Big Breasts and Wide Hips (34 page)

With a smirk, Laidi said, “The commissar did not invite us here to drink mung bean soup, did he?”

“Why shouldn't we?” Mother said. “Old Zhang, each of the girls and I will have a bowl.”

“Mother,” Laidi said, “what if it's poisoned?”

Commissar Jiang had a big laugh over that. “Mrs. Sha, you have quite an imagination.” He picked up the ladle, scooped out some of the soup, held it high, and let it drip back into the vat to show off the appearance and the aroma. Then he threw down the ladle again. “We put a packet of arsenic and two packets of rat poison into this soup. One drink and your stomach will burst within five paces, you'll crumple to the ground in six, and blood will spurt from all the holes in your body. Now, anyone dare to drink it?”

Mother stepped up, picked up a bowl and dusted it with her sleeve, then reached for the ladle, with which she filled the bowl with soup and handed it to First Sister, who refused it. So Mother said, “Then this bowl is mine.” After blowing on the liquid, she took a couple of sips. After a couple more tentative sips, she filled three more bowls, which she handed to Sixth Sister, Eighth Sister, and the young Sima. “Our turn,” shouted some of the prisoners. “Give us some. We'll drink three bowls of the stuff, poisoned or not.”

With the two old soldiers manning the ladles, the two younger ones passed out the bowls. The armed guards moved off to the sides and faced us at an angle; we could see their eyes, which were fixed on the prisoners, now on their feet and lining up, holding up their pants with one hand and ready to take bowls of mung bean soup with the other. Once they had the bowls in hand, they looked down cautiously, fearful that the hot liquid might burn their fingers. One by one, they returned slowly to the rear of the hall, where they hunkered down, freeing up both hands to hold the soup, which they blew on to cool before starting to eat. A puff of air, followed by noisy sips, the practiced way to eat without burning the inside of your mouth. Young Sima, lacking that experience, slurped up a mouthful, which he could neither spit out nor swallow, and wound up with a burned mouth. While he was taking his bowl of soup, one of the prisoners said softly, “Second Uncle …” The old soldier with the ladle looked up and stared into the young face before him. “Don't you recognize me, Second Uncle? It's me, Little Chang …” The old soldier reached out and whacked the back of Little Chang's hand with the ladle. “Who are you calling Second Uncle?” he scolded. “You've got the wrong man. I've got no nephew who's willing to be a turncoat and wear a green uniform!” With a cry of
Aiya
, Little Chang dropped his bowl onto his foot, giving him a nasty burn. With another
Aiya
, he let go of his pants to reach down and rub his foot; his pants slipped to his knees, revealing a dirty, tattered pair of underpants. A third
Aiya
escaped as he reached down to pull up his trousers and stand up straight; tears filled his eyes.

“Old Zhang, you have your orders!” Commissar Jiang said angrily. “Who gave you the authority to strike a prisoner? Report to the sergeant-at-arms. Three days in the stockade!”

“But,” Old Zhang protested, “he called me Second Uncle …”

“I'm betting you are his second uncle,” Commissar Jiang said. “Why try to hide it? If he does what he's told, he can become a member of our demolition battalion. How's that burn, youngster? We'll have a medic put some salve on it in a little while. Meanwhile, he spilled his soup, so give him another bowl, and add a few extra beans.”

The unfortunate young nephew hobbled back to the rear of the hall with his thicker-than-average soup, as the prisoners behind him in line stepped up to get their bowls.

Now all the prisoners were drinking their soup, filling the church with loud slurps. For the moment, the old and young soldiers had nothing to do; one of the young ones was standing there licking his lips, the other had his eyes fixed on me. One of the older ones was scraping the bottom of the vat with his ladle, the other had taken out a tobacco pouch and pipe and was preparing to take a smoke break. Mother put her bowl up to my lips, but I pushed it away, disgusted by its coarseness. My mouth was adapted to one thing and one thing only: her nipples.

First Sister snorted disdainfully. Commissar Jiang was looking at her, and she made sure she rewarded him with an expression of contempt. “I guess I should have a bowl of mung bean soup too,” she said.

“Of course you should,” Commissar Jiang said. “Just look at your face. It reminds me of a dry eggplant. Old Zhang, a bowl of soup for Mrs. Sha, and hurry. Make it thick.”

