Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel

clothes.
    What happened after that will remain my secret anguish for the rest of my life. Out in the yard, Sha Yueliang was cozying up to my eldest sister, while in the eastern side room, Gou San and his pack of mongrels spread out a bunch of straw in a corner for beds; all five of the musket soldiers — the team assigned to watch the donkeys — threw Mother down on top of it. On the floor among the donkeys, Eighth Sister and I had by then cried ourselves hoarse. Malory jumped up, grabbed one of the broken halves of the door bolt, and brought it down on a soldier’s head. One of his comrades aimed at Malory’s legs and fired. An explosion tore through the room as a swarm of buckshot thudded into Malory’s legs, spraying pearls of blood into the air. The broken bolt fell from his hands and he slumped to the floor; he looked up at the bird-splattered jujube Jesus and began to murmur something in his long-forgotten Swedish tongue, the words fluttering from his mouth like butterflies. The soldiers took turns ravaging Mother; the donkeys took turns sniffing Eighth Sister and me. Their loud brays crashed through the ceiling of the church and flew up into the bleak sky. Sweat beaded the face of the jujube Jesus. Satisfied, the soldiers tossed Mother, Eighth Sister, and me out into the street; the donkeys followed us outside, but ran off following the scent of female donkeys. While the soldiers were trying to run down their mounts, Pastor Malory dragged his buckshot-honeycombed legs up the familiar, foot-worn stairs to the bell tower. He managed to prop himself up by holding on to the windowsill so he could gaze out through the broken stained glass and see the panorama of Dalan, the municipal seat of Northeast Gaomi, where he had lived and left his mark for decades: neat rows of thatch-roofed cottages; wide, gray-colored lanes; misty green treetops; shimmering rivers and streams circling tiny villages; the mirrorlike surface of the lake; the swaying thickets of reeds; pools of water rimmed by wild grasses; the red marsh that was a playground for passing birds; an expanse of open country that scrolled all the way to the edge of heaven; the golden yellow Reclining Ox mountain range; the sandy hills, with their flowering locusts … as his gaze traveled down to the street, where Mother lay like a dead fish, her naked belly exposed to the sky, deep sorrow filled his heart and tears clouded his eyes. Dipping his finger in the blood oozing from his legs, he wrote four words on the gray wall of the bell tower: Golden Boy Jade Girl.
    Then he shouted at the top of his lungs, “Forgive me, dear Lord!”
    Pastor Malory flung himself off the bell tower and plummeted like a gigantic bird with broken wings, splattering his brains like so much bird shit when he hit the street below.
3
    Winter was approaching, and Mother began wearing her mother-in-law’s blue satin-lined jacket. Four old village women, who were blessed with many sons and grandsons, had come over on Grandmother’s sixtieth birthday to sew this jacket, which she would one day wear in her coffin. But now it was Mother’s winter jacket. Mother cut two holes in the top, so she could free her breasts anytime I was hungry. They had been ravaged during that infuriating autumn, when Pastor Malory leaped to his death, but the calamity would pass, and her fine breasts would prove to be indestructible. They were like people who are forever young or evergreen pines. To keep them from prying eyes and, more importantly, to protect them from the chill winds and keep their milk warm, Mother sewed red flaps over the holes. Her inventiveness started a tradition; flapped lined jackets are still worn in Dalan to this day, although the holes now are rounder, the flaps made of softer material, and they are embroidered with bright flowers.
    My winter clothing was a thick pouch fashioned from durable canvas and lined with a drawstring at the top and two straps from which it hung just beneath Mother’s bosom. When it was feeding time, she would suck in her belly and shift the pouch until I was perfectly positioned: cradled in a kneeling position, my head nestled up against her breasts. Then, by turning my head to the right, I could put my mouth around her left nipple; by turning it to the left, I could nurse from her right nipple. It was a double-sided advantage worthy of the name. But my pouch wasn’t perfect, for it bound up my hands, and made it impossible to hold one breast while I