Big Breasts and Wide Hips by Mo Yan
Holding Eighth Sister and me in her arms, Mother came up and grabbed Malory’s arm. “Let’s go, we don’t want to anger them.”
Malory pulled his arm free and ran up to push the donkey back out of the church. The animal bared its teeth, like an angry dog, and brayed loudly.
“Back off!” one of the soldiers demanded as he pushed Malory out of the way.
“The church is a holy place, belonging to God. You can’t stable a donkey in here,” Pastor Malory said defiantly.
“You phony foreign devil!” cursed one of the soldiers, a man with a pale face and purple lips. “My old mother told me that that man,” he said as he pointed to the jujube Jesus hanging up front, “was born in a horse stable. Donkeys are cousins to horses, so if your god owes a debt to horses, he also owes one to donkeys. If a horse stable can serve as a delivery room, then why can’t a church serve as a donkey’s pen?”
The soldier, obviously pleased with his powers of logic, stared at Malory with a smug grin.
Malory made the sign of the cross and began to weep. “Punish these evil men, Lord. Strike them down with lightning, let them be bitten by poisonous vipers, let them perish at the hands of the Japanese
“Traitorous dog!” the crooked-mouthed soldier snarled, giving Malory a resounding slap. Intending to slap him in the mouth, he was slightly off target, hitting his hooked nose instead, and releasing a gush of fresh blood. With a painful cry, Malory raised his hands toward the jujube Jesus. “Lord,” he intoned, “almighty God …”
The soldiers looked first at the jujube Jesus, which was covered with dust and bird droppings, then at the bloodied face of Pastor Malory. Finally, they let their eyes roam over Mother’s body, which was covered with slimy marks that looked like the trails of snails. The soldier who knew about Jesus’ birthplace stuck out his tongue, like a footed clam, and licked his purplish lips. By then, twenty-eight black donkeys had been crowded into the church. Some moved around aimlessly, others scratched their backs on the walls or relieved themselves or misbehaved themselves, and some nibbled at the clay walls. “Lord!” Malory implored. But his Lord was unmoved.
In their anger they ripped Eighth Sister and me out of Mother’s arms and tossed us among the donkeys. Mother ran to us like a she-wolf, but was stopped by the soldiers before she reached us. That is when they began fooling around with Mother, starting with crooked mouth, who reached out and grabbed one of her breasts. Purple lips crowded up and pushed crooked mouth out of the way to wrap his hands around my doves, my precious gourds. With a loud screech, Mother clawed his face; unfazed and grinning his evil grin, he ripped off her clothes.
What happened after that will remain my secret anguish for the rest of my life. Out in the yard, Sha Yueliang was cozying up to my eldest sister, while in the eastern side room, Gou San and his pack of mongrels spread out a bunch of straw in a corner for beds; all five of the musket soldiers — the team assigned to watch the donkeys — threw Mother down on top of it. On the floor among the donkeys, Eighth Sister and I had by then cried ourselves hoarse. Malory jumped up, grabbed one of the broken halves of the door bolt, and brought it down on a soldier’s head. One of his comrades aimed at Malory’s legs and fired. An explosion tore through the room as a swarm of buckshot thudded into Malory’s legs, spraying pearls of blood into the air. The broken bolt fell from his hands and he slumped to the floor; he looked up at the bird-splattered jujube Jesus and began to murmur something in his long-forgotten Swedish tongue, the words fluttering from his mouth like butterflies. The soldiers took turns ravaging Mother; the donkeys took turns sniffing Eighth Sister and me. Their loud brays crashed through the ceiling of the church and flew up into the bleak sky. Sweat beaded the face of the jujube Jesus. Satisfied, the soldiers tossed Mother, Eighth Sister, and me out into the street; the donkeys followed us outside, but ran off following the scent of female donkeys. While the soldiers were trying to run down their mounts, Pastor Malory dragged his buckshot-honeycombed legs up the familiar, foot-worn stairs to the bell tower. He managed to prop himself up by holding on to the windowsill so he could gaze out through the broken stained glass and see the panorama of Dalan, the municipal seat of Northeast Gaomi, where he had lived and left his mark for decades: neat rows of thatch-roofed cottages; wide, gray-colored lanes; misty green treetops; shimmering rivers and streams circling tiny villages; the mirrorlike surface of the lake; the swaying thickets of reeds; pools of water rimmed by wild grasses; the red marsh that was a playground for passing birds; an expanse of open country that scrolled all the way to the edge of heaven; the golden yellow Reclining Ox mountain range; the sandy hills, with their flowering locusts … as his gaze traveled down to the street, where Mother lay like a dead fish, her naked belly exposed to the sky, deep sorrow filled his heart and tears clouded his eyes. Dipping his finger in the blood oozing from his legs, he wrote four words on the gray wall of the bell tower: Golden Boy Jade Girl.