“I want it thin,” First Sister said.

“Then make it thin,” Commissar Jiang said.

Holding the bowl up to her mouth, First Sister took a sip. “You did add sugar,” she said. “Commissar Jiang, why don't you have a bowl. Your throat must be dry after all that talk.”

Commissar Jiang reached up and pinched his throat. “Indeed it is. Fill up a bowl for me, Old Zhang. Thin.”

With the bowl in his hands, Commissar Jiang discussed the qualities of mung beans with First Sister. He told her that in his hometown there was a sandy variety that softened as soon as the water boiled, whereas the local beans didn't even begin to soften for a couple of hours. Once they'd exhausted the subject of mung beans, they moved on to soybeans. You'd have thought they were bean experts; after they'd discussed nearly all varieties of beans, and Commissar Jiang had started in on peanuts, First Sister threw her bowl to the floor and spat out savagely, “What sort of trap are you setting, Jiang?”

“Mrs. Sha,” he said, “don't overreact. Let's go, what do you say? We've kept Commander Sha waiting long enough.”

“Where is he?” First Sister asked derisively.

“A place you remember only too well, of course,” Jiang replied.

There were more sentries at our gate than at the church.

One group was stationed at the door to the east wing, under the command of the mute, Speechless Sun. He was sitting on a log beside the wall, playing with his sword. The Bird Fairy was perched in the crotch of the peach tree, holding a cucumber and nibbling it with her front teeth.

“Go on in,” Commissar Jiang said to First Sister. “Try to talk some sense into him. We're hoping he'll abandon the dark and walk into the light.”

The moment First Sister entered the east wing, she let out a shriek.

We ran in after her. Sha Yueliang was hanging from the rafters. He was wearing a green wool uniform and a pair of shiny, knee-length leather boots. I remembered him as being of average height; but hanging there, he struck me as being exceptionally tall.

I climbed down off the
kang
and threw myself into Mother's lap before my eyes were even fully opened. Savagely, I pulled up her blouse, grabbed the mound of her breast with both hands, and took her nipple between my lips. Something spicy filled my mouth, and tears filled my eyes. I spat out the nipple and looked up, puzzled and a bit put out. Mother patted me on the head and smiled apologetically. “Jintong,” she said, “you're seven years old, almost a grown man. It's time to stop the breast-feeding.” Before the echo of her words had died out, I heard a peal of crisp, bell-like laughter from Eighth Sister, Shangguan Yunii.

A curtain of darkness lowered before my eyes. I looked heavenward just before I fell to the floor. Suddenly forlorn, I noticed that Mother's breasts, their nipples covered with a peppery coating, looked like a pair of red-eyed doves arching into the sky. In order to wean me, Mother had tried smearing her nipples with the juice of raw ginger, liquified garlic, smelly fish oil, even a bit of rancid chicken droppings. This time she'd used pepper oil. Each time she'd tried to wean me in the past, she'd relented when I fell to the floor as if struck dead. This time I lay on the floor, waiting for her to go in and wash her nipples, as she always had in the past. Scenes from the scary dream I'd had during the night unfolded before my eyes: Mother had sliced off one of her breasts and tossed it to the floor. “Go ahead, suck it!” she'd said. “Suck it!” A black cat had run up, snatched it in its mouth, and run off with it.

Mother picked me up off the floor and sat me down hard next to the dining table. She wore a grave expression. “Say what you like, but this time I'm going to wean you!” she said firmly. “Do you plan to suck until you reduce me to a piece of dry kindling, is that it, Jintong?”

The young Sima, Sha Zaohua, and my eighth sister, Yunii, were sitting around the table eating noodles. They turned toward me with looks of scorn. Shangguan Lü was sitting on a pile of cinders beside the stove, sneering at me. Her windblown skin was like coarse, flaky toilet paper. Young Sima lifted a long, squirmy noodle out of the bowl with his chopsticks and held it up in the air, trying to dazzle me. Then, like a worm, the noodle squirmed into his mouth — disgusting!

Mother put a bowl of steaming noodles down on the table and handed me a pair of chopsticks. “Here, eat,” she said. “Try some noodles your sixth sister made.”

Sixth Sister, who was feeding Shangguan Lü beside the stove, turned and gave me a hostile look. “Still breast-feeding,” she said, “at your age. You're hopeless!”

