Big Breasts and Wide Hips

by Mo Yan

  Mother and my sisters walked out of the village and into a reawakened field, where they began digging up white grass roots, which they would boil after rinsing and mashing them. Third Sister, the smart one, found a nest of voles. What made that such a great find was not just the addition of meat to our diet, but that the food they’d stored away was now ours as well. After that, my sisters made a fishnet out of some hemp twine, which they used to snag some dark, thin fish and shrimp that had survived the winter in the local pond. One day, Mother put a spoonful of fish broth into my mouth; I spit it right back out and started bawling at the top of my lungs. Then she put a spoonful into the mouth of the Sima brat; the moron swallowed it right down. So Mother fed him another spoonful. He swallowed that too. “Good,” Mother exclaimed excitedly. “For all the bad karma, at least this kid knows how to eat.” She turned her gaze to me. “Now, what about you? It’s time you got weaned too.” Panic-stricken, I grabbed hold of her breast.

  The village began to come back to life, once we had taken the lead. It was a calamitous time for local voles; after them came wild jackrabbits, fish, turtles, shrimp, crabs, snakes, and frogs. All across the vast land, the only creatures that survived were poisonous toads and birds on the wing. And still, if not for the timely growth of edible wild herbs, most of the villagers would have starved to death anyway. After Qingming passed, the peach blossoms began to fall, and steam rose from fallow fields that cried out for a new planting. But we had no farm animals and no seeds. By the time fat little tadpoles were swimming in the marshes, and in the oval waters of the local pond, and in the shallows of the river, the villagers had taken to the road. By the fourth month, most had left; by the fifth month, most had returned to their homes. Third Master Fan said, “Here at least there are wild grasses and edible herbs to keep us from starving. That’s more than you can say about other places.” By the sixth month, outsiders had begun showing up in our village. They slept in the church, and on the ground in the Sima compound, and in abandoned mills. Like dogs driven mad by hunger, they stole food out from under us. Finally, Third Master Fan organized the village men to drive the outsiders away. He was our leader; the outsiders countered with a leader of their own — a young man with bushy eyebrows and big eyes. He was a master at catching birds, always seen with a pair of slingshots hanging from his belt and, over his shoulder, a burlap bag that was filled with pellets of dried mud. Third Sister saw him in action one day. A pair of partridges was in the midst of a mating ritual up in the air. He took out one of his slingshots and fired a mud pellet into the sky, seemingly without even aiming. One of the partridges fell to the ground like a stone, landing right at Third Sister’s feet. The bird’s head was smashed. Its mate cried out as it circled overhead. The man took out another pellet, fired it into the air, and the second bird fell to the ground. He bent down, picked up the bird, and walked up to my sister. He looked right at her; she returned his gaze with a hateful stare of her own. By that time, Third Master Fan had been to our house to inform us of the movement to drive away the outsiders, which fired up our hatred of them. But rather than pick up the bird at Third Sister’s feet, he tossed her the one in his hands, then turned and walked off without a word.

  Third Sister came home with the partridges; the meat was for Mother, the broth for my sisters and the little Sima bastard, and the bones for my grandmother, who crunched them up loudly. Third Sister didn’t tell anyone that the outsider had given her the partridges, which were quickly transformed into tasty juices that wound up in my stomach. On a number of occasions, Mother waited until I was asleep to stick one of her nipples into the mouth of the little Sima baby; but he refused it. He preferred to grow up on grasses and bark. Blessed with an astonishing appetite, he swallowed anything that was put into his mouth. “He’s like a donkey,” Mother commented. “He was born to eat grass.” Even the turds that came out of him were like equine droppings. Not only that, Mother believed that he had a pair of ruminating stomachs. We often saw clumps of grass rise up from his stomach into his mouth, then watched as he closed his eyes and chewed contentedly, white foamy bubbles gathering at the corners of his mouth. After he’d chewed for a while, he’d stretch out his neck and swallow it down with a gurgling sound.

