Big Breasts and Wide Hips (26 page)

The next day, Third Sister came home with a string of wild pigeons and, displaying her pique, flung them down at Mother's feet.

The eighth month seemed to arrive out of nowhere. Flocks of wild geese filled the sky heading south and settled on the marshes southwest of the village. The villagers and outsiders all converged on them with hooks and nets and other time-tested methods to reap a wild goose harvest. At first it was a lush yield, and feathers floated above the village streets and lanes. But the wild geese were not to be so easily victimized forever, and they began roosting in the farthest, deepest reaches of the marshes, places even foxes found inhospitable; that cancelled out the villagers' hunting strategies. And still Third Sister came home every day with a wild goose; some dead, others still alive, and no one knew how Birdman Han managed to catch them.

Faced with cruel realities, Mother was forced to compromise. If we refused to eat the birds Birdman Han caught for us, we'd all have developed signs of malnourishment, like most of the villagers: edema, asthmatic breathing, eyes with flickering light, just like will-o'-the-wisps. Eating Han's birds meant only that to the list of sons-in-law, which included the leader of a musket band and a specialist in blowing up bridges, was now added an expert bird-catcher.

On the morning of the sixteenth day of the eighth month, Third Sister went to her usual trysting place; at home we awaited her return. By then we were getting a little tired of cooked goose, with its grassy flavor, and were hoping that Birdman Han might present us with a change in diet. We didn't dare hope that Third Sister would bring home another of those oversized, delicious birds, but a few pigeons or turtledoves or wild ducks wouldn't be asking too much, would it?

Third Sister came home empty-handed, her eyes red from crying. Mother asked what was wrong. “Birdman Han was dragged off by armed men in black uniforms on bicycles,” she said.

A dozen or so young men had been taken away with him, tied up and strung together like so many locusts. Birdman Han had struggled mightily, the powerful muscles in his arms bulging as he strained to break the ropes binding him. The soldiers had hit him on his buttocks and waist with rifle butts and kicked him in the legs to keep him moving. Anger had welled up in his eyes, which were so red they seemed on the verge of spewing blood or fire. “Who said you could arrest me?” Birdman Han shouted. The squad leader scooped up a handful of mud and rubbed it in Birdman Han's face, temporarily blinding him. He howled like a trussed-up wild animal. Third Sister ran after them, then stopped and yelled, “Birdman Han —” After they'd moved off down the road, she ran after them again, stopped and yelled, “Birdman Han —” The soldiers turned to look at Third Sister and laughed maliciously. At the end, Third Sister shouted, “Birdman Han, I'll wait for you.” “Who the fuck asked you to wait?” he shouted back.

That noon, as we looked down at a pot of wild herb soup so light we could see ourselves in it, we — that included Mother — realized how important Birdman Han had become in our lives.

For two days and nights Third Sister lay sprawled on the
kang
, crying without end. Nothing Mother tried to get her to stop worked.

On the third day after Birdman Han was taken away, Third Sister got up off the
kang
, barefoot, shamelessly tore open her blouse, and went outside, where she jumped up into the pomegranate tree, bending the pliant branch into a deep curve. Mother ran out to pull her down, but she leaped acrobatically from the pomegranate tree onto a parasol tree, and from there to a tall catalpa tree. From high up in the catalpa tree she jumped down onto the ridge of our thatched roof. Her movements were amazingly nimble, as if she had sprouted wings. She sat astride the roof ridge, staring straight ahead, her face suffused with a radiant smile. Mother stood on the ground below looking up and pleading pitifully, “Lingdi, Mother's good little girl, please come down. I'll never interfere in your life again, you can do whatever you please …” No reaction from Third Sister. It was as if she had changed into a bird, and no longer understood human language. Mother called Fourth Sister, Fifth Sister, Sixth Sister, Seventh Sister, Eighth Sister, and the little Sima brat out into the yard, where she told them all to shout up at Third Sister. My sisters called out to her tearfully, but Third Sister ignored them. Instead, she began pecking at her shoulder, as if preening feathers. Her head kept turning, as if on a swivel; not only could she peck her own shoulder, she could even reach down and nibble at her tiny nipples. I was sure she could reach her own buttocks and the heels of her feet if she wanted to. There wasn't a spot anywhere she could not reach with her mouth if she felt like it. In fact, as far as I was concerned, as she sat astride the roof ridge, Third Sister had already entered the avian realm: she thought like a bird, behaved like a bird, and wore the expression of a bird. And as far as I was concerned, if Mother hadn't asked Third Master Fan and some strong young men to drag her down with the help of some black dog's blood, Third Sister would have sprouted wings and turned into a beautiful bird — if not a phoenix, a peacock; and if not a peacock, at least a golden pheasant. But whatever kind of bird she became, she would have spread her wings and flown off in pursuit of Birdman Han. But the end result, and the most shameless outcome, was: Third Master Fan sent Zhang Mao-lin, a short, agile fellow everyone called The Monkey, up onto the ridge with a bucket of black dog's blood; he sneaked up behind Third Sister and drenched her with the blood. She sprang to her feet and spread her arms to soar into the sky, but merely tumbled off the roof and landed on the brick path below with a thud. Blood streamed out of a deep gash in her head, the size of an apricot, and she passed out.

