Big Breasts and Wide Hips (7 page)

Fan quickly cleared the little mule's mouth of the fluid, cut the umbilical cord with his knife, and tied off the end, then carried the animal over to a clean spot on the floor, where he wiped down its body with a rag. With tears in her eyes, Shangguan Lü muttered over and over, “Thanks to heaven and earth, and to Fan Three.”

The baby mule staggered unsteadily to its feet, but quickly fell back down. Its hide was satiny smooth, its mouth the purplish red of a rose petal. Fan Three helped it to its feet. “Good girl,” he said. “A chip off the old block. The horse is my son and you, little one, you're my granddaughter. Sister-in-law, bring some watery rice for my donkey daughter, returned from the dead.”

Shangguan Laidi hadn't led her sisters more than a few dozen paces when she heard a series of sharp noises that sounded like strange bird cries. She looked into the sky to see what it was, just in time to hear an explosion in the middle of the river. Her ears rang, her brain clouded. A shattered catfish came on the air and landed at her feet. Threads of blood seeped from its split orange head; its feelers twitched, and its guts were spread all over its back. When it landed, a spray of muddy hot river water drenched Laidi and her sisters. Numbed and sort of dreamy, she turned to look at her sisters, who returned the look. She saw a gob of sticky stuff in Niandi's hair, like a wad of chewed grass; seven or eight silvery fish scales were stuck to Xiangdi's cheek. Dark waves churned in the river no more than a few dozen paces from where they stood, forming a whirlpool; heated water rose into the air, then fell back down into the whirlpool. A thin layer of mist hovered above the surface, and she could smell the pleasant odor of gunpowder. She struggled to figure out what had just happened, gripped by a foreboding that something was very wrong. Wanting to scream, all she could manage was a shower of tears that fell noisily to the ground. What am I crying for? No, I'm not really crying, she was thinking, and why should I? Maybe they were drops of river water, not tears at all. Chaos reigned inside her head. The scene arrayed before her — the sun glinting off the bridge beams, the churning, muddy river, densely packed shrubbery, all the startled swallows, and her stunned sisters — enveloped her in a chaotic mix of images, like a tangled skein of string. Her eyes fell on her baby sister, Qiudi, whose mouth hung slack and whose eyes were squeezed shut; tears ran down her cheeks. A sizzle filled the air around them, like beans popping in the sun. Secrets hidden amid the riverbank bushes produced a rustling sound like skittering little critters, but no sound from the men in green she'd seen in the bushes a few minutes before. The shrub branches pointed silently upward and their gold-coin-like leaves shimmied slightly. Were they still there? If so, what were they doing? Then she heard a flat, distant shout: “Little sisters, hit the ground … little sisters … down on your bellies …”

She searched the landscape to locate the source of the shouts. Deep down in her brain a crab crawled around, and it hurt terribly. She saw something black and shiny fall from the sky. A pillar of water as thick as an ox rose slowly out of river just east of the stone bridge, and spread out once it reached the height of the dike, like the branches of a weeping willow. Within seconds the smells of gunpowder, river mud, and shattered fish and shrimp rushed into her nostrils. Her ears stung so badly she couldn't hear a thing, but she thought she saw sound waves spreading through the air.

Another black object fell into the river, sending a second pillar of water skyward. Something blue slammed into the riverbank, its edges curled outward like a dog's tooth. When she bent down to pick it up, a wisp of yellow smoke rose from the tip of her finger, and a sharp pain shot through her body. In a flash, the crashing noises of the world rushed at her again, as if the now searing pain in her finger came from her ear, breaking up the blockage. The water was lapping noisily, smoke was rolling upwards. Explosions rumbled in the air. Three of her sisters were howling, the other three were lying on the ground with their hands over their ears, their fannies sticking up, like those stupid, awkward birds that bury their heads in the sand when they're pursued, forgetting all about their hindquarters.

“Little sisters!” Again she heard a voice in the bushes. “Down on your bellies, hit the ground and crawl over here …”

She lay on her belly and searched for the man in the bushes. Finally, she spotted him amid the lithe branches of a red willow. The dark-faced stranger with the white teeth was waving her over. “Hurry!” he shouted. “Crawl over here.”

