Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel

though the clerk there would be puzzled by his action, that’s how he did it.
    When his steps took him to the Sandy Ridge district, he discovered that the Cultural Bureau office had set up two monuments on the ridge. One commemorated the seventy-seven martyrs who had been buried alive by the Landlord Restitution Corps, the other commemorated the courageous fight against the German imperialists by Shangguan Dou and Sima Daya, who had given their lives in the cause nearly a century before. The text, in virtually incomprehensible classical prose, made Jintong’s head swim and his eyes glaze over. A group of boys and girls — college students, by the look of them — was gathered around the monuments, discussing them animatedly before huddling together for group photos. The girl with the camera was wearing skintight blue-gray pants, the flared bottoms covered with white sand, and uneven rips at the knees, under an incredibly bulky yellow turtle-neck sweater that hung from her armpits like the sagging neck of a cow. A heavy Chairman Mao pin was pinned to her chest, and a camera vest with pockets of all sizes was draped casually over her sweater. She was bent at the waist, raising her backside in the air like a horse doing its business. “Okay!” she said. “Don’t move. I said don’t move!” Then she began looking for someone to take their picture. Her gaze fell on Jintong, who was still wearing the outfit Old Jin had given him. The girl said something in a foreign language, which he didn’t understand. But he sensed at once that she’d mistaken him for a foreigner. “Say, girl, if you speak to me in Chinese, I’ll understand you!” She gulped, probably surprised by his heavy local accent. For someone from a distant land to come to China and actually learn the Northeast Gaomi dialect was really something! is what he assumed she was thinking, and even he heaved a sigh. How wonderful it would be if a real foreigner could speak like someone from Northeast Gaomi. But, of course, there was such a person — the sixth son-in-law of the Shangguan family, Babbitt. Not to mention Pastor Malory, who had spoken better Chinese than Babbitt. “Sir,” the girl said with a smile, “would you mind taking our picture?” Infected by her vitality, Jintong forgot for the moment his current situation, shrugged his shoulders, and made a face the way he’d seen foreigners do in the movies. He was quite convincing. Taking the camera from her and watching as she showed him which button to push, he said Okay, followed by a few comments in Russian. That produced the desired effect; the girl stared at him with obvious interest, before turning and running over to the monuments, where she leaned on her friends’ shoulders. He looked into the viewer like an executioner, cutting all the girl’s friends out of the shot and zeroing in on her.
Click.
He pressed the button. “Okay,” he said. A moment later he was standing alone in front of the monuments, watching the youngsters as they walked off. An aura of youth lingered in the air, and he breathed in it greedily. He had a bitter taste in his mouth, as if he’d just eaten an overripe persimmon, a stiff tongue, and a bellyful of disapproval.
    Resting his hand on the monument, he was hopelessly mired in fanciful thoughts, and if his nephew’s wife, Geng Lianlian, hadn’t come to his rescue, he might have withered right there on the marble monument like a dead bird. She rode up from town on a green sidecar motorcycle. Jintong had no idea why she stopped by the monuments, but he gazed appreciatively at her lovely figure. “Are you my uncle, Shangguan Jintong?” she asked.
    He blushed in acknowledgment.
    “I’m Geng Lianlian, the wife of Parrot Han,” she said. “I know he’s had nothing but terrible things to say about me, as if I were some kind of female tiger.”
    Jintong nodded ambiguously.
    “I hear Old Jin showed you the door,” she said. “That’s no big deal, since I’ve come to hire you for our Eastern Bird Sanctuary. I’m sure you’ll be satisfied with your duties, salary, and benefits, so you needn’t even ask.”
    “I’m worthless, I can’t do anything.”
    She smiled. “We’ll give you something you
can
do,” she said, taking him by the hand before he could respond with more self-deprecating comments. “Come with me,” she said. “I’ve spent a good part of the day running all over town looking for you.”
    She seated Jintong in the sidecar along