Then he shouted at the top of his lungs, “Forgive me, dear Lord!”
Pastor Malory flung himself off the bell tower and plummeted like a gigantic bird with broken wings, splattering his brains like so much bird shit when he hit the street below.
3
Winter was approaching, and Mother began wearing her mother-in-law’s blue satin-lined jacket. Four old village women, who were blessed with many sons and grandsons, had come over on Grandmother’s sixtieth birthday to sew this jacket, which she would one day wear in her coffin. But now it was Mother’s winter jacket. Mother cut two holes in the top, so she could free her breasts anytime I was hungry. They had been ravaged during that infuriating autumn, when Pastor Malory leaped to his death, but the calamity would pass, and her fine breasts would prove to be indestructible. They were like people who are forever young or evergreen pines. To keep them from prying eyes and, more importantly, to protect them from the chill winds and keep their milk warm, Mother sewed red flaps over the holes. Her inventiveness started a tradition; flapped lined jackets are still worn in Dalan to this day, although the holes now are rounder, the flaps made of softer material, and they are embroidered with bright flowers.
My winter clothing was a thick pouch fashioned from durable canvas and lined with a drawstring at the top and two straps from which it hung just beneath Mother’s bosom. When it was feeding time, she would suck in her belly and shift the pouch until I was perfectly positioned: cradled in a kneeling position, my head nestled up against her breasts. Then, by turning my head to the right, I could put my mouth around her left nipple; by turning it to the left, I could nurse from her right nipple. It was a double-sided advantage worthy of the name. But my pouch wasn’t perfect, for it bound up my hands, and made it impossible to hold one breast while I was nursing at the other, as I had done in the past. By then I had completely stripped Eighth Sister of her right to nurse, and anytime she came near one of Mother’s breasts, I clawed and kicked until the poor blind thing cried her eyes out. She survived on a thin gruel, and this made my other sisters very unhappy.
My nursing process over the long winter months was shrouded in anxiety, for when my lips were wrapped around the left nipple, all I could think about was the right one. I felt as if a hairy hand would suddenly reach into the cavernous opening and take the temporarily idle breast away with it. Falling under the control of that feeling, I’d quickly switch nipples, leaving the left one, from which milk had just begun to flow, for the right one; but I’d no sooner begun to suck there than I’d switch back to the left. Mother would give me a puzzled look, seeing how I would suck from the left but never take my greedy eyes off the right, and quickly guessing what I was up to. Showering my face with kisses from her chilled lips, she would say softly, Jintong, Golden Boy, my little treasure, all Mama’s milk belongs to you, and no one can take it away from you. Her words lessened my anxiety, but didn’t drive it away altogether, for I could sense those hairy hands all around her, just waiting for an opening.
