Chapter Four
1
One late afternoon a couple of weeks after the demolition battalion had been driven out of town, Fifth Sister, Pandi, handed Mother a child wrapped in an old army uniform. “Mother,” she said, “take her.”
Pandi was drenched, her thin clothes sticking to her skin; I was attracted to the sight of her full, high-arching breasts. Her hair gave off the heated aroma of distiller’s mash. Datelike nipples quivered under her blouse, and I could barely keep from rushing over to bite and fondle them. I didn’t have the nerve. Always hot-tempered, Pandi lacked First Sister’s gentle nature and needed little provocation to slap your face. Maybe it would be worth it. I went over and hid from view beneath a pear tree, biting my lip and wishing I were braver.
“Stop right there!” Mother shouted at her. “Come back here!”
“Mother,” Pandi said with an angry glare, “I’m your daughter too. If you can take care of their babies, you can take care of mine.”
“Am I this family’s babysitter?” Mother replied just as angrily. “You no sooner have your babies than you hand them over to me. Not even dogs do that!”
“Mother,” Pandi said, “when the good days came around, you shared in our good fortune. Now that we’ve run into a spell of bad luck, not even our children are spared, is that it? A bowl has to be held straight so the water won’t spill.”
First Sister’s laughter emerged from the darkness and sent cold chills up my spine. “Fifth Sister,” she said icily, “you can tell that fellow Jiang I’m going to kill him one day!” “First Sister,” Pandi replied, “it’s too early to be celebrating! Not even death will clean the slate for your turncoat husband, Sha Yueliang. So don’t go off half-cocked. If you do, no one will be able to save you.”
“Stop fighting!” Mother shouted, before sitting down heavily on the ground.
A big, bright moon climbed above the ridge of our roof and shone down on the faces of the Shangguan girls, making them seem as if coated with blood. Mother shook her head sorrowfully and sobbed. “I’ve wasted my life raising a bunch of ingrates who only curse me for my efforts. Get out of my sight, all of you. I don’t ever want to see any of you again!”
Like a specter, Laidi streaked into the west wing, where she began muttering, as if Sha Yueliang were there with her. Lingdi returned from the marshes as if in a dream, a string of croaking bullfrogs in her hand; she entered the compound by climbing over the southern wall.
“You see!” Mother grumbled. “Some have gone mad, others have turned stupid. With a life like this, why go on?”
Mother laid Fifth Sister’s baby on the ground and struggled to her feet, then turned and walked toward the house without a backward glance at the bawling baby. Sima Liang was standing by the doorway watching the excitement; Mother kicked him and smacked Sha Zaohua on the head as she passed by. “Why don’t all of you just go off somewhere to die?” She slammed the door behind her. We heard the sound of things being thrown and knocked around inside. The last thing we heard was a heavy thud, as if a sack of grain had been dropped on the floor, and I guessed it must have been the sound of Mother collapsing onto the kang after her anger was spent. I couldn’t actually see her lying on the kang, but I could imagine it: arms spread wide, her swollen yet bony, chapped hands lying palms up; the left one resting against Lingdi’s two children, who might very well be mutes; the right one resting against Zhaodi’s pair of flighty and very beautiful little girls. Moonlight framed her ashen lips. Her breasts lay flattened against her ribs, thoroughly exhausted. That spot between her and the Sima girls should have been mine; but it disappeared beneath her outstretched body.
Out in the yard, the baby Pandi had wrapped in a frayed gray army uniform was bawling as it lay on the path, which had been tramped down lower than the ground beside it. No one paid her any attention. Pandi walked around her child and shouted savagely in the direction of Mother’s window, “I expect you to take good care of her. Lu Liren and I will fight our way back one day!”
Pounding the straw mat covering the kang, Mother shouted back, “You want me to take good care of her? I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll fling her into the river to feed the turtles or down a well to feed the toads or into the latrine to feed the flies!”
“Go ahead,” Pandi said. “She’s my baby, and I was yours, so she’s your flesh and blood!”
With that comment, Pandi bent down for one more look at the baby lying on the path, then turned and staggered off toward the street. As she passed the west wing, she stumbled and took a bad fall. Moaning and groaning as she got to her feet, she cupped her injured breasts and aimed a curse at the door: “You slut, just you wait!” Inside the room, Laidi laughed. Pandi spit at me before walking off, her head held high.
