Big Breasts and Wide Hips (3 page)

Shangguan Lu nodded. Another explosion flew in on the wind, setting off a round of barking by frightened dogs. Sima Ting's booming voice came in fits: “Fellow townsmen, flee for your lives, don't wait another minute …” She felt the baby inside her kick, as if in response to Sima Ting's shouts, the stabbing pains forcing drops of rancid sweat out of every pore in her body. She clenched her teeth to keep the scream inside her from bursting out. Through the mist of tears she saw the lush black hair of her mother-in-law as she knelt at the altar and placed three sandalwood joss sticks in Guanyin's burner. Fragrant smoke curled up and quickly filled the room.

“Merciful Bodhisattva Guanyin, who succors the downtrodden and the distressed, protect and take pity on me, deliver a son to this family…” Pressing down on her arched, swollen belly with both hands, cold to the touch, Shangguan Lu gazed up at the enigmatic, glossy face of the ceramic Guanyin in her altar, and said a silent prayer as fresh tears began to flow. Removing her wet trousers and rolling up the shirt to expose her belly and her breasts, she gripped the edge of the
kang.
In between contractions she ran her fingers through her matted hair and leaned against the rolled-up grass mat and millet stalks.

The chipped quicksilver surface of a mirror in the window lattice reflected her profile: sweat-soaked hair, long, slanted, lusterless eyes, a pale high-bridged nose, and full but chapped lips that never stopped quaking. Moisture-laden sunbeams streamed in through the window and fell on her belly. Its twisting, swollen blue veins and white, pitted skin looked hideous to her; mixed feelings, dark and light, like the clear blue of a summer sky in Northeast Gaomi with dark rain clouds rolling past, gripped her. She could hardly bear to look at that enormous, strangely taut belly.

She had once dreamed that her fetus was actually a chunk of cold steel. Another time she'd dreamed that it was a large, warty toad. She could bear the thought of a chunk of steel, but the image of the toad made her shudder. “Lord in Heaven, protect me … Worthy Ancestors, protect me … gods and demons everywhere, protect me, spare me, let me deliver a healthy baby boy … my very own son, come to Mother … Father of Heaven, Mother of Earth, yellow spirits and fox fairies, help me, please …” And so she prayed and pleaded, assaulted by wrenching contractions. As she clung to the mat beneath her, her muscles twitched and jumped, her eyes bulged. Mixed in with the wash of red light were white-hot threads that twisted and curled and shrank in front of her like silver melting in a furnace. In the end, willpower alone could not keep the scream from bursting through her lips; it flew through the window lattice and bounced up and down the streets and byways, where it met Sima Ting's shout and entwined with it, a braid of sound that snaked through the hairy ears of the tall, husky, stooped-over Swedish pastor Malory, with his large head and scraggly red hair. He stopped on his way up the rotting boards of the steeple stairs. His deep blue ovine eyes, always moist and teary, and capable of moving you to the depths of your soul, suddenly emitted dancing sparks of startled glee. Crossing himself with his pudgy red fingers, he uttered in a thick Gaomi accent: “Almighty God …” He began climbing again, and when he reached the top, he rang a rusty bronze bell. The desolate sound spread through the mist-enshrouded, rosy dawn.

At the precise moment when the first peal of the bell rang out, and the shouted warning of a Jap attack hung in the air, a flood of amniotic fluid gushed from between the legs of Shangguan Lu. The muttony smell of a milk goat rose in the air, as did the sometimes pungent, sometimes subtle aroma of locust blossoms. The scene of making love with Pastor Malory beneath the locust tree last year flashed before her eyes with remarkable clarity, but before she gained any pleasure from the recollection, her mother-in-law ran into the room with blood-spattered hands, throwing fear into her, as she saw green sparks dancing off those hands.

“Has the baby come yet?” her mother-in-law asked, nearly shouting.

She shook her head, feeling ashamed.

Her mother-in-law's head quaked brilliantly in the sunlight, and she noted with amazement that the older woman's hair had turned gray.