One morning, as a light snow fell, Mother put on her nursing
The sky was clear one minute and cloudy the next; snowflakes swirled one second and disappeared the next. My sisters, all wearing thin clothing, scrunched their necks down between their shoulders as chilled northern winds blew past them. My eldest sister was responsible for putting the turnips into baskets; Second and Third Sisters were responsible for carrying the baskets; Fourth and Fifth Sisters were responsible for stacking them in the cellar; Sixth and Seventh Sisters were free to help out here and there; and Eighth Sister, not yet old enough to do any work, sat alone on the kang deep in thought. Sixth Sister stacked the turnips four at a time, all the way to the cellar opening; Seventh Sister did the same, but two at a time. Meanwhile, Mother and her little Golden Boy toured the area among the piles of turnips, ordering the girls around, criticizing them for less-than-perfect work, and heaving sighs of emotion. Mother’s commands were intended to raise the quality of work, to keep the turnips healthy and allow them to get safely through the winter. Her sighs represented the central thought in her head: Life is hard, and the only way to survive is through hard work. My sisters reacted passively to Mother’s commands, unhappily to her criticisms, and apathetically to her sighs. To this day I’m not sure how so many turnips appeared in our compound, as if by magic; but what I eventually came to understand was why Mother took such pains to stockpile that winter.
When the stacking work was finished, a dozen or so small turnips of varying shapes, all resembling human breasts, remained on the floor. Mother knelt down at the cellar opening, bent over, reached down, and pulled Xiangdi and Pandi up through the hole, one at a time. During the process, I was turned upside down twice; each time I looked out under Mother’s armpit and caught a glimpse of snowflakes swirling in the hazy, gray sunlight. The last thing Mother did was move a cracked water vat — now filled with cotton batting and grain husks — to cover the cellar hole. My sisters formed a line against the wall, beneath an overhead beam, as if awaiting Mother’s next command. But she just sighed. “What am I supposed to use to make padded clothes for you girls?” My third sister, Lingdi, said, “Cotton shells lined with cotton batting.” “You think I don’t know that?” Mother said. “What I mean is money — where am I going to get the money to buy the stuff?” My second sister, Zhaodi, said somewhat gloomily, “Sell the black donkey and the little mule.” “If I do that,” Mother said reproachfully, “how will we till the field next year?”
My eldest sister, Laidi, held her tongue the whole time, and when Mother glanced at her, she lowered her head. “Tomorrow,” Mother said to her anxiously, “you and Zhaodi can take the little mule into town and sell it.” My fifth sister, Pandi, said with a pout, “But it’s still nursing. Why don’t we sell some grain instead? We have plenty.” Mother glanced over at the open door of the eastern side room. A pair of cotton stockings belonging to Sha Yueliang, the leader of the band of soldiers, was drying on a clothesline.
The little mule bounded into the yard. It had been born on the same day as I, and it too was a male. But I could only stand up in the carrying cloth on my mother’s back, while it was already as tall as its mother. “Here’s what we’ll do,” Mother said before turning to walk back inside. “We’ll sell it tomorrow.” But from behind us came a crisp shout: “Adoptive mother!”
Sha Yueliang, who had been missing for three days, walked into the yard, leading his black donkey. A pair of bulging purple bundles lay across the donkey’s back, something colorful poking through the seams. “Adoptive mother!” he called out again, a tone of intimacy in his voice. Mother turned to see an awkward smile on the dark, gaunt face of the crooked-shouldered man. “Commander Sha,” Mother said insistently, “how many times have I told you I’m not your adoptive mother?” With the smile creasing his face unyieldingly, Sha replied, “No, you’re not, you’re more than that. I may not measure up in your eyes, but my filial obligations to you know no bounds.” He turned and ordered two of his soldiers to take the donkey over to the churchyard to feed it after unloading the bundles from its back. Mother stared venomously at the black donkey, and so did I. It flared its nostrils to take in the smell of our female donkey emanating from the western side room.
Sha opened one of the bundles and took out a foxskin overcoat. It shimmered when he shook it out in the falling snow, which melted from the garment’s heat as far away as three feet. “Adoptive mother,” he said as he walked up to Mother with the coat. “Please accept this gift from your adoptive son.” Mother shrank back hastily, but there was no way she could successfully avoid being wrapped in the foxskin coat. Darkness closed around me. The stink of the animal hide and the pungent odor of mothballs nearly suffocated me.