The next morning we awoke to find Mother training the white milk goat to feed Pandi’s baby girl as she lay in a basket.
On those spring mornings of 1946, there was a lot going on in the house of the Shangguan family. Before the sun had climbed above the mountains, a thin, nearly transparent misty glow drifted across the yard. The village was still asleep at such times, swallows dreamed in their nests, crickets in the heated ground behind stoves made their music, and cows chewed their cud alongside feeding troughs …
Mother sat up on the kang and, with a painful moan, rubbed her aching fingers. After a bit of a struggle, she draped her coat over her shoulders and tried to limber up her stiff joints in order to button up her dress. She yawned, rubbed her face, and opened her eyes wide as she swung her feet over the edge of the kang and slipped her feet into her shoes; she stepped down, wobbled a bit, and bent over to pull up the heels of her shoes, then sat down on the bench next to the kang to see if all the sleeping babies were all right before walking outside with a basin to fetch water. Filling the basin with four, maybe five, ladlefuls, she watered the goats in the pen.
Five milk goats, three black and two white, all had long, narrow faces, curved horns, and lengthy goatees. Five heads came together as they drank from the basin. Mother picked up a broom and swept the droppings into a pile and then out of the pen. She then went out into the lane for fresh dirt, which she spread over the ground. After brushing out the animals’ coats, she returned for more water to clean their nipples, which she dried with a towel. The goats baa-ed contentedly. By this time the sun was out, a mixture of red and purple rays driving away the misty glow. Returning to the room, Mother scrubbed the wok, then filled it part way with water. “Niandi,” she shouted, “time to get up.” She dumped in some millet and mung beans and let them soften for a while before adding soybeans and putting the lid on the wok. She bent over and fed the stove with straw. Whoosh, she lit a match, spreading sulfur fumes around her. Her mother-in-law, lying on a bed of straw, rolled her eyes. “You old witch, are you still alive? Isn’t it time for you to die?” Mother sighed. The bean tassels crackled in the stove, filling the air with a pleasant aroma. Popi A stray bean exploded. “Niandi, are you up?”
Sima Liang emerged bleary-eyed from the east wing, heading for the toilet. Puffs of green smoke rose from the chimney. Water buckets thudded against one another; Niandi was heading to the river for water. Baa— goats. Wah — Lu Shengli’s cries. Sima Feng and Sima Huang whimpered; the Bird Fairy’s two kids grunted —Ao-ya-ya. The Bird Fairy walked lazily out the gate. Laidi was standing at the window brushing her hair. Horses out in the lane whinnied. It was Sima Ku’s horse company riding over to the river to water their mounts. A throng of mules passed by; it was the mule company returning from the river. Wagon bells rang out; it was the bicycle company practicing their riding skills. “Come boil some water,” Mother said to Sima Liang. “Jintong, time to get up! Go down to the river and wash your face.” Mother carried five willow baskets out into the sun and filled them with five babies. “Let the goats out,” she said to Sha Zaohua. The skinny girl, her hair a mess, eyes still bleary from sleep, entered the pen, where the goats greeted her with friendly tosses of their horned heads and licked
the grime off her knees. Their tongues tickled her. She thumped their heads with her tiny fists and cursed them childishly, “You stump-tailed devils.” After removing the tethers from their necks, she tapped one of them on the ear. “Go on,” she said, “you belong to Lu Shengli.” The goat wagged its tail happily and sprinted over next to Shengli, who lay in her basket, arms and legs straight up, crying urgently. The goat spread its rear legs, backed up to the basket, and pushed its udder up against Shengli’s face. Its nipples sought out Shengli; Shengli sought out the goat’s nipples. Both knew their task well, to each other’s mutual satisfaction. Each nipple was long and swollen; like a voracious barracuda, Shengli caught it in her mouth and held fast. Big Mute and Little Mute’s goats, Sima Feng and Sima Huang’s goats, each went straight to its master or mistress and, in the same manner, drew up next to the child’s mouth, each knowing its task well, to the mutual satisfaction of all. The goats bent over, eyes slitted, goatees quivering slightly.
