Madwoman On the Bridge and Other Stories

by Su Tong

  ‘Not Liu, you illiterate! Lin, L-I-N, your friend Lin!’

  ‘Lin, all right? Don’t get so worked up. Look, if you help me out now, I promise you that next time I’ll remember.’

  ‘If you don’t remember me, then never mind. Damn it, it’s not like I was counting on you to remember me.’ The driver sat up impatiently under the net, then lay down again. Suddenly he laughed and said, ‘Come on then. Aren’t you worried about missing your TV show? If you want to see that last episode you’ll have to hurry up. I’m in a bad mood and I’m tired too. Maybe you won’t even need ten minutes.’

  Then the driver watched as one of Xue’s legs slid under the net; she hesitated over the other, but in the end it came in too. The driver didn’t look at her face; he didn’t know why, but he didn’t want to. He heaved a sigh, swore coarsely under his breath and lifted his eyes to look at the ceiling outside the net. The top of the net was made of white cloth which was yellowing slightly, and through it the driver could dimly make out chilli peppers strung across the room. He asked, ‘What’s hanging up there? Are those chilli peppers?’

  ‘Yeah, chilli peppers. They use them in the kitchen, but there’s no room so they hang them in here.’

  The driver’s whole body began to tremble, and his gaze was drawn, almost unwillingly, outside the net. Dimly he saw an old man sitting on the ground, his face covered in blood, holding chilli peppers in his cupped hands. The driver’s hands trembled until they froze in mid-air. He turned over – the tidal water of desire that had swollen his body abruptly receded and a kind of obscure dread filled his mind. Brusquely he threw off Xue’s hands and kicked her off the bed. ‘You don’t have to pinch me just because you can’t do it right,’ he shouted loudly. ‘Go and watch your TV show.’

  This time Xue was frightened; she hadn’t been prepared for his sudden violence and didn’t know how to react. At first she stood barefoot outside the net, stunned, then she picked up her green sandals from the ground. ‘What was that about? There’s something wrong with you,’ she said, then finally she started to cry and ran to the door, sandals in hand. ‘There’s something wrong with all of you, you sick bastards. You’re perverts! I’m damned if I’m going to serve you creeps!’

  The driver heard her footsteps recede rapidly, together with the storm of weeping. It sounded as if she’d suffered a huge injustice while the driver also felt like the victim of some nameless wrongdoing. An ordinary matter had become so complicated, against all expectation. He didn’t know what he was doing, or why he had even come to Weeping Willow in the first place. Before long he heard the proprietress screaming and the hurried footsteps of several people. He crawled out of the bed and quickly locked the door.

  When the proprietress knocked, the driver could hear the two card-playing men conferring outside in low voices. He called, ‘Don’t bother knocking, there’s nothing wrong. Watch your TV show, I’m going to sleep. I’ll just sleep a while and then I’ll be on my way. I’ll pay whatever you say.’

  ‘Now come on, what’s up with you? If you don’t tell me, I can’t make it right, can I?’ the proprietress cajoled. ‘Xue’s not very bright, she doesn’t always do as she’s told. She’s no good at this kind of work. I’ve already sent word to her family for them to come and pick her up. If we’ve offended you, just be a little understanding with us. It’ll be all right when Hong comes in the evening. No matter what kind of service you need, we’ll give it to you then.’

  ‘I don’t need any service at all, I just want to have a little snooze.’ Through the door, the driver could smell the proprietress’s strong perfume and suddenly the scent revolted him. He pinched his nose and went over to the room’s only window. He opened the curtains and saw a large cornfield outside, a cornfield after the rain, half green, half yellow, the leaves still sparkling with raindrops. The huge fields and the hills in the distance seemed to have been soaked in rainwater and exuded a faint alcoholic smell. The driver saw something flash past the window. Surprised, he poked his head out and saw two white goats, their coats soaked, huddled together. Apparently they had been standing below his window for some time. He stretched out his hand to touch them, stroking one of them on the back; it felt soft and wet, but the beautiful sensation didn’t last for long before they ran off.

