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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 days in chaotic exuberance. Our shack looked particularly shabby, tucked in among a bunch of newly built red-tiled houses, like a beggar kneeling in front of a clutch of landlords and rich merchants, in silks and satins, asking for alms. The wall round our yard came up barely to an adult's waist and was topped by weeds. It couldn't keep out a pregnant bitch, let alone a thief. In fact, the pregnant bitch from the home of Guo Six often jumped into our yard to feast on our discarded bones. I used to watch, fascinated, as she scaled the wall, her black teats scraping the top and then swaying as she landed. Father carried me on his shoulders so I could look down on Mother as she scraped and sliced and chopped with her cleaver, cursing us as we walked by. She had to scavenge sweet potato scraps from the garbage heap in front of the train station. Thanks to my lazy, gluttonous Father, we lived a life of extremes, with potfuls of meat on the stove during the good times and empty pots during the bad. In response to Mother's curses, he'd say: ‘Any day now, very soon, the second land-reform campaign will begin, and you'll thank me when it does. Don't for a minute envy Lao Lan, since he'll wind up like that landlord father of his, dragged off to the bridgehead by a mob of poor peasants to be shot.’ He'd aim an imaginary rifle at Mother's head and fire: Bang! She'd grab her head with both hands and pale with fright. But the second land-reform campaign didn't come and didn't come, and poor Mother was forced to bring home rotten sweet potatoes for the pigs, two little animals that never got enough to eat and that squealed hungrily most of the time. It was so annoying. ‘What the hell are you squealing for?’ Father shouted at them once, ‘Keep it up and I'll toss you two little bastards in a pot and have you for dinner!’ Cleaver in hand, Mother glared at him. ‘Don't even think about it. Those are my pigs. I raised them, and no one's to harm a hair on