We stood in the yard, filling the air with hopeless shouts. The soldiers came running out of the house, demanding to know what had happened. Just then, the mute crawled out of the turnip cellar. His clothes were covered with yellow earth and splotches of white mildew. He wore a look of fatigue and contentment.
“What a fool I was!” Mother roared, stomping her foot.
At the far end of the path in our yard, beneath a pile of dried grass, the mute had raped my third sister, Lingdi.
We dragged her out from where she lay, carried her inside, and laid her on the kang. Mother wept as she soaked her sulfurous bandanna in water and meticulously cleaned Lingdi from head to toe. Her tears fell onto Lingdi’s body and onto her own breast, which still showed the teeth marks; interestingly, Lingdi was smiling. A bewitching light flashed in her eyes.
As soon as she heard the news, Fifth Sister rushed home and stared down at Third Sister. Without a word, she ran outside, took a grenade from her belt, pulled the pin, and tossed it into the east wing. No sound emerged; it was a dud.
The mute was to be executed on the very spot where Ma Tong had been shot: a foul-smelling bog at the southern edge of the village, with rotting rush in the middle and lined with piles of garbage. The trussed-up mute was dragged over to the edge of the bog, facing a firing squad of a dozen or more men. After an emotional speech for the benefit of the civilians who had gathered to watch, Commissar Jiang told the soldiers to cock their rifles. Ready, the commissar ordered, Aim… Shangguan Lingdi, all in white, floated over before the bullets had a chance to leave the rifle barrels. She seemed to be walking on air, like a true fairy. It’s the Bird Fairy! someone shouted. Memories of the Bird Fairy’s legendary history and miraculous deeds flooded the minds of everyone present. The mute was forgotten. The Bird Fairy had never been more beautiful as she danced in front of the crowd, like a stork parading through the marshes. Her face was a palette of bright colors: like red lotuses, like white lotuses. Her figure was in perfect harmony, her distended lips absolutely alluring. She danced her way up to the mute; after stopping in front of him, she cocked her head and gazed into his face. He responded with a foolish grin. She reached out and stroked his nappy hair and pinched his garlic-bulb nose. Finally, to everyone’s surprise, she reached down and grabbed the thing between his legs that had caused all the trouble. Turning to face the onlookers, she giggled. The women looked away; the men just stared foolishly, lecherous grins on their faces.
The commissar coughed and said, his words strained and unnatural, “Move her away from there and get on with the execution!”
The mute raised his head and let out a series of weird grunts, maybe to register his objection.
The Bird Fairy’s hand kept rubbing the thing down there, her fleshy lips twisted into a greedy but natural and healthy look of pure desire. The commissar’s command fell on deaf ears.
“Young lady,” the commissar asked in a loud voice, “was it rape or was it consensual?”
The Bird Fairy did not reply.
“Do you like him?” the commissar asked her.
Again the Bird Fairy did not reply.
The commissar went into the crowd to find Mother. “Aunty,” he said, obviously embarrassed, “in your view… as I see it, maybe we ought to just let them become husband and wife… Speechless Sun was wrong… but not wrong enough to forfeit his life
Without a word, Mother turned and walked back through the crowd, slowly, as if her back were weighed down by a stone tablet. The people followed her with their eyes, until they heard wails tear from her throat. They couldn’t watch any longer.
“Untie him,” the commissar ordered halfheartedly before turning and leaving the scene.
8
It was the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, the day when the Herder Boy and Weaving Maid meet in the Milky Way. It was hot and sticky, the air so thick with mosquitoes they crashed into one another. Mother spread out a straw mat and we lay down to listen to her feeble mutterings. A drizzle came up as dusk fell; Mother said those were the Weaving Maid’s tears. The humidity was high, with only an occasional gust of wind. Above us, pomegranate leaves shimmied. Soldiers in both the east and west wings lit homemade candles. Mosquitoes feasted on us, despite Mother’s attempts to drive them away with her fan. All the magpies in the world chose this date to fly up into the clear blue sky, sheets and sheets of them, all beak to tail, with no space between them, forming a bridge across the the Milky Way to let the Herder Boy and Weaving Girl meet yet another year. Raindrops and dewdrops were their tears of longing. Amid Mother’s mutterings, Niandi and I, plus the little Sima heir, gazed up at the star-filled sky, trying to find those particular stars. Even though Eighth Sister, Yunii, was blind, she too tipped her face heavenward, her eyes brighter than the stars she could not see. The heavy footsteps of sentries returning from their watch sounded in the lane. Out in the fields, frogs croaked a loud chorus. On the bean trellis a katydid sang its song: Yiya yiya dululu-yiya yiya dululu. As the night deepened, large birds flew roughly and rashly into the air; we watched their white, fuzzy silhouettes and listened to feathery wings brushed by the wind. Bats squeaked excitedly; drops of water fell from the leaves and beat a tattoo on the ground. Sha Zaohua lay cradled in Mother’s arms, breathing evenly. In the east wing, Lingdi screeched like a cat, and the mute’s hulking silhouette flickered in the lamplight. They had been married. Commissar Jiang had officiated at the wedding, and now the meditation room for the Bird Fairy had become a wedding chamber where they could release their passions. The Bird Fairy ran often out into the yard half dressed, and one soldier who was driven to distraction by peeping at her exposed breasts nearly had his neck broken by the mute. “It’s late, time to go to bed,” Mother said. “It’s hot inside, and the room is swarming with mosquitoes,” Sixth Sister said. “Can’t we sleep out here?” “No,” Mother said, “the dampness is bad for you. Besides, there are those in the sky who pick flowers… I think I heard one of them say, There’s a pretty little flower, let’s pick it. Wait till we come back, we’ll get it then. You know who they were? Spider spirits, whose only purpose is to spoil young virgins.”
We lay on the kang, but could not sleep. Except, strangely enough, Eighth Sister, who fell fast asleep, a line of slobber in the corner of her mouth. We choked on smoke from the mosquito incense. Lamplight from the soldiers’ rooms came through their windows and fell on ours, making it possible for us to see bits and pieces of what was out in the yard. A saltwater fish Laidi had sent us was smelling up the latrine outside with its rank rotting odor. She’d sent back lots of valuable things, such as satin fabrics, furniture, and antique curios, all confiscated by the demolition battalion. The bolt on the door creaked. “Who’s there?” Mother shouted as she picked up the cleaver she kept at the head of the kang. No response. Maybe we were hearing things. Mother put the cleaver back where she kept it. From the floor at the head of the kang brief bursts of red light flickered at the end of the smoking mugwort rope that was supposed to keep mosquitoes away.
All of a sudden, a thin figure rose from the head of the kang. Mother let out a frightened shriek. So did Sixth Sister. The dark figure fell across the kang and clapped its hand over Mother’s mouth. She struggled as she groped for the cleaver. But just as she was about to swing it, she heard the figure call out: