Free Big Breasts and Wide Hips by Mo Yan Page A

woman’s house that had since been reclaimed by wild hemp and cocklebur. As she ran into the tangle of undergrowth, her legs felt as if they were made of dough, and the nettles pricked her feet painfully. Her sisters, crying and complaining, stumbled along behind her. So they all sat down amid the hemp and wrapped their arms around each other, the younger girls burying their faces in Laidi’s clothing; only she kept her head up, gazing fearfully at the fire raging over the dike.
    The men in green uniforms she’d seen before trouble arrived came running out of the sea of flames, shrieking like demons. Their clothes were on fire. She heard the now familiar voice shout, “Roll on the ground!” He was the first to hit the ground and roll down the dike, like a fireball. A dozen or more fireballs followed him. The flames were extinguished, but green smoke rose from the men’s clothes and hair. Their uniforms, which only moments earlier had been the same eye-catching green as the shrubbery in which they were hiding, were now little more than black rags that clung to their bodies.
    One of the men, not heeding the order to roll on the ground, screamed in agony as he ran like the wind, carrying the flames with him all the way up to the wild hemp where the girls were hiding, heading straight for a big puddle of filthy water; it was covered by a profusion of wild grasses and water plants, with thick red stems and fat, tender leaves the color of goose down, and pink, cottony flower buds. The flaming man threw himself into the puddle, sending water splashing in all directions and a host of baby frogs leaping out of their hiding places. White egg-laying butterflies fluttered into the air and disappeared into the sunlight as if consumed by the heat. Now that the flames had sputtered out, the man lay there, black as coal, gobs of mud stuck to his head and face, a tiny worm wriggling on his cheek. She could not see his nose or his eyes, only his mouth, which spread open to release tortured screams: “Mother, dear Mother, I’m going to die …” A golden loach accompanied the screams out of his mouth. His pitiful writhing stirred up mud that had accumulated over the years and sent an awful stench into the air.
    His comrades lay on the ground, moaning and cursing, their rifles and clubs scattered about — except for the thin man with the dark face, who still held his pistol. “Comrades,” he said, “let’s get out of here. The Japanese will be back!”
    As if they hadn’t heard him, the charred soldiers stayed where they were on the ground. A couple of them climbed shakily to their feet and took a few wobbly steps before their legs gave out. “Comrades, let’s get out of here!” he bellowed, kicking the man nearest him.
    The man crawled forward and struggled into a kneeling position. “Commander,” he cried out pitifully, “my eyes, I can’t see anything …”
    Now she knew that the dark-faced man was called Commander. “Comrades,” he said anxiously, “the Japs are coming. We must be ready for them …”
    Off to the east, she saw twenty or more Japanese horse soldiers in two columns on the top of the dike, riding down like a tide in tight formation in spite of the flames around them, the horses trotting across the ridge, heads thrust out, one close on the heels of the other. When they reached Chen Family Lane, the lead horse turned and negotiated the slope, the others quickly falling in behind it. They skirted a broad expanse of open land (the land, which served as a grain-drying ground for the Sima family, was flat and smooth, covered by golden sand), then picked up speed, galloping in a straight line. All the Japanese horsemen brandished long, narrow swords that glinted in the sun as they bore down on the enemy like the wind, their war whoops shattering the silence.
    The commander raised his pistol and fired at the onrushing