  Battles between the villagers and outsiders broke out following an attempt by Third Master Fan to ask them politely to leave. The outsiders’ representative — the young man who had given Third Sister the partridges — was called Birdman Han, the bird-catching specialist. With his hands on the slingshots at his waist, he argued vigorously, without giving an inch. He said that Northeast Gaomi had at one time been an unpopulated wasteland, and everyone was an outsider then. So if you can live here, why can’t we? But those were fighting words, and an argument ensued; that soon led to pushing and shoving. One young villager, an impetuous fellow everyone called Consumptive Six, came bursting out from behind Third Master Fan, picked up a steel club, and swung it at the head of Birdman Han’s aging mother. Her skull cracked and, leaking a gray liquid, the old woman died on the spot. Birdman let out a wail that sounded more like that of an injured wolf. Taking his slingshots from his belt, he let two pellets fly, blinding Comsumptive Six where he stood. All hell broke loose then, with the outsiders gradually getting the worst of it. With the body of his mother over his shoulder, Birdman Han retreated, fighting every step of the way,- all the way back to the sandy ridge west of the village. There he laid his mother out on the ground, loaded his slingshot, and took aim at Third Master Fan. “You had better not try to kill us all, headman. Even a rabbit bites when it’s cornered!” Before he’d finished, one of his pellets cut the air with a whoosh and struck Third Master Fan in his left ear. “Since we are all Chinese,” Birdman Han said, “I’ll spare you this time.” Cupping his hand over his split ear, Third Master Fan backed off without a word.

  The outsiders threw up dozens of tents on the sandy ridge, making it their own. Birdman Han buried his mother on the sandy ridge, then picked up his slingshots and walked up and down the street twice, cursing in his unfamiliar accent. What he was telling the villagers was this: I am a single man, so if I kill one of you, we’re even, and if I kill two of you, I’ll be one ahead. It is my hope that everyone can live in peace. With Consumptive Six’s blinded eyes and Third

  Master Fan’s shattered ear as examples, none of the villagers was willing to take them on. “Just think,” Third Sister said, “he’s lost his own mother, so what else can he fear?”

  From that time on, the outsiders and the villagers coexisted peacefully despite the grudges each carried. My third sister and Birdman Han met nearly every day at the spot where he had laid the partridges at her feet. At first, the meetings appeared unplanned, but before long they had turned into outdoor trysts, one waiting for the other, no matter how long it took. Third Sister’s feet trampled the grass in that spot until it stopped growing altogether. As for Birdman Han, he would simply show up, toss birds at her feet, and leave without a word. Sometimes it would be a pair of turtledoves, sometimes a game hen, and once he brought a huge bird that must have weighed thirty pounds. Third Sister was barely able to carry it home on her back; even Third Master Fan, the wisest man around, had no idea what kind of bird it was. All I can say is, I’d never tasted anything quite so delicious in my life. Naturally, the taste came to me indirectly, through my mother’s milk.

  Taking advantage of his close relationship with our family, Third Master Fan cautioned Mother to pay heed to what was going on between my third sister and Birdman Han. His words had a demeaning, foul quality. “Young niece, your third daughter and that bird-catcher … ah, it’s a corruption of public morals, and it’s more than the villagers can stand!” Mother said, “She’s just a girl.” To which Third Master Fan replied, “Your daughters are different from other girls their ages.” Mother sent Third Master Fan off with, “You go back and tell those gossips they can to go to hell!”

  Reproaching Third Master Fan was one thing, dealing with Third Sister was another: when
she came home with a half-dead red-crowned crane, Mother took her aside for a serious talk. “Lingdi,” she said, “we can’t keep eating somebody else’s birds.” “Why not?” Lingdi asked. “For him, shooting down a bird is easier than catching a flea.” “But they’re still his birds, no matter how easily he comes by them. Don’t you know that people expect favors to be returned?” “I’ll repay him one day,” Third Sister said. “Repay him with what?” Mother demanded. “I’ll marry him,” Third Sister said lightly. “Lingdi,” Mother replied somberly, “your two elder sisters have already caused this family to lose more face than anyone could imagine. This time I am not going to give in, no matter what you say.” “Mother,” Lingdi said with rising indignation, “that’s easy for you to say. If not for Birdman Han, could he look like he does today?” She pointed to me, then pointed to the son of the Sima family. “Or him?” Mother looked into my ruddy face and then at the red-cheeked Sima baby, and didn’t know what to say. After a moment, she said, “Lingdi, from today on, we won’t eat any more of his birds, no matter what you say.”

  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.