  The driver really did want to sleep, if only for ten minutes; he felt exhausted, close to collapse. Before he crawled under the mosquito net, he went to the basin on the stand and gave his hands a good wash. There he discovered they were filthy, with diesel oil and dirt between his fingers. After he had finished washing his hands, as a matter of habit he took a paper tissue from his pocket. He’d already used them up, though, and all he fished out was the crumpled plastic packaging. He felt something else come out of his pocket along with the packaging and fall softly to the floor. The thing he dreaded most came last: it was a red chilli pepper lying on the inn’s plastic matting, shining forth its cool dark red rays.

  At night, Weeping Willow was a different world. The business, small and quaint by daylight, emerged in all its thriving, prosperous glory. The day’s heavy rain lingered into the evening, stopping for a moment and then starting up again. The lights of Weeping Willow seemed exceptionally bright in the damp air. Perhaps it was because of the bad weather, or maybe because traffic accidents had delayed the drivers, but that night Weeping Willow was very busy. Altogether, there were seventeen drivers spending the night there. The few tables in the restaurant were completely packed and the lights in the inn’s rooms were all turned on in readiness. The proprietress was radiant as she commanded her flock of girls in miniskirts, shuttling back and forth between her businesses.

  Among the seventeen drivers was a young fellow by the name of Li. He drove a fuel tanker, and he knew Xue. He sat down and started glancing around, looking for Xue among the other girls, but unable to find her. He asked the proprietress where she had gone, and though he repeated his question several times, the frantic proprietress kept telling him to wait. So he waited, and didn’t drink, and didn’t talk to the other drivers, and after quite a while the proprietress finally came to him, but the news she brought was very unexpected.

  ‘What a shame you should come now. Xue’s had a family emergency; it just happened today. Her father was coming to get her, but he was hit by a truck on the highway!’

  ‘Was that the accident by Siqian?’ The young man was stunned for a moment, then he suddenly remembered something. ‘The site of the accident is still closed off. I heard it was a hit-and-run.’

  ‘That’s the one. Xue had only eaten half her dinner when the police came.’ The proprietress pointed at a plastic bowl and said, ‘Do you see that? She just left her dinner there.’

  For a moment Li was at a loss. He opened his mouth, but didn’t know what to say. The proprietress clapped him on the shoulder and tittered, saying, ‘Don’t look so stricken. You’re not the one who hit him. Why should you be nervous?’

  Li asked offhandedly, ‘Who did hit him?’ The proprietress winked and seemed to want to tell him some secret, but in the end she rejected the idea. ‘How would I know? If I did, I’d arrest the truck-driving creep myself!’ Her hands waved ambiguously in the air and then clapped the driver’s shoulders again. ‘Now don’t you pine after Xue, she was nothing special.’

  As the proprietress spoke, she bent closer to Li’s ear and said in a low voice, ‘Give me a second and I’ll send Hong to serve you. She’s our best worker, and she’s beautiful, and she went to college. I guarantee you’ll be satisfied.’

  On Saturdays

  The man they called Papa Qi was in fact still quite young. Though Meng and his wife realized that he was younger than they were, they still affectionately called him Papa. It was a habit, and like all habits it arose from particular circumstances. It might be inaccurate, but it seemed wrong to correct it. Calling him anything else would feel unnatural by now, like the time Ningzhu had suddenly asked him, ‘Mr Qi, what time is it?’ The two men in the room had acted as if
a bomb had gone off, and turned abruptly to look at her as she stood by the door. Their gazes expressed shock in different degrees, and their reaction made Ningzhu feel extremely awkward.

  ‘Our wall clock is broken,’ she explained haltingly. ‘Papa Qi, you have a wristwatch, don’t you?’

  Papa Qi laughed silently, and glanced at his wrist. ‘Nine o’clock. I should be leaving,’ he said and stood up. He seemed a bit flustered, and ended up hitting the coffee table with his knee, then almost sweeping a cup to the floor with his arm. After this momentary confusion he gave the cup to Meng, grimaced in embarrassment at the couple, and said, ‘I should go. You’ll be wanting to get to bed soon.’

  ‘There’s no hurry. Why don’t you stay a while longer?’ An unmistakable look of shame appeared on Ningzhu’s face and she blocked the door as she spoke. ‘Don’t misunderstand me. The wall clock really is broken; it has been for weeks. I told Meng to have it fixed, but he doesn’t want to go to the repair shop and keeps putting it off. You know how lazy he is.’

