Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel

get, before pumping themselves up and spreading their wings, as if wanting desperately to fly away, all the way to the far ends of the wilderness, to the edge of the sky, floating gently up to be with the clouds, bathed by the winds and stroked by the sun, then to moan with the wind and sing with the sun, and finally to sink silently earthward and disappear into the depths of a lake. Loud wails burst from my throat; a river of tears clouded my eyes. Mother and Malory’s bodies writhed in unison, Mother moaned softly. “Let me go, you donkey. The baby’s crying.” “The little bastard,” Malory said resentfully.
    Mother picked me up and rocked me nervously. “Precious,” she said sheepishly, “my son, what have I done to my own flesh and blood?” She stuck the white doves up under my nose, and I urgently, cruelly grabbed one of their heads with my lips. Big as my mouth was, I wished it were bigger still. It was like the mouth of a snake, and all I could think of was how to wrap it around my very own dove to keep it away from others. “Slow down, my baby.” Mother gently patted my bottom. I had one of them in my mouth and was grasping the other in my hands. It was a little red-eyed white rabbit, and when I pinched its ear, I felt its frantic heartbeat. “The little bastard,” Malory said with a sigh.
    “Stop calling him a little bastard,” Mother said.
    “That’s what he is,” Malory said.
    “I’d like you to baptize him, then give him a name. This is his hundredth day.”
    As he prepared the dough with a practiced hand, Malory said, “Baptize him? I’ve forgotten how. I’m making you noodles the way I learned from that Muslim woman.”
    “How close were you two?” Mother asked him.
    “We were just friends.”
    “I don’t believe you!” Mother said.
    Malory laughed hoarsely as he stretched and pulled the soft dough, then smacked it down on the chopping board. “Tell me!” Mother insisted. He smacked the dough again, then stretched and pulled it some more. Some of the time he pulled it like a bowstring and some of the time it looked as if he were pulling a snake out of its hole. Even Mother was surprised that a Westerner with such coarse hands could manage this Chinese action with such practiced dexterity. “Maybe,” he said, “I’m not Swedish after all, and my so-called past has been nothing but a dream. What do you think?” Mother smiled coldly. “I asked about you and that dark-eyed woman. Don’t change the subject.” Pastor Malory laid the dough out straight, as if this were all a childish game, then began waving it in and out, taut one moment and slack the next. The strawlike dough began to spiral and form a bundle; then, with a flick of his wrists, it fanned out like a horse’s tail. Mother praised his display of skill: “It takes a good woman to make noodles like that.” “All right,” Malory said, “young mother, stop those crazy thoughts. Once you get the fire going, I’ll cook these for you.” “And after we’re finished eating?” “After we’re finished, I’ll baptize the little bastard and give him a name.”
    With a feigned show of anger, Mother said, “The real bastards are the sons you had with that Muslim woman.”
    Mother’s words hung in the air as, in another place, Sha Yueliang and Sima Ting made a toast. They had reached the following agreement during the banquet: The donkeys belonging to the musket band would be stabled at the church; the men would be quartered with local families; and Sha Yueliang would personally choose a headquarters site after the meal.
    Sha and four bodyguards followed Yao Si into our compound. My eldest sister, Laidi, caught his eye immediately as she stood beside the water vat casually combing her hair and gazing at her reflection in the water, white clouds in the blue sky as her backdrop. Having just passed through a peaceful summer with plenty to eat and nice clothes to wear, she had matured dramatically. Her breasts jutted out proudly, her once dry, brittle hair now had a dark sheen, her waist had narrowed and become soft and springy, and her buttocks curved upwards. In a hundred days she had shed the skin of a scrawny adolescent and been transformed into a lovely young woman, like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. She had Mother’s high, fair nose, as well as her full breasts and lively buttocks. Rays of melancholy issued from the eyes of the lovely yet bashful young virgin as she gazed into the water vat and