Big Breasts and Wide Hips (6 page)

When the squat wagon master flicked the reins, the horses stepped restlessly onto the bridge flooring. Sparks and a loud clatter rose from the stones. Some men were standing nearby; they were stripped to the waist, wide leather belts cinching up their trousers, brass belt buckles glinting in the sun. Laidi knew the men: they were Felicity Manor servants. Several of them jumped up onto the wagon and tossed down the rice straw, then unloaded the liquor baskets, twenty altogether. The wagon master tugged on the reins to back the shaft horse over to a vacant piece of ground beside the bridgehead, just as the assistant steward, Sima Ku, rode out of the village on a black German-made bicycle, the first ever seen in Northeast Gaomi Township. Laidi's granddad, Shangguan Fulu, who could never keep his hands to himself, had once reached out, when he thought no one was looking, to fondle the handlebar; but that had been back in the spring. Blue flames nearly shot out of Sima Ku's angry eyes. He was wearing a long silk robe over white imported cotton trousers, tied at the ankles with blue bands and black tassels, and white-soled rubber shoes. His trouser legs billowed, as if pumped full of air; the hem of his robe was tucked into a belt woven of white silk tied at the front, with one long end and one short one. A narrow leather belt over his left shoulder crossed his chest like a sash, and was connected to a leather pouch with a piece of flaming red silk. The German bicycle bell rang out, heralding his arrival, as if on the wind. He jumped off the bicycle and removed his wide-brimmed straw hat to fan himself; the red mole on his face looked like a hot cinder. “Get moving!” he ordered the servants. “Pile the straw on the bridge and soak it with liquor. We'll incinerate those fucking dogs!”

The servants busily carried the straw onto the bridge until it stood waist high. White moths carried along with the straw flitted around the area; some fell into the water and wound up in the bellies of fish, others were snapped up by swallows.

“Douse the straw with the liquor!” Sima Ku ordered.

The servants picked up the baskets and, struggling mightily, carried them up onto the bridge. After pulling out the stoppers, they poured the liquor onto the straw, beautiful, high-octane liquor whose fragrance intoxicated an entire section of river. The straw rustled. Rivulets of liquor spread across the bridge and down to the stone facing, where it puddled before showering into the river, becoming a cascade by the time all twelve baskets were empty, and washing the stone facing clean. The straw changed color, a transparent sheet of liquor falling into the water below, and before long, little white fish were popping up on the surface. Laidi's sisters wanted to wade out into the river and scoop up the drunken fish, but she stopped them: “Stay away from there! We're going home!”

But they were mesmerized by the activity on the bridge. In fact, Laidi was as curious as they were, and even as she tried to drag her sisters away, her gaze kept returning to the bridge, where Sima Ku stood, smugly clapping his hands; his eyes lit up and a smile creased his face. “Who else could have devised such a brilliant strategy?” he crowed to the servants. “No one but me, damn it! Come on, you little Nips, get a taste of my might!”

The servants roared in response. “Second Steward, shall we light it now?” one asked.

“No, not until they arrive.”

The servants escorted Sima Ku over to the bridgehead and the Felicity Manor wagon headed back to the village. The only sound was of liquor dripping into the river.

Shrimp basket in hand, Laidi led her sisters to the top of the dike, parting the shrubbery that grew on the slope on her way up. Suddenly, a skinny, black face materialized in the brush in front of her. With a shriek, she dropped the basket, which bounced on the springy shrubbery and rolled all the way down to the edge of the water, spilling the shrimp, a shimmering, squirming mass. Lingdi ran down to pick up the basket, while her sisters went after the shrimp. As Laidi retreated toward the river, she kept her eyes fixed on that black face, on which an apologetic smile appeared, exposing two rows of teeth that shone like pearls. “Don't be afraid, little sister,” she heard him say softly. “We're guerrilla fighters. Don't scream. Just get away from here as fast as you can.”

Looking around, she spotted dozens of men in green clothing hiding in the shrubs, hard looks in their staring eyes; some were armed with rifles, others held grenades, and others still carried rusty swords. The man behind the dirty, smiling face held a steel blue pistol in his right hand and a shiny, ticking object in his left. It wasn't until much later that she learned that the object was a pocket-sized timepiece; by that time, she was already sharing her bed with the dark-faced man.