“I thought you'd have had it by now.” Shangguan Lü reached out to touch her belly. Those hands — large knuckles, hard nails, rough skin, covered with blood — made her cringe; but she lacked the strength to move away from them as they settled unceremoniously onto her swollen belly, making her heart skip a beat and sending an icy current racing through her guts. Screams emerged unchecked, from terror, not pain. The hands probed and pressed and, finally, thumped, like testing a melon for ripeness. At last, they fell away and hung in the sun's rays, heavy, despondent, as if she'd come away with an unripe melon. Her mother-in-law floated ethereally before her eyes, except for those hands, which were solid, awesome, autonomous, free to roam where they pleased. Her mother-in-law's voice seemed to come from far away, from the depths of a pond, carried on the stench of mud and the bubbles of a crab: “… a melon falls to the ground when it's time, and nothing will stop it… you have to tough it out, za-za hu-hu … want people to mock you? Doesn't it bother you that your seven precious daughters will laugh at you …” She watched one of those hands descend weakly and, disgustingly, thump her belly again, producing soft hollow thuds, like a wet goatskin drum. “All you young women are spoiled. When your husband came into this world, I was sewing shoe soles the whole time …”

Finally, the thumping stopped and the hand pulled back into the shadows, where its hazy outline looked like the claws of a wild beast. Her mother-in-law's voice glimmered in the darkness, the redolence of locust flowers wafted over. “Look at that belly, it's huge, and it's covered with strange markings. It must be a boy. That's your good fortune, and mine, and the whole Shangguan family, for that matter. Bodhisattva, be here with her, Lord in Heaven, come to her side. Without a son, you'll be no better than a slave as long as you live, but with one, you'll be the mistress. Believe me or not, it's up to you. Actually, it isn't…”

“I believe, Mother, I believe you!” Shangguan Lu said reverently. Her gaze fell on the dark stains on the wall, grief filling her heart as memories of what had happened three years before surfaced. She had just delivered her seventh daughter, Shangguan Qiudi, driving her husband, Shangguan Shouxi, into such a blind rage that he'd flung a hammer at her, hitting her squarely in the head and staining the wall with her blood.

Her mother-in-law laid a basket upside down next to her. Her voice burned through the darkness like the flames of a wildfire: “Say this, ‘The child in my belly is a princely little boy' Say it!” The basket was filled with peanuts. The woman's face was suffused with a somber kindness; she was part deity, part loving parent, and Shangguan Lu was moved to tears.

“The child I'm carrying is a princely little boy. I'm carrying a prince … my own son …”

Her mother-in-law thrust some peanuts into her hand and told her to say, “Peanuts peanuts peanuts, boys and girls, the balance of yin and yang.”

Gratefully wrapping her hand around the peanuts, she repeated the mantra: “Peanuts peanuts peanuts, boys and girls, the balance of yin and yang.”

Shangguan Lü bent down, her tears falling unchecked. “Bodhi-sattva, be with her, Lord in Heaven, come to her side. Great joy will soon befall the Shangguan family! Laidi's mother, lie here and shuck peanuts until it's time. Our donkey's about to foal. It's her first, so I cannot stay with you.”

“You go on, Mother,” Shangguan Lu said emotionally. “Lord in Heaven, keep the Shangguan family's black donkey safe, let her foal without incident…”

With a sigh, Shangguan Lü reeled out the door.

The dim light of a filthy bean-oil lamp on a millstone in the barn flickered uneasily, wisps of black smoke curling from the tip of its flame. The smell of lamp oil merged with the stink of donkey droppings and urine. The air was foul. The black animal lay on the ground between the millstone and a dark green stone trough. All Shangguan Lü could see when she walked in was the flickering light of the lamp, but she heard the anxious voice of Shangguan Fulu: “What did she have?”

She turned toward the sound and curled her lip, then crossed the room, past the donkey and Shangguan Shouxi, who was massaging the animal's belly; she walked over to the window and ripped away the paper covering. A dozen rays of golden sunlight lit up the far wall. She then went to the millstone and blew out the lamp, releasing the smell of burned oil to snuff out the other rank odors. Shangguan Shouxi's dark oily face took on a golden sheen; his tiny black eyes sparkled like burning coals. “Mother,” he said fearfully, “let's leave. Everybody at Felicity Manor has fled, the Japanese will be here soon …”

Shangguan Lü stared at her son with a look that said, Why can't you be a man? Avoiding her eyes, he lowered his sweaty face.

“Who told you they're coming?” Shangguan Lü demanded angrily.

“The steward at Felicity Manor has been firing his gun and sounding the alarm,” Shangguan Shouxi muttered as he wiped his sweaty face with an arm covered with donkey hairs. It was puny alongside the muscular arm of his mother. His lips, which had been quivering like a baby at the tit, grew steady, as his head jerked up. Pricking up his tiny ears to listen for sounds, he said, “Mother, Father, do you hear that?”