A crack opened up in her confused mind and let in rays of light. Hearing the whinny of a horse, she turned to look behind her and saw a gold-colored colt, its fiery mane flying as it galloped onto the stone bridge from the southern end. The lovely, halterless colt was unruly, lively, reveling in its youth. The son of Third Master Fan's Japanese stud horse, it belonged to Felicity Manor; in other words, the golden colt was another of his grandsons. She knew that lovable colt, and she liked it. She often saw it galloping up and down the lane, throwing Aunty Sun's dogs into a frenzy. When it reached the middle of the bridge, it stopped as if brought up short by the wall of straw, or made woozy by the liquor it was soaked in. It cocked its head and scrutinized the straw. What could it be thinking? she wondered. Another shriek tore through the air as a lump of blinding molten metal crashed into the bridge with a thunderous roar, seemingly having traveled a great distance. The colt disintegrated before her eyes; one of its charred legs landed in the bushes nearby. A wave of nausea drove a sour, bitter liquid up from her stomach into her throat, and at that moment, she understood everything. The colt's severed leg showed her what death was all about, and a sense of horror made her quake, made her teeth chatter. Jumping to her feet, she dragged her sisters into the bushes.

All six younger sisters huddled around her, holding on to each other like stalks of garlic wrapped around the stem. Laidi heard that now familiar hoarse voice shouting at her, but the seething waters of the river swallowed up the sound.

Folding her baby sister into her arms, she felt the searing heat of the little girl's face. A calmness returned to the river for the moment, giving the layer of smoke a chance to dissipate. More of those hissing black objects flew over the Flood Dragon River, dragging long tails behind them before landing in the village with muffled explosions, followed by faint screams from women and the thud of collapsing structures. Not a soul in sight on the opposite dike, nothing but a solitary locust tree. On the riverbank below stood a line of weeping willows whose branches touched the surface of the water. Where were these strange, scary flying objects coming from? she wondered stubbornly. A shout —
Ai ya ya
— broke her concentration. The sight of the Felicity Manor assistant steward, Sima Ku, riding his bicycle up onto the bridge appeared through the branches. What's he doing? she wondered. It must be because of the horse. But he was holding a lit torch, so it wasn't the horse, whose corpse was splattered all over the bridge and whose blood stained the water below.

Sima Ku slammed on the brakes and flung the torch into the liquor-soaked straw, sending blue flames into the sky. Jerking his bicycle around, but too rushed to climb onto it, he ran it down the bridge, the blue flames licking at his heels. The eerie
Ai ya ya
shouts kept spilling from his mouth. When a sudden loud crack sent his wide-brimmed straw hat flying into the river, he let go of his bicycle, bent low at the waist, stumbled, and fell face-first onto the bridge flooring.
Crack, crack, crack
, a string of noises like firecrackers. Sima Ku hugged the bridge flooring and crawled like a lizard. Suddenly he was gone, and the cracking noises stopped. The bridge all but disappeared in blue, smokeless flames, those in the center rising higher than the others and turning the water below blue. Laidi's chest constricted in the stifling air and waves of heat; her nostrils were hot and dry. The waves of heat changed into gusting, whistling winds. The bushes were wet, sort of sweaty; the leaves of trees curled up and withered. Then she heard the high-pitched voice of Sima Ku emerge from behind the dike:

“Fuck your sisters, you little Nips. You may have crossed Marco Polo Bridge, but you'll never cross Fiery Dragon Bridge!”

Then he laughed:

“Ah ha ha ha, ah ha ha ha, ah ha ha ha …”

Sima Ku's laughter seemed endless. On the opposite bank, a line of yellow caps popped up over the top of the dike, followed by the heads of horses and the yellow uniforms of their riders. Dozens of horse soldiers were now perched atop the dike, and though they were still hundreds of meters away, Laidi saw that the horses looked exactly like Third Master Fan's stud horse. The Japs! The Japs are here! The Japs have come …

Avoiding the stone bridge, which was engulfed in blue flames, the Japanese soldiers eased their horses down the dike sideways, dozens of them bumping clumsily into each other all the way down to the riverbed. She could hear the men's grunts and shouts and the horses' snorts as they entered the river. The water quickly swallowed up the horses' legs, until their bellies rested on the surface. The riders sat their mounts comfortably, sitting straight, heads high, their faces white in the bright sunlight, which blurred their features. With their heads up, the horses appeared to be galloping, which in fact was impossible. The water, like thick syrup, had a sticky, sweet smell. Struggling to move ahead, the massive horses raised blue ripples on the surface; to Laidi, they looked like little tongues of fire singeing the animals' hides, which was why they were holding their large heads so high, and why they kept moving forward, their tails floating behind them. The Japanese riders, holding the reins with both hands, bobbed up and down, their legs in a rigid inverted V. She watched a chestnut-colored horse stop in the middle of the river, lift its tail, and release a string of droppings. Its anxious rider dug his heels into the horse's flanks to get it going again. But the horse, refusing to move, shook its head and chewed noisily on the bit.

