Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel

gripping the edge of the table. His gray beard quivered as he muttered: “Bad boy! Bad boys cannot be taught!” He groped for his ruler, grabbed Guo Qiusheng’s hand, and pressed it down on the table. “Bad boy!”
Pa.
The ruler landed savagely on the hand of Guo Qiusheng, who cried out hoarsely. The teacher looked him in the eye and raised the ruler over his head; but his arm froze when he saw the insolent look of a proletarian thug on Guo’s face, those steely black eyes glinting with a hateful defiance. A look of defeat crept into the teacher’s rheumy gaze, and he let his arm drop weakly to his side, ruler in hand. He mumbled and took off his eyeglasses, which he placed in a metal case, wrapped with a piece of blue cloth, and put into his pocket. He also tucked the offending ruler, with which he’d once punished Sima Ku, into his robe. That done, he removed his skullcap, bowed to Guo Qiusheng, then turned and bowed to the class, and finally announced in a mournful voice that evoked both pity and disgust:
    “Gentlemen, I, Qin Er, am a thickheaded old fool, no better than the mantis who thought it could stop a wagon, someone who has overrated his own abilities, a man who has outlived his usefulness and has shamed himself by hanging on to life. I have deeply offended you, and can only beg for your forgiveness!”
    He then clasped his fists in front of his midriff and respectfully shook them several times, before crouching over like a cooked shrimp and leaving the classroom with light, unsteady steps. Once he was outside, we heard the muddled sound of his coughing.
    Thus ended our first class of the day.
    Our second class was music.
    Music — our instructor, Ji Qiongzhi, who had been sent down by the county government, laid the tip of her pointer on the blackboard, where large words had been written in chalk, and said in a high-pitched voice — “For this class in music, there will be no textbook. Our textbooks will be here” — she pointed to her head, her chest — “and here” — she pointed to her diaphragm. She turned to write on the blackboard as she continued, “There are lots of ways to make music — on a flute or fiddle, humming a tune or singing an aria — it’s all music. You may not understand now, but you will someday. Singing is a form of chanting, but not always. Singing is an important musical activity and, for a remote village like this, will be the most important aspect of our music lessons. So today we will learn a song,” she went on as she wrote on the blackboard. From where I sat, looking out the window, I could see the counterrevolutionary’s son, Sima Liang, and the traitor’s daughter, Sha Zaohua, both of whom had been refused permission to attend classes and were assigned to tending sheep, gazing wistfully at the schoolhouse. They were standing in knee-high grass, backed by a dozen or more thick-stemmed sunflowers, with their broad green leaves and brilliant yellow flowers. All those yellow faces mirrored the melancholy in my heart. Seeing the flashing eyes brought tears to mine. As I took measure of the window, with its thick willow lattices, I imagined myself turning into a thrush and flying outside to bathe in the golden sunlight of a summer afternoon and perch on the head of one of those sunflowers, alongside all the aphids and ladybugs.
    The song we were being taught that day was “Women’s Liberation Anthem.” Our teacher bent over at the waist as she scribbled the last few lines at the bottom of the blackboard. The fullness of her upraised backside reminded me of a mare’s rump. A feathered arrow, its tip smeared with sticky peachtree sap, made its lopsided way past me and hit her upraised backside. Evil laughter swept through the classroom. The archer, Ding Jingou, who sat right behind me, waved his bamboo bow triumphantly a time or two before quickly hiding it from sight. Our music teacher retrieved the arrow from its target and smiled as she looked it over, then flung it down on the table, where it stuck straight up after quivering briefly. “Nice shooting,” she said calmly as she laid down her pointer and shed her military jacket, which was white from countless washings. With the jacket gone, her white short-sleeved, V-necked blouse, with its turned-down collar, dazzled our eyes. It was tucked into her trousers, which were cinched by a wide leather belt that had turned black and shiny with age. She had a thin waist, high, arching breasts, and full