Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel

mute, that and the incident where the fairy had jumped off a cliff. But I had no memory of this strange brother-in-law. I glided off to one side to let him out into the yard, just as Laidi, a white sheet around her waist, and naked from there up, ran out into the yard. The mute’s fist tore through the paper window covering, followed by the upper half of his body. “Strip!” he said. “Strip!” Laidi, in tears, stumbled and fell. Her sheet had been stained red by blood from down below. And that is how she appeared in front of Birdman Han — tormented and half-naked, blood dripping down her legs.
    Mother returned, with Eighth Sister in tow and driving a goat ahead of them. She didn’t seem overly surprised by First Sister’s unsightly appearance, but the minute she spotted Birdman Han, she crumpled to the ground. It wasn’t until much later that Mother told me she realized at once that he had returned to demand his due, and that we would have to come up with the principal and interest for the birds we’d eaten fifteen years before, before he’d been taken forcibly to Japan, where he’d escaped and led a primitive existence.
    The arrival of Birdman Han would bring to an end the wealth and rank we had obtained by sacrificing Mother’s eldest daughter. But that did not stop her from preparing a sumptuous welcoming meal. This strange bird that had dropped from the sky sat trancelike in our yard as he watched Mother and Laidi busy themselves at the stove. Moved by Birdman’s unusual tale of fifteen years hiding out in Japan, Laidi temporarily forgot her suffering at the hands of the mute, who maneuvered himself out into the yard and looked Birdman over provocatively.
    At the table, Birdman handled his chopsticks so awkwardly he couldn’t pick up a single piece of meat. So Mother took them from him and urged him to eat with his hands. He raised his head. “She … my … wife?” Mother cast a hateful glance at the mute, who was gnawing on a chicken head. “She,” Mother said, “has gone far away.”
    Mother’s kind nature would not allow her to refuse Birdman’s request to live with us, not to mention the urgings of the district chief and the head of the Civil Administration: “He has no place else to go, and it’s up to us to satisfy the needs of someone who has returned to us from Hell. Not only that…” “You don’t need to say any more,” Mother interrupted. “Just send over some people to help us put the side room in order for him.”
    And with that, Birdman Han moved into the two rooms in which the Bird Fairy had once lived. Mother reached up into the dusty rafters and took down the insect-scarred drawing of the Bird Fairy and hung it on the northern wall. When Birdman saw the drawing, he said, “I know who killed my wife, and one of these days Fll get my revenge.”
    The extraordinary love affair between First Sister and Birdman Han was like a marshland opium poppy — toxic yet wildly beautiful. That afternoon, the mute went off to the co-op to buy some liquor. While First Sister washed a pair of underwear beneath the peach tree, Mother sat on the
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making a duster out of the feathers of a rooster. She heard a noise at the door and saw Birdman Han, who was once again hunting birds, walk lightly into the yard, a beautiful little bird perched on one of his fingers. He went up to the peach tree and stared down at Laidi’s neck. The bird chirped fetchingly, making its feathers tremble. The swirling chirps incited the fine hairs of her passion. Deep-seated feelings of remorse settled in Mother’s heart. That bird was nothing less than the incarnation of Birdman Han’s pain and suffering. She watched as Laidi raised her head and gazed at the bird’s beautiful blood-red chest and black, heartbreaking eyes, no bigger than sesame seeds. Mother saw Laidi’s cheeks redden and her eyes grow wet, and she knew that the bird’s passionate cries were raising the curtain on the one thing she’d worried about. But she was powerless to stop it from happening, for she knew that when the emotions of a Shangguan girl were stirred, not even a herd of horses could alter the course of events. In the grip of despair, she squeezed her eyes shut.
    Laidi, her heart moved to its core, her hands still soapy, slowly rose to her feet, amazed that such a tiny bird, no bigger than a walnut, could be the source of such captivating chirps. Even more important, she felt that it was sending her a mysterious