by Su Tong
But Wenqin liked to talk to people about the madwoman’s illness, appearance and clothes – especially when it came to her startling, beautiful clothes, Wenqin’s praise was unstinting. She would say, ‘There’s nothing she daren’t wear, and she looks good in it all. Have you seen her cheongsam? A white velvet cheongsam! Except for people in movies, I’ve never seen anyone look as good in a cheongsam as she does.’ A colleague, although disapproving, hit the nail on the head when he said, ‘You would look good in it, too. Too bad there’s nothing wrong with your head! Because even if you did have a cheongsam like that, you’d never dare put it on.’
Wenqin walked past the bridge and spotted the madwoman at a glance – or rather her white velvet cheongsam. You could tell that she approached the madwoman only in order to be closer to that cheongsam. And though she exclaimed, ‘Why ma’am, fancy meeting you here!’ in her voice, so filled with pleased surprise, there was a quite different greeting, ‘Why, white velvet cheongsam, fancy meeting you here!’ Anyone could see that Wenqin was madly in love with that cheongsam, and that it was a love that ran bone deep, though at the moment it burned white hot as well.
People had only ever seen her in the tailored-to-fit military uniform she always wore; never in a cheongsam. It wasn’t that she wouldn’t give cheongsams a chance, rather that cheongsams hadn’t given her one. She was Wenqin, after all; she wasn’t the madwoman, though at that moment who could have said which one of them loved the cheongsam more? Wenqin’s eyes betrayed her secret though; the way she gazed at that white velvet cheongsam was like a famished bee discovering a flower garden. She stopped in her tracks and began talking to the madwoman, although really she was talking to the cheongsam.
‘What soft material. And tailored so snugly. And aren’t the fastenings beautiful. Are these called lute frogs? How are they made, I wonder?’ At first, when Wenqin touched the white velvet, she did so reverently, with utmost care, so as not to damage it, but gradually the movement became more rapacious, almost abandoned, her hand stroking in circles about the madwoman’s waist. It was as if she were surveying something with a caliper, the result of which always remained unclear and had to be repeated constantly. When her hands slipped down to the madwoman’s buttocks, she realized she had gone too far and immediately slid them up to her back. But she was not yet sated and clutched once again at the madwoman’s shoulders.
‘How unbelievably well it fits!’ Wenqin exclaimed. ‘I’ll bet it was the one you used when you were MC in the performance troupe, wasn’t it? You couldn’t find another one like it in the whole world now. This kind of velvet – you can’t buy material like it any more, even in Shanghai.’
The madwoman gave her a charming smile, and at the same time inspected the cheongsam. Wenqin’s fulsome praise gratified her, though she was a little concerned there might be wrinkles where Wenqin had touched it. She arranged her fingers in the orchid position to act like an iron, and flattened out the tiny creases. Wenqin was a little insulted by this and remarked, ‘You really take care of this cheongsam, don’t you? It won’t hurt it just to touch it. Still, no wonder. You only have this one, don’t you? I saw you wear it in the summer, too.’
Stung, the madwoman replied, ‘Who says I have only one? I have six cheongsams: this white velvet one, then there’s the red velvet, two of silk – they’re patterned – and two that are cotton but look good anyway. So altogether I have six cheongsams, only my husband cut up the other five so this is the only one left.’
Wenqin was looking at her sideways, listening somewhat doubtfully. Abruptly, she interrupted the madwoman, asking, ‘Red velvet? Can you make cheongsams from red velvet?’
The madwoman replied, ‘Naturally. They all say my red velvet cheongsam is the one I look best in.’
Wenqin’s eyes lit up. ‘They do sell red velvet in the fabric shop. And I won’t even need coupons – the clinic bought some so we could make cloth flowers!’
Wenqin lingered on the bridge a moment longer. She had now stopped staring at the madwoman and her cheongsam, and instead she was looking around herself, deep in calculation. She clapped her hands, reaching a decision, and said, ‘I’ll go and buy it right now.’ With that, she turned round and walked off the bridge.
At first, the madwoman didn’t realize what Wenqin had gone to do; she was just waiting for Susu, but instead of her daughter, once again it was Wenqin who appeared. The madwoman watched her as she crossed the bridge with a bolt of red velvet clasped in her arms. As she approached, the madwoman asked, ‘What have you bought all that red velvet for?’
