Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel

With a sense of sadness, I was forced to admit that Shangguan Shouxi was definitely not our father, and that whoever he was, he looked like the man people sometimes talked about in hushed conversations. We were, I realized, the illegitimate offspring of the Swedish man of the cloth, Pastor Malory, a couple of bastards. Frightful inferiority feelings gnawed at my heart. I dyed my hair black and darkened my face, but there was nothing I could do about the color of my eyes, which I’d have liked to gouge out altogether. I recalled stories I’d heard about people who committed suicide by swallowing gold, so I rummaged around in Laidi’s jewelry box until I found a gold ring dating back to Sha Yueliang’s days. I stretched out my neck and swallowed the thing, then lay down on the
kang
to await death, while Eighth Sister sat on the edge of the
kang
spinning thread. When Mother returned from work at the co-op and saw me lying there, she caught her breath in surprise. I expected her to feel a sense of shame, but what I saw instead was a look of terrifying anger. She grabbed me by the hair and jerked me into a sitting position, then began slapping me, over and over, until my gums bled, my ears rang, and I saw stars.
    “That’s right, Pastor Malory was your father, so what? Wash that stuff off your face and out of your hair, then go out in the street with your head held high, and announce: My father was the Swedish Pastor Malory, which makes me an heir to royalty, and a damned sight better than the likes of you turtles!” All the while she was slapping me, Eighth Sister sat quietly spinning her threads, as if none of this had anything to do with her.
    I sobbed the whole time I was squatting in front of the basin washing my face, turning the water black. Mother stood behind me, cursing under her breath, but I knew I was no longer the target of those curses. When I was finished, she ladled out some clean water and poured it over my head as she began to cry. The water ran down my nose and chin and into the basin on the floor, slowly turning the water clear again. While she dried my hair, Mother said: “Back then there was nothing I could do, son. You are what you are, so stand up straight and act like a man. You’re eighteen years old, no longer a child. Sima Ku had his faults, plenty of them, but he lived his life like a man, and that’s worth emulating.”
    I nodded obediently, but suddenly remembered the gold ring. Just as I was about to tell her what I’d done, Laidi ran breathlessly into the house. She’d begun working at the district match factory, and was wearing a white apron stenciled with the words: Dalan Starlight Match Factory.
    “He’s back, Mother!” she announced nervously. “Who?” Mother asked.
    “The mute,” First Sister said.
    Mother dried her hands and looked into First Sister’s haggard face. “I’m afraid it’s your fate, Daughter.”
    The mute, Speechless Sun, “walked” into our front yard. He had aged since the last time we’d seen him; flecks of gray poked out from under his army cap. His rheumy eyes were more clouded than ever, and his jaw looked like a rusty plow. He was dressed in a new yellow uniform with a high-collar tunic, buttoned at the throat, a row of glittering medals on his chest. His long, powerful arms ended in a pair of gleaming white gloves, his hands resting on squat, leather-trimmed stools. He was sitting on a red Naugahyde pad that was attached to him. His wide trouser legs were tied together at his waist, below which were two stumps. That was the image the mute, whom we had not seen for years, presented to us now. Stretching the squat stools out in front with his powerful arms, he heaved his body forward and moved closer, the pad strapped to his hips glistening red in the light.
    With five lurching movements, he brought himself up to within about ten feet of us, far enough that he didn’t have to strain to look up at us. Dirty water splashed as I rinsed my hair and flowed to the ground in front of him. Putting his hands behind him, he lurched backward, and at that moment it dawned on me that a person’s height depends mainly on his legs. The upper half of Speechless Sun’s body looked thicker, bulkier, and more menacing than ever. Even though he’d been reduced to a torso, he retained an awesome fearfulness. He looked us in the eye, a welter of mixed emotions showing on his dark face. His jaw quivered, much as it had years ago, as he grunted over and