story about slaves demanding freedom and peoples striving with one another.

I grew up, eventually taking over my father’s work at the bazaar along with my younger brother.

My mother, to this day, cannot look upon the Nile without seeing it red with blood. Similarly, I cannot look upon it without seeing it full of frogs, and when I do see it, I shiver remembering the smallness of the world then and the strangeness of childhood, when I was allowed briefly to believe that my tragedies and joys were mine alone.

Matthew Schultz is a writer living and working in Tel Aviv.