Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel

water turned murky. Flocks of silvery gray gulls that had followed the fishing boats on their way over now followed them back the way they’d come. Their cries hung over the river as they skimmed the surface one minute and soared high above it the next. A few even entertained us by flying upside down or hovering in the air. Villagers had gathered on the riverbank, initially just to gawk; but they now added their voices to the grand send-off for pilgrims who had come so far. The boats’ sails billowed in the winds, their rudders began to move back and forth, and they headed slowly down the river. They would travel down the Flood Dragon River all the way to the Great Canal, and from there to the White Horse River, which would take them to the Bohai. The trip would take twenty-one days. This information was part of a geography lesson Birdman Han gave me some eighteen years later. The visit to Northeast Gaomi Township by these pilgrims from distant lands was a virtual reenactment of the sea voyages of Zheng He and Xu Fu centuries earlier, and constituted one of the most glorious chapters in the history of Northeast Gaomi Township. And all because of a Bird Fairy in the Shangguan family. The glory dispersed the clouds of gloom in Mother’s breast; maybe she was hoping that some other animal fairy would make an appearance in the house, a Fish Fairy, for instance. But then again, maybe she wasn’t.
    After the fishermen were back on their boats, an eminent guest showed up. She arrived in a sleek, black Chevrolet sedan, with hulking bodyguards, armed with Mausers, standing on each running board. She was escorted by clouds of dust from the village’s dirt road. The poor bodyguards looked like donkeys that had been rolling in the dirt. The sedan pulled up to our doorway and stopped. One of the bodyguards opened the back door. First to appear was a pearl and jade head ornament, followed by a neck, and lastly a fat torso. Both in terms of figure and expression, the woman looked exactly like an oversized goose.
    In strictest terms, a goose is also a bird. But however elevated her status, when she came calling on the Bird Fairy, courtesy and reverence were expected. Nothing escaped the Bird Fairy, who knew everything in advance, so no hypocrisy or arrogance could be tolerated. The woman knelt at the window, closed her eyes, and prayed softly. Her face was the color of rose petals, so she hadn’t come for relief of an illness; jewelry sparkled from head to toe, so she hadn’t come to seek riches. What could a woman like that be seeking from the Bird Fairy? A slip of white paper floated out through the hole in the window; when the woman opened it up and read it, her face turned as red as a rooster’s cockscomb. She tossed several silver dollars to the ground, stood up, and walked off. What was written on the slip of paper? Only the Bird Fairy and the woman knew.
    Visitors continued to throng to our place for days, and then they stopped. By the time the cold winter set in, we had eaten all the dried fish in the burlap sack, and once again Mother’s milk carried the taste of grass and the bark of trees. On the seventh day of the twelfth month, we heard that the largest local Christian sect would be opening a soup kitchen in Northgate Cathedral. So Mother and we children, bowls and chopsticks in hand, walked all night with groups of starving villagers into the county seat. We left Third Sister and Shangguan Lü to watch the house; since one of them was more fairy than human and the other less human than demon, they were better prepared to put up with hunger. Before leaving, Mother tossed a handful of grass to Shangguan Lü. “Mother,” she said, “if you are able to die, do so quickly. Why suffer with us this way?”
    It was the first time any of us had taken the road to the county seat. By “road” I mean only that we followed a little gray path formed by the footprints of man and beast. I couldn’t tell you how that rich woman’s car had made it to our village. We trudged along in cold starlight, me standing up on Mother’s back, the little Sima heir on the back of Fourth Sister, Eighth Sister on the back of Fifth Sister, my sixth and seventh sisters walking by themselves. As midnight came and went, we heard the intermittent cries of children in the wilderness all around us. Seventh Sister, Eighth Sister, and the little Sima heir also started to cry. Mother shouted her disapproval, but even she was crying, and so were