2shangguan lü emptied her dustpan onto the exposed surface of the kang, whose grass matand bedding had been rolled up and put to one side, then cast a worried look at her daughter-in-law, shangguan lu, who moaned as she gripped the edge of the kang. after tamping thedirt down with both hands, she said softly to her daughter-in-law, “you can climb back upnow.”
shangguan lu trembled under the gentle gaze of her mother-in-law. as she stared sadly atthe older woman’s kind face, her ashen lips quivered, as if she wanted to say something.
“the devil’s gotten back into that old bastard sima, firing his gun so early in the morning!”
shangguan lü announced.
“mother …” shangguan lu said.
clapping her hands to loosen the dirt, shangguan lü muttered softly, “my good daughter-in-law, try your best! if this one’s a girl, too, i’d be a fool to keep defending you.”
tears trickled from shangguan lu’s eyes as she bit down on her lip; holding up hersagging belly, she climbed back onto the dirt-covered kang.
“you’ve been down this road before,” shangguan lü said as she laid a roll of white cottonand a pair of scissors on the kang. “go ahead and have your baby.” then, with an impatientfrown, she said, “your father-in-law and laidi’s daddy are in the barn tending to the blackdonkey. this will be her first foal, so i should be out there giving them a hand.”
shangguan lu nodded. another explosion flew in on the wind, setting off a round ofbarking by frightened dogs. sima ting’s booming voice came in fits: “fellow townsmen, fleefor your lives, don’t wait another minute …” she felt the baby inside her kick, as if inresponse to sima ting’s shouts, the stabbing pains forcing drops of rancid sweat out of everypore in her body. she clenched her teeth to keep the scream inside her from bursting out.
through the mist of tears she saw the lush black hair of her mother-in-law as she knelt at thealtar and placed three sandalwood joss sticks in guanyin’s burner. fragrant smoke curled upand quickly filled the room.
“merciful bodhisattva guanyin, who succors the downtrodden and the distressed, protectand take pity on me, deliver a son to this family…” pressing down on her arched, swollenbelly with both hands, cold to the touch, shangguan lu gazed up at the enigmatic, glossy faceof the ceramic guanyin in her altar, and said a silent prayer as fresh tears began to flow.
removing her wet trousers and rolling up the shirt to expose her belly and her breasts, shegripped the edge of the kang. in between contractions she ran her fingers through her mattedhair and leaned against the rolled-up grass mat and millet stalks.
the chipped quicksilver surface of a mirror in the window lattice reflected her profile:
sweat- soaked hair, long, slanted, lusterless eyes, a pale high- bridged nose, and full butchapped lips that never stopped quaking. moisture-laden sunbeams streamed in through thewindow and fell on her belly. its twisting, swollen blue veins and white, pitted skin lookedhideous to her; mixed feelings, dark and light, like the clear blue of a summer sky innortheast gaomi with dark rain clouds rolling past, gripped her. she could hardly bear to lookat that enormous, strangely taut belly.
she had once dreamed that her fetus was actually a chunk of cold steel. another time she’ddreamed that it was a large, warty toad. she could bear the thought of a chunk of steel, but theimage of the toad made her shudder. “lord in heaven, protect me … worthy ancestors,protect me … gods and demons everywhere, protect me, spare me, let me deliver a healthybaby boy … my very own son, come to mother … father of heaven, mother of earth, yellowspirits and fox fairies, help me, please …” and so she prayed and pleaded, assaulted bywrenching contractions. as she clung to the mat beneath her, her muscles twitched andjumped, her eyes bulged. mixed in with the wash of red light were white-hot threads thattwisted and curled and shrank in front of her like silver melting in a furnace. in the end,willpower alone could not keep the scream from bursting through her lips; it flew through thewindow lattice and bounced up and down the streets and byways, where it met sima ting’sshout and entwined with it, a braid of sound that snaked through the hairy ears of the tall,husky, stooped-over swedish pastor malory, with his large head and scraggly red hair. hestopped on his way up the rotting boards of the steeple stairs. his deep blue ovine eyes,always moist and teary, and capable of moving you to the depths of your soul, suddenlyemitted dancing sparks of startled glee. crossing himself with his pudgy red fingers, heuttered in a thick gaomi accent: “almighty god …” he began climbing again, and when hereached the top, he rang a rusty bronze bell. the desolate sound spread through the mist-enshrouded, rosy dawn.
