Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel

fearful expression of rage on that face.
    Mother ran a wire through the rabbit’s mouth and hung it from a rafter. The wails of terror from my eldest sister fell on deaf ears. The mute’s strange expression did not register with Mother, who attacked the rabbit with her chipped, rusty cleaver. Sha Yueliang walked out of the eastern side room, his musket slung over his back. Without even looking up, Mother said icily, “Commander Sha, today is my eldest daughter’s engagement day, and this rabbit is the engagement gift.”
    “What an extravagant gift,” Sha Yueliang said with a laugh. Mother chopped down on the rabbit’s head. “Today she is engaged, tomorrow the dowry will be settled, and the day after that she will be married.” Mother turned and stared at Sha Yueliang. “Don’t forget to join us at the wedding banquet!” “How could I forget?” Sha replied. “I definitely will not forget.” He then turned and walked out through the gate with his musket, whistling a loud tune.
    Mother continued skinning the rabbit, although it was clear her heart was not in it. When she finished, she hung it over the doorway and went inside, with me on her back and the cleaver in her hand. “Laidi!” she shouted. “The bonds between parent and child are formed by enmity and kindness. Go ahead, hate me!” This angry outburst was barely out of her mouth when she began to weep silently. As tears wet her face and her shoulders heaved, she sliced the turnips.
Ke-chunk!
The first turnip separated into two white, greenish halves.
Ke-chunk!
Four halves.
Ke-chunk! Ke-chunk! Ke-chunk!
Faster and faster Mother sliced, her actions more and more exaggerated. The now dismembered turnips lay on the cutting board. Mother raised her cleaver one more time; it nearly floated down as it left her hand and landed on the pile of dismembered turnips. The room was suffused with their acrid smell.
    The mute son of the Sun family gave Mother a respectful thumbs-up along with a series of grunts. Mother dried her eyes with her sleeve and said to him, “You can leave now.” He waved his arms and kicked out with his feet. Raising her voice, Mother pointed in the direction of his home. “You can leave now. I want you to leave!”
    Finally grasping Mother’s meaning, he made a face at me; the mustache atop his puffy upper lip looked like a swipe of green paint. First he made as if to climb a tree, then he made as if to fly like a bird, and finally he made as if he had a struggling little bird in his hand. He smiled as he pointed to me, and then pointed to his chest, over his heart.
    Once again, Mother pointed in the direction of his home. He froze for a moment, then nodded in understanding. Falling to his knees before Mother — who quickly backed out of the way, so that he was now facing the sliced turnips on the cutting board — he banged his head against the floor in a kowtow. He then got to his feet and walked off proudly.
    Worn out by all the activity of the day, Mother slept soundly that night. When she awoke the next morning, she saw wild rabbits hanging from the parasol tree, the cedar tree, and the apricot tree in the yard, as if laden with exotic fruits.
    Holding on to the frame of the door, she sat down slowly on the threshold.
    Wearing her marten coat, the red foxskin wrapped around her neck, eighteen-year-old Shangguan Laidi ran off with the leader of the Black Donkey Musket Band, Sha Yueliang, taking the black mule with them. Those wild rabbits were Sha Yueliang’s engagement gift to my mother, as well as a display of his arrogance. My second, third, and fourth sisters were accomplices in First Sister’s plan to run away. It was carried out in the middle of the night, while Mother was snoring loudly, deep in an exhausted sleep, and my fifth, sixth, and seventh sisters were fast asleep. Second Sister climbed out of bed; walking barefoot, she groped her away over to the door and removed the objects Mother had piled up behind it, after which my third and fourth sisters opened the double doors. Earlier that evening, Sha Yueliang had oiled the hinges with rifle grease, so the doors swung open without a sound. Standing under the cold, late-night moonbeams, the girls hugged each other and said their good-byes. Sha Yueliang grinned furtively at the rabbits hanging from the trees.
    The day after that was to be the mute’s and my eldest sister’s wedding day. Mother sat on the edge of the
kang
, silently patching clothes with needle