Big Breasts and Wide Hips (69 page)

The raucous season of rejoicing, with flames lighting up the sky, came quickly to an end, replaced in Northeast Gaomi Township by a new and dreary age. One drizzly autumn morning, twelve trucks with artillery pieces rumbled down the narrow road from the southeast into Dalan. When they entered the village, the mute was lurching around on the wet ground, all alone. He had exhausted himself during the recent days of leaping, and had turned listless. His eyes were lifeless, and because of all the liquor he'd consumed, his legless torso had grown bloated. The arrival of the artillery company reinvigorated him. Inappropriately, apparently, he moved out into the middle of the road to block the convoy. The soldiers stood there blinking in the rain and looking at the strange half-man in the middle of the road. An officer, wearing a pistol on his hip, jumped out of the cab of his truck and cursed angrily, “Tired of living, you stupid bastard?” Incredibly, since the road was slick, he was truncated, and the truck tires were tall, the mute had leaped out into the road, well out of sight of the driver, who had seen a brown streak in front of the truck and slammed on the brakes, not quite in time to keep his bumper from touching the mute's broad forehead. Although it didn't break the skin, it raised a large purple welt. The officer wasn't finished cursing when he saw the hawkish glare in the mute's eyes and felt his heart clench; at that moment, his eye was drawn to the medal pinned to the mute's tattered uniform. Drawing his feet together, he bowed deeply and shouted, “My apologies, sir. Please forgive me!”

This gratifying reaction put the mute in high spirits. He moved to the side of the road to let the convoy pass. The soldiers saluted as the trucks passed by slowly, which he returned by touching the beak of his soft cap with the tips of his fingers. The trucks left a chewed-up road behind them. A northwest wind blew, rain slanted down, and the road was veiled by an icy mist. A few surviving sparrows slipped through the gaps in the rain, while some water-soaked dogs standing under a roadside propaganda tent were captivated by the sight of the mute's movements.

The passage of the artillery company signaled the end of the season of rejoicing. The mute slinked home in dejection. As before, he banged on the door with one of his stools; it opened on its own, creaking loudly. He had lived in a world of silence so long that Birdman Han and Laidi had been able to keep their adultery hidden from him. For months, he had spent most of his daylight hours out on the street near the smelting ovens, and then dragged himself home to sleep like a dead dog. Come morning, he'd be out the gate again, with no time for Laidi.

The restoration of the mute's hearing may well be attributed to his encounter with the truck bumper. The touch on his forehead must have loosened whatever was stopping up his ears. The creaking of the door stunned him; then he heard the patter of rain on leaves and the snores of his mother-in-law as she slept. She had forgotten to latch the door. But what utterly shocked him were the moans of pain and pleasure from Laidi's room.

Sniffing the air like a bloodhound, he detected the clammy odor of her body and lurched over to the eastern side room. The rain had leaked through his rubber cushion, soaking his backside, and he felt stabbing pains around his anus.

Recklessly, the door had been left open, and a candle burned inside. In the drawing, the Bird Fairy's eyes shone coldly. One look, and he spotted Birdman Han's long, hairy, and enviably sturdy legs. Birdman's buttocks were pumping up and down; beneath him, Laidi's buttocks arched upward. Her breasts sagged and jiggled; her tousled black hair shifted on Birdman Han's pillow, and she was clutching the bed sheet. The intense moans that had so aroused him were coming from the mass of black hair. The scene was lit up as if by an explosive green flame. He howled like a wounded animal and flung one of his stools; it glided off Birdman's shoulder, bounced off the wall, and landed next to Laidi's face. He threw the other stool; this one hit Birdman in the rump. He turned and glared at the drenched mute, who was shivering from the cold, and grinned smugly. Laidi's body flattened out and she lay there panting as she reached down to cover herself with the blanket. “You've seen us, you mute bastard, so what?” She sat up and cursed the mute, who propped himself up on both hands, froglike. He bounded across the threshold, and from there to the feet of Birdman Han, where he lunged forward with his head. Birdman's hands flew to his groin to protect the organ that just moments ago had been such a masterful performer; with a shriek he doubled over and yellow beads of perspiration dotted his face. The mute charged again, harder this time, scissoring Birdman's shoulders with his powerful arms, like the tentacles of an octopus; at the same time, he wrapped his cal-lused hands, the steel traps in which his strength was concentrated, around Birdman's throat. Birdman crumpled to the floor; his mouth opened in a fearful grimace, and his eyes rolled back in his head.

Laidi snapped out of her state of panic, picked up the stool lying next to her pillow, and jumped out of bed, naked. As soon as her feet touched the floor, she attacked the mute's arms with the stool, but with no more effect than if she were hitting the trunk of a tree. So she then swung at his head, creating a thump like hitting a ripe melon, before dropping the stool and picking up the heavy door bolt, which she swung in the air and brought down on the mute's head. He groaned, but his body remained upright. After the second hit, the mute let loose of Birdman's throat, wobbled for a moment, then crashed headlong to the floor. Birdman slumped over on top of him.

