Deliriously happy, the patient withdrew some money from the family chest and sent Mother back to thank the monk and fetch the new prescription.
While she waited for the new prescription, Mother asked the wise monk if there were some way he could help her bear sons rather than daughters. As their conversation grew more intimate – a passionate monk and a woman eager to produce a son – they became lovers.
As for Gao Dabiao, the dog butcher at Sandy Mouth Village, his brief affair with Mother had whetted his appetite. So on the evening that Mother rode her mule home from Tianqi Temple, passing by the Black Water River as the moon was replacing the sun in the sky, Gao Dabiao leaped out from among the sorghum stalks and blocked her way.
“Lu Xuan’er, you are a fickle woman!”
“Dabiao,” Mother said, “I felt sorry for you, and that is why I closed my eyes and let you have your way a time or two. That is as far as it goes.”
“You can’t toss me aside just because you got a piece of that little monk!”
“That’s nonsense!”
“You can’t fool me. Do as I say, or I’ll spread the word all over Northeast Gaomi Township that you had an affair with the little monk on the pretense of seeking a cure for your mother-in-law.”
Mother let Gao Dabiao carry her into the sorghum.
Her mother-in-law’s illness was completely cured, but word of Mother’s illicit relationship with the monk reached the older woman’s ears anyway.
So when Niandi was born, and her mother-in-law saw it was another girl, she picked the baby up by her legs and was about to drown her in the chamber pot.
Mother jumped out of bed, wrapped her arms around her mother-in-law’s legs, and pleaded, “Mother, be merciful, please. For my sake, after taking care of you all these months, spare the little one…”
“That makes sense,” her mother-in-law said, lowering her voice. “But this business with the monk, is it true?”
Mother said nothing.
“Tell me! Is this a bastard I’m holding?”
Mother shook her head resolutely.
Her mother-in-law tossed the baby onto the bed.
9
In the fall of 1935, while Mother was on the bank of the Flood Dragon River cutting grass, she was gang-raped by four armed soldiers fleeing from a rout.
When it was over, she looked out at the river and decided to drown herself. But just as she was about to walk to her death, she saw the reflection of Northeast Gaomi’s beautiful blue sky in the clear water. Cool breezes swallowed up the feelings of humiliation in her breast, so she scooped up handfuls of water to wash her sweaty, tear-streaked face, straightened her clothes, and walked home.
In the early summer of the next year, eight years after the birth of her previous child, Mother gave birth to her seventh, Qiudi. The birth of yet another daughter threw her mother-in-law into despair. Stumbling as she walked, she retrieved a bottle from a trunk in her room and gulped down great mouthfuls of the strong liquor before dissolving into loud wails. Mother, too, was dejected, and as she looked with disgust into the wrinkled face of her newborn child, her only thought was: God in Heaven, why are you so stingy? All you had to do was add a smidgeon of clay to this child to make it a son.
Her husband then stormed into the room, pulled back the blanket, and staggered backward. The first thing he did after recovering from the shock was reach behind the door, pick up the club for pounding wet clothes, and bring it down on his wife’s head. Blood splattered on the wall as the crazed little man turned and ran outside, fuming. Snatching a pair of red-hot tongs out of the blacksmith furnace, he ran back to his wife’s room and branded her on the inside of her thigh.
Wisps of yellow smoke and the stench of burning flesh quickly filled the room. With a shriek of pain, Mother fell out of bed and curled into a ball on the floor, her body twitching.
When Big Paw Yu heard that Lu Xuan’er had been branded, he rushed over to the Shangguan home with a hunting rifle, and without saying a word, aimed it at the chest of Shangguan Lü and pulled the trigger. The rifle misfired. By the time he’d readied the weapon for a second try, Shangguan Lü had run into the house and slammed the door behind her. His anger building, he fired at the closed door, blowing a hole in it with buckshot and drawing a fearful shriek from Shangguan Lü on the other side.
Big Paw Yu then began battering the door with the butt of his rifle, breathing heavily but saying nothing. He looked like a bear, his burly figure rocking back and forth. Mother’s daughters huddled fearfully in the side room as they watched what was happening out in the yard.
Mother’s husband and father-in-law, one brandishing a steel-headed hammer, the other the pair of tongs, cautiously approached Big Paw. Shouxi was the first to act, rushing up and hitting Big Paw in the back with his tongs. Big Paw turned and roared at his attacker. The tongs fell from Shouxi’s hand, and he would have run away, if only his rubbery legs had let him. He tried to force a smile. “I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch!” Big Paw bellowed as he knocked Shouxi to the ground with his rifle, with such force that it snapped in two. Shouxi’s father rushed Big Paw with his hammer, but missed his target altogether, and nearly lost his footing in the process. Big Paw helped him along with a swat on the man’s shoulder, sending him sprawling alongside his son. Big Paw took turns kicking both men, then picked up the hammer, raised it over his head, and cursed, “Now I’m going to crack that melon head wide open, you son of a bitch!” just as Mother hobbled out into the yard. “Uncle,” she shouted, “this is family business. I don’t need your help.”
Letting the hammer drop to the ground, Big Paw, a pained expression on his face, looked at his niece standing there like a dried-out tree. “Xuan’er,” he said, “how you’ve suffered…”
“When I left the Yu home,” Mother said, “I became a member of the Shangguan family, and whether I live or die because of it is not your concern.”
Big Paw Yu’s rampage succeeded in deflating the arrogance of the Shangguan family. Realizing how she had mistreated her daughter-in-law, Shangguan Lü finally began treating her more humanely. Shangguan Shouxi, having barely escaped death, also began to see his wife in a different light, and subjected her to less abuse.
Meanwhile, Mother’s scalded flesh began to fester and smell. This time, she thought, I won’t survive, so she moved into the side room.
Early one morning, she was awakened from a half-sleep by the church bell. Although the bell was rung daily, on this day it seemed to be talking to her, the enchanting peal of bronze on bronze stirring her soul and sending ripples through her heart. Why haven’t I heard that sound before? What was stopping up my ears? As she pondered this change, the pain racking her body slowly went away. Her thoughts weren’t interrupted until some rats climbed up and began nibbling at her putrefying flesh. The old mule that had brought her over from her aunt’s house gave her a melancholic look, consoling her, inspiring her, encouraging her.
Mother stood up with the help of a cane and dragged her festering body out onto the road, one faltering step at a time, all the way up to the church’s gate.
It was a Sunday. Pastor Malory stood at the dusty pulpit, Bible in hand, intoning a passage from Matthew for the benefit of a handful of gray-haired old women:
“When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to divorce her privately. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shall call His name Jesus; for He shall save his people from their sins.’“