  ‘I should go. It’s after nine – I really should go,’ Papa Qi said. ‘I have a lot to do tomorrow anyway. We’ve been so busy at the office recently.’

  ‘We just don’t have any way to tell the time at home now. I left my own watch at my aunt’s,’ Ningzhu felt compelled to keep explaining, ‘and Meng can never find his. You’d really have to look hard to find someone as forgetful as he is. We’ve bought so many watches but he just keeps losing them, one after the other!’

  Papa Qi had reached the door by now. All of a sudden he turned back and told Meng, ‘Go and get your wall clock and give it to me.’

  ‘Sorry?’ Meng hadn’t caught on right away.

  ‘It’s broken, isn’t it?’ said Papa Qi. ‘My brother knows how to repair clocks. That way you won’t have to take it to the shop. Besides overcharging you for the repair, they’ll probably take out the good parts and put broken ones back. Let me handle it. That way you won’t have to pay a penny, and I guarantee it’ll run for two years without breaking.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that,’ Meng glanced up to where the clock hung on the wall. He said, ‘We really shouldn’t bother you with all our little problems. Maybe it’s not broken at all. Maybe I just bought a dud battery.’

  ‘What’s the big deal between friends?’ Papa Qi answered. ‘Go and take it down and give it to me.’

  Meng looked at Ningzhu, but she avoided his eyes and sighed ambiguously. He took a chair, walked around her and climbed up to take the clock off the wall.

  That was how it came about that Papa Qi left the Mengs’ that day carrying their wall clock. Outside it was already completely dark and there were no street lights. The Mengs stood outside the door to see him off, but all they could make out was the dim glow of Papa Qi’s white shirt. Apparently, he had placed the clock in his bicycle’s wire basket as they could hear it rattling. He straddled his bike and then they heard him say in the darkness, ‘Till Saturday then. On Saturday I’ll come again. I’ll bring the clock.’

  On any given day, how many trains are there in the world speeding along the railway tracks? And on every train, how many people become companionable simply because they happen to be sitting next to one another in a crowded carriage? But then again, how many of these chance acquaintances end up as actual friends? Travel acquaintances are quickly made and equally swiftly forgotten; when the train enters the station there may not be time for farewells, and once you’ve been off the train for an hour you might even have forgotten what your companion looked like. Meng had never imagined that a trip lasting a mere three hours would yield an unforgettable friendship. No, you don’t expect some guy making small talk on a train to turn into a real friend.

  But that was just the kind of friend Papa Qi was. Meng could no longer remember clearly what topics they had touched on while chatting on the train – the conversation had ranged from UFOs to share prices to AIDS. It had been a congenial chat precisely because it had been so wide-ranging. Both of them had wanted to kill time on the train in the most natural way, and the three hours were easily disposed of. Soon they were standing on the platform and nodding to one another as they went their separate ways.

  Later, Meng could not be sure exactly why Papa Qi had checked his rapid steps – more than likely it was because of Meng’s luggage. He had three pieces with him: two travel bags and a large cardboard box. He would carry one of the travel bags on his shoulders, and the other bag and the box in his hands. For Meng a little luggage like that presented no difficulty at all. He picked up his travel bags but was beaten to the cardboard box by someone else, who lifted it up. Glancing up, Meng saw that it was his neighbour from the train, an amicable smile on his face.

  ‘Why don’t I take this for you?’ he said. ‘You live in the new housing estate at the station, right? That’s only a few steps away. I’ll help you take it all home.’

  Meng thanked him and declined repeatedly, but finally he reluctantly acquiesced. It was because of Papa Qi’s eyes; they seemed so clear and pure somehow, as if charged with some kind of expectation. That was how Meng first hesitantly led Papa Qi to his home. He recalled later that Papa Qi did not come in on this occasion.

  Meng had invited him in for a sip of tea, but Papa Qi had replied, ‘No thanks. I still have to get to the office. We’ve been very busy recently.’

