Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel

covering. Magpies, the so-called happiness birds, chattered in poplar trees outside. By the look of things, happiness could well be in the air today. Then suddenly his head cleared, and the beautiful woman with the astonishingly big belly made a violent appearance, haloed in blinding light. Her nervous lips quivered, as if she were about to say something. She was in her eleventh month, so today must be the day. In a flash Pastor Malory understood the significance of the spider and magpies. He sat up and got down off the
kang.
    After picking up a black earthenware jug, he walked out to the street behind the church, where he saw Shangguan Lü, wife of Shangguan Fulu, the blacksmith, bent over to sweep the street in front of the shop. His heart skipped a beat, his lips quivered. “Dear Lord,” he muttered, “almighty God …” He crossed himself with a stiff finger and backed slowly into a corner to silently observe the tall, heavyset Shangguan L
ü
as she silently and single-mindedly swept the dew-soaked dust into her dustpan, carefully picking out pieces of trash and tossing them aside. Her movements were clumsy but vigorous; her broom, woven from golden millet tassels, was like a toy in her hand. After filling the dustpan and tamping down the dust, she straightened up.
    Just as Shangguan Lü reached the head of her lane, she heard a commotion behind her and turned to see what it was. Some women came running through the black gate of Felicity Manor, home of the town’s leading gentry family. They were dressed in rags, their faces smeared with soot. Why are these women, who normally dress in silks and satins, and are never seen without rouge and lipstick, dressed like that? Just then, a wagon master known to all as “Old Titmouse” emerged from the compound across the way on his new wagon, with its dark green canopy and rubber tires. The women clambered aboard even before it came to a complete stop. The wagon master jumped down and sat on one of the still damp stone lions to silently smoke his pipe. Sima Ting, steward of Felicity Manor, strode out from the compound with his fowling piece, his movements as quick and nimble as a young man. Jumping to his feet, the wagon master glanced at the steward, who snatched the pipe out of his hand, took several noisy puffs, then looked up at the early-morning rosy sky and yawned grandly. “Time to go,” he said. “Wait for me at the Black Water River Bridge. I’ll be along shortly.”
    With the reins in one hand and his whip in the other, the wagon master turned the wagon around. The women in the bed behind him shouted and chattered. The whip snapped in the air, and the horses trotted off. Brass bells around the horses’ necks sang out crisply, the wagon wheels crunched on the dirt road, and clouds of dust rose in the wagon’s wake.
    After taking a piss in the middle of the road, Sima Ting shouted out at the now distant wagon, then cradled his fowling piece and climbed the watchtower, a thirty-foot platform supported by ninety-nine thick logs and topped by a red flag that hung limply in the damp morning air. Shangguan Lü watched him as he gazed off to the northwest. With his long neck and pointy mouth, he looked a little like a goose at a watering trough.
    A cloud of feathery mist rolled through the sky and swallowed up Sima Ting, then spat him back out. Bloody hues of sunrise dyed his face red. To Shangguan Lü, the face seemed covered by a dazzling layer of sticky syrup. By the time he raised the fowling piece over his head, his face was red as a cockscomb. She heard a faint metallic click. It was the trigger sending the firing pin forward. Resting the butt of the piece against his shoulder, he stood waiting solemnly. So did Shangguan Lü, as the heavy dustpan numbed her hands, and her neck was sore from cocking it at such a rakish angle. Sima Ting lowered his fowling piece and puckered like a pouting little boy. She heard him curse the gun: “You little bastard, how dare you not fire!” He raised it again and pulled the trigger.
Crack!
Flames followed the crisp sound out of the barrel, simultaneously darkening the sun’s rays and lighting up his red face. Then an explosion shattered the silence hanging over the village; sunlight filled the sky with brilliant colors as if a fairy standing on the tip of a cloud were showering the land below with radiant flower petals. Shangguan Lü’s heart raced from excitement. Though only a blacksmith’s wife, she was much