“The water’s boiling, Granny,” Sima Liang said to Mother, who was outside washing her face. “Let it boil a while longer.” Flames lapped at the bottom of the wok on the stove that had been altered for their use by Old Zhang, the demolition battalion’s cook. Sima Liang, who was wearing only pants, was thin as a rail and had a melancholy look in his eyes. Lingdi returned with the water, the two full buckets swaying at the ends of her shoulder pole. Her braid fell all the way to her waist and was tied at the end by a fashionable plastic ribbon. The goats all switched nipples for their children. “Let’s eat,” Mother said. Sha Zaohua put the table up, Sima Liang laid out the bowls and chopsticks. Mother dished up the porridge — one two three four five six seven bowls. Zaohua and Yunü put the benches in place, while Niandi fed her grandmother. Slurp slurp. Laidi and Lingdi walked in with their own bowls and served themselves. Without looking at them, Mother muttered, “None of you is crazy when mealtime rolls around.” Her two daughters went outside to eat their porridge in the yard. “I’ve heard that the independent 16th Regiment is going to fight its way back,” Niandi said. “Eat,” Mother said. I was kneeling in front of her, suckling. “Mother, you’ve spoiled him. Are you going to breast-feed him until he gets married?” “That’s not unheard of,” Mother said. I went from one nipple to the other. “Jintong,” she said, “I’m going to keep at it until the day you’ve had enough.” Then she turned to Niandi. “After breakfast, take the goats out to pasture and bring back some wild garlic for lunch.” Mother’s orders brought the morning to an end.
Shengli waddled through the grass, her backside brushing against the feltlike greenery. Her goat was grazing, nibbling only the tender grass tips, its dew-wetted face giving it the haughty look of a young noblewoman. The times may have been chaotic and noisy, but the pasture-land was peacefully quiet. Flowers dotted the land, their redolence intoxicating. We were sprawled on the ground around Niandi. Sima Liang was chewing a stalk of grass, coating the corners of his mouth with green juice. His eyes were bright yellow, but with a murky cast. The expression on his face and the chewing motion made him look like a gigantic locust. Sha Zaohua was watching an ant perched atop a stalk of grass scratching its head as it looked for an escape route. The tip of my nose touched a patch of golden flowers; their fragrance tickled me, and I sneezed loudly, throwing a scare into Sixth Sister, Niandi, who was lying on her back. Her eyes snapped open and she gave me a nasty look, a bit of a scowl on her lips and a slight crinkle on her nose, before closing her eyes again. She looked comfortable, lying there in the sun. Her protruding brow was clear and shiny; not a wrinkle in sight. She had thick lashes and a bit of down on her upper lip; her chin turned up fetchingly. Among all the girls in the Shangguan family, only her ears were fleshy with no loss of grace. She was wearing a white poplin blouse passed down by Second Sister, Zhaodi, one of those fashionable types that button down the front with so-called Mandarin Duck fasteners. Her braid lay across her breast like an eel. Now, of course, I need to discuss her breasts. Not especially large, they were hard and not yet fully developed. So they kept their shape even when the body from which they grew was flat on its back. Their sleek, fair skin peeked out from the gaps between her buttons, and I was tempted to tickle them with a stalk of grass; I didn’t have the nerve. Niandi and I never had gotten along. She couldn’t stomach the fact that I was still breast-feeding, and if I’d tickled her breast, it would have been the same as rubbing a tiger’s ass. It was a struggle. The stalk chewer kept chewing the stalk, the ant watcher kept watching the ant; as they ate, the white goats looked like noblewomen, the black ones like widows. When there’s too much food, people don’t know where to start; when there’s too much grass, goats have the same problem. Ai-choo! So goats sneeze too, and loud! Their udders drooped heavily. It was nearly noon. I picked a stalk of bristlegrass and decided to rub the tiger’s ass after all. No one noticed me as I reached out stealthily with the stalk of grass, drawing nearer and nearer to a gap in her blouse, stretched open by her jutting breasts. My ears were buzzing, my heart thumped like a scared rabbit. The stalk of grass touched her fair skin. No reaction. Was she asleep? If so, why didn’t I hear her breathing? I twirled the end of the stalk, making the other end shake. She reached up and scratched her chest, but didn’t open her eyes. She probably thought it was an ant. I pushed the grass in farther and twisted it. She slapped her chest, caught my stalk of grass, and pulled it out. She sat up and glared at me, her face turning red. I laughed. “You little bastard!” she cursed. “Mother has spoiled you rotten!” She laid me down in the grass and swatted me on the behind — twice. “But I’m not going to!” With a fierce glare in her eyes, she added, “You’re going to hang yourself to death from a nipple one of these days!”