  Meng said, ‘Well, look in some time when you’re free.’ Of course, he just made this offer to be polite but he always remembered Papa Qi’s earnest reaction. He had thought seriously about it for a moment, shaking his tired wrists, and then he’d said, ‘On Saturday. I’ll come on Saturday then.’

  And afterwards Saturdays became Papa Qi’s visiting day.

  The Mengs were not the kind of people who enjoyed a wide circle of friends. On the first day that Papa Qi came to visit, neither of them really knew how to act, although as cultured people, they treated him amiably enough. Ningzhu had not yet met Papa Qi, and assumed he must be a friend of Meng’s from university. She sat to one side, lamenting the fickleness of human nature and remarking that Meng’s photograph albums were filled with pictures of his former classmates, faces shining with happiness, arms slung around one another’s shoulders. How close they seemed to have been, yet now they had scattered to the four winds and Meng was in contact with no one: only Papa Qi had taken the time to visit his old friend.

  Meng felt it would be awkward to correct his wife’s error, so he just chuckled instead. It was Papa Qi who took the initiative and explained who he was: ‘I never actually went to university. I missed the minimum score by a single point. I think I was born unlucky. After that, I didn’t bother to retake the exams.’

  Ningzhu, reacting quickly to this information, immediately switched the topic of conversation to the worthlessness of university graduates. ‘What good are they? Look at Meng – comes out of a prestigious college and can’t even install a ceiling light.’

  Papa Qi laughed knowingly as she spoke. Then he nodded and remarked, ‘You’re right. But it’s not just him. None of the college graduates I know can. And anyone who can put in a ceiling light didn’t go to college. It’s a social problem.’

  ‘Well, I bet you can do all kinds of electrical work,’ said Ningzhu encouragingly. ‘Maybe we can give you a shout next time we need something done.’

  ‘No problem. Just give me a call and I’ll be there.’

  In fact, they never actually asked Papa Qi for help with anything electrical, nor did they ever intend to ask for help with anything else. But later Papa Qi did do them an enormous favour; something it would have been hard to imagine before it occurred.

  For a few years Meng had been wanting to leave the research institute where he worked to find a job in the hi-tech development zone4, but this hope had remained unfulfilled. One day he mentioned it in passing to Papa Qi. He really had meant nothing by it, he was just adding one more possible topic to their increasingly meagre supply of conversation. Papa Qi merely smiled enigmatically and asked, �
��You want to work in the zone, eh? We might be able to work something out. As long as the research institute will let you go, there shouldn’t be any problem.’

  ‘I went to the zone once when they were recruiting. They seemed to be really satisfied with me, but nothing came of it in the end,’ said Meng gloomily.

  ‘Nothing strange about that, you don’t have the connections, that’s all. People get high salaries and good treatment in the zone. Everybody’s been racking their brains for a way to get in. It all depends on your connections.’

  Meng replied, not without scorn, ‘I know that, but I can’t be bothered to go around making connections. If they don’t want me there, then I don’t want to be there.’

  Papa Qi looked at him closely and after a second was unable to stifle his laughter.

  ‘What are you laughing about?’

  ‘You. That really says it all about you intellectuals.’ Meng understood what was meant, but said nothing. Then he heard Papa Qi give his knee a resounding slap and say, ‘No problem. I’ll take care of this.’

  Meng thought his behaviour baffling, but didn’t pursue it since he’d only mentioned the matter in passing. It was true he wanted to go to the zone, but it wouldn’t kill him to have to stay at the research institute, either – that was how he looked at the matter. So he was almost scoffing at Papa Qi when he asked, ‘What? You don’t mean to tell me that your father’s the general director of the zone?’

  No, Papa Qi’s father was not a high-placed official in the zone, but he had another relative who was, and Meng was about to find that out. After only three days he was called to an interview in the zone, and what surprised him even more was the comment the official made as he was showing him out: ‘We’ll make the transfer order out tomorrow.’ As Meng sped down in the lift he felt like he was dreaming. He left the building and spotted Papa Qi right away. He was sitting on the flower terrace, waving at him. Meng immediately woke from his trance, feeling now that there had been no particularly dreamlike element to what had just occurred. Of Papa Qi he enquired, ‘So what’s your connection with Vice Director Wang?’