I flung the bowl of noodles at her.

She jumped up, covered with squirmy noodles. “Mother,” she growled, “see how you've spoiled him!” Mother smacked the back of my head.

I ran over and threw myself against Sixth Sister, clawing at her breasts. I could hear them cry out in protest, like baby chicks being bitten by rats. She doubled over in pain, but I held on for dear life. Her long, thin face turned yellow. “Mother,” she cried out, “look at him, Mother!”

Mother attacked my head. “You swine!” she cursed. “You dirty little swine!”

I lost consciousness.

When I came to, I had a splitting headache. Young Sima was still playing with his noodles, unconcerned about what was going on around him. Sha Zaohua looked up from behind her bowl, noodles stuck to her face, and gazed timidly at me. But I couldn't help feeling that there was respect in her eyes. Sixth Sister, her breasts hurting, sat in the doorway weeping. Shangguan Lü was staring malignantly at me. My mother, seemingly ready to burst from anger, was studying the mess of noodles on the floor. “You little bastard! You think these noodles come easy?” She scooped up a handful of the noodles — no, what she scooped up was a nest of squirmy worms — then pinched my nose shut, forcing me to open my mouth, and crammed the worms inside. “Eat those, every last one of them! You've sucked the marrow out of my bones, you little monster!” I threw it all up, broke free from her grasp, and ran out into the yard.

Shangguan Laidi was out there, still wearing the ill-fitting black coat she hadn't taken off in four years, bent at the waist as she honed the edge of a knife on a whetting stone. She flashed me a friendly smile. But then her expression changed. “This time I'll kill him for sure,” she said, grinding her teeth. “His time has come. I've got this knife sharper than the north wind, and cooler, and I'm going to make sure he understands that murderers pay with their lives.”

I was in no mood to pay her any attention, since everyone assumed she'd gone off her rocker. But I knew she was just faking madness, I just didn't know why. That time in the west wing, where she was staying, she sat high up on top of the millstone, her legs, covered by the black robe, hanging straight down. She told me what it was like being part of Sha Yueliang's marauding band, how she'd lived like royalty, and all the strange and wonderful things she'd seen. She'd owned a box that could sing and a glass that could bring distant objects right up under her nose. At the time I thought that was all crazy talk, but it wasn't long before I saw one of those boxes that could sing. Shangguan Pandi had brought one home with her. During her stay with the demolition battalion, she'd lived a life of ease and comfort, and had gotten fat in the process, like a pregnant mare. She carefully placed the object, with its brass morning glory, on the
kang
and said proudly: “Come over here, all of you. This will open your eyes!” She removed the red cloth covering and revealed the box's secret. First she cranked a handle round and round, and then she said, with a mysterious smile, “Listen, this is what a foreigner sounds like when he laughs.” The sound that came out of the box at that moment nearly frightened us out of our wits. The foreigner's laughter sounded like the crying of ghosts in tales we'd heard. “Get that thing out of here!” Mother demanded. “Right this minute! I don't want any box of ghosts in this house!” “Mother,” Shangguan Pandi said, “that brain of yours is too old-fashioned. This is a gramophone, not a box of ghosts.” From out in the yard, Laidi said, “The needle's worn out. It needs a new one.”

“Mrs. Sha,” Fifth Sister said sarcastically, “you needn't show off around us. You're a damned slut!” she added said hatefully. “They should have had you shot, and would have if not for me.”

“I could have killed him, and would have if you hadn't stopped me!” First Sister said. “I want you all to look at her. Does she look like some young virgin to you? That Jiang fellow nibbled on those big breasts of hers until they looked like a pair of dried turnips.”

“Dogshit turncoat! Female turncoat!” Instinctively, Fifth Sister protected her sagging breasts with her arms, as she kept the curses coming: “Stinking wife of a dogshit turncoat!”

“Get out of here, both of you!” Mother said, spitting mad. “Go out and die somewhere, and don't let me see you again!”

The episode instilled in me respect for Shangguan Laidi. She was relaxing in the donkey trough, which had been lined with straw, and said to me in a friendly voice, “You little idiot!” “I'm no idiot!” I defended myself. “But I think you are.” She abruptly lifted up her black coat, raised her legs high, and said in a muffled voice, “Look here!”