We were standing on a wide street in front of a high wall that effectively kept the northwest wind away and afforded us a bit of warmth. Cowering on both sides were more people just like us – gaunt and jaundiced-looking, shivering, hungry, and cold. Men and women. Mothers and children. The men were well along in years and as shriveled as rotting wood; those who weren’t blind – and many of them were – had red, puffy, suppurating eyes. A child stood or squatted on the ground beside each of them – some boys, some girls. Actually, it was nearly impossible to tell the boys from the girls, since they all looked as if they’d just climbed out of one of the chimneys across the street – human soot. All had straws sticking up out of their collars, mostly rice straw, with dry, yellow leaves; you couldn’t help but think of autumn, of horses and the comforting fragrance and happy sounds as they chewed rice straw in the dead of night. Some were less choosy, using bristlegrass they’d picked up somewhere. Most of the women were like Mother, surrounded by a brood of children, although none had as many as she. With some, all the children had straw sticking up out of their collars; with others, only some had it. Again, it was mostly rice straw, with dry, yellow leaves that gave off the fragrance of cut grass and the aura of autumn. Above the children with the straw tallies, the heavy, drooping heads of horses, donkeys, and mules, their eyes as big as brass cymbals, their teeth straight and white, their thick, sensous, and bristly lips revealing glistening teeth, swayed back and forth.
At about noon, a horse-drawn wagon came down the official road from the southeast. The horse, large and white, proceeded with its head held high, threads of silvery mane covering its forehead. It had gentle eyes, a pink streak running down its nose, and purple lips. A red velvet knot hung down from its neck, on which a brass bell had been tied. The bell rang out crisply as the horse drew the wagon toward us, rocking back and forth. We saw a tall saddle on the horse as well as the brass fittings of the shafts. The wheels were decorated with white spokes. The canopy was made of white material that had been treated with many coats of tung oil to protect it from the elements. We’d never seen such a luxurious wagon before, and were confident that the passenger was far nobler than the woman who’d come to see the Bird Fairy in her Chevrolet sedan, confident too that the man sitting in front, in a top hat and sporting a handlebar mustache, was not your ordinary driver. His face was taut, glaring lights shot out of both eyes. He was more reserved than Sha Yueliang, more somber than Sima Ku; and maybe only Birdman Han could have been his equal, if he wore the man’s hat and clothes.
The wagon came to a slow stop, and the handsome white horse pawed the ground in a rhythmic accompaniment to the brass bell. The driver pulled back a curtain, and the person inside emerged. She wore a purple marten overcoat and a red fox stole around her neck. How I wished it had been my oldest sister, Laidi, but it wasn’t. It was a foreign woman, with a high nose, blue eyes, and a headful of golden hair. Her age? I’m afraid only her parents would know that. Following her off the wagon was a strikingly handsome, black-haired little boy in a blue student uniform and blue woolen overcoat. Everything about him said he was the foreign woman’s son. Everything except for his external appearance, which was nothing like hers.
The people around us stirred and surged toward her, like a gang of robbers. But they came to a timid halt before they reached her. “Madam, honorable lady, please buy my granddaughter. Madam, grand lady, just look at this son of mine. He’s tougher than any dog, there’s no job he can’t handle…” Men and women meekly attempted to sell their sons and daughters to the foreign woman. Mother alone remained where she was, mesmerized by the sight of the purple marten coat and the red fox stole. There was no doubt that she longed for Laidi. Holding Laidi’s child in her arms, her heart spun and tears clouded her eyes.
The aristocratic foreign woman covered her mouth with a handkerchief as she took a turn around the human market. Her heavy perfume made me and the little Sima bastard sneeze. She knelt in front of the blind old man and took a look at his granddaughter. Frightened by the red fox stole around the foreign woman’s neck, the girl wrapped her arms around her grandfather’s legs and hid behind him, staring at me through terror-filled eyes. The blind old man sniffed the air and smelled the arrival of an aristocratic woman. He reached out his hand. “Madam,” he said, “please save this child. If she stays with me, she’ll starve to death. Madam, I don’t have a cent to my name…” The woman stood up and muttered something to the boy in school uniform, who turned to the blind old man and asked loudly, “What is the girl to you?” “I’m her granddad, her useless granddad, a granddad who deserves to die…” “What about her parents?” the boy asked. “Starved, they all starved to death. Those who should have died didn’t and those who shouldn’t have did. Sir, be merciful and take her with you. I don’t want a cent from you, if you’ll only give the girl a chance for life…” The boy turned and muttered something to the foreign woman, who nodded. The boy bent over and tried to pull the girl away from her granddad, but when his hand touched her shoulder, she bit him on the wrist. The boy shrieked and jumped back. With an exaggerated shrug of her shoulders, a grin, and raised eyebrows, the woman took the handkerchief away from her mouth and put it around the boy’s wrist.
With feelings that might have been terror and might have been delight, we waited for what seemed like a thousand years; finally, the richly bejeweled, heavily perfumed woman and the youngster with the injured wrist was standing before us. Meanwhile, off to our right, the blind old man was waving his bamboo staff, trying to hit the little girl who had bitten the boy. But she kept darting out of the way, as if playing hide-and-seek, so all he ever hit was the ground or the wall. “You damned little wretch!” the old man sighed. Greedily, I breathed in the foreign woman’s fragrance; amid the fragrance of locust, I detected a trace of rose petals, and amid that fragrance, I detected the subtle fragrance of chrysanthemum blossoms. But what absolutely intoxicated me was the smell of her breasts, even with the slight but disgusting smell of lamb they exuded; I flared my nostrils and breathed in deeply. Now that the handkerchief with which she’d covered her mouth was being employed elsewhere, her mouth was exposed to view. It was a wide mouth, a Shangguan Laidi mouth, with thick, Shangguan Laidi lips. Those thick lips were covered with heavy, red, greasy paint. With its high bridge, hers somewhat resembled the
Shangguan girls’ noses, but there were differences too: the tips of the Shangguan girls’ noses were like little cloves of garlic, making them look foolish and cute at the same time, while the foreign woman’s nose was slightly hooked, which gave her a predatory look. Her short forehead filled with deep wrinkles each time she glowered at something. I knew that everyone’s eyes were fixed on her, but I can say proudly that no one’s observation of her was more meticulous than mine. And no one could know the measure of my reward. My gaze passed through the thickness of her leather wrap, allowing me to witness the sight of her breasts, which were about the same size as Mother’s. Their loveliness nearly made me forget how cold and hungry I was.
“Why are you selling your children?” the youngster asked as he raised his bandaged hand and pointed to my sisters.
Mother didn’t answer him. Did an idiotic question like that even deserve an answer? The youngster turned and muttered something to the foreign woman, whose attention was caught by the purple marten coat in which the daughter of Laidi, who lay in Mother’s arms, was wrapped. She reached out and rubbed the nap. Then she saw the pantherlike, lazily sinister gaze of the baby girl herself. She had to turn away.