blouse, stretched open by her jutting breasts. My ears were buzzing, my heart thumped like a scared rabbit. The stalk of grass touched her fair skin. No reaction. Was she asleep? If so, why didn’t I hear her breathing? I twirled the end of the stalk, making the other end shake. She reached up and scratched her chest, but didn’t open her eyes. She probably thought it was an ant. I pushed the grass in farther and twisted it. She slapped her chest, caught my stalk of grass, and pulled it out. She sat up and glared at me, her face turning red. I laughed. “You little bastard!” she cursed. “Mother has spoiled you rotten!” She laid me down in the grass and swatted me on the behind – twice. “But I’m not going to!” With a fierce glare in her eyes, she added, “You’re going to hang yourself to death from a nipple one of these days!”
Frightened by the outburst, Sima Liang spat out a stalk of chewed-up grass and Zaohua stopped watching the ant. They both looked at me, clearly puzzled, then gave the same look to Niandi. I managed a feeble cry, for show, since I felt I’d gotten the better of the exchange. Niandi stood up and tossed her head proudly, whipping her braid around to the back of her head. Shengli had by then waddled up to her goat, but it was trying to get away from her. So she grabbed its nipple, and it responded unhappily by knocking her over. I couldn’t tell if the bleats that followed meant that she was crying or what. Sima Liang jumped to his feet and, with a series of loud grunts, ran as fast as he could, startling a dozen red-winged locusts and several dirt-colored little birds. Moving quickly on her skinny legs, Zaohua ran over to a patch where velvety purple flowers the size of fists poked up above the grass tips. I stood up, embarrassed, walked around behind Niandi, and started pounding her on the backside. “Hit me, will you?” I shouted with as much bluster as I could manage. “How dare you?” Her buttocks were so hard and so tight that hitting them hurt my hands. When her patience ran out, she turned, bent at the waist, and snarled – mouth open, teeth bared, eyes staring, releasing a scary, wolfish howl. It occurred to me how similar human and canine faces can be. She pushed my head backward, throwing me flat on my back in the grass.
The white goat put up a feeble struggle when Niandi grabbed it by the horns. Shengli rushed up, flopped over beneath the animal, and strained to turn her head so she could take the nipple into her mouth as she kicked the goat’s belly with both feet. Niandi rubbed the goat’s ears; it wagged its tail docilely. Mournful feelings flooded my mind. It was clear that my days of relying on mother’s milk were coming to an end. So before that happened, I would have to find a substitute. The first thing that came to mind was those long, wiggly noodles. But that thought brought me disgust. And dry heaves. Niandi looked up and gave me a skeptical look. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked in a tone that showed how repugnant she thought I was. I waved her off to show I couldn’t answer. More dry heaves. She let go of the goat. “Jintong,” she said, “what do you think you’re going to be like when you grow up?”
I wasn’t sure what she was getting at. “Why don’t you try goat’s milk?” she said. The sight of Shengli greedily feeding under her goat made an impression on me. “Are you determined to be the cause of Mother’s death?” She shook me by the shoulders. “Do you know where milk comes from? That’s Mother’s blood you’re drinking. So listen to me and start drinking goat’s milk.”
I nodded reluctantly.
So she reached out and grabbed the mute’s black goat. “Come here,” she said to me as she calmed the goat down by stroking its back. “I said, come here.” Encouraged by the look of kindness, I took a tentative step toward her. Then another. “Lie down under its belly. See how she does it?”
I lay down on the grass and scooted along on my back. “Big Mute, back up a little,” she said as she pushed the black goat backward. I looked up into the dazzling blue Northeast Gaomi sky. Golden birds were flying through the silvery air, soaring on the wind currents and trailing sweet-sounding cries. But my view was quickly blocked by the goat’s udder, which hung over my face. Two large insectlike nipples quivered as they sought out my mouth. They rubbed up against my lips, and when they did, the quivering increased, as if they were trying to pry my lips open. They tickled my lips, like tiny charges of electricity, and I was immersed in a flood of what seemed like joy. I’d assumed that goats’ teats were soft, not elastic at all, sort of cottony, and that they’d lose their shape as soon as they entered my mouth. Now I knew they were actually pliable and tough, quite springy, and in no way inferior to Mother’s. As they rubbed my lips, I detected something hot and liquid. It had a muttony taste that quickly turned sweet, the flavor of buttery grass and daisies. My determination weakened, I unclenched my teeth, my lips parted, and the goat’s teat rushed into my mouth, where it vibrated excitedly and released powerful spurts of liquid, some of it hitting the sides of my mouth, the remainder squirting straight down my throat. I nearly choked. I spit out the teat, but a second, more aggressive one quickly took its place.