Frightened by the outburst, Sima Liang spat out a stalk of chewed-up grass and Zaohua stopped watching the ant. They both looked at me, clearly puzzled, then gave the same look to Niandi. I managed a feeble cry, for show, since I felt I’d gotten the better of the exchange. Niandi stood up and tossed her head proudly, whipping her braid around to the back of her head. Shengli had by then waddled up to her goat, but it was trying to get away from her. So she grabbed its nipple, and it responded unhappily by knocking her over. I couldn’t tell if the bleats that followed meant that she was crying or what. Sima Liang jumped to his feet and, with a series of loud grunts, ran as fast as he could, startling a dozen red-winged locusts and several dirt-colored little birds. Moving quickly on her skinny legs, Zaohua ran over to a patch where velvety purple flowers the size of fists poked up above the grass tips. I stood up, embarrassed, walked around behind Niandi, and started pounding her on the backside. “Hit me, will you?” I shouted with as much bluster as I could manage. “How dare you?” Her buttocks were so hard and so tight that hitting them hurt my hands. When her patience ran out, she turned, bent at the waist, and snarled — mouth open, teeth bared, eyes staring, releasing a scary, wolfish howl. It occurred to me how similar human and canine faces can be. She pushed my head backward, throwing me flat on my back in the grass.
The white goat put up a feeble struggle when Niandi grabbed it by the horns. Shengli rushed up, flopped over beneath the animal, and strained to turn her head so she could take the nipple into her mouth as she kicked the goat’s belly with both feet. Niandi rubbed the goat’s ears; it wagged its tail docilely. Mournful feelings flooded my mind. It was clear that my days of relying on mother’s milk were coming to an end. So before that happened, I would have to find a substitute. The first thing that came to mind was those long, wiggly noodles. But that thought brought me disgust. And dry heaves. Niandi looked up and gave me a skeptical look. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked in a tone that showed how repugnant she thought I was. I waved her off to show I couldn’t answer. More dry heaves. She let go of the goat. “Jintong,” she said, “what do you think you’re going to be like when you grow up?”
I wasn’t sure what she was getting at. “Why don’t you try goat’s milk?” she said. The sight of Shengli greedily feeding under h
er goat made an impression on me. “Are you determined to be the cause of Mother’s death?” She shook me by the shoulders. “Do you know where milk comes from? That’s Mother’s blood you’re drinking. So listen to me and start drinking goat’s milk.”
I nodded reluctantly.
So she reached out and grabbed the mute’s black goat. “Come here,” she said to me as she calmed the goat down by stroking its back. “I said, come here.” Encouraged by the look of kindness, I took a tentative step toward her. Then another. “Lie down under its belly. See how she does it?”
I lay down on the grass and scooted along on my back. “Big Mute, back up a little,” she said as she pushed the black goat backward. I looked up into the dazzling blue Northeast Gaomi sky. Golden birds were flying through the silvery air, soaring on the wind currents and trailing sweet-sounding cries. But my view was quickly blocked by the goat’s udder, which hung over my face. Two large insectlike nipples quivered as they sought out my mouth. They rubbed up against my lips, and when they did, the quivering increased, as if they were trying to pry my lips open. They tickled my lips, like tiny charges of electricity, and I was immersed in a flood of what seemed like joy. I’d assumed that goats’ teats were soft, not elastic at all, sort of cottony, and that they’d lose their shape as soon as they entered my mouth. Now I knew they were actually pliable and tough, quite springy, and in no way inferior to Mother’s. As they rubbed my lips, I detected something hot and liquid. It had a muttony taste that quickly turned sweet, the flavor of buttery grass and daisies. My determination weakened, I unclenched my teeth, my lips parted, and the goat’s teat rushed into my mouth, where it vibrated excitedly and released powerful spurts of liquid, some of it hitting the sides of my mouth, the remainder squirting straight down my throat. I nearly choked. I spit out the teat, but a second, more aggressive one quickly took its place.