Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel

Both carried a pair of pistols. They were expert horsemen; they leaned slightly forward, legs hanging straight down. As they approached the pond they fired several shots in the air, so frightening the armed soldiers, not to mention the county and district officials, that they all threw themselves to the ground, facedown. The two riders whipped their horses as they circled the pond, their mounts leaning to form beautiful arcs. Then each fired another shot before whipping their mounts again and riding off, the horses’ tails fluttering in the air behind them. They vanished in front of our eyes, truly a case of coming on the winds of spring and leaving on the winds of autumn. They seemed like an illusion, though they were real enough. Slowly we regained our composure, and when we looked down we saw Sima Feng and Sima Huang laid out beside the pond, each with a bullet hole between the eyes. Everyone was paralyzed with fear.
8
    On the day of the evacuation, shouting and bawling residents of Northeast Gaomi Township’s eighteen villages led their livestock, carried their chickens, supported their elders, and carried their very young up to the alkaline soil and weed-covered northern bank of the Flood Dragon River, their nerves on edge. The ground was covered with a layer of white alkali, like a coat of frost that wouldn’t melt. The leaves of grasses and reeds unaffected by the alkali were yellow, their cottony tassels waving and fluttering in the cold winds. Crows, always attracted by commotions below, wheeled and filled the sky with the ear-shattering noise of poets—
Aahl Wahl
Lu Liren, now demoted to deputy head of the county, stood before the stone sacrificial table of the huge crypt of a Qing dynasty scholar, shouting himself hoarse as he addressed the people mobilized to evacuate the area: “Now that bitter winter has settled in, Northeast Gaomi Township is about to turn into a vast battlefield, and not to evacuate is suicide.” Branches of the black pines were packed with crows, some of which even perched on the stone men and horses.
Ahh!
They cawed.
Wahl
The sounds not only infected the tone of Lu Liren’s speech, but increased the people’s sense of dread and solidified their determination to flee from danger.
    With the firing of a gun, the evacuation got underway. The dark mass of people moved out with a clamor. Donkeys brayed and cows lowed, chickens flapped into the air and dogs leaped, old ladies cried and children whooped, all at once. A skilled young officer on a white pony raised a red flag that hung dejectedly from the staff and rode back and forth across the bumpy, alkali-covered road leading to the northeast. Leading the procession was a contingent of mules carrying county government files, dozens of them plodding ahead listlessly under the watchful eyes of young soldiers. Behind them came a camel left over from Sima Ku’s time. It carried a pair of metal boxes atop the long, dirty fur of its hump. It had spent so many years in Northeast Gaomi that it was more oxen than camel. Behind it came a dozen or so porters transporting the county printing press and a lathe for the production team repair shop. They were all swarthy, robust young men wearing thin shirts with padded shoulders, shaped like lotus leaves. From the way they swayed as they walked, their brows furrowed and their mouths open, it was easy to see how heavy their loads were. Bringing up the rear was the chaotic mass of locals.
    Lu Liren, Pandi, and a host of county and district officials rode up and down the roadside on their mules and horses, trying their best to bring order to the mass evacuation. But the people were shoulder to shoulder on the narrow road, while more spacious roadsides beckoned. More and more of them left the road for the sides, as the route grew wider and wider. The expanded procession tramped noisily heading northeast. It was pandemonium.
    We were carried along by the crowd, sometimes on the road, sometimes not; there were times we didn’t know if we were on the road or not. Mother had draped a hemp strap around her neck and was pushing a cart with wooden wheels; the handles were so far apart she was forced to spread her arms out. A pair of rectangular baskets hung from the sides of the cart. The basket on the left carried Lu Shengli and our quilts and clothing. Big Mute and Little Mute were in the basket on the right. Sha Zaohua and I, both carrying baskets, walked alongside the cart, one on each side. Blind