With a flick of its tail, the goat walked away casually. Tears gushed from my eyes. My mouth was filled with a muttony taste, and I felt like throwing up. But my mouth was also filled with the taste of buttery grass and daisies, and so I stopped feeling like throwing up. Sixth Sister pulled me to my feet and ran in a circle with me in her arms. I saw freckles pop up all over her face; her eyes were like black stones dredged up from the bottom of a river, clean and bright. “My foolish little brother,” she said excitedly, “this will be your salvation…”
“Mother,” Sixth Sister shouted, “Mother, Jintong drank goat’s milk! He drank goat’s milk!”
The sound of clapping emerged from inside.
Mother tossed the blood-stained rolling pin down next to the wok, opened her mouth wide, and gasped for breath, her chest rising and falling violently. Shangguan Lu lay beside the haystack, a crack in her skull looking like a walnut. Eighth Sister, Yunu, was huddled near the stove, a piece of her ear missing, seemingly gnawed off by a rat, and still oozing blood. The blood stained her cheek and her neck. She was bawling loudly, a steady flow of tears emerging from her sightless eyes.
“Mother, you killed Grandma!” Sixth Sister shrieked in horror.
Mother reached out and touched Grandma’s wound with her fingers, and then, as if given an electric shock, sat down hard on the ground.
2
As specially invited guests, we climbed the southeastern edge of the grassy slope on Reclining Ox Mountain to watch a demonstration by Commander Sima Ku and the young American Babbitt. A southeastern wind swept past under sunny skies as Laidi and I rode a single donkey up the mountain; Zhaodi and Sima Liang shared another one. I sat in front of Laidi, who held me from behind. Zhaodi sat in front of Sima Liang, who merely held on to her clothes, since he couldn’t wrap his arms around her belly, in which the next generation of Simas was growing. Our contingent skirted the ox’s tail and gradually climbed onto the ox’s back, where needle-sharp grass dotted with yellow dandelions grew. Even with us on their backs, the donkeys climbed effortlessly.
Sima Ku and Babbitt rode past us on horseback, excitement showing on their faces. Sima Ku waved a fist at us as he passed. At the crest of the mountain, a group of yellow-skinned people shouted down the mountain. Sima Ku raised his riding crop and smacked the rump of his horse. The horse responded by climbing even faster, with Babbitt’s horse following close behind. He rode horses the same way he rode camels, his upper body straight no matter how much he swayed from side to side. His legs were so long that his stirrups nearly touched the ground, and his horse was both to be pitied and laughed at; but it galloped along nonetheless.
“Let’s speed up a bit,” Second Sister said as she dug her heels into the donkey’s midsection. She was the head of our delegation, the esteemed wife of the commander, and no one dared disobey her. Representatives of the masses and some local celebrities followed without a word of complaint, though they were out of breath from the climb. The donkey carrying Laidi and me was right on the tail of the one carrying Zhaodi and Sima Liang; Laidi’s nipples rubbed against my back through the black cloth of her dress, which took me back to the episode in the feeding trough, and brought me great pleasure.
The wind on the mountaintop was stronger than lower down, so strong in fact that the windsock snapped loudly, its red and yellow silk ribbons dancing wildly, like a pheasant’s tail feathers. A dozen or so soldiers were unloading things from the backs of camels, scowling beasts whose tails and rear leg joints were soiled by dried excrement. The rich pastureland of Northeast Gaomi had fattened up Commander Sima’s horses and donkeys and the locals’ cows and goats, but had had the opposite effect on the dozen or so pitiful camels, who were slow to acclimate to the place; their rumps seemed chiseled by awls, their legs were like kindling; their normally tall and angular humps looked like empty sacks hanging to one side, about to fall to the ground.
The soldiers unrolled an enormous carpet and laid it on the grass. “Lift the commander’s wife down off her donkey!” Sima Ku ordered. Soldiers ran up and lifted the pregnant Zhaodi off her donkey, and then helped Sima
