Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel

mule burst through the gate, ran up to its mother, and grabbed a nipple in its mouth. That calmed the donkey. “Humans and animals are so much alike,” Mother said with a sigh. Malory nodded in agreement.
    While our donkey was nursing its bastard offspring around the open-air millstone in Malory’s compound, Sha Yueliang and his band of men were scrubbing their mounts. After brushing the mane and sparse hair of their tails, they dried the donkeys’ hides with fine cotton cloths and waxed them. The twenty-eight donkeys emerged from the grooming like new animals; twenty-eight riders stood proud and energetic and twenty-eight muskets shone brightly. Each man had two gourds tied to his belt, one large and one small. The larger one held gunpowder, the smaller one held birdshot. Each gourd had been treated with three coats of tung oil. All fifty-six polished gourds glinted in the sunlight. The men wore khaki trousers and black jackets, their heads covered by coolie hats woven from sorghum stalks. As squad leader, Sha Yueliang wore a red tassel in his hat. With a satisfied look at his men and their mounts, he said, “Stand tall, brothers. We’ll show those people what a band of men with shiny black donkeys and muskets is made of.” He mounted his donkey, smacked it on the rump, and rode off. Now, horses may be swift, but donkeys are model parade animals; men on horses ride with an air of majesty, while men on donkeys ride with a sense of fulfillment. Before long, the squad appeared on the streets of Dalan. After being pounded by a summer of rain, the streets were hard and sleek, unlike the harvest season, when they would be so dry and dusty that a galloping horse would raise a cloud of dust. Sha’s band of men left a trail of white hoofprints and, of course, the clopping sounds that formed them. Sha’s donkeys were all shod, just like horses. A stroke of genius, thanks to Sha. The crisp clatter first attracted neighborhood children, then Yao Si, the township’s bookkeeper, who came out in a Mandarin robe that belonged to an earlier age, a pencil tucked behind his ear, and planted himself in front of Sha Yueliang’s donkey. Bowing deeply and smiling broadly, he asked, “What troops do you command? Will you take up residence here or are you just passing through? I am at your service.”
    Sha leaped down off his donkey and replied, “We’re the Black Donkey Musket Band, an anti-Japanese commando unit. We have been ordered to set up a resistance in Dalan. For that we need quarters, feed for our mounts, and a kitchen. Simple food, like eggs and flatbread, will do just fine for us. But our donkeys are resistance troop mounts, and must be fed well. The hay must be fine and free of impurities, the fodder made of crumbled bean cakes and well water. Not a drop of muddy water from the Flood Dragon River.”
    “Sir,” Yao Si said, “duties of this magnitude cannot be entrusted to the likes of me. I must seek instructions from the venerable township head, who has recently been appointed head of the Peace Preservation Corps by the Imperial Army.”
    “That cocksucker!” Sha Yueliang cursed darkly. “Anyone who serves the Japanese is a traitorous dog!”
    “Sir,” Yao Si explained, “he did not accept the assignment willingly. As the owner of vast acres of land and many draft animals, he wants for nothing. The duty was forced upon him. Besides, someone has to do it, and who better than our steward….”
    “Take me to him!” Sha demanded. His men dismounted to rest at the township office while Yao Si escorted Sha to the gate of the township head’s residence, a compound with seven rows of fifteen rooms, each with a connecting garden and separate gate, one leading to the next like a maze. Sha Yueliang’s first sight of Sima Ting was in the midst of an argument with Sima Ku, who was lying in bed nursing wounds sustained in a fire on the fifth day of the fifth month. He had burned down a bridge, but instead of immolating the Japanese, had managed only to burn the skin off his own backside. Taking far too long to heal, his injuries were now compounded by bedsores, which forced him to lie on his belly with his backside elevated.
    “Elder brother,” Sima Ku said as he propped himself up on his elbows and raised his head high, “you bastard, you stupid bastard.” His eyes were blazing. “The head of the Peace Preservation Corps is a running dog of the Japanese, a donkey belonging to the guerrilla forces, a rat