“Attack, comrades!” came a yell from the bushes to her left, followed by a muted sound like tearing silk. Then the rattle of gunfire — crisp and dull, thick and thin. A black object, trailing white smoke, hit the water with a loud
thunk
and sent a pillar of water into the air. The Japanese soldier on the chestnut horse was thrown forward at a bizarre angle, then sprang back, his arms flailing wildly in the air. Fresh black blood gushing from his chest soaked the head of his horse and stained the water. The horse reared, exposing its muddy forelegs and its broad, shiny chest. By the time its front hooves crashed through the surface of the water again, the Japanese soldier was draped face-up across the animal's rump. A second Japanese soldier, this one on a black mount, flew headfirst into the river. Another, riding a blue horse, was thrown forward out of his saddle, but wrapped his arms around the animal's neck and hung there, capless, a trickle of blood dripping from his ear into the river.

Chaos reigned on the river, where riderless horses whinnied and spun around to struggle back to the far bank. All the other Japanese soldiers lay forward in their saddles, clamping down with their legs as they aimed their shiny rifles at the bushes and opened fire. Dozens of snorting horses made their way to the shoals the best they could. With beads of water dripping from their bellies and mud covering their purple hooves, they dragged long glistening threads all the way out to the middle of the river.

A sorrel with a white forehead, a pale-faced Japanese soldier on its back, jumped and leaped toward the dike, its hooves thudding clumsily and noisily into the shoals. The squinting, tight-lipped soldier on its back smacked its rump with his left hand and brandished a silvery sword in his right, as he charged the bushes. Laidi saw beads of sweat on the tip of his nose and the thick lashes of his mount, and she could hear the air forced out through the horse's nostrils; she could also smell the sour stench of horse sweat. All of a sudden, red smoke emerged from the sorrel's forehead, and all four of its churning legs stiffened. Its hide was creased with more wrinkles than she could count, its legs turned to rubber, and before its rider knew what was happening, both he and the horse fell crashing into the bushes.

The Japanese cavalry unit headed south along the riverbank all the way up to where Laidi and her sisters had left their shoes. There they reined in their horses and cut through the bushes up to the dike. Laidi kept looking, but they were gone. She then turned to look down at the dead sorrel, its head bloody, its big, lifeless blue eyes staring sadly into the deep blue sky. The Japanese rider lay facedown in the mud, pinned beneath the horse, his head cocked at an awkward angle, one bloodless hand stretched out to the riverbank, as if fishing for something. The horses' hooves had chewed up the smooth, sundrenched mud of the shoals. The body of a white horse lay on its side in the river, rolling slowly in the shifting water, until it flipped over and its legs, tipped by hooves the size of clay jugs, rose terrifyingly into the air. A moment later, the water churned and the legs slipped back into the water to wait for the next opportunity to point to the sky. The chestnut horse that had made such an impression on Laidi was already far downriver, dragging its dead rider with it, and she wondered if it might be off looking for its mate, imagining it to be the long-separated wife of Third Master Fan's stud horse.

Fires were continued to burn on the bridge, the now yellow flames sending thick white smoke out of the piles of straw. The green bridge flooring arched high in the air as it groaned and gasped and moaned. In her mind, the burning bridge was transformed into a giant snake writhing in agony, trying desperately to fly up into the sky with both its head and tail nailed down. The poor bridge, she thought sadly. And that poor German bicycle, the only modern machine in Gaomi, was now nothing but charred, twisted metal. Her nose was assailed by the smells of gunpowder, rubber, blood, and mud that turned the heated air sticky and thick, and her breast was suffused with a foul miasma that seemed about to explode. Worse yet, a layer of grease had formed on the roasted bushes in front of them, and a wave of sparking heat rushed toward her, igniting crackling fires in the bushes. Scooping Qiudi up in her arms, she screamed for her sisters to leave the bushes. Then, standing on the dike, she counted until they were all there with her, grimy-faced and barefoot, their eyes staring blankly, their earlobes roasted red. They scampered down the dike and ran toward an abandoned patch of ground that everyone said was once the foundation and crumbled walls of a Muslim woman's house that had since been reclaimed by wild hemp and cocklebur. As she ran into the tangle of undergrowth, her legs felt as if they were made of dough, and the nettles pricked her feet painfully. Her sisters, crying and complaining, stumbled along behind her. So they all sat down amid the hemp and wrapped their arms around each other, the younger girls burying their faces in Laidi's clothing; only she kept her head up, gazing fearfully at the fire raging over the dike.