Weeping uncontrollably, Mother grabbed a handful of grass and held it to Third Sister's head to staunch the flow of blood. Then, with the help of Fourth Sister and Fifth Sister, she cleaned off the dog's blood and carried her inside, laying her on the
kang.

At around dusk Third Sister came to. With tears in her eyes, Mother asked, “Are you all right, Lingdi?” Third Sister looked up at Mother and appeared to nod her head, but maybe not. Tears seeped from her eyes. “My poor, abused child,” Mother said. “They're taking him to Japan,” Lingdi said frostily, “and he won't be back for eighteen years. Mother, I want you to make an altar for me. I am now a Bird Fairy.”

The comment struck Mother like a thunderbolt. A welter of mixed feelings filled her heart. As she gazed into the now demonic face of Third Sister, there was so much she wanted to say; but not a single word emerged.

In the brief history of Northeast Gaomi Township, six women have been transformed into fox, hedgehog, weasel, white snake, badger, and bat fairies, all a result of love denied or a bad marriage; each lived a life of mystery, earning the fearful respect of others. Now a Bird Fairy had appeared in my house, which both terrified and disgusted Mother. But she didn't dare say anything that went against Third Sister's wishes, for a bloody precedent had been set in the past: a dozen or more years earlier, Fang Jinzhi, the wife of the donkey dealer, Yuan Jinbiao, was caught in the arms of a young man in the graveyard. Members of the Yuan family beat the man to death, and then beat Fang Jinzhi to within an inch of her life. Overwhelmed by shame and anger, she took arsenic, but was saved when someone forced human waste down her throat. When she came around, she said she was possessed by a fox fairy and asked that an altar be set up for her. The Yuan family refused. From that day on, the family's woodpile often caught fire; their pots and pans and other kitchenware frequently broke apart for no apparent reason; when the old man of the family tipped over his wine decanter, out came a lizard; when the old woman of the family sneezed, two front teeth came flying out of her nostrils; and when the family boiled a pot of meat-filled
jiaozi
dumplings, what came out of the water instead were toads. The Yuans finally gave in and set up an altar for the fox fairy and installed Fang Jinzhi in a meditation room.

The meditation room for the Bird Fairy was set up in a side room. With my fourth and fifth sisters in tow, Mother cleaned up the bits and pieces left behind by Sha Yueliang, swept the walls clean of cobwebs and the ceiling of dust, and then put fresh paper coverings in the windows. They put an incense table up against the northern wall and lit three sticks of sandalwood incense left over from that earlier year when Shangguan Lü had worshipped the Guanyin Bodhisattva. They ought to have put an image of a Bird Fairy up in front of the incense table, but they didn't know what one looked like. So Mother asked Third Sister for instructions. “Fairy,” she said piously as she knelt on the floor, “where can I obtain the image of an idol for the incense table?” Third Sister sat primly in a chair, her eyes closed, her cheeks flushed, as if enjoying a wonderful erotic dream. Not daring to hurry or upset her, Mother asked again even more piously. My third sister opened her mouth in a wide yawn, her eyes still closed, and replied in a twittering voice somewhere between bird and human speech, making her words nearly impossible to understand, “There'll be one tomorrow.”