The clamor in the side room woke Mother, who shuffled up to the door; it was over by then, and the outcome was sorrowfully obvious. She saw Laidi, naked, leaning weakly against the door, then watched as she dropped the bloody door bolt and walked out into the downpour, as if in a trance. The rain skittered off her body, her ugly feet sloshing through muddy puddles on the ground. She squatted down in front of the water basin and washed her hands.

Mother went over and dragged Birdman off of the mute and, with her shoulder under his arm, helped him over to the bed. With a sense of disgust, she covered him with the blanket. She heard him moan, which meant that this legendary hero was in no danger of dying. Walking back over to the mute and lifting him up like a sack of rice, she noticed two streams of black liquid running from his nostrils. After placing her finger under his nose to detect any sign of life, she let her hand drop; the mute's still warm corpse was sitting up straight, no longer ready to topple over.

After wiping her bloody finger on the wall, Mother walked back to her room, her mind a fog, and lay down in her clothes. Episodes from the mute's life drifted in and out of her mind, and when she recalled how the young mute and his brothers had straddled the wall, pretending they were the kings of the world, she laughed out loud. Out in the yard, Laidi scrubbed her hands over and over, the soapy lather covering the ground around her. That afternoon, Birdman walked outside, one hand around his throat, the other cupped around his crotch. He picked Laidi up off the ground, her body icy cold; she wrapped her arms around his neck and giggled idiotically.

Somewhat later, a young military officer with pink lips and sparkling white teeth, in the company of the district chief's secretary, walked into the yard carrying a basin covered with red paper. They called out, and when no one answered, went straight to Mother's room.

“Aunty,” the secretary said to her, “this is Commander Song of the heavy artillery company. He's here to pay a courtesy call on Comrade Speechless Sun.”

“My apologies, aunty,” Commander Song said bashfully. “One of our trucks nearly ran Comrade Sun over, and raised a lump on his forehead.”

Mother sat up in bed with a start. “What did you say?”

“The road was slick,” Commander Song said, “and the bumper of one of our trucks hit him in the head.

“After he returned home,” Mother said tearfully, “he groaned awhile and then died.”

The young company commander paled. He was nearly in tears when he said, “Aunty, we slammed on the brakes, but the road was slick …”

When the medical expert came over to examine the body, Laidi, neatly dressed and carrying a small bundle, said, “I'm leaving, Mother.

I'll take things as they come, but I cannot let those soldiers take the blame.”

“Go tell the authorities,” Mother said. “It's always been the rule that a pregnant woman has to give birth before …”

“I understand. In fact, I've never in my life understood anything as clearly as this.”

“I'll raise your child for you.”

“I have no more worries, Mother.”

She walked over to the side room, where she reported, “There's no need for an investigation. I hit him with a stool and then killed him with the bolt of a door. He was choking Birdman Han when I did it.”

Birdman walked into the yard carrying a string of dead birds. “What's going on?” he asked. “The world now has one less half-man piece of garbage, and I'm the one who killed him.”

The police handcuffed Laidi and Birdman Han and placed them under arrest.

Five months later, a policewoman brought a baby boy to Mother, scrawny as a sick cat, and reported that Laidi was to be shot the next day. The family was free to retrieve the body, but if they chose not to, it would be sent to the hospital to be dissected. The policewoman also told Mother that Birdman Han had been sentenced to life imprisonment and that he would soon begin serving his sentence at Tarim Basin, in the Uighur Autonomous Region, far from Northeast Gaomi. The family would be permitted a last visit.

By then Jintong had been expelled from school for destroying trees on campus, while Zaohua had been expelled from the drama troupe for stealing.

“We're going to retrieve the body,” Mother said.

“I don't see why,” Zaohua said.

“She committed a capital crime, and deserves a bullet. But it wasn't a heinous crime.”

More than ten thousand people turned out for Shangguan Laidi's execution. A truck brought the condemned prisoner to the execution ground at the Bridge of Sorrows. Birdman Han was in the truck with her. In order to avoid any last-minute vocal outbursts, the execution team had sealed both their mouths.

