Pow!

you little bastard?’ Lao Lan asked, looking at me. I didn't feel like answering—it was too cold and my lips were nearly frozen stiff. ‘Okay, drive it away. Since you're a widow and you have a little boy, you don't have to pay me for three months.’ Mother jumped off the tractor, her legs so rubbery she could hardly stand. But Lao Lan reached out to support her. ‘Be careful,’ he said. Mother blushed and looked like she wanted to say something but all she could manage was a brief stammer. The joy she felt had nearly robbed her of speech. A few weeks earlier we'd told Master Gao, the local clerk, that we wanted to buy Lao Lan's old tractor but hadn't heard back from him. I was only a child, yet even I knew we had no chance. My father had bitten a chunk off the man's ear and ruined his looks—there was no way he was going to sell us anything. If it'd been me, I'd have said: ‘So, Luo Tong's family wants to buy my tractor, do they? Ha! I'll drive it into the bay and let it turn to rust before I'll sell it to them.’ But then, just when we'd lost hope, we heard from Master Gao: ‘The village head is willing to sell it to you at scrap cost. He said you can pick it up tomorrow morning at the threshing ground. He said that he is, after all, the head of the village and that it's his job to see the villagers prosper. He said he'll even teach you to drive it.’ Mother and I were so excited we couldn't sleep that night. She kept saying what a good man Lao Lan was and what a bad man she'd married. And then she rounded it off with a stream of abuse for Aunty Wild Mule. That was when I learnt that Aunty Wild Mule had been the cause of the fight between Lao Lan and Father. I'll never forget that morning. That time it was early summer.

    This woman's eyes are really big. There's a tadpole-shaped mole at the corner of her mouth, from which one dark red hair curls out. I'm captivated by the strange look in her eyes, a look of madness. She still has the coat in her hand, holding it up and shaking it out every now and then, making popping sounds. Rain slants in through the door and water continues to drip from her body, forming a muddy pool at her feet. Which, I suddenly realize, are bare. A pair of very large feet, probably a size forty, looking out of place on her body. Leaves have stuck to the tops of her feet, and her water-soaked toes have turned white. As I talk on, I think about her background. In such weather, on a day like this, why would a woman with high arching breasts show up in a little temple in the middle of nowhere? Especially one that enshrines five spirits with superhuman sexual prowess, one that generations of intellectuals have called an ‘obscenity’? Though I have many doubts, my mind begins to fill with warm images. I'm dying to walk up and throw my arms round her, but I don't dare, given the presence of the Wise Monk, especially since I‘ve come with the hope of signing on as a novice and am spewing out my life story for his benefit. The woman seems to understand what I'm feeling, for she keeps looking at me, and her lips, which were clamped shut when she entered, are parted enough for me to see her glinting teeth. They're slightly yellow and not particularly straight, but they seem to be hard and healthy. She has bushy brows that nearly meet above her eyes, which gives her a lively appearance, sort of foreign. I can't tell if the way she tugs at her pants, which tend to stick to her buttocks, is intentional, but every time she lets go they cling to her skin again. I'm sympathetic but have no idea how to help. If I were in charge of this little temple, I'd forget about religious taboos and commandments and ask her into the back room, where she could get out of those wet clothes. Let her put on one of the Wise Monk's cassocks and lay her clothes out at the head of his bed to dry. But would he approve? Without warning, she scrunches up her nose and lets fly a loud sneeze. ‘My lady, you do as you please,’ the Wise Monk says, his eyes still shut. She bows and flashes a smile in my direction, then walks past me, clothes in hand, over behind the Horse Spirit.

POW! 4

    Early summer mornings found the people exhausted, since the nights were so short. They'd barely closed their eyes, it seemed, and the sun was up. Father and I ran out into the dust-blown street but could not escape Mother's shouts from the yard. We were still living in the three-room shack inherited from Grandfather, passing the