Big Breasts & Wide Hips

children, who might very well be mutes; the right one resting against Zhaodi’s pair of flighty and very beautiful little girls. Moonlight framed her ashen lips. Her breasts lay flattened against her ribs, thoroughly exhausted. That spot between her and the Sima girls should have been mine; but it disappeared beneath her outstretched body.

Out in the yard, the baby Pandi had wrapped in a frayed gray army uniform was bawling as it lay on the path, which had been tramped down lower than the ground beside it. No one paid her any attention. Pandi walked around her child and shouted savagely in the direction of Mother’s window, “I expect you to take good care of her. Lu Liren and I will fight our way back one day!”

Pounding the straw mat covering the kang, Mother shouted back, “You want me to take good care of her? I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll fling her into the river to feed the turtles or down a well to feed the toads or into the latrine to feed the flies!”

“Go ahead,” Pandi said. “She’s my baby, and I was yours, so she’s your flesh and blood!”

With that comment, Pandi bent down for one more look at the baby lying on the path, then turned and staggered off toward the street. As she passed the west wing, she stumbled and took a bad fall. Moaning and groaning as she got to her feet, she cupped her injured breasts and aimed a curse at the door: “You slut, just you wait!” Inside the room, Laidi laughed. Pandi spit at me before walking off, her head held high.

The next morning we awoke to find Mother training the white milk goat to feed Pandi’s baby girl as she lay in a basket.

On those spring mornings of 1946, there was a lot going on in the house of the Shangguan family. Before the sun had climbed above the mountains, a thin, nearly transparent misty glow drifted across the yard. The village was still asleep at such times, swallows dreamed in their nests, crickets in the heated ground behind stoves made their music, and cows chewed their cud alongside feeding troughs…

Mother sat up on the kang and, with a painful moan, rubbed her aching fingers. After a bit of a struggle, she draped her coat over her shoulders and tried to limber up her stiff joints in order to button up her dress. She yawned, rubbed her face, and opened her eyes wide as she swung her feet over the edge of the kang and slipped her feet into her shoes; she stepped down, wobbled a bit, and bent over to pull up the heels of her shoes, then sat down on the bench next to the kang to see if all the sleeping babies were all right before walking outside with a basin to fetch water. Filling the basin with four, maybe five, ladlefuls, she watered the goats in the pen.

Five milk goats, three black and two white, all had long, narrow faces, curved horns, and lengthy goatees. Five heads came together as they drank from the basin. Mother picked up a broom and swept the droppings into a pile and then out of the pen. She then went out into the lane for fresh dirt, which she spread over the ground. After brushing out the animals’ coats, she returned for more water to clean their nipples, which she dried with a towel. The goats baa-ed contentedly. By this time the sun was out, a mixture of red and purple rays driving away the misty glow. Returning to the room, Mother scrubbed the wok, then filled it part way with water. “Niandi,” she shouted, “time to get up.” She dumped in some millet and mung beans and let them soften for a while before adding soybeans and putting the lid on the wok. She bent over and fed the stove with straw. Whoosh, she lit a match, spreading sulfur fumes around her. Her mother-in-law, lying on a bed of straw, rolled her eyes. “You old witch, are you still alive? Isn’t it time for you to die?” Mother sighed. The bean tassels crackled in the stove, filling the air with a pleasant aroma. Popi A stray bean exploded. “Niandi, are you up?”

Sima Liang emerged bleary-eyed from the east wing, heading for the toilet. Puffs of green smoke rose from the chimney. Water buckets thudded against one another; Niandi was heading to the river for water. Baa- goats. Wah – Lu Shengli’s cries. Sima Feng and Sima Huang whimpered; the Bird Fairy’s two kids grunted -Ao-ya-ya. The Bird Fairy walked lazily out the gate. Laidi was standing at the window brushing her hair. Horses out in the lane whinnied. It was Sima Ku’s horse company riding over to the river to water their mounts. A throng of mules passed by; it was the mule company returning from the river. Wagon bells rang out; it was the bicycle company practicing their riding skills. “Come boil some water,” Mother said to Sima Liang. “Jintong, time to get up! Go down to the river and wash your face.” Mother carried five willow baskets out into the sun and filled them with five babies. “Let the goats out,” she said to Sha Zaohua. The skinny girl, her hair a mess, eyes still bleary from sleep, entered the pen, where the goats greeted her with friendly tosses of their horned heads and licked the grime off her knees. Their tongues tickled her. She thumped their heads with her tiny fists and cursed them childishly, “You stump-tailed devils.” After removing the tethers from their necks, she tapped one of them on the ear. “Go on,” she said, “you belong to Lu Shengli.” The goat wagged its tail happily and sprinted over next to Shengli, who lay in her basket, arms and legs straight up, crying urgently. The goat spread its rear legs, backed up to the basket, and pushed its udder up against Shengli’s face. Its nipples sought out Shengli; Shengli sought out the goat’s nipples. Both knew their task well, to each other’s mutual satisfaction. Each nipple was long and swollen; like a voracious barracuda, Shengli caught it in her mouth and held fast. Big Mute and Little Mute’s goats, Sima Feng and Sima Huang’s goats, each went straight to its master or mistress and, in the same manner, drew up next to the child’s mouth, each knowing its task well, to the mutual satisfaction of all. The goats bent over, eyes slitted, goatees quivering slightly.