Not long after Laidi's execution, the family received word of Birdman Han's death. On his way to prison, he had managed to break free and died under the wheels of the train.                                                                     

                                                                   4

In order to reclaim tens of thousands of acres of Northeast Gaomi Township's wasteland, all of Dalan's able-bodied young men and women were mobilized into teams at the state-run Flood Dragon River Farm. On the day the work assignments were handed out, the director asked me, “What are you good at?” At the time, I was so hungry my ears were buzzing, and I didn't hear him clearly. His lips parted, exposing a stainless steel tooth right in the middle, as he asked me again, louder this time, “What are you good at?” I'd just spotted my teacher, Huo Lina, on the road carrying a load of manure, and I recalled her saying that I had a natural talent for the Russian language. So I said, “I speak Russian well.” “Russian?” he said with a sneer, his stainless steel tooth glinting in the sunlight. “How well?” he asked derisively. “Good enough to be an interpreter for Khrushchev and Mikoyan? Can you handle a Sino-Soviet communiqué? Listen to me, young man. People who have studied in the Soviet Union tote manure around here. Do you think your Russian is better than theirs?” All the young laborers awaiting assignments had a good laugh over that. “I'm asking you what you do at home, what you do best.” “At home I tended a goat, that's what I did best.” “Right,” the director said with a sneer. “Now, that's what you're good at. Russian and French, or English and Italian, none of those are worth a thing.” He scribbled something on a slip of paper and handed it to me. “Report to the animal brigade. Tell Commander Ma to assign you.”

On my way over, an old laborer told me that Commander Ma Ruilian was the wife of the farm director, Li Du, in other words, the “first lady.” When I reported for duty, knapsack and bedding over my back, she was out at the breeding farm giving a demonstration on crossbreeding. Tied up in the yard were several ovulating female animals: a cow, a donkey, a ewe, a sow, and a domestic rabbit. Five breeding assistants — two men and three women — in white gowns, masks over their mouths and noses, and rubber gloves, were holding insemination utensils, standing like attack troops ready for battle. Ma Ruilian had a boyish haircut; her hair was as coarse as a horse's mane. She had a round, swarthy face; long, narrow eyes; a red nose; fleshy lips; a short neck; a thick chest; and full, heavy breasts like a pair of grave mounds. Shit! Jintong cursed to himself. Ma Ruilian my ass! That's Pandi! She must have changed her name because of the rotten reputation the name Shangguan had earned. That being the case, Li Du had to be Lu Liren, who was once called Jiang Liren, and maybe before that something else Liren. The fact that this name-changing couple had been sent here must have meant they were out of favor. She was wearing a short-sleeved cotton shirt of Russian design and a pair of wrinkled black trousers over high-topped sneakers. She was holding a Great Leap cigarette in her hand, the greenish smoke curling around her fingers, which looked like carrots. She took a drag on her cigarette. “Is the farm journalist here?” A sallow-faced middle-aged man wearing reading glasses ran out from behind the horse-tethering rack, bent at the waist. ‘Tm here,” he said. “Here I am.” He was holding a fountain pen poised over an open notebook, ready to write. Commander Ma laughed loudly and patted the man on his shoulder with her puffy hand. “I see the chief editor himself has come.” “Commander Ma's unit is where the news is,” he said. “I wouldn't trust anyone else to come.” “Old Yu here is a real zealot!” Ma Ruilian complimented him as she patted him on the shoulder a second time. The editor paled and tucked his neck down between his shoulders, as if afraid of the cold. Later on, I learned that this fellow, Yu Zheng, who edited the local newsletter, had been the publisher and editor of the provincial Party Committee newspaper until he was labeled a rightist. “Today I'm going to give you a headline story,” Ma Ruilian said, giving the urbane Yu Zheng a meaningful look and taking a deep drag on the stub of her cigarette, nearly burning her lips. Then she spat it out, tearing the paper and sending the few remaining shreds of tobacco floating in the air — this little trick of hers was enough to frustrate anyone scavenging cigarette butts on the ground. As she exhaled the last of the smoke, she asked her assistants, “Ready?” They responded by raising their insemination utensils. The blood rushed to her face as she wrung her hands and clapped uneasily. She then took out a handkerchief to dry her sweaty palms. “Horse sperm, who has the horse sperm?” she asked loudly. The assistant holding the horse sperm stepped forward and said, “Me, I've got it,” the words muffled by the mask over his mouth. Ma Ruilian pointed to the cow. “Give it to her,” she said, “inseminate her with the horse sperm.” The man hesitated, looking first at Ma Ruilian and then at his fellow assistants, lined up behind him, as if he wanted to say something. “Don't just stand there,” Ma Ruilian said. “Strike while the iron's hot if you want to get things done!” With a mischievous look, the assistant said, “Yes, ma'am,” and carried the horse sperm over behind the tethered cow. As her assistant inserted the insemination utensil into the cow, Ma Ruilian's lips were parted and she was breathing heavily, as if the instrument were being inserted in her and not in the cow. But immediately afterward, she issued a stream of rapid commands: She ordered that the bull's sperm envelop the sheep's egg and that the ram's sperm merge with the rabbit's egg. Under her direction, the donkey's sperm was inserted into the sow and the boar's seed injected into the donkey's womb.