The next morning, a hawk-nosed, eagle-eyed beggar came to our door. In his left hand he carried a dog-beating staff made of hollowed-out bamboo, while in his right he held a ceramic bowl with two deep chips on the rim. He was filthy, as if he'd just rolled in the dirt, or had completed a thousand-mile trudge; dirt filled his ears and was crusted in the corners of his eyes. Without a word, he walked into our parlor, freely and casually, as if it were his own home. He removed the lid from the pot on the stove, ladled out a bowlful of herbal soup, and began slurping it down. When he'd finished, he sat on the stove counter, again without a word, and scraped Mother's face with his knifelike gaze. Despite the discomfort she felt inside, she put on a calm exterior. “Honored guest,” she said, “poor as we are, we have nothing for you. Please don't be offended if I offer you this.” She handed him a clump of wild herbs. He refused the offer. Licking his chapped and bloody lips, he said, “Your son-in-law asked me to deliver two things to you.” But he took nothing out for us, and as we examined his thin, tattered clothes and the filthy, scaly gray skin showing through the many holes, we could not imagine where he could have hidden whatever it was he had brought for us. “Which son-in-law would that be?” Mother asked, clearly puzzled. The hawk-nosed, eagle-eyed man said, “Don't ask me. All I know is that he's a mute, that he can write, that he's a wonderful swordsman, that he saved my life once, and that I repaid the favor. Neither of us is in debt to the other. And that is why no more than two minutes ago, I was wondering whether I should give you these two treasures or not. If, when I was ladling out a bowl of your soup, you, the lady of the house, had made a single rude or impertinent comment, I'd have kept them for myself. But not only did you say nothing rude or impertinent, you actually offered me a handful of wild herbs. So I have decided to give them to you.” With that, he stood up, laid his chipped bowl on the stove counter, and said, “This is a piece of fine ceramic, as rare as unicorns and phoenixes. It may be the only piece of its kind in the world. That mute son-in-law of yours did not know its value. All he knew was that it was part of the loot from one of his raids, and he wanted you to have it, maybe because it is so big. Then there is this.” He hit the floor with his bamboo staff, producing a hollow sound. “Do you have a knife?” Mother handed him her cleaver. He used it to cut almost invisible threads at each end, and the bamboo split into pieces, which opened up to let fall a painted scroll. He unrolled it, releasing the smell of mildew and decay. There in the middle of the yellowed silk was a painting of a large bird. We were stunned. The image was an exact replica of the big, incomparably delicious bird Third Sister had brought home that time. In the painting, it was standing straight, head up, looking contemptuously at us with lackluster eyes. The hawk-nosed, eagle-eyed man told us nothing about the scroll or the bird on it. Rather, he rolled it back up, laid it atop the ceramic bowl, turned, and walked out the door without a backward glance. His now freed hands hung loosely at his sides and moved stiffly in concert with his long strides.

Mother was rooted to the spot like a pine tree, and I was a knot on the trunk of that tree. Five of my sisters were like willow trees; the Sima boy an oak sapling. We stood there like a little wooded area in front of the mysterious ceramic bowl and bird scroll. If Third Sister hadn't broken the silence with a mocking laugh, we might really have turned into trees.

Her prediction had come true. With extraordinary reverence, we carried the bird scroll into the meditation room and hung it in front of the incense table. And since the chipped ceramic bowl had such an extraordinary history, what mortal was worthy of using it? So Mother, feeling blessed by good fortune, placed it on the incense table and filled it with fresh water for the Bird Fairy.

Word that our family had produced a Bird Fairy quickly made the rounds in Northeast Gaomi and beyond. A steady stream of pilgrims seeking nostrums and predictions beat a path to our door, but the Bird Fairy saw no more than ten a day. They knelt on the ground outside the window of her meditation room, in which a tiny hole permitted her birdlike predictions for the curious and prescriptions for the infirm to filter through. The prescriptions Third Sister — I mean the Bird Fairy — dispensed were truly unique and filled with an aura of mischief. Here is what she prescribed for someone suffering from a stomach problem: A powdered mixture of seven bees, a pair of dung beetle's excrement balls, an ounce of peach leaves, and half a catty of crushed eggshells, taken with water. And for someone in a rabbitskin cap who was afflicted with an eye disease: A paste made of seven locusts, a pair of crickets, five praying mantises, and four earthworms, spread on the palms of the hands. When the patient caught his prescription as it floated out from the hole in the window and read it, a look of irreverence appeared on his face, and we heard him grumble, “She's a Bird Fairy, all right. Everything on this prescription is bird food.” He walked off, still grumbling, and we couldn't help feeling ashamed of Third Sister. Locusts and crickets, they were all bird delicacies, so how were they supposed to cure human eye ailments? But while I was caught up in confusion, the man with the eye problem nearly flew down the road our way, fell to his knees beneath the window, banged his head on the ground as if he were mashing garlic stalks, and intoned repeatedly: “Great Fairy, forgive me, Great Fairy, forgive me …” His pleas for forgiveness drew mocking laughter from Third Sister inside the room. Eventually, we learned that when the garrulous man was on the road home, a hawk swooped down out of the sky and dug its talons into his head, before flying off with his cap in its clutches. Then there was a man with mischief on his mind who knelt outside the window pretending to be suffering from urethritis. The Bird Fairy asked through the window, “What ails you?” The man said, “When I urinate, it feels like I'm passing ice cubes.” Suddenly the room went silent, as if the Bird Fairy had left out of embarrassment. The lewd, daring man put his eye up to the hole in the window, but before he could see a thing, he shrieked in agony as a monstrous scorpion fell from the window onto his neck and stung him. His neck swelled up immediately, and then his face, until his eyes were mere slits, like those of a salamander.