Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel

of a bitch!” just as Mother hobbled out into the yard. “Uncle,” she shouted, “this is family business. I don’t need your help.”
    Letting the hammer drop to the ground, Big Paw, a pained expression on his face, looked at his niece standing there like a dried-out tree. “Xuan’er,” he said, “how you’ve suffered …”
    “When I left the Yu home,” Mother said, “I became a member of the Shangguan family, and whether I live or die because of it is not your concern.”
    Big Paw Yu’s rampage succeeded in deflating the arrogance of the Shangguan family. Realizing how she had mistreated her daughter-in-law, Shangguan Lü finally began treating her more humanely. Shangguan Shouxi, having barely escaped death, also began to see his wife in a different light, and subjected her to less abuse.
    Meanwhile, Mother’s scalded flesh began to fester and smell. This time, she thought, I won’t survive, so she moved into the side room.
    Early one morning, she was awakened from a half-sleep by the church bell. Although the bell was rung daily, on this day it seemed to be talking to her, the enchanting peal of bronze on bronze stirring her soul and sending ripples through her heart. Why haven’t I heard that sound before? What was stopping up my ears? As she pondered this change, the pain racking her body slowly went away. Her thoughts weren’t interrupted until some rats climbed up and began nibbling at her putrefying flesh. The old mule that had brought her over from her aunt’s house gave her a melancholic look, consoling her, inspiring her, encouraging her.
    Mother stood up with the help of a cane and dragged her festering body out onto the road, one faltering step at a time, all the way up to the church’s gate.
    It was a Sunday. Pastor Malory stood at the dusty pulpit, Bible in hand, intoning a passage from Matthew for the benefit of a handful of gray-haired old women:
    “When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to divorce her privately. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shall call His name Jesus; for He shall save his people from their sins.’“
    This passage brought tears to Mother’s eyes, tears that fell on her collar. She tossed away her cane and fell to her knees. Looking up into the face of the cracked jujube Jesus on the iron cross, she sobbed, “Lord, I’ve come to You late …”
    The old women stared uncomprehendingly at Shangguan Lu, the stench from her rotting flesh crinkling their noses.
    Pastor Malory laid down his Bible and stepped down off the raised platform to lift Lu Xuan’er up off her knees. Crystalline tears filled his gentle blue eyes. “Little sister,” he said, “I have been waiting for you for a very long time.”
    In the early summer of 1938, in the dense grove of locusts in a remote corner of Sandy Ridge Village, Pastor Malory knelt reverently beside Mother, whose injury had begun to heal, and gently rubbed her body with trembling reddened hands. His moist lips quivered, his limpid blue eyes blended in with the fragments of Northeast Gaomi Township’s deep blue sky that filtered in through the gaps between the flowering locusts. “Little sister,” he stammered, “my lovely mate … my little dove … my perfect woman, your thighs are as glossy as fine jade, formed by a master craftsman, your navel is like a perfectly round cup filled with a mixed drink … your waist is like a sheaf of wheat tied with a string of lilies … your breasts are like twin fawns, like the sagging fruit of a palm tree. Your nose is as fragrant as an apple, your mouth smells like fine liquor. My love, you are beautiful, a sheer delight. You make me deliriously happy!”
    Basking in the approving words and gentle fondling of Pastor Malory, Mother felt as light as goose down floating in the deep blue skies of Northeast Gaomi and in Pastor Malory’s blue eyes, as the subtle perfume of red and white locust blossoms flowed over her like waves.

Chapter Three
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    After getting an injection to stop the bleeding, Mother slowly came around. I was the first thing she saw — more