Third Master Fan, drunk as a lord, walked grumbling into the Shangguan house. “The Japanese are on their way. Bad timing by this donkey of yours. But what can I say, since it was my horse that impregnated her? Whoever hangs the bell on the tiger's neck must take it off. Shangguan Shouxi, I see you've got enough face to pull this off, oh shit, what face do you have? I'm only here because of your mother. She and I… ha ha … she made a hoof-scraper for my horses …” Shangguan Shouxi, his face covered with sweat, followed Third Master Fan in the door.

“Fan Three!” Shangguan Lü cried out. “You bastard, the local god makes a rare appearance!”

Feigning sobriety, Third Master Fan announced, “Fan Three has arrived.” But the sight of the donkey lying on the floor turned him from completely drunk to half sober. “My god, would you look at that! Why didn't you send for me earlier?” He tossed his leather saddlebag to the floor, bent down to stroke the donkey's ears, and patted its belly. Then he went around to the animal's rear, where he tugged on the leg protruding from the birth canal. Straightening up, he shook his head sadly, and said, “I'm too late, it's a lost cause. Last year, when your son brought the donkey over for mating, I told him the donkey was too scrawny, and that you should mate it with one of its own. But he insisted on mating it with a horse. That horse of mine is a thoroughbred Japanese stallion. His hoof is bigger than your donkey's head, and when he mounted your animal, she nearly crumpled under the weight. Like a rooster and a house sparrow. But he's a good stud horse, so he just closed his eyes and humped away. If it'd been another horse, shit! See, the foal won't come out. Your donkey isn't made to have a mule. All she's good for is producing donkeys, a scrawny donkey …”

“Are you finished, Fan Three?” Shangguan Lü interrupted his monologue angrily.

“Finished, yes, I've said what I wanted to say.” He picked up his leather bag, flung it over his shoulder, and, returning from half sober to completely drunk, stumbled toward the door.

Shangguan Lü grabbed him by the arm. “You're leaving?” she said.

Fan Three smiled grimly. “Old sister-in-law,” he said, “haven't you been listening to the Felicity Manor steward? The village is almost deserted. Who's more important, that donkey or me?”

“Three, you're afraid I won't make it worth your while, is that it? Well, you'll get your two bottles of fine liquor and a fat pig's head. And don't forget, in this family, what I say goes.”

Fan Three glanced at father and son. “I'm well aware of that,” he said with a smile. “You're probably the only old woman anywhere in this country who's a true blacksmith. The strength in that bare back of yours …” A strange smile creased his face.

“Up your mother's ass!” Shangguan Lü cursed as she thumped him on the back. “Don't go, Three. We're talking about not just one, but two lives here. That stud horse is your son, which makes this donkey your daughter-in-law, and the mule in her belly your grandson. Do what you can. If the mule lives, I'll thank you
and
reward you. If it dies, I'll blame my own meager fate, not you.”

“You've gone and made these four-legged creatures my family,” Fan Three said unhappily, “so what can I say? I'll see if I can bring this half-dead donkey back to the land of the living.”

“That's right, why listen to the ravings of that crazy Sima? What would the Japanese want with a backwater village like ours? Besides, by doing this, you'll be storing up virtues, and the ghosts always steer clear of the virtuous.”

Fan Three opened his bag and took out a bottle filled with an oily green liquid. “This is a secret family tonic, handed down for generations. It works miraculously on breech births and other obstetric irregularities in animals. If this doesn't do it, even the magical Monkey couldn't bring that animal into the world. Sir,” he summoned Shangguan Shouxi, “come over here and lend a hand.”

“I'll do it,” Shangguan Lü said. “He's a clumsy oaf.”

Fan Three said, “The Shangguan hen goes and blames the rooster for not laying eggs.”

“If you have to insult someone, Third Younger Brother,” Shangguan Fulu said, “do it to my face, and don't beat around the bush.”

“Is that anger I hear?” Fan Three asked.

“This is no time to bicker,” Shangguan Lü said. “What shall I do?”

“Raise the donkey's head,” he said. “I'm going to give it the tonic.”

Shangguan Lü spread her legs, mustered her strength, and picked up the donkey's head. The animal stirred; bursts of air snorted from its nostrils.

“Higher!” Fan Three said.

She strained to lift it higher; bursts of air were now snorting from her nostrils, too.

“Are you two dead or alive?” Fan Three complained.

The two Shangguan men rushed up to help, and nearly tripped over the donkey's legs. Shangguan Lü rolled her eyes; Fan Three shook his head. Finally, they got the donkey's head up high enough. It curled its lips back and showed its teeth. Fan Three stuck a funnel made of an ox horn into the animal's mouth and emptied the contents of the bottle into it. “That'll do it,” Fan said. “You can lower its head.”

