Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel

seemed to stand there loftish and unyielding. In a matter of seconds, the faces of Sima Ku and his men turned ashen, but seconds later, they were jumping up and down on the ice, whooping it up. Sima Ku’s joyous shouts were the loudest of all, his jumps the highest, even given the seriousness of the injuries to his backside. The bridge collapsed in a matter of seconds, sending the engine and the load of railroad ties, steel rails, sand, and mud straight down. The engine hit one of the pilings, which also collapsed. The sound was deafening as chunks of ice bathed in the morning light, along with huge rocks, twisted metal, and shattered ties, flew high into the sky. Dozens of loaded rail cars accordioned up behind the engine with a roar; some fell into the river below, others sprawled across the tracks at rakish angles. Explosions began to erupt, starting from a car carrying high explosives and followed by detonated ammunition. The icy surface of the river split open, sending the water beneath gushing upward. Mixed with the water were fish, shrimp, even some green-shelled turtles. A booted human leg landed on the head of one of the Mongol ponies, nearly knocking it senseless and causing its front legs to crumple. A wheel from the train, which weighed hundreds of pounds, crashed into the ice, raising a geyser of water that fell muddily back to the surface. Powerful waves of sound turned Sima Ku deaf as he watched the Mongol ponies run crazily across the ice, dragging their sleds behind them. The brigade troops stood or sat in a daze, dark blood seeping out of some of their ears. He was shouting at the top of his lungs, but he couldn’t hear himself; his men’s mouths were open, as if they too were shouting, but he couldn’t hear them either …
    Somehow Sima Ku managed to lead his troops back to the spot on the river where they had cut holes in the ice with their blue and white flames the morning before. My second, third, and fourth sisters had come out to fetch more water and catch some fish, but the holes had frozen over during the night, as thick as a hand. Second Sister had hacked them open again with her hammer. When Sima Ku and his men reached the spot, their horses rushed up to drink from the river. In a manner of minutes, after they’d drunk their fill, they began to shudder, their legs started to twitch, and they crumpled to the ice, every one of them suddenly dead. The freezing water had ripped their expanded lungs apart.
    On that early morning, every living creature in Northeast Gaomi Township — humans, horses, donkeys, cows, chickens, dogs, geese, ducks — felt the power of the explosions off to the southwest. Hibernating snakes, thinking it was thunder announcing the Insect Waking season, slithered out of their caves and immediately froze to death.
    Sima Ku led his troops into the village to rest and reorganize, and was greeted by a string of the vilest curses from Sima Ting. But since everyone’s hearing had been so badly affected by the explosion, they all thought he was singing their praises — Sima Ting always had a smug, complacent look on his face when he cursed. Sima Ku’s three wives had pooled every folk remedy and type of medication they had to treat the burned and frostbitten backside of the man they shared. The first wife would apply a plaster, which the second wife would remove to wash the area with a lotion prepared with a dozen rare medicinal herbs, after which the third wife would cover it with a powder composed of crushed pine and cypress leaves, ilex root, egg whites, and seared mouse whiskers. Back and forth it went, the skin on his backside wet one minute and dry the next, until the old injuries were now joined by new ones. It reached the point where Sima Ku wrapped himself in a lined jacket with two leather belts, and the moment he saw his three wives coming his way, he raised his hatchet or cocked his rifle. But while his backside injuries remained, his hearing returned.
    The first thing he heard were the angry curses of his brother: “You fucking idiot, you’ll kill every last soul in this village, you wait and see!” Reaching out with a hand that was as soft and as ruddy as his brother’s, with fleshy fingers and thin skin, he grabbed his brother by the chin. Seeing the scraggly, yellow, ratlike whiskers above his chapped upper lip, which was normally shaved clean, he shook his head sadly and said, “You and I are from the same father’s seed, so cursing me is the