Big Breasts and Wide Hips (2 page)

In the post-Mao years (Mao died in 1976), Jintong's deterioration occurs in the context of national reforms and an economic boom. Weaned of the breast, finally, he represents, to some at least, a “manifestation of Chinese intellectuals' anxiety over the country's potency in the modern world.”
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Whatever he may symbolize, he remains a member of one of the most intriguing casts of characters in fiction, in a novel about which Mo Yan himself has said: “If you like, you can skip my other novels [I wouldn't recommend it — tr.], but you must read
Big Breasts and Wide Hips.
In it I wrote about history, war, politics, hunger, religion, love, and sex.”
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Big Breasts and Wide Hips
was first published in book form by Writers Publishing House (1996); a Taiwan edition (Hong-fan) appeared later the same year. A shortened edition was then published by China Workers Publishing House in 2003. The current translation was undertaken from a further shortened, computer-generated manuscript supplied by the author. Some changes and rearrangements were effected during the translation and editing process, all with the approval of the author. As translator, I have been uncommonly fortunate to have been aided along the way by the author, by my frequent co-translator, Sylvia Li-chun Lin,
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and by our publisher and editor, Dick Seaver.

In Chinese, the family name comes first. In families, proper names are used far less often than relational terms (First Sister, Younger Brother, “Old Three,” etc.). In this novel, some of the characters change names, a few more than once, for a variety of reasons. Nicknames, including numbers, are common.

From where he lay quietly on the brick-and-tamped-earth sleeping platform, his
kang
, Pastor Malory saw a bright red beam of light shining down on the Virgin Mary's pink breast and on the pudgy face of the bare-bottomed Blessed Infant in her arms. Water from last summer's rains had left yellow stains on the oil tableau, investing the Virgin Mary and Blessed Infant with a vacant look. A long-legged spider hung from a silvery thread in the bright window, swaying in a light breeze. “Morning spiders bring happiness, evening spiders promise wealth.” That's what the pale yet beautiful woman had said one day when she saw one of the eight-legged creatures. But what happiness am I entitled to? All those heavenly breasts and buttocks in his dream flashed through his head. He heard the rumble of carts outside and the cries of red-crowned cranes from the distant marsh, plus the angry bleats of his milk goat. Sparrows banged noisily into the paper window covering. Magpies, the so-called happiness birds, chattered in poplar trees outside. By the look of things, happiness could well be in the air today. Then suddenly his head cleared, and the beautiful woman with the astonishingly big belly made a violent appearance, haloed in blinding light. Her nervous lips quivered, as if she were about to say something. She was in her eleventh month, so today must be the day. In a flash Pastor Malory understood the significance of the spider and magpies. He sat up and got down off the
kang.

After picking up a black earthenware jug, he walked out to the street behind the church, where he saw Shangguan Lü, wife of Shangguan Fulu, the blacksmith, bent over to sweep the street in front of the shop. His heart skipped a beat, his lips quivered. “Dear Lord,” he muttered, “almighty God …” He crossed himself with a stiff finger and backed slowly into a corner to silently observe the tall, heavyset Shangguan L
ü
 as she silently and single-mindedly swept the dew-soaked dust into her dustpan, carefully picking out pieces of trash and tossing them aside. Her movements were clumsy but vigorous; her broom, woven from golden millet tassels, was like a toy in her hand. After filling the dustpan and tamping down the dust, she straightened up.

Just as Shangguan Lü reached the head of her lane, she heard a commotion behind her and turned to see what it was. Some women came running through the black gate of Felicity Manor, home of the town's leading gentry family. They were dressed in rags, their faces smeared with soot. Why are these women, who normally dress in silks and satins, and are never seen without rouge and lipstick, dressed like that? Just then, a wagon master known to all as “Old Titmouse” emerged from the compound across the way on his new wagon, with its dark green canopy and rubber tires. The women clambered aboard even before it came to a complete stop. The wagon master jumped down and sat on one of the still damp stone lions to silently smoke his pipe. Sima Ting, steward of Felicity Manor, strode out from the compound with his fowling piece, his movements as quick and nimble as a young man. Jumping to his feet, the wagon master glanced at the steward, who snatched the pipe out of his hand, took several noisy puffs, then looked up at the early-morning rosy sky and yawned grandly. “Time to go,” he said. “Wait for me at the Black Water River Bridge. I'll be along shortly.”