As Shangguan Lü tried to catch her breath, Fan Three took out his pipe, filled it, and hunkered down to smoke. Two streams of white smoke quickly exited through his nostrils. “The Japanese took the county town and murdered the county chief, Zhang Weihan, then raped all the women in his family.”

“Did you hear that from the Simas?” Shangguan Lü asked him.

“No, my sworn brother told me. He lives near Eastgate in the county seat.”

Shangguan Lü said, “The truth never travels more than ten li.”

“Sima Ku took the family servants to set fires on the bridge,” Shangguan Shouxi said. “That's more than a rumor.”

Shangguan Lü looked at her son angrily. “I never hear an encouraging, proper sentence from that mouth of yours, and you never tire of spouting nonsense and rumors. Fancy you, a man and the father of a large brood of children, and I can't tell if that thing on your shoulders is a head or an empty gourd. Haven't any of you considered the fact that Japanese have mothers and fathers, just like everybody else? There's no bad blood between them and us common folk, so what are they going to do with us? Run off? Do you think you can outrun a bullet? Hide out? Until when?”

In response to her chiding, the Shangguan men could only bow their heads and hold their tongues. But Fan Three knocked the ashes from his pipe and tried to save the situation. “In the long run, our sister here sees things more clearly than we do. I feel better after what she said. She's right. Go where? Hide where? I might be able to run and hide, but what about my donkey and my stud horse. They're like a couple of mountains, and where can you hide a mountain? You might stay hidden past the first of the month, but you'll never make it through the fifteenth. Up their mother, I say. Let's get that baby mule out of there, and then figure out what to do next.”

“That's the attitude!” Shangguan Lü said happily.

Fan took off his jacket, cinched up his belt, and cleared his throat, like a martial arts master about to take on an opponent. Shangguan Lü nodded approvingly. “That's what I like to see, Three. A man leaves behind his good name, a wild goose leaves behind its call. If you bring this mule into the world, I'll give you an extra bottle of liquor and beat a drum to sing your praises.”

“That's pure shit,” Fan said. “Whose idea was it to make your donkey pregnant by my stud horse, anyway? This is what's called doing the sowing
and
the harvesting.” He circled the donkey, tugged at the mule's leg, and muttered, “Donkey, my little in-law, you're standing at the gate of Hell, and you're going to have to tough it out. My reputation hangs in the balance. Gentlemen,” he said as he patted the donkey's head, “get a rope and a stout carrying pole. She can't get it done lying there. We need to get her to her feet.”

The Shangguan men looked over at Shangguan Lü, who said, “Do as he says.” Once father and son had done as they were told, Fan ran the rope under the donkey just behind its front legs, then tied a knot, and had Shangguan Fulu stick the pole through the hole made by the rope.

“Stand over there,” he ordered Shangguan Shouxi.

“Bend down and lift the pole with your shoulders!”

The Shangguan men began lifting the pole, which dug deeply into their shoulders.

“That's it,” Fan said. “Now there's no hurry. Straighten up when I tell you, and put some shoulder into it. You'll only get one chance. This animal can't take much more suffering. Sister-in-law, your spot is behind the donkey. It's up to you to keep the foal from dropping to the ground.” He went around to the donkey's rear, where he rubbed his hands, took the lamp from the millstone, poured oil over his palms and rubbed them together, and then blew on them. When he tried sticking one of his hands up the birth canal, the little leg flailed wildly. By this time, his entire arm was inside the animal, up to the shoulder, his cheek pressed up against the mule's purple hoof. Shangguan Lü's eyes were glued to him; her lips were quivering. “Okay, gentlemen,” Fan said in a muffled voice, “on the count of three, lift with all your might. It's life or death, so don't cave in on me. All right?” His chin rested against the animal's rump; his hand appeared to be grasping something deep inside. “One — two — three!” With a loud grunt, the Shangguan men made a rare display of mettle, straining under their load. Taking a cue from the effort around her, the donkey rolled over, tucked her front legs under her, and raised her head. Her rear legs shifted and curled up beneath her. Fan Three rolled with the donkey, until he was nearly lying facedown on the ground. His head disappeared from view, but his shouts continued: “Lift! Keep lifting!” The two men struggled up onto the balls of their feet, while Shangguan Lü slid beneath the donkey and pressed her back against its belly. With a loud bray, it planted its feet and stood up, and at that moment, a large, slippery object slid out from the birth canal, along with a great deal of blood and a sticky fluid, right into Fan Three's arms, and from there to the ground.