So they walked single file down to the river’s edge, where the placid surface reflected the delicate faces of the Shangguan girls. They all had their mother’s high nose and fair, full earlobes. Laidi took a mahogany comb out of a pocket and combed each of her sisters’ hair; pieces of straw and dust fluttered to the ground. They grimaced and complained when the comb pulled through the tangles. Finished with her sisters, Laidi then ran the comb through her own hair and twisted it into a single braid, which she tossed over her back; the tip fell to her rounded hip. After putting away the comb, she rolled up her pant legs, revealing a pair of fair, shapely calves. Then she took off her blue satin shoes, with their red embroidered flowers; her sisters all stared at her bare feet, which had been partially crippled from the bindings. “What are you gawking at?” she demanded angrily. “If we don’t bring home lots of shrimp, the old witch will never forgive us!”
Her sisters hurriedly took off their shoes and rolled up their pant legs; Qiudi, the youngest, stripped naked. Laidi stood on the muddy bank looking down at water grasses swaying gently at the bottom of the slow-flowing river. Fish frolicked there, while swallows skimmed the surface of the water. She stepped into the river and shouted, “Qiudi, you stay up there to catch the shrimp. The rest of you, into the water.”
Giggling and squealing, the girls stepped into the river.
As her heels, accentuated by the bindings she’d worn as a little girl, sank into the mud, and the underwater grasses gently stroked her calves, Laidi experienced an indescribable sensation. Bending over at the waist, she carefully dug her fingers into the mud around the roots of the grasses, since that was the best place to find shrimp. Without warning, something leaped up between her fingers, sending shivers of delight through her. A nearly transparent, coiled freshwater shrimp the thickness of her finger, each of its feelers a work of art, lay squirming in her hand. She flung it up onto the riverbank. With a whoop of joy, Qiudi ran over and scooped it up.
“First Sister, I got one, too!”
“I got one, First Sister!”
“So did I!”
The task of retrieving all the shrimp was too much for two-year-old Qiudi, who stumbled and fell, then sat on the dike and bawled. Several of the shrimp were able to spring back into the river and disappear in the water. So Laidi went up and took her sister down to the water’s edge, where she washed her muddy backside. Each splash of water on bare skin resulted in a spasm and a shriek mixed with a string of meaningless foul words. With a swat on her sister’s bottom, Laidi let go of the younger girl, who nearly flew to the top of the dike, where she picked a stick out of some shrubbery, pointed it at her big sister, and cursed like a shrewish old woman. Laidi laughed.
By then, her sisters had made their way upriver. Dozens of shrimp leaped and squirmed on the sunlit bank. “Scoop them up, First Sister!” Qiudi shouted.
She began putting them into the basket. “I'll get you when we get home, you little imp!” Then she bent down, a smile on her face, and continued scooping up the shrimp, enough to wipe her mind clear of worries. She opened her mouth, and out came a little song – where it had come from, she didn’t know: “Mommy, Mommy, you are so mean, marrying me to an oil vendor, sight unseen…”
She quickly caught up with her sisters, who stood shoulder to shoulder in the shallows, their rumps sticking up in the air, chins nearly touching the water. They moved ahead slowly, hands buried in the water, opening and closing, opening and closing. Yellow leaves that had snapped off the plants floated in the muddy water they left in their wake. Each time one of them stood up meant another shrimp caught. Lingdi, then Pandi, then Xiangdi, one after another they straightened up and tossed shrimp in the direction of their big sister, who ran around, scooping them up, while Qiudi tried to keep up.
Before they realized it, they had nearly reached the arched footbridge spanning the river. “Come out of there,” Laidi shouted, “all of you. The basket’s full, we’re going home.” Reluctantly, the girls waded out of the water and stood on the dike, hands bleached by the water, calves coated with purplish mud. “How come there are so many shrimp in the river today, Sis?” “Has Mommy already given us a baby brother, Sis?” “What do the Japs look like, Sis?” “Do they really eat children, Sis?” “How come the mutes killed all their chickens, Sis?” “How come Grandma’s always yelling at us, Sis?” “I dreamed there was a big, fat loach in Mommy’s belly, Sis…” One question after another, and not a single response from Laidi, whose eyes were fixed on the bridge, its stones glittering in the sunlight. The rubber-wheeled wagon, with its three horses, had driven up and stopped at the bridgehead.
When the squat wagon master flicked the reins, the horses stepped restlessly onto the bridge flooring. Sparks and a loud clatter rose from the stones. Some men were standing nearby; they were stripped to the waist, wide leather belts cinching up their trousers, brass belt buckles glinting in the sun. Laidi knew the men: they were Felicity Manor servants. Several of them jumped up onto the wagon and tossed down the rice straw, then unloaded the liquor baskets, twenty altogether. The wagon master tugged on the reins to back the shaft horse over to a vacant piece of ground beside the bridgehead, just as the assistant steward, Sima Ku, rode out of the village on a black German-made bicycle, the first ever seen in Northeast Gaomi Township. Laidi’s granddad, Shangguan Fulu, who could never keep his hands to himself, had once reached out, when he thought no one was looking, to fondle the handlebar; but that had been back in the spring. Blue flames nearly shot out of Sima Ku’s angry eyes. He was wearing a long silk robe over white imported cotton trousers, tied at the ankles with blue bands and black tassels, and white-soled rubber shoes. His trouser legs billowed, as if pumped full of air; the hem of his robe was tucked into a belt woven of white silk tied at the front, with one long end and one short one. A narrow leather belt over his left shoulder crossed his chest like a sash, and was connected to a leather pouch with a piece of flaming red silk. The German bicycle bell rang out, heralding his arrival, as if on the wind. He jumped off the bicycle and removed his wide-brimmed straw hat to fan himself; the red mole on his face looked like a hot cinder. “Get moving!” he ordered the servants. “Pile the straw on the bridge and soak it with liquor. We’ll incinerate those fucking dogs!”
The servants busily carried the straw onto the bridge until it stood waist high. White moths carried along with the straw flitted around the area; some fell into the water and wound up in the bellies of fish, others were snapped up by swallows.
“Douse the straw with the liquor!” Sima Ku ordered.
The servants picked up the baskets and, struggling mightily, carried them up onto the bridge. After pulling out the stoppers, they poured the liquor onto the straw, beautiful, high-octane liquor whose fragrance intoxicated an entire section of river. The straw rustled. Rivulets of liquor spread across the bridge and down to the stone facing, where it puddled before showering into the river, becoming a cascade by the time all twelve baskets were empty, and washing the stone facing clean. The straw changed color, a transparent sheet of liquor falling into the water below, and before long, little white fish were popping up on the surface. Laidi’s sisters wanted to wade out into the river and scoop up the drunken fish, but she stopped them: “Stay away from there! We’re going home!”
But they were mesmerized by the activity on the bridge. In fact, Laidi was as curious as they were, and even as she tried to drag her sisters away, her gaze kept returning to the bridge, where Sima Ku stood, smugly clapping his hands; his eyes lit up and a smile creased his face. “Who else could have devised such a brilliant strategy?” he crowed to the servants. “No one but me, damn it! Come on, you little Nips, get a taste of my might!”