With the reins in one hand and his whip in the other, the wagon master turned the wagon around. The women in the bed behind him shouted and chattered. The whip snapped in the air, and the horses trotted off. Brass bells around the horses' necks sang out crisply, the wagon wheels crunched on the dirt road, and clouds of dust rose in the wagon's wake.

After taking a piss in the middle of the road, Sima Ting shouted out at the now distant wagon, then cradled his fowling piece and climbed the watchtower, a thirty-foot platform supported by ninety-nine thick logs and topped by a red flag that hung limply in the damp morning air. Shangguan Lü watched him as he gazed off to the northwest. With his long neck and pointy mouth, he looked a little like a goose at a watering trough.

A cloud of feathery mist rolled through the sky and swallowed up Sima Ting, then spat him back out. Bloody hues of sunrise dyed his face red. To Shangguan Lü, the face seemed covered by a dazzling layer of sticky syrup. By the time he raised the fowling piece over his head, his face was red as a cockscomb. She heard a faint metallic click. It was the trigger sending the firing pin forward. Resting the butt of the piece against his shoulder, he stood waiting solemnly. So did Shangguan Lü, as the heavy dustpan numbed her hands, and her neck was sore from cocking it at such a rakish angle. Sima Ting lowered his fowling piece and puckered like a pouting little boy. She heard him curse the gun: “You little bastard, how dare you not fire!” He raised it again and pulled the trigger.
Crack!
Flames followed the crisp sound out of the barrel, simultaneously darkening the sun's rays and lighting up his red face. Then an explosion shattered the silence hanging over the village; sunlight filled the sky with brilliant colors as if a fairy standing on the tip of a cloud were showering the land below with radiant flower petals. Shangguan Lü's heart raced from excitement. Though only a blacksmith's wife, she was much better with a hammer and anvil than her husband could ever hope to be. The mere sight of steel and fire sent blood running hot through her veins. The muscles of her arms rippled like knotted horsewhips. Black steel striking against red, sparks flying, a sweat-soaked shirt, rivulets of salty water flowing down the valley between pendulous breasts, the biting smell of steel and blood filling the space between heaven and earth. She watched Sima Ting jerk backward on his perch, the damp morning air around him soaked with the smell of gunpowder. As he circled the tiny platform, he broadcast a warning to all of Northeast Gaomi Township:

“All you elders, fellow townsmen, the Japs are coming!”

Shangguan Lü emptied her dustpan onto the exposed surface of the
kang
, whose grass mat and bedding had been rolled up and put to one side, then cast a worried look at her daughter-in-law, Shangguan Lu, who moaned as she gripped the edge of the
kang.
After tamping the dirt down with both hands, she said softly to her daughter-in-law, “You can climb back up now.”

Shangguan Lu trembled under the gentle gaze of her mother-in-law. As she stared sadly at the older woman's kind face, her ashen lips quivered, as if she wanted to say something.

“The devil's gotten back into that old bastard Sima, firing his gun so early in the morning!” Shangguan Lü announced.

“Mother …” Shangguan Lu said.

Clapping her hands to loosen the dirt, Shangguan Lü muttered softly, “My good daughter-in-law, try your best! If this one's a girl, too, I'd be a fool to keep defending you.”

Tears trickled from Shangguan Lu's eyes as she bit down on her lip; holding up her sagging belly, she climbed back onto the dirt-covered
kang.

“You've been down this road before,” Shangguan Lü said as she laid a roll of white cotton and a pair of scissors on the
kang.
“Go ahead and have your baby.” Then, with an impatient frown, she said, “Your father-in-law and Laidi's daddy are in the barn tending to the black donkey. This will be her first foal, so I should be out there giving them a hand.”