at the precise moment when the first peal of the bell rang out, and the shouted warning of ajap attack hung in the air, a flood of amniotic fluid gushed from between the legs ofshangguan lu. the muttony smell of a milk goat rose in the air, as did the sometimespungent, sometimes subtle aroma of locust blossoms. the scene of making love with pastormalory beneath the locust tree last year flashed before her eyes with remarkable clarity, butbefore she gained any pleasure from the recollection, her mother-in-law ran into the roomwith blood-spattered hands, throwing fear into her, as she saw green sparks dancing off thosehands.
“has the baby come yet?” her mother-in-law asked, nearly shouting.
she shook her head, feeling ashamed.
her mother-in-law’s head quaked brilliantly in the sunlight, and she noted with amazementthat the older woman’s hair had turned gray.
“i thought you’d have had it by now.” shangguan lü reached out to touch her belly. thosehands — large knuckles, hard nails, rough skin, covered with blood — made her cringe; butshe lacked the strength to move away from them as they settled unceremoniously onto herswollen belly, making her heart skip a beat and sending an icy current racing through herguts. screams emerged unchecked, from terror, not pain. the hands probed and pressed and,finally, thumped, like testing a melon for ripeness. at last, they fell away and hung in thesun’s rays, heavy, despondent, as if she’d come away with an unripe melon. her mother-in-law floated ethereally before her eyes, except for those hands, which were solid, awesome,autonomous, free to roam where they pleased. her mother-in-law’s voice seemed to comefrom far away, from the depths of a pond, carried on the stench of mud and the bubbles of acrab: “… a melon falls to the ground when it’s time, and nothing will stop it… you have totough it out, za-za hu-hu … want people to mock you? doesn’t it bother you that your sevenprecious daughters will laugh at you …” she watched one of those hands descend weaklyand, disgustingly, thump her belly again, producing soft hollow thuds, like a wet goatskindrum. “all you young women are spoiled. when your husband came into this world, i wassewing shoe soles the whole time …”
finally, the thumping stopped and the hand pulled back into the shadows, where its hazyoutline looked like the claws of a wild beast. her mother-in-law’s voice glimmered in thedarkness, the redolence of locust flowers wafted over. “look at that belly, it’s huge, and it’scovered with strange markings. it must be a boy. that’s your good fortune, and mine, and thewhole shangguan family, for that matter. bodhisattva, be here with her, lord in heaven,come to her side. without a son, you’ll be no better than a slave as long as you live, but withone, you’ll be the mistress. believe me or not, it’s up to you. actually, it isn’t…”
“i believe, mother, i believe you!” shangguan lu said reverently. her gaze fell on the darkstains on the wall, grief filling her heart as memories of what had happened three years beforesurfaced. she had just delivered her seventh daughter, shangguan qiudi, driving her husband,shangguan shouxi, into such a blind rage that he’d flung a hammer at her, hitting her squarelyin the head and staining the wall with her blood.
her mother-in-law laid a basket upside down next to her. her voice burned through thedarkness like the flames of a wildfire: “say this, ‘the child in my belly is a princely little boy’
say it!” the basket was filled with peanuts. the woman’s face was suffused with a somberkindness; she was part deity, part loving parent, and shangguan lu was moved to tears.
“the child i’m carrying is a princely little boy. i’m carrying a prince … my own son …”
her mother-in-law thrust some peanuts into her hand and told her to say, “peanuts peanutspeanuts, boys and girls, the balance of yin and yang.”
gratefully wrapping her hand around the peanuts, she repeated the mantra: “peanutspeanuts peanuts, boys and girls, the balance of yin and yang.”
shangguan lü bent down, her tears falling unchecked. “bodhi-sattva, be with her, lord inheaven, come to her side. great joy will soon befall the shangguan family! laidi’s mother,lie here and shuck peanuts until it’s time. our donkey’s about to foal. it’s her first, so i cannotstay with you.”
“you go on, mother,” shangguan lu said emotionally. “lord in heaven, keep theshangguan family’s black donkey safe, let her foal without incident…”
with a sigh, shangguan lü reeled out the door.