“The water’s boiling, Granny,” Sima Liang said to Mother, who was outside washing her face. “Let it boil a while longer.” Flames lapped at the bottom of the wok on the stove that had been altered for their use by Old Zhang, the demolition battalion’s cook. Sima Liang, who was wearing only pants, was thin as a rail and had a melancholy look in his eyes. Lingdi returned with the water, the two full buckets swaying at the ends of her shoulder pole. Her braid fell all the way to her waist and was tied at the end by a fashionable plastic ribbon. The goats all switched nipples for their children. “Let’s eat,” Mother said. Sha Zaohua put the table up, Sima Liang laid out the bowls and chopsticks. Mother dished up the porridge – one two three four five six seven bowls. Zaohua and Yunu put the benches in place, while Niandi fed her grandmother. Slurp slurp. Laidi and Lingdi walked in with their own bowls and served themselves. Without looking at them, Mother muttered, “None of you is crazy when mealtime rolls around.” Her two daughters went outside to eat their porridge in the yard. “I’ve heard that the independent 16th Regiment is going to fight its way back,” Niandi said. “Eat,” Mother said. I was kneeling in front of her, suckling. “Mother, you’ve spoiled him. Are you going to breast-feed him until he gets married?” “That’s not unheard of,” Mother said. I went from one nipple to the other. “Jintong,” she said, “I’m going to keep at it until the day you’ve had enough.” Then she turned to Niandi. “After breakfast, take the goats out to pasture and bring back some wild garlic for lunch.” Mother’s orders brought the morning to an end.

Shengli waddled through the grass, her backside brushing against the feltlike greenery. Her goat was grazing, nibbling only the tender grass tips, its dew-wetted face giving it the haughty look of a young noblewoman. The times may have been chaotic and noisy, but the pasture-land was peacefully quiet. Flowers dotted the land, their redolence intoxicating. We were sprawled on the ground around Niandi. Sima Liang was chewing a stalk of grass, coating the corners of his mouth with green juice. His eyes were bright yellow, but with a murky cast. The expression on his face and the chewing motion made him look like a gigantic locust. Sha Zaohua was watching an ant perched atop a stalk of grass scratching its head as it looked for an escape route. The tip of my nose touched a patch of golden flowers; their fragrance tickled me, and I sneezed loudly, throwing a scare into Sixth Sister, Niandi, who was lying on her back. Her eyes snapped open and she gave me a nasty look, a bit of a scowl on her lips and a slight crinkle on her nose, before closing her eyes again. She looked comfortable, lying there in the sun. Her protruding brow was clear and shiny; not a wrinkle in sight. She had thick lashes and a bit of down on her upper lip; her chin turned up fetchingly. Among all the girls in the Shangguan family, only her ears were fleshy with no loss of grace. She was wearing a white poplin blouse passed down by Second Sister, Zhaodi, one of those fashionable types that button down the front with so-called Mandarin Duck fasteners. Her braid lay across her breast like an eel. Now, of course, I need to discuss her breasts. Not especially large, they were hard and not yet fully developed. So they kept their shape even when the body from which they grew was flat on its back. Their sleek, fair skin peeked out from the gaps between her buttons, and I was tempted to tickle them with a stalk of grass; I didn’t have the nerve. Niandi and I never had gotten along. She couldn’t stomach the fact that I was still breast-feeding, and if I’d tickled her breast, it would have been the same as rubbing a tiger’s ass. It was a struggle. The stalk chewer kept chewing the stalk, the ant watcher kept watching the ant; as they ate, the white goats looked like noblewomen, the black ones like widows. When there’s too much food, people don’t know where to start; when there’s too much grass, goats have the same problem. Ai-choo! So goats sneeze too, and loud! Their udders drooped heavily. It was nearly noon. I picked a stalk of bristlegrass and decided to rub the tiger’s ass after all. No one noticed me as I reached out stealthily with the stalk of grass, drawing nearer and nearer to a gap in her