Third Master Fan’s heartfelt exhortation brought many people up from the illusory huddled warmth, a sure path to death, and onto their feet, moving through the cold that was their only chance of survival. Mother stood up, shifted me around to the back, picked up the wretched little Sima heir and held him in her arms, then grabbed Eighth Sister by the arm and began kicking Fourth Sister and Fifth Sister and Sixth Sister and Seventh Sister to get them to their feet. We fell in behind Third Master Fan, who had used his own goatskin jacket as a torch to light our way. What carried us forward wasn’t our feet, but our willpower, our desire to reach the county seat, to reach Northgate Cathedral, to accept God’s mercy, to accept a bowl of twelfth-month gruel.
Dozens of corpses littered the roadside on this solemn and tragic procession. Some lay with their shirts open and a beatific expression on their faces, as if to warm their chests by the passing flame.
Third Master Fan died in the first glow of sunrise.
We all ate God’s twelfth-month gruel; mine came through my mother’s breasts. I’ll never forget the scene surrounding that meal. Magpies roosted on the cross beneath the high cathedral ceiling. A train panted its way along tracks outside. Steam rose from two huge cauldrons filled with beef stew. The black-cassocked priest stood beside the cauldrons and prayed as hundreds of starving peasants formed a queue behind him. Parishioners spooned gruel into bowls, one ladle-ful apiece, regardless of the size of the bowl. Loud slurping noises attended the consumption of the gruel, which was diluted by countless tears. Hundreds of pink tongues licked bowls clean, and then the queue formed again. Several burlap sacks of cracked rice and several buckets of water were dumped into the cauldrons; this time, as I could tell from the quality of the milk, the gruel consisted of cracked rice, moldy sorghum, half-rotten soybeans, and barley with chaff.
6
On our way home after eating the twelfth-month gruel, our sense of hunger was greater than ever. No one had the strength to bury the corpses lining the path through the wilderness, nor could anyone muster the energy to even go up and take a look at them. The body of Third Master Fan was the sole exception. During the height of our crisis, a man people normally steered clear of had taken off his goatskin jacket, turned it into a torch, and, with its light and his shouts, brought us to our senses. That sort of kindness, the gift of life, can never be forgotten. So, with Mother taking the lead, the people dragged the old man’s sticklike figure over to the side of the road and covered it with dirt.
When we got back home, the first thing we saw was the Bird Fairy pacing back and forth in the yard, holding something bundled in a purple marten overcoat. Mother had to hold on to the doorframe to keep from falling. Third Sister walked up and handed her the bundle. “What’s this?” Mother asked. In an almost completely human voice, Third Sister said, “A child.” “Whose?” Mother asked, although I think she already knew. “Whose do you think?” Third Sister said.
Obviously, Laidi’s purple marten coat would only be used to bundle Laidi’s child.
It was a baby girl, dark as a lump of coal, with black eyes like those of a fighting cock, thin lips, and big pale ears that seemed out of place on her face. These characteristics were all the proof we needed of her origins: This was the Shangguan family’s first niece, presented to us by Eldest Sister and Sha Yueliang.
Mother’s disgust was written all over her face, to which the baby responded with a kittenish smile. Nearly passing out from anger, Mother forgot all about the Bird Fairy’s mystical powers and kicked Third Sister in the leg.
With a yelp of pain, Third Sister stumbled forward several steps, and when she turned her head back, there was no mistaking the look of bird rage on her face. Her hardened mouth pointed upward, ready to peck someone. She raised her arms, as if to fly. Not caring if she was bird or human, Mother cursed, “Damn you, who told you to accept her child?” Third Sister’s head darted this way and that, as if she were feeding on insects on a tree. “Laidi, you’re a shameless little slut!” Mother cursed. “Sha Yueliang, you’re a heartless thug and a bandit! All you know how to do is make a baby, not how to take care of one. You think that by sending her to me, everything will be just fine, don’t you? Well, stop dreaming! I’ll fling your little bastard into the river to feed the turtles, or toss her into the street to feed the dogs, or toss her into the marsh to feed the crows! Just you wait and see!”
Mother took the baby and ran up and down the lanes, repeating her threats to feed the turtles or dogs or crows. When she reached the river’s edge, she turned and ran out onto the street, then turned and ran back to the river. Gradually her pace slowed and her voice softened, like a tractor running out of gas. Finally, she plopped down on the spot where Pastor Malory had leaped to his death, looked up at the ruined bell tower, and muttered, “Some are dead and others have run off, leaving me all alone. How am I supposed to survive with a brood of hungry chicks needing to be fed… Dear Lord, Old Man Heaven, why don’t you say something? How am I supposed to survive?”
I began to cry, my tears falling on Mother’s neck. Then the baby girl began to cry, her tears running into her ears. “Jintong,” Mother said tenderly, “my pride and joy, please don’t cry.” She next turned her tenderness to the baby girclass="underline" “You poor thing, you should not have come. Grandma doesn’t even have enough milk for your little uncle. If I tried to feed you too, you’d both starve to death. I’m not hard-hearted, there’s just nothing I can do…”
Mother laid the baby girl, still wrapped in the purple marten coat, on the steps in front of the church door, then turned and started running for home as if her life depended on it. But she hadn’t gone ten steps when her legs stopjped moving. The baby was bawling like a pig under the knife, her cries an invisible rope that had stopped Mother in her tracks…
Three days later, our family now numbering nine, we were standing in the human trade section of the county seat marketplace. Mother carried me on her back and Sha Yueliang’s little bastard in her arms. Fourth Sister carried the little Sima brat. Eighth Sister was carried by Fifth Sister, while Sixth Sister and Seventh Sister walked alone.
In the city dump, we scrounged up some rotten greens to eat, steeling ourselves to go over to the human trade section, where Mother hung straw tallies around the necks of my fifth, sixth, and seventh sisters, then waited for a buyer to come along.
A row of simple wooden shacks with ugly whitewashed walls and roofs stood opposite us. Tinplate chimneys sticking up over the walls sent black smoke into the air, where it was carried to us on wind currents, changing shape as it came. From time to time, prostitutes, their hair undone and hanging straight down, showing plenty of cleavage, lips painted bright red, and sleepy eyes, emerged from the shacks, some carrying basins, others with buckets. They went to a nearby well to draw water. Steam rose from the mouth of the well. As they cranked the awkward pulley with soft, white hands not used to working, the rope gave off a dull twang. When the oversized bucket appeared at the mouth of the well, they stuck out a foot to hook the rim and drag it smoothly over to the lip, where a layer of ice had formed, with bumps like steamed buns or nipples. The girls ran to their shacks with the water, then ran back for more, wooden clogs clacking noisily on the ground, their freezing, partially exposed breasts emitting a sulfurlike odor. I tried looking over Mother’s shoulder, but all I could see were their dancing breasts, like opium flowers or valleys of butterflies.