By the time I could see again, the yard had turned into an animal world. A purple marten coat was draped over the shoulders of my eldest sister, Laidi, and a bright-eyed fox was wrapped around her neck. My second sister, Zhaodi, was wrapped in a weasel coat. A black bear coat was draped over the shoulders of my third sister, Lingdi; a dark yellow roe deer coat was draped over the shoulders of my fourth sister, Xiangdi; a dogskin coat was draped over the shoulders of my fifth sister, Pandi; a lambskin coat was draped over the shoulders of my sixth sister, Niandi; and a rabbitskin coat was draped over the shoulders of my seventh sister, Qiudi. Mother’s foxskin coat lay on the ground. “Take those off, all of you!” she shouted. “Take them off!” My sisters acted as if they hadn’t heard her; with their heads swaying in the warmth of their collars, they reached out to touch the fur of one another’s coats. The looks on their faces showed that they were delighted to be immersed in such warmth, and that they felt warmed by their delight. As she stood there shivering, Mother said weakly, “Have you all turned deaf?”
Sha Yueliang removed the last two overcoats from one of the bundles and gently rubbed the black fur covering the brown satiny-sleek hide. “Adoptive mother,” he said emotionally, “these are lynx hides. There was only a single pair of them anywhere in a hundred-li radius of Northeast Gaomi. It took old man Geng and his son three years to catch them. This is the male, and this is the female. Have you ever seen a lynx?” His eyes swept the fur-clad girls. Since they didn’t answer, he told them about lynxes, like a schoolteacher lecturing his class. “The lynx is a cat, only larger, and resembles a leopard, only smaller. It can climb trees and it can swim. It can leap several feet in the air and is capable of snatching birds off the limbs of trees. It’s a very clever animal. This particular pair of lynxes lived amid Northeast Gaomi’s unmarked burial mounds, which made it harder to catch them than climbing to the sky. But, eventually, they were caught. Adoptive mother, these two jackets are my gifts to young brother Jintong and his twin sister.” With that, he laid out the two tiny jackets made from the lynxes, animals that when alive could climb trees, could swim, and could leap several feet in the air. He then bent over, picked up the flame-red foxskin coat, shook it out, and laid it too in the crook of Mother’s arm. “Adoptive mother,” he said with a catch in his voice, “please don’t make me lose face.”
After night fell, Mother bolted the door and called Laidi into our room. She laid me down at the head of the kang, alongside my twin sister. I reached out and scratched her face. She cried out and curled up in the corner, as far away from me as possible. Mother was too busy bolting the bedroom door to concern herself with us. My eldest sister was standing at the head of the kang, bundled in her purple marten coat, the fox stole around her neck, looking bashful and proud at
The yard was Sha Yueliang’s world. Ever since he’d set up a bivouac in our eastern side room, our main gate was never closed all the way. On this particular night, there was a lot more going on in the eastern side room than usual. The bright light of a gas lantern shone through the paper covering of the window, lighting up the whole yard and adding a radiance to the snowflakes swirling in the air. People were running around; the gate kept creaking open and shut; and the crisp sound of donkey hooves clattered up and down the lane. Inside the room, husky male laughter burst into the night between shouts of their finger gambling: Three peach gardens! Five stalwart leaders! Seven plum blossoms and eight horses! The aroma of meat and fish drew my six sisters up to the window in the eastern room, where they leaned against the windowsill and drooled hungrily. Mother watched my eldest sister like a hawk, eyes blazing; Laidi returned the look with unyielding defiance. Blue sparks flew from the clash of gazes. “What are you thinking?” Mother demanded.
“What do you mean?” Laidi asked as she stroked the lush tail of the fox.
“Don’t play dumb with me,” Mother said.
“Mother,” Laidi said, “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
Changing her tone to one of sadness, Mother said, “Laidi, you’re the oldest of nine children, and if you get into trouble, who am I going to rely on?”