Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel

outbursts, the execution team had sealed both their mouths.
    Not long after Laidi’s execution, the family received word of Birdman Han’s death. On his way to prison, he had managed to break free and died under the wheels of the train.
    4
    In order to reclaim tens of thousands of acres of Northeast Gaomi Township’s wasteland, all of Dalan’s able-bodied young men and women were mobilized into teams at the state-run Flood Dragon River Farm. On the day the work assignments were handed out, the director asked me, “What are you good at?” At the time, I was so hungry my ears were buzzing, and I didn’t hear him clearly. His lips parted, exposing a stainless steel tooth right in the middle, as he asked me again, louder this time, “What are you good at?” I’d just spotted my teacher, Huo Lina, on the road carrying a load of manure, and I recalled her saying that I had a natural talent for the Russian language. So I said, “I speak Russian well.” “Russian?” he said with a sneer, his stainless steel tooth glinting in the sunlight. “How well?” he asked derisively. “Good enough to be an interpreter for Khrushchev and Mikoyan? Can you handle a Sino-Soviet communiqué? Listen to me, young man. People who have studied in the Soviet Union tote manure around here. Do you think your Russian is better than theirs?” All the young laborers awaiting assignments had a good laugh over that. “I’m asking you what you do at home, what you do best.” “At home I tended a goat, that’s what I did best.” “Right,” the director said with a sneer. “Now, that’s what you’re good at. Russian and French, or English and Italian, none of those are worth a thing.” He scribbled something on a slip of paper and handed it to me. “Report to the animal brigade. Tell Commander Ma to assign you.”
    On my way over, an old laborer told me that Commander Ma Ruilian was the wife of the farm director, Li Du, in other words, the “first lady.” When I reported for duty, knapsack and bedding over my back, she was out at the breeding farm giving a demonstration on crossbreeding. Tied up in the yard were several ovulating female animals: a cow, a donkey, a ewe, a sow, and a domestic rabbit. Five breeding assistants — two men and three women — in white gowns, masks over their mouths and noses, and rubber gloves, were holding insemination utensils, standing like attack troops ready for battle. Ma Ruilian had a boyish haircut; her hair was as coarse as a horse’s mane. She had a round, swarthy face; long, narrow eyes; a red nose; fleshy lips; a short neck; a thick chest; and full, heavy breasts like a pair of grave mounds. Shit! Jintong cursed to himself. Ma Ruilian my ass! That’s Pandi! She must have changed her name because of the rotten reputation the name Shangguan had earned. That being the case, Li Du had to be Lu Liren, who was once called Jiang Liren, and maybe before that something else Liren. The fact that this name-changing couple had been sent here must have meant they were out of favor. She was wearing a short-sleeved cotton shirt of Russian design and a pair of wrinkled black trousers over high-topped sneakers. She was holding a Great Leap cigarette in her hand, the greenish smoke curling around her fingers, which looked like carrots. She took a drag on her cigarette. “Is the farm journalist here?” A sallow-faced middle-aged man wearing reading glasses ran out from behind the horse-tethering rack, bent at the waist. ‘Tm here,” he said. “Here I am.” He was holding a fountain pen poised over an open notebook, ready to write. Commander Ma laughed loudly and patted the man on his shoulder with her puffy hand. “I see the chief editor himself has come.” “Commander Ma’s unit is where the news is,” he said. “I wouldn’t trust anyone else to come.” “Old Yu here is a real zealot!” Ma Ruilian complimented him as she patted him on the shoulder a second time. The editor paled and tucked his neck down between his shoulders, as if afraid of the cold. Later on, I learned that this fellow, Yu Zheng, who edited the local newsletter, had been the publisher and editor of the provincial Party Committee newspaper until he was labeled a rightist. “Today I’m going to give you a headline story,” Ma Ruilian said, giving the urbane Yu Zheng a meaningful look and taking a deep drag on the stub of her cigarette, nearly burning her lips. Then she spat it out, tearing the paper and sending