Wenqin grasped her by the arm and said, ‘Do me a favour. Come with me for a moment to the tailor’s. I need you to lend me your cheongsam so Mr Li can make a pattern from it.’ Strangely, whenever it was anything to do with clothing or make-up, the madwoman cottoned on right away. She stared at Wenqin, her eyes widening, and protested, ‘No, I’m not going. I don’t want him to make a pattern from my cheongsam.’
But Wenqin had clearly prepared for this. She caught the madwoman’s hand tighter in her grasp. ‘Don’t be so petty. I’m only borrowing it to make a pattern. It’s not as if anything bad will happen to it. Besides, yours is white velvet, mine is red – they’re different, don’t you see?’
But the madwoman kept trying to free her hand, and said, ‘I don’t have time to go with you to the tailor’s. I have to wait here for Susu; Susu’s about to leave school.’
Wenqin looked at her wristwatch, ‘Oh, nonsense. It’s only three thirty now; much too early to leave school. Don’t run away. People will think that I’m dragging you off to do something awful.’ Still trying to subdue the madwoman and protect herself from her flailing hands, Wenqin finally managed to catch her tightly by the elbow. In desperation, she grasped at straws and told the madwoman, ‘I don’t mean to be unfair. If you do me this favour, I’ll give you my black scarf with the golden flowers. When you came for your injection, didn’t you keep saying how you admired it?’
This one sentence carried more weight than the dozens preceding it. Wenqin felt the madwoman’s resistance fade away as soon as she finished speaking. A silk scarf had conquered her. Her eyes glazed over for a moment, as if she were trying to picture the scarf she had just been promised. Then she laughed. ‘My cheongsam, with a black silk scarf. A black silk scarf! Wouldn’t they look smart together?’ She smiled at Wenqin, then said abruptly, ‘Fine. I’ll hold you to that. And don’t tell me you regret it later or I’ll think you’re a welcher.’
Now that it was already too late to take back her promise, Wenqin was a little discomfited. Frowning, she said, ‘Who says you’re soft in the head? You earn a silk scarf just for lending me your cheongsam – seems to me you’re shrewder than anyone else I know.’
At half past three in the afternoon, the madwoman was seen following Wenqin off the bridge. With one hand she gingerly held the hem of her cheongsam while the other hand was clasped tightly in Wenqin’s. They walked towards The East is Red Street. From the back, they could have been two women of equal intellect, their steps imbued with a similar grace. They looked like sisters out for a walk.
Li the tailor had a hunched back. On his head he wore an army cap, and a tape measure hung around his neck. He was drowning in the shop’s disorder, the clothes and cloth piled and hanging everywhere. The shop didn’t seem to belong to the same era as the spotless street outside, and Li’s apologetic expression acknowledged this. Whenever a female customer entered, Li would rise obsequiously from behind his sewing machine, like someone from a grass-roots unit welcoming an important leader for a visit. But it was different when Wenqin came; with her he somehow achieved a surprising role reversal. As soon as she arrived, he began acting like a spoiled woman himself. At first he acted deliberately coy, tilting his head to see who was standing behind her, and when he saw that it was another woman, he heaved a sigh of relief and asked, ‘So you’ve brought along another customer for me today? That’s nice.’
Wenqin had brought not only a ro
ll of red velvet, but also a woman in a white velvet cheongsam. She prodded the madwoman towards Li, and told him, somewhat incoherently, ‘Make me a cheongsam . . . a cheongsam! I’ve talked to you about it before – the white velvet cheongsam. I’ve even brought her along!’
‘A person is a person, a cheongsam is a cheongsam. Tell me exactly what you want.’ First, though, the tailor took a look at the strange woman: she was in her thirties and pretty at first glance. But she did not bear close examination well: at second glance she looked strained, and yet a third revealed a kind of torpor in her. The tailor’s eyes lit up, but she was not looking at him, instead she was fanning herself and having a look about the shop, casually criticizing all the clothes: ‘You call this clothing? So ugly!’
The light in the tailor’s eyes faded and he stared hard at her cheongsam. ‘I’m not dreaming, am I? Is history going backwards now? I didn’t think anyone still showed themselves in public looking like that!’
Wenqin, standing behind the madwoman, gestured to her head, which the tailor misinterpreted. ‘Hard to deal with, eh? What, you or her? I’m not afraid of difficult customers – that’s for other people. You know all about the quality of my work.’ Wenqin gave up, and without further explanation threw the bolt of red velvet onto the sewing table. Prodding the madwoman again, she said, ‘Take this as the pattern. Make me one like hers.’
‘What’s got into you? You want to have a cheongsam made now? Well, I won’t do it. Even if I did, you’d never dare wear it.’ The tailor seemed to want to keep her in suspense. ‘Last time I made you bell-bottoms, but I haven’t seen you wearing them.’
‘How do you know I haven’t worn them? I don’t wear them for you,’ she started in a bullying tone, then suddenly switched back to sweetness and light. ‘Oh, what does it matter anyway? First, you’re not my boss, and second, you’re not my husband. You’re my tailor, so your place is just to do the job. Besides, where is it written that if I have clothing made I have to wear it outside the house?’
‘I make clothes for you, and then you’re too scared to wear them? I suppose you want to be named a model worker, afraid of being criticized by your superiors?’ the tailor said. ‘You mean you’ll only wear it at home? Just for your husband? What a waste!’
‘You dirty old hunchback! What business is it of yours who I wear it for?’ Wenqin picked up a piece of chalk and threw it at him. ‘Let me tell you something: a lot of the clothes I’ve ordered are stored in my chest. Even if I don’t wear them, I can still take them out and look at them. They make me feel better.’
‘After all the work I put into that clothing, you let it rot away in a chest? When I think how demanding you were when I was making it: if the end of a thread was too coarse you kicked up such a fuss! And then you take it all home to stick in a box?’ The tailor looked as if he couldn’t quite bring himself to laugh. He stared at Wenqin, and suddenly his face hardened. ‘Well, I won’t make clothes for you, not any more. The money I earn off you is like a traitor’s reward: I end up holding myself in contempt.’
‘Oh, yes? Or maybe you don’t even know how to make a cheongsam!’ Wenqin was clearly irritated. She held it in check for a moment, and then went on baiting him. ‘And here was I thinking you were the best tailor in the city! Best tailor my arse, if you can’t even make a cheongsam.’
‘I never said I was the best in the city, did I? In a profession like this, it doesn’t matter who says they’re the best; it’s the clothing that does the talking in the end.’ After clowning about, the tailor grew more serious. Avoiding Wenqin’s eyes, he squinted sideways at the madwoman, sizing her up as she stood by the shop window. ‘Has the lady comrade come here to stroll around? Why doesn’t she take a seat?’ Still the madwoman stood by the window, stretching one of her hands into the window display to fondle something.
‘Never mind her,’ said Wenqin, ‘she can’t sit still. Just tell me how we should go about taking the measurements.’
‘You’re a little fuller than she is. Chest, waist and hips will all be different. What choice do we have? Get her to take her cheongsam off and put it on yourself. That’s the only way to do it if you want accurate measurements.’
The madwoman raised her head and walked daintily around, pointing at the clothing hanging on the racks with her sandalwood fan. She pointed at a tawny army uniform and said, ‘The People’s Liberation Army.’ Then she pointed at a white shirt and said, ‘Red Guards.’ Then it was blue trousers: ‘Junior Red Guards.’ A black skirt: ‘Old women.’ In the course of pointing at all the clothes she reached a dress with blue polka dots that reminded her of her daughter, Susu. She turned around and asked Wenqin, ‘What time is it? Shouldn’t Susu be on her way home?’
Wenqin glanced at her wristwatch and said, ‘No rush, no rush.’ But her body tensed, and with a glare at the tailor she said, ‘I’m not in any mood to chatter the day away here. Hurry up and get started. I have a million things to do at home and I must get back.’
The tailor chortled and said, ‘You want me to get started? On whom? Shall I help you undress?’
Wenqin raised one finger and tapped herself on the forehead. ‘Tricked me again! Every time I come here I’m swept up in your chatter. You flirt away without my even noticing.’