The hoarse voice of Sima Ting drifted lazily into the barn. “Elders, mothers, uncles, aunts — brothers, sisters-in-law — brothers and sisters — run for your lives, flee while you can, hide in the fields till the danger passes — the Japanese are on their way — this is not a false alarm, it's real. Fellow villagers, don't waste another minute, run, don't trade your lives for a few broken-down shacks. While you live, the mountains stay green, while you live, the world keeps turning — fellow villagers, run while you can, do not wait until it's too late …”

Shangguan Shouxi jumped to his feet. “Did you hear that, Mother? Let's go!”

“Go? Go where?” Shangguan Lü said unhappily. “Of course the people at Felicity Manor have run off. But why should we join them? We are blacksmiths and farmers. We owe no tariff to the emperor or taxes to the nation. We are loyal citizens, whoever is in charge. The Japanese are human, too, aren't they? They've occupied the Northeast, but where would they be without common folk to till the fields and pay the rent? You're his father, the head of the family, tell me, am I right?”

Shangguan Fulu's lips parted to reveal two rows of strong, yellow teeth. It was hard to tell if he was smiling or frowning.

“I asked you a question!” she shouted angrily. “What do you gain by showing me those yellow teeth? I can't get a fart out of you, even with a stone roller!”

With a long face, Shangguan Fulu said, “Why ask me? If you say leave, we leave, if you say stay, we stay.”

Shangguan Lü sighed. “If the signs are good, we'll be all right. If not, there's nothing we can do about it. So get to work and push down on her belly!”

Opening and closing his mouth to build up his courage, Shangguan Shouxi asked loudly, but without much confidence, “Has the baby come?”

“Any man worth his salt focuses on what he's doing,” Shangguan Lü said. “You take care of the donkey, and leave women's business to me.”

“She's my wife,” Shangguan Shouxi muttered. “No one says she isn't.”

“My guess is this time it's a boy,” Shangguan Shouxi said as he pressed down on the donkey's belly. “I've never seen her that big before.”

“You're worthless …” Shangguan Lü was losing spirit. “Protect us, Bodhisattva.”

Shangguan Shouxi wanted to say more, but his mother's sad face sealed his lips.

“You two keep at it here,” Shangguan Fulu said, “while I go see what's going on out there.”

“Where do you think you're going?” Shangguan Lü demanded as she grabbed her husband's shoulders and dragged him back to where the donkey lay. “What's going on out there is none of your business! Just keep massaging the donkey's belly. The sooner she foals, the better. Dear Bodhisattva, Lord in Heaven. The Shangguan ancestors were men of iron and steel, so how did I wind up with two such worthless specimens?”

Shangguan Fulu bent over, reached out with hands that were as dainty as his son's, and pressed down on the donkey's twitching belly. The donkey lay between him and his son; pressing down one after the other, they seemed to be on opposite ends of a teeter-totter. Up and down they went, massaging the animal's hide. Weak father, weak son, accomplishing little with their soft hands — limp wicks, fluffy cotton, always careless and given to cutting corners. Standing behind them, Shangguan Lü could only shake her head in frustration, before reaching out, grabbing her husband by the neck, and jerking him to his feet. “Go on,” she demanded, “out of my way!” She sent her husband, a blacksmith hardly worthy of the name, reeling into the corner, where he sprawled atop a sack of hay. “And you, get up!” she ordered her son. “You're just underfoot. You never eat less than your share, and you're never around when there's work to be done. Lord in Heaven, what did I do to deserve this?”

Shangguan Shouxi jumped to his feet as if his life had been spared and ran over to join his father in the corner. Their dark little eyes rolled in their sockets, their expressions were a mixture of cunning and stupidity. The silence in the barn was broken once again by the shouts of Sima Ting, setting father and son squirming, as if their bowels or bladders were about to betray them.

Shangguan Lü knelt on the ground in front of the donkey's belly, oblivious of the filth, a look of solemn concentration on her face. Rolling up her sleeves, she rubbed her hands together, creating a grating noise like scraping the soles of two shoes together. Laying her cheek against the animal's belly, she listened attentively with her eyes narrowed. Then she stroked the donkey's face. “Donkey,” she said, “go on, get it over with. It's the curse of all females.” Then she straddled the donkey's neck, bent over, and laid her hands on its belly. As if planing a board, she pushed down and out. A pitiful bray tore from the donkey's mouth and its legs shot out stiffly, four hooves quaking violently, as if beating a violent tattoo on four drums, the jagged rhythm bouncing off the walls. It raised its head, left it suspended in the air for a moment, then brought it crashing back to earth with a moist, sticky thud. “Donkey, endure it a while longer,” she murmured. “Who made us female in the first place? Clench your teeth, push … push harder …” Holding her hands up to her chest to draw strength into them, she took a deep breath, held it, and pushed down slowly, firmly.