Wenqin lured the madwoman behind a printed curtain, into what passed for the tailor’s bedroom. There was a wooden-framed single bed and a portrait of the heroine from Azalea Mountain1 was pasted on the wall over its head; her eyes stared fiercely, while the position of her hands suggested cool calculation. Underneath the bed was a spittoon that hadn’t been emptied in several days and emitted a sour, noxious odour. Wenqin had changed in there before and immediately took care to pull the curtain shut behind her before fastening both ends with iron clips. Despite her precautions, the madwoman was far from reassured and cried out in alarm, ‘What kind of place is this? I want to go out. I don’t want to change here.’
‘You’re driving me mad,’ Wenqin replied. ‘You’re not the MC for the cultural ensemble any more. There aren’t any dressing rooms: the women who come to the tailor’s all change here. There’s a curtain. What are you afraid of? Do you think Mr Li’s some kind of pervert?’
On the other side of the curtain, Mr Li was indeed behaving well. First he went to pour himself some tea and glugged the aromatic liquid down, then he hummed something from a revolutionary opera: ‘Rosy aurora-aha, mirrored in Yangcheng Lake’s waters-a-ah-a.’2 In his bedroom, all was not so harmonious. The madwoman refused to strip and Wenqin was too impatient. After much twisting and turning the struggle died down, and all the tailor heard was the light swishing of cloth against cloth and the sound of rubbing hands. After a moment, Wenqin lifted up the curtain and walked out of the bedroom clad in the white velvet cheongsam. She stretched both hands out to the tailor, then made a half turn. She modelled the clothing in a bashful yet confident manner, as if to ask, ‘How does it suit me?’
The tailor called out, ‘Ooh-la-la!’ and clapping his hands as he advanced on her, he grabbed her by the waist and said, ‘It looks great. Even better than it did on her.’
As the tailor took Wenqin’s measurements, he forgot the madwoman even existed, and after some overzealous measuring, Wenqin suddenly gave him a resounding slap, saying, ‘Nasty hunchback! I’m in a good mood today so I’ve been letting you get away with it, but you’d better keep your mind on this cheongsam. If you do a bad job, don’t think I’ll let it go lightly.’
‘If I were going to make a mess of it, I wouldn’t have taken the job,’ he assured her. ‘Even if I were ten times braver, I wouldn’t dare put anything less into it than you deserve.’
The two of them suddenly became aware that the madwoman had begun to pace restlessly behind the curtain. ‘What time is it?’ she muttered. ‘The time? Oh, no – it’s totally dark outside already. Susu must have left school a long time ago.’ The curtain suddenly bulged – the madwoman had thrust her face against it and was saying, ‘It’s dark outside. Why
don’t you let me go home? Give me my cheongsam back and let me go home!’
Wenqin assured her, ‘It’s all right, all right. There’s nothing wrong. What are you screaming about? Are you scared of the dark? There’s no light on in there, so it is a little dark. If you’re afraid, I’ll get Mr Li to turn on the light for you.’
For some reason the tailor smirked as he went to turn it on. As soon as he lit it, the silhouette of the madwoman was clearly visible through the curtain. The sudden appearance of the shadow frightened the madwoman and she shouted, ‘Oh!’ The shadow giving a little jump.
Wenqin saw immediately that the light wasn’t helping and rushed to turn it off. Then she turned back to rebuke the tailor. ‘I should have known. No sense in trying to stop a dog from eating shit, is there, you wretch?’
‘What are you swearing at me for?’ demanded the tailor. ‘You told me to turn on the light yourself.’
Wenqin was confused for a moment. She went to the curtain again, intending to lift it back, but then she retracted her hand and said to the tailor, ‘Measure my shoulders . . . my shoulders! Hurry up and measure them.’
‘I’m trying to but you keep squirming around, you’re not making it easy for me.’
Wenqin took a sidelong glance at the curtain and lowered her voice. ‘Don’t frighten her. Can’t you tell she’s not right in the head?’
The tailor looked a little ashamed and said, ‘I noticed, yes. Too bad.’ Still shamefaced, he began to work faster. Then he sighed deeply. He took the tape measure and slid it around her. ‘Here, at the waist – I haven’t really got it right yet. The waist is the hardest part of a cheongsam so don’t blame me if it’s wrong . . .’